The last decade or so has seen a rise in a very specific way of approaching how a basketball team plays offense. Basically, people believe that mid-range shots should more or less be eliminated, and teams should strive for one of three things:
- Free throws
- Shots in the paint
- Three pointers
The logic is that it’s just not worth taking a shot from mid-range – league-wide, teams this season hit about 57 percent of their attempts at the rim, while the discrepancy between mid-range shooting percentage and three point shooting percentage wasn’t too huge, per StatMuse. That first thing makes sense, but if your team’s three point success rate is only 3-5 percentage points worse than its ability to hit from mid-range, it might as well fire away.
That’s why the shot chart that the Houston Rockets put forward on Monday night during their blowout win against the San Antonio Spurs was so amazing. The team hit a bunch of shots in the paint, a bunch of threes, and a bunch of free throws. They did not hit a single shot that was taken from mid-range.
The Rockets scored every single point last night on either a free throw, a three-pointer or in the paint.
Not a single mid-range jumper. pic.twitter.com/9aOG5LQjj0
— Carter Rodriguez (@Carter_Shade) May 2, 2017
This is gorgeous. Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is a noted embracer of analytics, while head coach Mike D’Antoni has always been a fan of his teams chucking up a bunch of threes and getting to the rim. That doesn’t make this any less beautiful – if anything, it’s confirmation that the Rockets are willing to play basketball the way their coach and GM want them to, and it’s spectacular.
The only made basket that was close to being a non-three or outside of the paint was a bucket by Lou Williams from just inside the free throw line. Houston also took a few mid-range shots, but none of them went in. Instead, the team’s point distribution featured 66 points off of threes, 36 points inside the paint, and 24 points from free throws. This adds up to the 126 points the Rockets hung on the Spurs.
The logical extreme of this is a game where a team doesn’t even attempt a single shot from mid-range, so every shot comes from either in the paint, the free throw line, or behind the three point line. Odds are this will never happen – if you have the chance to shoot from mid-range, and it’s not feasible to drive to the rim or step back to take a three, shoot the basketball – but it’s a fun thought. And if any team is going to do this, it could very well end up being the Rockets.
