Can We Trust a “Jump Shooting” Team?

Jan 21, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) shoots the ball against the Houston Rockets during the third quarter at Oracle Arena. The Warriors won 126-113. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

A few weeks ago, in a segment on TNT’s inside the NBA, Charles Barkley said that he wouldn’t place the Golden State Warriors in his top-three teams in the Western Conference despite the fact that they held the NBA’s best record.

"“I have said the exact same thing for 16 years here,” Barkley explained. “I don’t like jump-shooting teams. I don’t think you can win the championship beating good teams shooting jumpers.” He later added, “Klay (Thompson) and Steph (Curry) are great players, and they’ve got a great home court, but I’m just saying…in a seven-game series, I don’t think they can make enough jumpers.”"

Barkley has indeed said the same thing for 16 years and his sentiment, that teams who “shoot jumpers” are inferior to teams that score “inside-out,” is shared by many basketball fans. That axiom has made its way into the collective consciousness of NBA fans so much so that it might seem inherently true. But what evidence is there that “jump shooting” teams can’t win in the playoffs?

First, what does it means for a team to be a “jump shooting” team? Any team that relies heavily on jump shots? In his comments about the Warriors, Barkley named the Dallas Mavericks, the Portland Trailblazers and the Memphis Grizzlies as teams that he’d rank ahead of the Warriors. Presumably, those teams are not jump shooting teams.

Data via nba.com

Interestingly enough, the Trailblazers, Mavericks, and Grizzlies rely more heavily on mid-range shots than the Warriors do. The Warriors get just 15.4% of their points from the mid-range, well below the league average. 41.2% of their points are scored in the paint, more than both Dallas and Portland. So on paper, the Warriors shoot fewer mid-range jumpers and score more frequently near the rim than both the Mavericks and the Trailblazers.

It seems that what makes the Warriors a jump shooting team in Chuck’s eyes is their three-point attempt rate. While Golden State certainly takes a lot of three’s, they actually rank behind the Trailblazers and are dead even with the Mavericks in the rate at which they attempt three’s. Nonetheless, they certainly take, and make, a lot of three-pointers. three-point attempts make up 31% of their total FGAs, the 5th highest three-point attempt rate in the league. Is such a high three-point attempt rate a death sentence for playoff success?

The 2011 Dallas Mavericks were 3rd in regular season three-point attempt rate and went on to win the NBA championship. The 2009 Magic were 1st in the regular season in three-point attempt rate and made it to the NBA Finals. Five of the last 10 NBA champions have been top-10 in regular season three-point attempt rate and two were top-5.  This alone is evidence that jump shooting teams can have success in the playoffs. But let’s look at all playoff teams over the last 10 seasons.

Data via basketball-reference

Over the last 150 playoff series (10 NBA seasons), the team that outscored their opponent from beyond the arc won the series 65% of the time. The team that attempted more three-pointers won the series 57% of the time. Winning the battle beyond the arc appears to be a fairly large part of playoff success. If nothing else, it certainly doesn’t hurt since teams with a higher regular season three-point attempt rate than their opponents won 52% of their series.

All field goal percentages drop in the playoffs as the game slows down and defenses tighten up. Over the last 10 seasons, team 3PT% drops by an average of 2.2 percentage points while team 2PT% drops by 1.8 percentage point. More importantly, there isn’t a significant correlation between high regular season three-point attempt rates and lower playoff three-point FG%. In other words, teams that rely heavily on three-point shots in the regular season tend to shoot slightly closer to their regular season average in the playoffs than teams with a lower regular season three-point attempt rate.

There isn’t a strong correlation between regular season 3Ar and the drop off from regular season 3FG% and playoff 3FG%.

The Steve Nash and Mike D’Antoni era Phoenix Suns are often cited as the best example that jump shooting teams can’t win in the playoffs. While those Suns teams never won an NBA championship, the correlation does not imply causation. The fact that the Suns came so close to winning an NBA title despite never having a top-10 defense should be proof enough that jump shooting teams can have success. It is possible to learn the wrong lessons from history. For most fans, the seven seconds or less Suns taught them the wrong lesson. The Suns didn’t lose because they were a jump shooting team but rather their effective offense nearly made up for their defensive deficiencies.

While the Warriors share some things in common with the seven seconds or less Suns – high three-point attempt rate, fast pace, dynamic point guards – they are extremely different in a few important ways. The Warriors lead the league in DRTG and hold their opponents to a league low 46.3 eFG%. They are one of the best teams in the league at defending the paint and have several elite individual defenders including one of the league’s best rim protectors. Like the 2009 Orlando Magic and the 2011 Dallas Mavericks, the Warriors are an elite three-point shooting team but shooting alone doesn’t define them.

It’s possible that the Warriors won’t win this year’s NBA championship. After all, the western conference is a battle royale and it is entirely possible that four legitimate title contenders lose in the first round. But it’s foolish to say that the Warriors won’t win because they are a jump shooting team. History has taught us that jump shooting teams have success in the playoffs, especially when they have the defense to back it up.