Originally posted on 12/01/2017:

No sports scores actually represent what happened. Your thinking is incorrect. What happened is not important.

Most people think of the results of a sports game as something like a book whose ending is played out during the game.

Instead, imagine a sports game as series of equations with a 1000 random variables, creating an infinite number of paths that result in millions of possible results. Would you put much stock in one of the millions of random results, without considering the other paths the game could have taken?

Consider a small example:

Stef Curry shoots 20 three point shots a game, with a stdev of 5. He shoots 40% with a standard dev of 8. In one game, he shoots 25 at 50%, putting up 39 points destroying the opposition. Bettors will say to themselves "Shit, I should have known before the game that Stef was going to be hot". But, its random. Similarly, imagine he shoots the 20 at 30%, putting up only 21 points. He had a bad night, but its random. Neither of these individual results mean anything in themselves. Knowing that does not help you in the future, unless for some reason, his underlying true 3P% has changed. Which you cannot determine from one game.

In summary, much of the results of sports games is random. Seek to maximize your signal against the noise. Don't waste time trying to interpret individual games.