Stephen A. Smith doesn’t always stick to sports, but maybe he should have Monday night during his live SportsCenter hit.
The Miami Heat were abysmal in their Game 4 Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Boston Celtics. Continuing the bizarre 2022 NBA Playoffs trend of blowouts, Boston beat Miami 102-82 to even up their series at two games apiece. The Celtics dominated from the tip, with the Heat taking nearly nine minutes to get their first bucket of the game and their starters remaining futile through all four quarters.
After the game, Stephen A. Smith joined SportsCenter live from Boston’s TD Garden and was disgusted with what he just watched.
“In the end, five starters combined for 18 points,” Smith told SportsCenter anchor John Anderson. “That’s an average of six points per starter. If that ain’t pathetic, I don’t know what is.”
Don't attempt math on live TV pic.twitter.com/DlEzW5cgh3
— Brandon Contes (@BrandonContes) May 24, 2022
That doesn’t add up. Five starters, multiplied by six points each would be 30.
“It’s actually, it’s less than that,” Anderson pointed out, prompting Smith to recognize his faulty calculation.
“Right, it is less than that, you’re right,” Smith admitted as he began to recalculate the stat in his head. “Five and a half.”
Nope, that’s still not right. 18 divided by five is 3.6. In Smith’s defense, he picked a toughie math problem for live TV. I would have needed a calculator or at least a pen and paper to arrive at 3.6. But Smith did it to himself. Five starters combining for 18 points was the lowest total since starters were first tracked in 1971, a statistic that is startling enough on its own. Point made, Smith didn’t need to hit us with any extra math.
Live TV is hard, math is hard, don’t combine the two. But credit Smith for at least analyzing and talking about the Heat instead of keeping the focus solely on Boston. Dan Le Batard should be pleased to see Miami getting some attention after their historically bad performance.
[ESPN]
