NBA Playoffs

It started with Celtics point guard Marcus Smart dribbling past the halfcourt logo with Al Horford jogging past him toward the left block. On his way there, ...

So even the priority for most teams, it is to get in the lane and kick out for a three, as opposed to getting in the lane and finishing at the rim or getting to the lane and getting to your mid-range. “The dynamics of the league changed. There are of course obvious exceptions on both sides of the ball, but “gravity” and “spacing” are two positive offensive byproducts infused into modern NBA basketball by the three-point shot, typically in reference to how they open up the floor and allow more desirable bunnies. They’d like to run them off the line or, at the very least, make a strong contest. The accelerated migration behind the arc is well known, but not all of the shots that used to come at the rim are now launched from three. I guess that's taken away the aggression to get to the basket. “Instead of challenging people at the rim, a lot of times if you get to the rim and there's help coming, you throw that thing out and shoot the three,” he said. The steady reduction of shots at the rim has as much to do with revised offensive philosophies as it does defensive schemes. The Warriors have made switching fashionable and pushed the sport into a new atmospheric layer by going small and surrounding Green with the best shooters in NBA history. Instead, a combination of factors tells the story—from aggressive defenses that prioritize rim protection to offenses that are willing to take what the defense gives as they drive and kick until the right shooter gets a quality shot. A lot of this is dictated by teams that are locked in to take certain looks away. Not just with a rim protector but everybody helping off specific people, to protect the paint.”