3’s company now with more teams launching away
Grumpy old Mr. Barkley down the block is still standing on his porch, yelling at the three-point jump shooters to get off his lawn. But nobody’s listening. It’s almost like they’re doing it just to get his goat, and there’s more of ’em every day.
Those pesky Warriors kids are no longer Mr. Barkley’s chief tormentors, although they will always hold a special place in his bile sac.
Mr. Barkley doesn’t like the Warriors’ game, but it seems
likely that some team of rapscallion jump-shooters will win it all this year, because more and more, the NBA’s elite teams are bombing away. The Warriors are no longer the three-ball team. In Game 1 of the second-round series against Utah on Tuesday, the Warriors shot 7-for-29 from three-point distance. The Jazz outshot ’em, hitting 9 of 29.
The Warriors are a cruise-y 5-0 in the playoffs, yet they rank No. 5 in three-point attempts (30.6 per game; the Celtics lead with 37.4) and seventh in threeball shooting percentage (37.3; the Cavaliers are No. 1 at 42.8).
The Warriors put the threepointer on the map, but now they’re just kind of a fair-tomiddlin’ long-range team.
By the way, I’m throwing around a few numbers here, but this is no attempt to explain via statistics what’s going on. It’s merely an observation that the former kings of the threepoint jungle have slipped a bit on that food chain.
In the 2015 playoffs, the first season in this three-season run under Steve Kerr, the Warriors were No. 1 in three-point attempts (30.5 per game) and No. 2 in percentage made (37.4).
So the Warriors are threeballing at about the same clip as two playoffs ago, but the league has caught up.
In winning the Finals in ’15, the Warriors hit 67 threes to Cleveland’s 49, and outshot the Cavs from deep, 36.0 to 29.3 percent. If the teams meet again, the Cavs figure to be not so overmatched in that area. This regular season, the Cavs outshot the Warriors from the arc, 38.4 to 38.3, and had 33.9 attempts per game to the Warriors’ 31.2.
What the hell happened? Some thoughts: The rest of the league felt the devastating effects of the Warriors’ deep barrage and decided to join that party. The Rockets, for instance, attempted 32.7 threes per game in the ’15 regular season. This season: 40.3. One big reason is their new head coach, Mike D’Antoni. But the Cavs shot 27.5 threes per game in 2014-15, and 33.9 this season.
Opposing coaches developed more effective defenses for Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and friends. In this three-season run, Curry’s three-point numbers during the playoffs have stepped down. He made 4.7 threes per game in the ’15 playoffs, to 4.4 in last season’s, to 4.0 this year. Thompson is shooting from distance now about as he did two seasons ago, but he’s well down from last season’s playoff numbers (4.1 threes per game, 2.8 this year).
As opponents adjust, so do the Warriors. Curry, when challenged at the three-point line, is now more likely to spin you around and go to the hoop. JaVale McGee and David West give the Warriors an inside offensive threat they didn’t have the past two seasons, making drives to the hoop a more viable offensive option.
As Bill Walsh would tell you, it’s easier to get ahead of the pack with a revolutionary new attack than it is to maintain the gap you created. When Kerr took the job, he installed a whole new offense (inspired in no small part by D’Antoni) based on flow and movement, to maximize Curry and Thompson. Kerr’s offensive co-creator, Alvin Gentry, got hired away, and so did Luke Walton, whose experience with the triangle made him a valuable offensive mind.
But it’s not as if Kerr has lost his fastball. In his first season, the Warriors took 27.0 threepoint shots per game; this season, they took 31.2. And their shooting percentage from the arc slipped only slightly in that span, from 39.8 to 38.3.
Bottom line: The Warriors are still a dangerous three-ball team, but if they’re going to win it all, they’ll have to bring more to the party, as they have in their first five playoff games.
As for old Mr. Barkley, he’s not likely to stop brandishing his cane. Some say he hasn’t cottoned to the three-pointer because it’s something he couldn’t do. In his illustrious career, Mr. Barkley took 1.9 threes per game and hit 26.6 percent of those dad-blamed long shots.