Teams relying on 3s at a record rate

In the NBA, the 2-point shot is not obsolete — yet. The Rockets’ record-setting barrage of 3-pointers in their win over the Spurs in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series provided the latest reminder of how the long ball’s value is continuing to skyrocket. There were more 3-pointers made this season than ever before, the fifth straight year the league saw that record get toppled.

Now meet a new trend: more 3s being taken than 2s in a game. And that one isn’t exactly as rare as a unicorn sighting anymore.

“We just take what they give us,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni insisted. It’s not that simple. The Rockets took an NBA playoff record 50 3-point attempts Monday, compared with 37 tries from 2-point range. Before this season, no NBA team ever had that sort of discrepancy — at least 13 more 3s than 2s — in a game, either in the regular season or playoffs.

It’s happened 10 times this season, the Rockets posting nine of those. They are 7-2 in such games. The Celtics also did it once in a win.

“This is the game now,” Cavaliers forward LeBron James said. “It’s been this way for a while.”

The four teams with the most 3s in the NBA this season — the Rockets, Cavaliers, Celtics and Warriors — are all still in these playoffs. And there were more 3s made in the first round than ever before, 846. Five years ago, in the exact same number of first-round games, teams made a combined 496 3s.

That’s a 71 percent increase. There’s no end in sight, either.

When the Cavalierss got sharpshooter Kyle Korver earlier this season, James — who was part of the last playoff game in which the winning team made no 3-pointers during the Heat’s 2012 title run — gave him this advice: “Shoot the ball every time you get it. As soon as it touches your hands, shoot it. We don’t care.”

Clearly, that’s the thinking just about everywhere these days.

“The league is changing,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “You’ve got to change or get stuck in the mud. I think the days of the 24-point quarters, the 25-point quarters are kind of sliding away.”

In the first 37 seasons of the NBA having a 3-point shot, there were 31 instances of teams taking more from behind the arc in a game than from 2-point range.

The oddity isn’t so odd anymore. It’s happened 33 times already this season, and counting.

“We won’t hesitate on shooting them,” said D’Antoni, whose Rockets smashed the NBA records with 1,181 made 3s and 3,306 attempts during the regular season. “If they’re open, they shoot it. If they’re not, we drive it.”