Friday, January 16, 2009

Match-Up of the Night: Consistent Perimeter Shooting vs. Hot Perimeter Shooting

I've never understood why the Spurs are labeled as a boring team. Ok, scratch that. I understand that people find our slow pace of play and defensive-minded style to be boring. But the spurs let it fly from the perimeter at an alarming rate and however worrying it may be from the perspective of offensive efficiency, I happen to find barrages of three pointers to be exciting. Which is why I am excited for this evening's contest with the 76ers.

Traditionally Philly doesn't take a lot of outside shots (for the majority of the season they have had the fewest 3-point attempts of any team). But under new coach Tony DiLeo the Sixers have started to heat up from from beyond the arc:
The Sixers are near the bottom of the NBA in 3-point shooting (32.2 percent), but they've connected on 34 of 70 attempts (48.6) during their [5 game] winning streak.
The Spurs, on the other hand, have lived and died by the long ball for a good season or two now. A look up and down the roster will reveal a whole bevy of players who love nothing more than making it rain from 24 feet away from the basket. But, unlike the Sixers, we do so at an impressively consistent rate. Bonner and Mason are amongst the top three in the league in 3-point percentage (1st and 3rd, respectively). And Ginobili, Bowen, Finley, and even Udoka can hit outside shots at a decent rate. Although the average fan may not think of Spurs-Sixers as an exciting match-up, there's a good reason to believe these two squads may provide us with a bit of fireworks this evening.