LAS VEGAS — The NBA’s big eyes are in Las Vegas for the NBA Cup, but some bulging eyes have taken note of box scores in non-NBA Cup games.
Or an eyesore, to be honest.
On Friday night, the Chicago Bulls and Charlotte Hornets combined for the most three-point misses in a game in NBA history, with 75. On Sunday night, the Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks combined for the most three-point misses in a game. game, by 48. (Ironically, the Warriors made 27 triples and lost at home.)
Both extreme examples are indicative of where the game has gone in recent years, where math has largely taken over aesthetics. Player evaluation seems to start and end with, “Can he shoot the 3?” while so many other attributes are drowned out.
The Warriors have been by far the forefathers of the three-point revolution, and even with Klay Thompson gone to Dallas and Stephen Curry approaching his twilight, it’s still a huge part of their identity. The Boston Celtics, meanwhile, have taken the darkness and shaped themselves in it, averaging more than 50 three-point attempts per night.
It has worked in championship style for the Celtics, a 21-5 record this season and the odds-on favorite to repeat.
“You know, I can watch Golden State play all night,” Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers said Monday afternoon before his Bucks played the Oklahoma City Thunder for the NBA Cup championship on Tuesday. “They take a lot of 3s. (But) they move the ball.
“But I can also see Boston playing, and it’s not because they need a lot of threes. They play a draw. They move the ball. The ball moves to the right person. They defend. They play together.”
The Celtics didn’t claim last year’s title just because they took the most threes. As Rivers said, their team defense and unselfish approach helped fuel how they seemingly overwhelmed the competition during their dominant regular season and playoff run.
But to illustrate how the game has shifted so dramatically, the 2014-15 Warriors hit 27 triples a night and didn’t even lead the NBA in that category. Yet there was so much talk about how they changed the league for the worse.
This season, 27 three-point attempts per night would be a full three attempts per night behind the league’s lowest-ranked team in the category, the Denver Nuggets.
“I think there are times when you look at the game and it looks great, and there are times when you look at the game and it looks terrible,” Rivers said. “You know, I think it goes from game to game.
“There are other teams that just make shots, don’t play defense, and I don’t want to watch them.”
That seemed to be the case with the Bulls and Hornets. It never seemed to occur to either team to adopt a different strategy. Either poor decision-making on the floor or an overreliance on the math led to the unfortunate night – and the league should take note.
Perhaps there should be rule changes coming, eliminating corner 3 or moving the line overall. So far there has been no serious discussion from the competition committee, but the game is moving in an ugly direction.
For what it’s worth, the Thunder are taking 39.6 triples per night (ninth in the NBA) and Rivers’ Bucks are attempting 36.8 per game (15th). On balance, teams like Memphis and Cleveland lead the NBA in raw scoring and are still efficient (5th and 1st in offensive rating), while still using more 2s than 3s – perhaps a smart use of recognizing their personnel.
Giannis Antetokounmpo entered a different NBA and invoked the names of players whose styles have been phased out over the past decade: low-post technicians Greg Monroe and Al Jefferson.
“I’m not the one shooting the 3s,” Antetokounmpo said when asked if the quality of play was getting better or worse. Antetokounmpo went through years of trying to become a three-point shooter, putting up nearly five points per game during his second MVP campaign (2019-2020), but he never cracked the 30 percent mark.
He can attack the basket much better and he has found a home within 18 feet, making him a much more dangerous scorer. He has not scored below 50 percent in any match this season.
It has contributed to his career-high 61 percent accuracy as he averages fewer than one triple per game – the lowest mark since his third season, the year before his first All-Star appearance.
“When I came to the league in 2013, teams weren’t shooting that many threes, and I know it wasn’t that long ago, but I remember when you had players like Al Jefferson, like we had a great player on our team. Greg Monroe, we had to put the ball in the post and then play from the post. Guys were moving, screening, cutting. You played deeper into the 24-shot clock.
Those plodding, back-to-the-basket centers would be moved to the perimeter, spread out on pick-and-rolls and exposed to a lack of mobility against spread lineups and big players.
“Now it’s different,” Antetokounmpo said. “It’s completely different, and I don’t know if that necessarily helps my game. But ultimately the game evolves. It looks good. We now have more eyeballs watching basketball.”
The NBA always keeps an eye on the ratings — which for Cup games are higher than for regular-season games, but lower than last year — and what fans think, and it feels like the pendulum has swung a little too far in the other seasons. direction. It makes you wonder if they will take drastic measures to make the game a variety game and not a math game.
“So I guess it’s the hitter’s choice,” Rivers said. “Last year I thought the game got more physical in the second half of the year, and I think the fans really enjoyed that.
“I think we want movement, motion and also a physicality to the game, and we love to watch teams play. I don’t think that will ever go away. And so you like to look at the teams that do that, and the teams that don’t, you don’t.”
