MAVS 108, PELS 92

[Dahlsim]

+/- is a real number of course, but interpreting it, is where you can go wrong. You can also interpret it correctly and then it's valuable. How to interpret it correctly? One way is to watch the plays and let them describe the reasons behind the +/-. Another one is to use multitude of other stats and combine those together with the +/-, in order to interpret a players performance and contribution. But also this in the end involves watching the plays and judging if the combined statistical interpretation is correct.

Bottom line is this, each stat or combination of stats needs to be verified by watching.

There is no way going around by watching and evaluation. But stat can help.

Maybe on +/- the statement could be applied Trust but verify.    

Generally speaking I treat as a great summary statistic to quickly get a bottom line result from what happened when certain player and certain combination of players were on the floor.  Trust that as being meaningful to some degree because the score is the bottom line so to speak. 

In terms of drawing a lot detailed conclusions, verify by watching or as Kidd says put the eye test to the game and what happening. 

@"DanSchwartzgan" cited the -6 that came from the minutes with double centers.  I didn't know the +/- but just from the eye test it was clear the minutes didn't go well but there was also some clear indication at least one reason to why it wouldn't go well.   

NO really made a concerted effort to push the ball against the super sized lineups, particularly off of misses and beat the slower centers down the floor for great looks without a set defense. 

Dallas on the other hand didn't consistently leverage the big guys to get high % shots and be in rebounding position against the smaller lineup.  When they did use the size advantage it generally went well by my eyes but mostly they seemed to play off the same offensive schemes.  

Without knowing the +/- watching the game it was clear it wasn't working and to some degree it was pretty clear why.  So if you've got a guy on floor, any guy, in what capacity is he being used?  

In the case of the big guys for example if you're going to supersize then you better take advantage of the size shove the high % looks down their throat because your opponent will certainly try and run it down your throat.  Its kill or be killed.