So yesterday I decided to dig into that New York Liberty versus Las Vegas Aces matchup everyone’s buzzing about. Wanted to see if checking player stats really gives you the good stuff, you know? Not gonna lie, I figured it’d be quick.
Where it all started
First, I grabbed my laptop around noon, fired up my usual browser, and typed stuff like “ny liberty las vegas aces player numbers.” Got slammed with a gazillion sites, half wanting me to sign up for junk. Seriously? I just want the numbers!
Hitting my first wall
Found one site that looked simple enough – boxes full of numbers next to player names. Okay great! Then I noticed… these stats didn’t actually say which game they were from. Was this last week? Last month? Had to dig through three more pages just to find the date. Almost threw my coffee mug.
Big realization:
- Stats alone are useless junk if you don’t know the exact game context. That minute on the clock, the score when something happened, who was guarding who – that’s the gold.
My spreadsheet nightmare
Tried being smart. Copied Sabrina Ionescu’s points, rebounds, assists from the official box score into a spreadsheet. Felt like a big nerd. Then saw Plum’s stat line for Vegas. Numbers looked kinda similar at a glance. But then I went deeper.
Clicked into the play-by-play data from the league site. Holy moly. Turned out Sabrina scored 8 points in just 90 seconds when Vegas left her open late in the third. Plum? Most of hers came early when the Liberty defense looked asleep. That totally changed how I saw their “similar” numbers!
What clicked for me
Spent way too long past dinner tracking Jackie Young’s passes versus her drives. My wife called me obsessed. But here’s the juice:
Actual useful stuff I learned by sweating over stats:
- Young kept forcing drives against Jonquel Jones early – got stuffed three times. Then switched mostly to kick-out passes later. Stats showed more assists, but the “why” was the film and timing.
- Chelsea Gray shot like 60% in the paint… except when Betnijah Laney was right on her. Stats said her scoring was steady. Reality? Laney locked her down for chunks of the game.
- A’ja Wilson grabbing 12 rebounds? Big number. But 8 of those were in the first half when NY just kept clanking threes near the Liberty bench side. Context, man.
So… was it worth it?
Honestly? Took me like four hours for one game. My eyes hurt. But yeah – stats without diving into the when, against who, and how the game flowed? Worthless. Total waste of time. But pairing stats with actually seeing when things happened? Night and day. Learned way more about how teams adjust than any hot take Twitter post gave me.
End of the day, stats are just clues. You gotta work like a detective to find the real story hiding inside ’em. Would I do it again? Probably. But definitely buying better coffee first.
