Shane Battier is the first to admit it. He’s faster than a speeding tortoise. Able to leap a bottle cap in a single bound. So he needs an edge.
“I’m not the most athletic guy in the world. I can’t jump very high. I’m not very quick,” said the Heat forward, whose defense has helped turned Knicks star Carmelo Anthony’s playoff experience into a nightmare. “But what I can do is I can think the game. I can think the game every possession.”
Enter basketball’s version of “Moneyball.” It’s something Battier really began during his time in Houston, where general manager Daryl Morey was “on the cutting edge” with the stats and numbers approach.
“It’s strange sabermetric stats. If I told you, you wouldn’t understand it and it would bore you,” Battier said. “But I kind of enjoy it. I’m a basketball math nerd.”
Pretend we’re all not total twits. Just present the layman’s nutshell version for this first round Eastern Conference series with the Knicks, that the Heat, up a commanding 3-0, can close out tomorrow at the Garden.
“Don’t let Carmelo Anthony score a lot of points,” Battier said with a laugh.
Want to be just a tad more definitive?
“How often does the guy go left, how often does he go right, how good is he going left, how good is he going right?” Battier said. “Boil it all down to: How often does a guy do something and how good is he at doing it?”
So, armed with an eight-page scouting report courtesy of the Heat, who with Pat Riley as president will leave no stone or advantage unturned, Battier and Company have attacked the Knicks’ strengths. They made 3-point shooting “a point of emphasis,” according to LeBron James, and the Knicks are just 16-of-56 (.286) with Steve Novak attempting just seven trifectas in the three games.
And Anthony? With the tag-team combo of James and Battier, constant double-teaming and making him catch farther out than he likes, Anthony has averaged 21.0 points — but shot just 34.4 percent. So yeah, Battier is going to study stats and trends and numbers and alignments of the planets if it will help.
“That’s been my strength my entire career. And I just try to really understand the strengths and weaknesses of a team, and an individual, down to the percent. It’s not easy to do but I sort of have gotten used to it and that’s what kept me in the league for 11 years and hopefully for more years,” said Battier, who called it “serendipitous” for he and Mike Miller that the Knicks erased the record 12 straight playoff losses the duo experienced in Memphis.
“Because he is a numbers guy, he believes in ‘Moneyball,’ he believes in information, he can’t get enough of it,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But none of that means anything to a Shane Battier if he didn’t have his toughness. I think that’s what it’s really about with him. He has great defensive instincts but he has an ingrained natural toughness. And that’s what separates him as a defender.”
fred.kerber@nypost.com
Shane Battier, Shane Battier, Carmelo Anthony, Knicks, the Heat
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