"How Sweep It Is" (and other inane sports sayings)...

I had no idea the Bulls were even playing on Sunday until I heard on the Score that they beat the Raptors in overtime. This was a 4-0 sweep over the Raps this year. And for a team that has as many wins as the Bulls do, a sweep of anybody has to really irk the other side. The idea must've gotten Vince Carter riled, as he god into a little scrum with Antonio Davis, ending in technicals for both. And then you get this gem from ex-Bull Jalen Rose: ""It would be a total disappointment to lose to the Chicago Bulls four straight times, The key word being 'total.'" . Well Jalen....now the key word is "lose". But while it's nice to rub in a loss, leave it to Scott Skiles to put things in prespective:

"I don't think we can try to create some sort of rivalry between two lottery teams," he said. "That doesn't seem appropriate to me." ...
 

Anyway, as you've probably seen on ESPN several times, Jamal Crawford scored a career high 50 points on 18-34 shooting. And as the clever graphic accompanying the game showed, Jamal is the third Bull player ever to reach that mark, along with Chet Walker, and M-Jeff (30 times!). To put the game in some sort of context, I'm trying out yet another John Hollinger method, the game score. This is the kind of formula which is easy to calculate, pretty much adding for every good stat and subtracting for a bad one. So lets take a look:

	stat for game	points added	total game score
Start with Players points	50	50	50
add .4 points for each made field goal	18	7.2	57.2
subtract .7 points for each field goal attempt	34	-23.8	33.4
subtract .4 points for each missed free throw	3	-1.2	32.2
add .7 points for each offensive rebound	0	0	32.2
add .3 points for each defensive rebound	7	2.1	34.3
add 1 point for each steal	2	2	36.3
add .7 points for each assist	2	1.4	37.7
add .7 points for each block	1	0.7	38.4
subtract .4 points for each personal foul	3	-1.2	37.2
subtract 1 point for each turnover	3	-3	34.2

So what does a game score of 34.2 actually mean?

50+	A historic performance
40-49.9	One of the best games of the season
30-39.9	Probably the best performance in the league that night
20-29.9	Probable Player of the Game selection
15-19.9	A very strong effort
12-14.9	Reasonable solid performance
8-11.9	Average
5-7.9	Subpar game or didn't see many minutes

For another reference, in the game last month when Kobe and T-Mac dueled for 38 and 37 points apiece, their game scores were 25.1 for McGrady and 26.6 for Bryant.  So while not 'historic', Jamal certainly had a great night...maybe enough to get some team interested enough in trading for him :)