The Dallas Mavericks and Golden State Warriors set a record for most combined three-pointers in a game Sunday night, beating the previous record that was set just Friday night.
The Warriors shot 27-for-54 from behind the arc while the Mavericks were 21-for-41 in a defense-optional 143-133 Dallas victory. Klay Thompson shot 7-for-11 on three-pointers in his second game back in San Francisco against his old team, while Luka Doncic was 6-for-11 from deep as part of his 45-point triple-double. Quentin Grimes continued his outside shooting revival this season by going 4-for-8. He’s shooting over 40 percent from deep after making 30 percent of his triples after Jan. 1 last season.
For Golden State, Thompson’s old “Splash Brother” Steph Curry made seven of his first 10 shots from three-point range before missing his last three in a failed Warriors comeback. Draymond Green set a career high with five three-pointers, Andrew Wiggins made five and Lindy Waters made four.
The previous mark of 44 combined three-pointers happened Friday, when the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz each made 22 threes in Phoenix’s 134-126 win. On that same night, the Chicago Bulls and Charlotte Hornets set a more dubious record, combining to miss 75 three-pointers.
All these records are a result of NBA teams wildly increasing their three-point shooting rates. This season, teams are attempting 37.5 three-pointers per game, up from 35.1 last season. 10 years ago, when Curry and the Warriors won their first championship, the league average was 22.4 three-point shots per game, an increase of more than two-thirds.
It used to be that teams with good three-point shooters were the ones who bombed away from deep. Now it’s every team. The Hornets shot 17.4 percent Friday night, but still put up 46 three-point attempts. For the season, they’re 17th in three-point percentage, but they take the league’s third-most attempts.
Three-point percentage league-wide has remained very consistent the last 20 years, ranging from 34.9 percent to a high of 36.7 percent.
The problem is the aesthetics. When every team in the league is firing away from three-point range, there’s a certain sameness to the game league-wide. There may not be an upper limit on how many three-pointers teams will shoot, absent some kind of rule changes like moving the three-point line back.
The Mavericks and Warriors are in the record books, but given how much teams are shooting from deep, and how long the previous record lasted, don’t expect them to stay there.
