Alright folks, so last night’s Lakers vs 76ers game had everyone buzzing, right? Figured I’d actually sit down and crunch the numbers myself to see who really showed up. Here’s exactly how I did it.
Kicking Things Off
First thing this morning, coffee in hand, I plopped down at my kitchen table. Grabbed my old laptop – the one that groans a bit when it wakes up. No fancy analytics packages for me, just plain old web browsers and a spreadsheet. Headed straight to a couple of major sports sites everyone uses, you know the ones. My goal? Find the raw, official player stats box score for that game. Took a bit of clicking around different game recap pages before I landed on the full stat sheet.
Got my hands dirty: Right-clicked, hit “View Page Source” because sometimes the clean numbers hide in the code. Scrolled through that messy jumble looking for recognizable player names – LeBron, AD, Embiid, Maxey. Started copying chunks. Pasted it all into a blank text file to clean it up first.
Here’s how messy it got:
- Had tables inside tables with weird CSS classes
- Player names buried in long strings with jersey numbers
- Lots of extra HTML tags and stuff between the numbers
The Spreadsheet Grind
Fired up my spreadsheet software. Started making columns: Player Name, Team (LAL or PHI), Points (PTS), Rebounds (REB), Assists (AST), Steals (STL), Blocks (BLK). Copied the cleaned-up text from my file and started pasting line by line into the right columns. Took forever. Double-checked every single entry against the source page – spotted a typo on Embiid’s rebounds, fixed it.
Sorting time. Wanted to see the top performers quick:
- Clicked the Points column, sorted high to low – LeBron 26, Embiid 26? Huh, tie at the top?
- Slammed on the Rebounds sort – AD blew everyone away with 19 boards!
- Assists? Maxey surprised me with 9 dimes.
- Just for fun, checked steals and blocks too. AD flexing again.
Hit a snag: My cat decided that moment was purrfect for walking across my keyboard, completely messed up my sorted view. Had to start over on the assists sort. Thanks, Mittens.
Making Sense of the Mess
Stared at the spreadsheet for a bit. Numbers are cool, but gotta think about impact. Yeah, LeBron and Embiid both got 26, but LeBron took more shots to get there. Efficiency matters. AD’s defense screamed off the sheet – 19 rebounds AND 5 blocks? Beast mode.
Biggest surprises:
- Maxey’s assists (9) – kid was running the show for Philly more than I realized watching live.
- D’Angelo Russell quietly dropping 19 points for the Lakers – felt like more.
Tried making a simple bar chart comparing the top 3 scorers, but honestly? My spreadsheet chart looked like a toddler drew it. Scrapped that idea fast. Simple lists worked better for me.
Wrapping It Up… Unexpectedly
Just as I was about to close the laptop, my ancient machine decided it had enough. Froze completely. Ctrl+Alt+Delete? Nada. Had to hold the power button and force it off.
Lesson learned the hard way: I DIDN’T SAVE THE SPREADSHEET AFTER THAT CAT DISASTER!
Panicked for a solid minute. Booted it back up, heart pounding, opened the spreadsheet program… and the auto-recovered file popped up! Nearly kissed the screen. Saved it immediately, then saved it again to another folder just to be safe. Phew.
So, who topped the charts? On paper, LeBron and Embiid for points, AD dominated the glass and defense, Maxey played way smarter than I gave him credit for. But honestly? My laptop almost stole the show as the biggest downer of the whole project. Next time I analyze stats, I’m definitely saving every 30 seconds. And locking the cat out.
