TPM™ 2022-'23 Game #15 vs Dallas

Nuggets vs Mavs:

"Omicron marches on"

Pregame thoughts:

I don't even know where to begin. Denver travels to Dallas for a B2b set in the OTHER D-town, to square off with top-three player in the whole of the NBA, Luka Dončić, and his supporting cast of Spencer Dinwiddie, Tim Hardaway Jr, Christian Wood and the Mavericks.

The Nuggets will be without three of their core-four (Jokic/Murray out with COVID / AG out with some illness which is seemingly worse) and are coming off a second half meltdown at home, which allowed the rudderless Knicks to win in Denver for the first time in 16 years.

The starting unit for Denver will be all bench + MPJ, but nobody on the team has shown any proficiency in finding him on offense apart from Jokic/Murray, so his lack of on-ball creation mitigates most of his sizeable offensive threat, in their absence.

The most likely five that Moach will go with are Brown/KCP/MPJ/Unc/DJ, with Bones/Braun/Cancar/Zeke backing them up.

There is no way in hell I'd predict anything but a massive loss for each of the next two games for the good guys, so at least I won't likely have to bother with a pregame thoughts section for the latter of the two. I do expect Denver to put forth effort in the first half tonight, only to succumb to the talent discrepancy in the second half. From there, game two should be a cakewalk for the Mavs.

Luka is the league's best 1st quarter player so if Denver has any delusions of grandeur, they must start with curtailing the Doncic-damage from the get-go.

Tonight I predict to be the closer of the two contests, with Denver coming up short, 111-123.

The Good Guys

Their Adversaries

*Red boxes above indicate one notable number (or numbers) to catch my eye for each team

(Open images in a new tab for a closer look. Charts courtesy of ESPN.COM.)

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Data:

TPM™ Game 15 DAL

Nikola Jokić: N/A

Jamal Murray: N/A

Michael Porter Jr: -3

Aaron Gordon: N/A

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: +18

Bones Hyland: +21

Bruce Brown: +13

Jeff Green: +7

Davon Reed: -8

DeAndre Jordan: +4

Zeke Nnaji: -1

Christian Braun: +2

Ish Smith: N/A

Vlatko Cancar: +3

Peyton Watson: +0

Jack White: -2

Collin Gillespie: N/A

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Total TPM™

Nikola Jokić: 13 games +448

Jamal Murray: 13 games +226

Michael Porter Jr: 14 games +145

Aaron Gordon: 13 games +186

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: 14 games +134

Bones Hyland: 11 games +143

Bruce Brown: 15 games +147

Jeff Green: 15 games +21

Davon Reed: 9 games -18

DeAndre Jordan: 13 games +34

Zeke Nnaji: 10 games +8

Christian Braun: 14 games +15

Ish Smith: 5 games -1

Vlatko Cancar: 8 games +10

Peyton Watson: 5 games +6

Jack White: 3 games -7

Collin Gillespie: 0 games +0

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Avg. TPM™ Per Game

Nikola Jokić: +34.46

Jamal Murray: +17.38

Michael Porter Jr: +10.36

Aaron Gordon: +14.31

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: +9.57

Bones Hyland: +13.00

Bruce Brown: +9.80

Jeff Green: +1.40

Davon Reed: -2.00

DeAndre Jordan: +2.62

Zeke Nnaji: +0.80

Christian Braun: +1.07

Ish Smith: -0.20

Vlatko Cancar: +1.25

Peyton Watson: +1.20

Jack White: -2.33

Collin Gillespie: +0.00

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Final Thoughts:

Denver loses by a final score of 99-127, and in so doing falls to 9-6 on the season.

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For context pertaining to the statistical aspects of this piece, please open this link: TPM™

A brief statement with regard to this piece on whole: As a means to avoid repeating myself I will include this descriptive diatribe in all TPM posts going forward.

Sure I like statistics; ever since I was a child collecting sports cards and later a pre-teen who ran pre-internet fantasy sports leagues on ink/paper/spreadsheet for the four major US pro-leagues, I've been fascinated by box-score stats, but I'm by no means an expert.

I created TPM, which has been around longer than RPM incidentally and unlike them, I fully disclose my non-proprietary system and I contextualize the action rather than being a boring, mysterious, predictive metric, because it does add immediate and accessible context to what we see and what the numbers indicate, which I like.

While the data is meticulously tracked and demonstrably sound, I'm a creative type, not an engineer. Algorithm is the bane of my existence in fact. I'd far rather approach life with the intrigue of expected surprise than attempt to get to the bottom of why things are the way they are. There are many engineers in my family, so I totally understand that joy can be derived from finding solutions to problems, I just can't relate. It's not fun for me. THIS is for the most part, not fun for me.

Now I'm a 45-year-old man who was born during the season in which the team I love joined the NBA. I happen to have a lifetime of experience with this sport in several capacities, including playing (highly underrated within the writing community) so I understand basketball theory in a way most (by no means all) pundits do not.

I was, in this case, interested in a data-driven approach.

If you are averse to colorful language, this is not the place for you. I have no way of knowing how many people even read this, so I'll not be affected even remotely if you choose not to indulge. For those of you who do, I greatly appreciate your support.

I can be found at @prmorphine on Twitter.

Also, my DIY music production and videos can be heard/seen here if you don't value your ear-balls & eye-drums.

And as always, act like a good person privately and especially in public; even if you are not, and most importantly, fuck the Lakers.

#DoNotBeABranchCovidian
#DoNotBeAnAmmosexual
#FuckTheLakersOneMoreTimeJustForGoodMeasure
#TLDRHashtagsAndSiglines

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