This is part of a series of NBA Data Nuggets being published during the 2024 NBA Playoffs.
The Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics have had very different journeys to the 2024 NBA Finals. The two Celtics All-Stars have been together for seven playoffs. The Mavs are in their first full year with their dynamic backcourt combination. The Celtics started the season with an 8-2 record and never gave up first place. The Mavs were headed to the play-in tournament with just over two weeks left in the regular season.
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Both teams, however, got to that point by shooting 3-pointers. Boston and Dallas have shot the highest and second-highest percentages from 3-point territory, respectively, among all NBA teams this season. In 2022-23, they also occupy the top two spots in that metric, but with the Mavs ahead of the Celtics.
Boston, which also ranks second in the league in 3-point percentage, is a historically excellent shooting team. Eight Celtics have knocked down at least 100 threes this season. A decade ago, in 2013-14, no team had more than four players surpassing that threshold.
Three-point attempt rates have stabilized in recent years following the league-wide explosion of shots from behind the arc that occurred in the second half of the 2010s. Different teams’ range of strategies when it comes to threes has also stabilized. decreased. In 2018-19, the Houston Rockets shot 52% from downtown, while the San Antonio Spurs shot just 29% from deep. In 2023-24, the difference between the teams most and least likely to shoot threes — the Celtics at 47% and the Denver Nuggets at 35% — was much smaller.
Daryl Morey’s 2010 Rockets pushed the limits of kindergarten arithmetic by building an entire team around the idea that three is more than two. They were ahead of their time, but perhaps a little too ahead. Boston and Dallas slightly scaled back their approach, maintaining the foundation established by “Moreyball.”
“I love 3-point shooting,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said in an October 2021 press conference shortly after taking the job. “I like math.”
The NBA better hope its fans also like 3-point shots, because they’re about to see a lot of them.
More NBA data nuggets:
–Glen Taylor has played a role in some of the NBA’s biggest business stories
–Shot variance explains a large part of NBA playoff results
–NBA postseason play really is different
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