Modern game is all about the trey
Warriors show that no team can be great unless it shoots well from distance
There were two main things to notice about the semifinals of this year’s NBA tourney. One: the stunning dominance of LeBron James.
Two: the effect of the three- point shot on the essence of basketball.
The first item— LBJ— we can talk about at another time, if we haven’t praised him enough already. James, 33, is in his eighth consecutive NBA Finals and is a force the likes of which the game has likely never seen. All hail the King! But the way theWarriors are using the three- point shot and— perhaps more important— the way they are defending against the three- pointer have made basketball theory and strategy from even a decade ago as obsolete as soft coal.
In Game 7 of theWestern Conference finalsMonday against the Rockets, on the road, theWarriors launched 39 threepointers and made 16. That’s a 41 percent success rate, which is quite good but almost normal for theWarriors, who averaged 38.4 percent on threes during the regular season.
The Rockets, on the other hand, fired up 44 threes, making only seven, a pitiful 15.9 percent success rate. That means the Warriors outscored the Rockets 48- 21 on threes, which is why they won the game 101- 92.
In fact, theWarriors have shown that no team is going to be great without being great at long- range shooting. They have also shown that you can virtually hand the other team as many twos as it wants as long as you guard the three- point line with passion.
This stands old- school basketball on its head.
Being close to the basket used to be good. No more.
You wanna dunk and shatter the backboard and growl like a lion? Do it. A Warrior will launch a gentle arc from 10 yards out, watch it softly part the twine and have outscored you by half.
The three- pointer is everything these days now that teams have finally realized how beneficial it is to score 50 percent more on a shot that is long but makeable.
TheWarriors and Rockets are threepoint maniacs. Indeed, the Rockets this season became the first team to shoot more threes than twos. And theWarriors led the
league in three- point shooting percentage.
TheWarriors score so many points, it’s ridiculous.
This season they piled up 120 points or more 30 times. Anybody remember the 143- 94 atrocity they laid on the Bulls on Nov. 24? If so, try to expunge it from your brain, except as a landmark of how far our local team is from elite status. Think of this, too. Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and their ilk took, and made, a ton of midrange shots back in the 1990s. Well, the 12- to 18- foot jumper is deader than the prairie chicken. A mid- distance jump shot in this new era makes no sense.
Step back a few feet, and the reward is much greater.
Because Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and otherWarriors are so good at making threes, their coach, Steve Kerr, knows that if they stop the other team’s threes, it’s game over.
Thus, theWarriors guarded the Rockets as soon as they got close to the three- point line and harassed Trevor Ariza into near- insanity. Ariza finished 0- for- 12 from the field, 0- for- 9 on threes.
James Harden and Eric Gordon, the gunners on the Rockets, were not much better, shooting a combined 4- for- 25 from behind the arc. The most stunning stretch of threes for the Rockets was a secondhalf 0- for- 27 interlude.
If you’d said this was the county fair and the Rockets were rubes getting hustled by slicks, you wouldn’t have been far off.
‘‘ We had three- point opportunities,’’ Harden said afterward. ‘‘ They just didn’t go down.’’
Because they were defended. Because shooting the three means risk.
Twos are easy. TheWarriors all but invited the Rockets to take them.
But the game now is all about getting as far from the basket as you can, having somebody kick the ball to you, then nailing a shot that once upon a time would have gotten you yanked from the game by your coach. It’s a new world.
All hail the trey!