LAS VEGAS – The big eyes of the NBA are in Las Vegas for the NBA Cup, but some beady eyes have noticed the results of the non-NBA Cup games.
Or monstrosities, honestly.
On Friday night, the Chicago Bulls and Charlotte Hornets combined for the most missed 3-pointers in a game in NBA history, with 75. Then on Sunday night, the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks combined to make the most three-pointers in a game. game, with 48. (Ironically, the Warriors made 27 three-pointers and lost at home).
Both extreme cases are an indication of where the game has gone in recent years, where mathematics has largely taken over aesthetics. Player evaluation seems to begin and end with: “Can he shoot the three-pointer?” while many other attributes are drowned out.
The Warriors have been by far the forefathers of the 3-point revolution and even as Klay Thompson leaves for Dallas and Stephen Curry approaches his twilight, it remains a big part of their identity. The Boston Celtics, meanwhile, embraced the darkness and molded themselves into it, averaging more than 50 3-point attempts a night.
It has been on pace for a championship for the Celtics, a 21-5 record this season and being the favorite to repeat.
“You know, I can watch Golden State play all night,” Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers said Monday afternoon before his Bucks play the Oklahoma City Thunder for the NBA Cup championship on Tuesday. “A lot of three-pointers are needed. (But) they move the ball.
“But I can also watch Boston play, and it’s not because they make a lot of threes. They play well. They move the ball. The ball passes to the correct player. They defend. “They play together.”
The Celtics didn’t win last year’s title just because they made the most three-pointers. As Rivers said, his team’s defense and selfless approach helped them seemingly overwhelm the competition during their dominant regular season and playoffs.
But to frame this around how the game has tilted so drastically, the 2014-15 Warriors made 27 three-pointers a night and didn’t even lead the NBA in that category. Still, there was a lot of talk about how they were making the league worse.
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This season, 27 three-point attempts per night would be three complete attempts per night. behind the league’s lowest ranked team in the category, the Denver Nuggets.
“I think there are times when you watch the game and it looks beautiful, and then there are times when you watch the game and it looks horrible,” Rivers said. “You know, I think it goes game after game.
“There are other teams that only take high shots, they don’t play defense and I don’t want to see them.”
That seemed to be the case for the Bulls and Hornets. It never seemed like it occurred to either team to implement a different strategy. Either poor on-field decision making or an overreliance on math led to the unfortunate night, and the league should take note.
Perhaps rule changes should be on the way, eliminating the corner 3 or moving the line back in general. Up to this point, there has been no serious discussion from the competition committee, but the game is going in an ugly direction.
For what it’s worth, the Thunder make 39.6 three-pointers per night (ninth in the NBA) and Rivers’ Bucks attempt 36.8 per game (15th). In short, teams like Memphis and Cleveland lead the NBA in raw scoring and remain efficient (fifth and first in offensive rating), although they still shoot more twos than threes, perhaps a smart use of recognizing their personnel.
Giannis Antetokounmpo entered a different NBA and evoked the names of players whose style has been disappearing over the last decade: low post technicians Greg Monroe and Al Jefferson.
“I’m not the one shooting the 3-pointers,” Antetokounmpo said when asked if the quality of the game was getting better or worse. Antetokounmpo went through years of trying to become a 3-point shooter, scoring nearly five per game during his second MVP campaign (2019-20), but never cleared the 30 percent hurdle.
He is much better at attacking the basket and has found a home in the 18-foot range, making him a much more dangerous scorer now. He hasn’t shot below 50 percent in any game this season.
It has contributed to his career-high 61 percent accuracy as he is making less than one 3-pointer per game, the lowest mark since his third season, the year before his first All-Star appearance.
“When I came into the league in 2013, teams weren’t shooting that many threes, and I know it wasn’t that long ago, but I remember there were 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 outside the post. The boys moved, projected, cut. You were playing deeper into the 24-shot clock.”
Those plodding, return-to-the-basket centers would be moved to the perimeter, spread out in pick-and-rolls and exposed to a lack of mobility against spread lineups and big players.
“It’s different now,” Antetokounmpo said. “It’s totally different and I don’t know if that necessarily helps my game. But at the end of the day, the game is evolving. It looks good. “We have more eyes watching basketball right now.”
The NBA is always watching ratings (which are up for Cup games compared to the regular season, but down from last year) and what fans think, and it seems like the pendulum has swung too far. in the other. address. One wonders if they will take drastic measures to make the game one of variety and not of a mathematical equation.
“So I think it’s a hitter’s choice, I guess,” Rivers said. “I thought last year the game got more physical in the second half of the year and I think the fans really enjoyed that.
“I think what we want is movement, movement and also a physicality to the game, and we like to see the teams play. I don’t think that will ever go away. And so you enjoy watching the teams that do that, and the teams that don’t.”