Have you ever seen a snake swallow an animal with a greater width than its own body? It’s an all-consuming exercise in constant disbelief — the simple phrase “It can’t eat that” ringing through your head even as the feat is being accomplished.
In related news, the Toronto Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors in the first game of the NBA Finals Thursday night.
Here are seven surprising stats and accompanying musings to read while you’re waiting to see if and/or what they can eat on Sunday:
1: Game 1 playoff struggles are as much a part of the Raptors’ makeup as the colour purple. They were there from the beginning. But after Thursday night the Raptors have as many Game 1 wins in the NBA Finals as they do in the first round and the conference finals combined.
| Att | W | W% | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | 11 | 1 | 0.091 |
| Conf. semis | 5 | 2 | 0.400 |
| Conf. finals | 2 | 0 | 0.000 |
| NBA finals | 1 | 1 | 1.000 |
| Overall | 19 | 4 | 0.211 |
Batting 1.000 in the NBA finals is nice. But, hey, check out that conference-semis tally, huh? .400! Nothing to sneeze at.
I didn’t put it together before until now, but those two conference-semifinal wins? They both came against the Philadelphia 76ers — the first time in 2001 and then again this post-season. The Raptors have your second-round Game 1 number, Philadelphia. Don’t even worry about it.
.778: As Steve Kerr pointed out in his off-day interview, this is the stat equivalent of a rule that’s made to be broken. But, dating back to 1985, 27 teams have won Game 1 of the Finals at home, and 21 of them went on to win the series. That’s a .778 win percentage.
.875 > .706: If the Raptors can win Game 2 on Sunday, the statistical forecast would get even sunnier. Of the 16 home teams that have gone up 2-0, 14 went on to win the series.
Of course… if the Raptors can’t win Game 2 on Sunday, the statistical forecast gets a mix of clouds with, like, a 30 per cent chance of rain. (Hey, you try to avoid extending that metaphor. It’s irresistible.) Of the 17 teams to leave home with a series tied 1-1, 12 went on to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
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3: As if Kevin Durant’s night wasn’t bad enough just sitting and watching his team lose Game 1 of the NBA Finals without him. But after Pascal Siakam’s 32-point night, the native of Cameroon now sits third on the all-time per-game NBA Finals scoring chart — bumping Durant and his 31.7 points per game to fourth.
This is probably cheating, and almost certainly won’t last, but, also, is fun:
| Finals PPG | |
|---|---|
| 1. Rick Barry | 36.3 |
| 2. Michael Jordan | 33.6 |
| 3. Pascal Siakam | 32.0 |
| 4. Kevin Durant | 31.7 |
18.0: While Fred VanVleet was on the floor Thursday night, the Raptors scored 122.4 points per 100 possessions and gave up only 104.4. That translates to a net rating of 18.0, the highest mark in the game of anyone who played five or more minutes.
VanVleet has long been something of a net-rating darling — his 10.5 mark over the course of the 2017–18 regular season ranked sixth among regulars in the NBA
8: Game 1 of the Finals was the Raptors’ 101st playoff game in franchise history, and just the eighth in which they topped .500 shooting, going 39 of 77 from the field for a .506 FG%. That said, this is the third such game in this post-season alone, so it wasn’t quite as much of an outlier as it seems from the raw total alone.
1: Of those eight games, the Raptors have lost only one: Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semis against Cleveland last year. The team put up 110 points on .543 shooting … and still lost by 18. (Cleveland shot .595 from the field.)
