Since its March launch, the Mind the Game podcast by NBA legend LeBron James and former player (and current league analyst) JJ Redick has drawn a substantial amount of interest and praise for its insights related to professional basketball, both past and present.
On a new episode, unfortunately, the 2017-18 Houston Rockets caught a stray from James (who laughed upon making his comments).
Led by James Harden, Chris Paul, and head coach Mike D’Antoni, those Rockets finished with an NBA-leading record of 65-17, which remains the best in franchise history. They were the No. 1 seed in the 2018 Western Conference playoffs and pushed defending champion Golden State to a winner-take-all Game 7 in the West finals.
Sadly, Paul wasn’t able to play in Game 7 (box score) due to a hamstring injury, and the short-handed Rockets knew they needed to make 3-pointers to have a chance against the favored Warriors.
Unfortunately, they misfired on nearly all of them. In a historically poor shooting performance, the Rockets made just 7-of-44 shots (15.9%) from 3-point range, including a stretch in the middle of the game with 27 consecutive misses from behind the arc.
In recalling that futility, James said on the newly released podcast:
27 straight threes? 27? And they kept shooting them? It’s not like all of them was only 3-point shooters. It’s not like they had five Craig Hodges on their team, or five Steve Kerr [types] on the floor… where that’s all they can do, is shoot threes.
They had guys that can… Eric Gordon can get into the paint. James Harden can get into the paint.
As a whole, the podcast episode explores how the evolution of 3-point shooting and the emphasis on it has changed the way basketball is played. For his part, James seems to be arguing that Houston’s clear emphasis on 3-point shooting made them easier to defend.
Rockets catching crazy strays on the @mindthegamepod pic.twitter.com/Xe6pA0JJRK
— Apathetic (@ftank58) May 1, 2024
The light-hearted criticism, of course, is missing a bit of context.
For starters, Paul (unavailable due to injury) was one of Houston’s best players at shooting in mid-range areas. Second, Harden went 10-of-16 (62.5%) on two-point shots in that Game 7, while Gordon was 7-of-10 (70.0%) from inside the arc. They combined to draw 12 free throws, and it arguably should have been more, if not for highly controversial officiating by a Scott Foster-led crew.
Combined, Harden and Gordon took more shot attempts from inside the arc than they did from 3-point range, and that’s before factoring in shots that weren’t counted due to a foul resulting in free throws. So, it wasn’t as if they simply fired away from 3-point range.
The last time Scott foster officiated a Rockets game 7………… https://t.co/WTU7bqBNL7
— LebronJamesHarden™️ (@LBJamesHarden) September 2, 2020
Veteran forwards Trevor Ariza and PJ Tucker did take 14 of their combined 21 shot attempts from 3-point range, but neither had the athleticism or creation ability to score off the dribble (as evidenced by James excluding them from his podcast comments).
The most important context, though, is that between Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green, the Warriors were led by four Hall of Famers and three of the best high volume 3-point shooters of all-time (Curry, Durant, and Thompson).
With Paul absent, the Rockets only had one star player in Harden. Thus, there wouldn’t seem to be a mathematical path to keeping pace with the high-powered Warriors without taking (and making) a respectable amount of 3-pointers. That led to 44 attempts, a number approximately in line with what most NBA teams (including the 2023-24 Rockets, led by Ime Udoka) continue to prioritize today.
Unfortunately, they missed 37 of them, and the rest is history.
In hindsight, the thought process is understandable. But that won’t stop occasional jokes from being fired off, at Houston’s expense.
The complete podcast episode can be viewed below.
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