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The Rockets’ approach is engineered in calculated analytics, of course, rather than magic, and its on-court materialization can appear excessively clinical the team’s shot charts resemble less a dynamic pattern and more a uniform drift past the arc.

Ollivander-who devoted himself to wandlore like NBA Twitter to pace-and-space concepts-was still fascinated to think of the boundaries he could theoretically push. Voldemort didn’t need the Elder Wand to perform remarkable feats of magic, but Mr. Impressive-and daunting, like the most feared wizard in the world wresting control of the most powerful wand. Their 7.2 percentage-point increase in 3PAr from last season is the fourth-highest year-over-year jump in the NBA, which is impressive given that the Rockets had less room than any other team to boost their rate. For reference, Kyle Korver’s 3PAr over four-plus seasons in Atlanta was 67.8 percent.Įven as the league optimizes its shot distribution, the Rockets have accelerated their separation from the pack. And the Rockets’ upper reaches extend far above their opponents’, too: Houston’s 3PAr in that game against Charlotte was 67.1 percent. The distance between Houston and second-place Golden State this season is larger than the difference between Golden State and 30th-place Sacramento. Houston’s 3PAr rested at 46.2 percent last season, and this season’s team has boosted its rate to 53.4 percent-14 points higher than any non-Rockets lineup in history. The Rockets, meanwhile, are in their own orbit, taking more than half their shots from 3. The full-season 3PAr record for a team other than Houston is Cleveland’s 39.9 percent last season, and Golden State leads this season among non-Rockets teams with a 39.0 mark. But most teams still max out around 40 percent on aggregate. Seventeen of the top 20 team season totals come from last season or this one. Before last season, teams had recorded a single-game 3PAr of 50 percent or higher 33 times in NBA history. The league-wide 3PAr has rocketed upward on both a nightly and macro level over the past 13 months. For instance, a 50 percent 3PAr signifies that a team takes exactly half its shots from distance. Here, we can make use of a simple stat: 3-point attempt rate (3PAr), which divides 3-point attempts by all field goal attempts. But it’s not just a matter of increased pace-currently at its fastest since 1988-89-artificially inflating totals. Pace-and-space is the 2017 NBA zeitgeist across the league, 3s are flying more frequently than ever before. But now they’re out paving the Oregon Trail while the rest of the league is still getting settled east of the Mississippi. The Rockets have planted their corn and built their homes they know they can live-and prosper-in this new land of 3-pointers. If the 2016-17 Rockets were an experiment-as The Ringer, SB Nation, and The Wall Street Journal all termed the eventual 55-game winners and conference semifinalists-in strategy, the 2017-18 version is an exploration of how far the strategy can be stretched and still work. Daryl Morey and Mike D’Antoni must have been thrilled. No factoid better captures the essence and experience of the 2017-18 Rockets than becoming the first team in NBA history to take twice as many 3s as 2s in a game. Harden recorded a triple-double (27 points, 10 rebounds, 11 assists) in that game, but the key statistic appears lower in the box score: Of Houston’s 85 shot attempts, 57 were 3-pointers. That designation instead belongs to an otherwise mundane 109-93 win over the Hornets on October 27. The most important performance of the Rockets’ early season was not the opening-night comeback win against the Warriors or James Harden’s 56-point scorcher against the Jazz on Sunday.