3-Point Shooting: The Great Equalizer

Wannabe MEP · Post #1 » by **Wannabe MEP** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 2:57 am

According to pretty much everyone, we came into this season with hardly any talent. Now we're shooting A LOT more threes than we have the last couple of years...and our offense is rolling.

We used to spend a lot of time with three 3-point shooters on the court, and I used to spend a lot of time begging for four instead and feeling like this: :banghead:

Now? We play four 3-point shooters, often five, and NEVER three. God bless Hornacek.

BurningHeart · Post #2 » by **BurningHeart** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 3:08 am

Yep. People forgot that running and gunning with shooters and mismatches is what made us so good for so long.

I'd love to get a true dedicated three-point gunner though. We have a few guys at or over 40% but I feel we need someone more reliable. Green takes the most threes on our team and he's only around 35, 36%.

Maybe I'm looking for too much, though.

RunDogGun · Post #3 » by **RunDogGun** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 3:20 am

We have some decent three point shooters, we just need to hit them in rhythm consistently. The only bad part is few of those shooters can create much off the dribble. Then we need the guys not shooting the three to crash the boards, or have at least two do it on every shot, like Plumlee and Green/Tucker, whoever is not shooting.

The other draw back is long rebounds on misses if Frye is the shooter at the top of the key, for he isn't fast enough to stop the transition.

I'm very glad Los Soles is back to put stats to much of the side conversations around here. :clap:

bigfoot · Post #4 » by **bigfoot** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 4:08 am

Yep we don't even have to run and gun to have effective 3 point shooting. The added spacing improves our half court offense and opens lanes for Dragic and Bledsoe.

Shooting .333 for 3ptrs is like shooting .500 on 2prts. We are shooting .370 on threes; I'm super happy with that.

snowthedirtbub · Post #5 » by **snowthedirtbub** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 4:22 am

We only have 1 player in the top 100? Who is it? I find it hard to believe there are 98 better players then Dragic/Bledsoe.

NVM found out for myself. Having Goran ranked behind players like Avery Bradley, J.R. Smith, 2013 Steve Nash, O.J. Mayo etc. is absolutely laughable.

Post #6 » by **bwgood77** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 4:58 am

I saw it mentioned in an article that the Suns and Rockets shoot the lowest # of long range 2s in the league, so I pulled up the chart and sorted by least shots taken from 15-19 ft.

http://stats.nba.com/leagueTeamShots.ht ... tOrder=ASC

It's pretty interesting our coaching staff has really emphasized not taking these inefficient shots, especially with all the advanced stats and articles about how teams should really focus on getting shots in the paint or from the 3 pt line, that many teams would be focusing on implementing such a strategy.

It's also pretty crazy that if you look at the shooting percentages from teams shooting from 15-19 ft, that of the ones we DO take from out there, we shoot better than anyone except Indiana.

We also shoot the 11th fewest shots from 10-14 ft, and have the highest fg% of the first 12 teams listed.

http://stats.nba.com/leagueTeamShots.ht ... tOrder=ASC

Then we shoot the 3rd most threes, but do so at a 37% clip, which isn't terrible, but if you look at the 3pt % of Portland, Miami and GS, you see that this is the one area that if we could really improve on, it would probably make a huge difference in the w/l column.

http://stats.nba.com/leagueTeamShots.ht ... tOrder=DES

So as someone mentioned above, it would be really nice to have a sharpshooter (though Tucker does shoot 50% from 3 so far). It would be great if Dragic (31%) and Bledsoe (35%) could get their 3 pt shooting up over 40% but as long as we have a stretch 4 you can hit a pretty good clip (Frye is at 39%) it works pretty well since Dragic and Bledsoe are so good at so many other things. (Unfortunately, Goodwin shoots 9.5% from 3)

Wannabe MEP · Post #7 » by **Wannabe MEP** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 5:39 am

RunDogGun wrote:I'm very glad Los Soles is back to put stats to much of the side conversations around here.

Thanks so much. I won't be around as much as I once was -- two little ones and much busier with work -- but this is too exciting to not be in on the conversations sometimes. We're playing the style I fell in love with again -- the style we taught the rest of the NBA.

