Graphical Presentation of a Basketball Game

A graphical summary of the scoring activity for a basketball game is presented.The summary is a real-time plot of the score difference versus the elapsed time.In contrast to the usual score by quarters (or by half in college play), the graph easily allows complete identification of items of interest, such as largest leads, lead changes, come-from-behind activity, and percentage of game time for which a particular team of interest held a lead.The technique is applied to professional and collegiate games, and several interesting features are noted.