Statisticians develop fancy formulas to calculate lots of numbers and to identify patterns in those numbers. Basketball coaches, on the other hand, will often point to one team's domination in certain phases of the game to explain the way things work.
Sunday's Chiba Jets-Shinshu Brave Warriors game didn't require a statistician's expertise to understand what happened: The Jets lost 82-72 by struggling in several key areas.
They were outrebounded 58-40. They shot 11-for-22 at the free-throw line, including Maurice Hargrow's 6-for-14. And they shot 27-for-70 from the field at Urayasu Municipal Gymnasium.