DRK · Post #8 » by **DRK** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 6:06 am

Los Soles wrote:
RunDogGun wrote:I'm very glad Los Soles is back to put stats to much of the side conversations around here.

Thanks so much. I won't be around as much as I once was -- two little ones and much busier with work -- but this is too exciting to not be in on the conversations sometimes. We're playing the style I fell in love with again -- the style we taught the rest of the NBA.

Yeah it's really awesome to have you around! Your 4-out-1-in philosophy is really working a treat this season.

Wannabe MEP · Post #9 » by **Wannabe MEP** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 6:18 am

Great stats, bwgood77. A lot of my favorite stats sites have died the last couple years, but now nba.com has some incredible stuff. It's gonna take me a while to find everything they have on there; I don't feel like the interface is very intuitive. Good finds.

bwgood77 wrote:So as someone mentioned above, it would be really nice to have a sharpshooter (though Tucker does shoot 50% from 3 so far). It would be great if Dragic (31%) and Bledsoe (35%) could get their 3 pt shooting up over 40% but as long as we have a stretch 4 you can hit a pretty good clip (Frye is at 39%) it works pretty well since Dragic and Bledsoe are so good at so many other things. (Unfortunately, Goodwin shoots 9.5% from 3)

Yeah, we can't put too much into those numbers yet -- sample size is pretty small for an individual. Clearly Tucker put in some work -- that's the one I'm most excited about. And Goodwin has some work to do, but he's only taken 21 threes so far. He gets hot, and his % will jump a lot.

bigfoot wrote:Yep we don't even have to run and gun to have effective 3 point shooting. The added spacing improves our half court offense and opens lanes for Dragic and Bledsoe.

Shooting .333 for 3ptrs is like shooting .500 on 2prts. We are shooting .370 on threes; I'm super happy with that.

Year after year, league average for midrange is close to 40%. That's like 27% from three. A lot of advanced stats guys argue that it's worth launching threes around 28%.

BurningHeart · Post #10 » by **BurningHeart** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 9:28 am

I wish we could find an Eric Piatkowski-type. I still think Jimmer Fredette can be that type of gunner.

bigfoot · Post #11 » by **bigfoot** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 1:28 pm

BurningHeart wrote:I wish we could find an Eric Piatkowski-type. I still think Jimmer Fredette can be that type of gunner.

Jimmer was unconscious when he was shooting at BYU. Everything that guy threw up went in ... even from beyond NBA 3pt range. Problem is he doesn't play defense. That is one area Horny expects every player to do well. If your shooting is off you can still make a difference by not letting the other guy score. I don't think that is in Jimmer's makeup.

McD for MVP · Post #12 » by **McD for MVP** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 6:39 pm

I still find it hilarious that ESPN thought Dragic wasn't a top 100 player :lol:

RunDogGun · Post #13 » by **RunDogGun** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 7:24 pm

bigfoot wrote:
BurningHeart wrote:I wish we could find an Eric Piatkowski-type. I still think Jimmer Fredette can be that type of gunner.

Jimmer was unconscious when he was shooting at BYU. Everything that guy threw up went in ... even from beyond NBA 3pt range. Problem is he doesn't play defense. That is one area Horny expects every player to do well. If your shooting is off you can still make a difference by not letting the other guy score. I don't think that is in Jimmer's makeup.

Who knows, with the right coach, like maybe Hornacek, he might be able to learn where to be at the right time.

RunDogGun · Post #14 » by **RunDogGun** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 7:27 pm

Honestly, I just want to see Goodwin work on his three point shot like crazy. It would be nice to have a Thunder Archie.

Post #15 » by **lilfishi22** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 11:06 pm

RunDogGun wrote:Honestly, I just want to see Goodwin work on his three point shot like crazy. It would be nice to have a Thunder Archie.

Archie just needs a spot up shot. He does well getting around the court and he has the athleticism to rise over any defender. If he can keep working on that shooting stroke of his, it should expand out to the 3 naturally.