(11-09-2021, 01:07 PM)mavsluvr Wrote: It tells you absolutely nothing about how the team performed during those periods.
So the NBA has ONE statistic that they have tracked their entire existence: points scored.
It is the only stat that the NBA makes its decisions on as it compares the points scored of each team every game and gives a win to the team that had the positive differential and a loss to the team that had the negative differential. The NBA has chosen to say that the team that scores more points than their opponent has won and therefore out-performed their opponent. So when I say how a team "performs" that's what I mean. It is the only performance the NBA cares about. NBA has never given a team a playoff spot for shooting a better percentage or having less turnovers, only for outscoring their opponent over the course of a certain number of games.
Therefore +/- absolutely tells you how a team is "performing" in the only way the NBA actually cares about at the end of the day. Because +/- tells you if you have outscored your opponent or not: did you win or not. Last night the Mavs were +16 as a team, therefore the NBA gives them one of those treasured wins.