FACES AND FIGURES

Numbers game

I know it’s early -- OK, it’s like basing a presidential primary on a tiny percentage of the population of a small state, which is, come to think of it, how they do it -- but scoring is way up.

Going into the first weekend, 18 teams were averaging 100 points -- twice as many as last season.

In 1998-99, the low point in the great slowdown that started in the mid-90s, only one team, Sacramento, averaged 100 points.

The Kings, the three-ring circus of their day, averaged 100.2.

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Who woke you up?

Scoring has been rising for three seasons with the league taking away hand-checking and more teams going up-tempo, following the Phoenix Suns’ lead

Now, even grind-it-out teams such as Detroit and Indiana are speeding up.

The Pistons start Rasheed Wallace at center, play young reserves such as Jarvis Hayes, Arron Afflalo and Amir Johnson, and are averaging 104 points to last season’s 96.

Indiana is averaging 103 under new Coach Jim O’Brien, a Rick Pitino spread-the-floor disciple, to last season’s 97 under defense-minded Rick Carlisle.

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Ahead of schedule

Chris Kaman’s 26-point, 18-rebound effort in the Clippers’ opener would have been almost a week’s work last season.

At Kaman’s averages of 9.1 points and 6.7 rebounds last season, with NBA teams playing 82 games in 25 weeks, he averaged 30 points and 22 rebounds a week.

Kaman was going against small, up-tempo Golden State, so even if the Clippers had to wait four days, Friday’s opener couldn’t have turned out better.

-- Mark Heisler