There were 4.7 seconds left in regulation when the score tallied 113-112 after the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Carmelo Anthony delivered what felt like a fatal blow in yet another fourth-quarter Minnesota Timberwolves crumbling.
Instead, after Anthony’s dagger fell through the net, the Wolves retaliated with this from Andrew Wiggins.
In those 4.7 seconds, Wiggins was able to traverse 65 feet before stopping to pull up 29 feet from the basket, according to NBA.com’s tracking data. These type of time constraints, of course, often lead to field goal attempts taken well behind the NBA’s 3-point arch that sits 23 feet, nine inches from the rim.
For Wiggins, time constraint or not, this distance has become normal.
That game-winning shot marked Wiggins’ 19th 3-point attempt of the season which marked an uptick in 3-point volume — not a huge surprise. The surprise has come in the distance of those 3’s. Sixteen of Wiggins’ first 19 3-point attempts have from 25-plus feet — well beyond the NBA’s 3-point line.
Notice the shot clock here on Wiggins’ first 3-point attempt of the season. This is not forced shot, rather, these shots are the plan.
Shots coming from this deep distance are a point of emphasis for Wiggins in this new year.
“I just shoot,” Wiggins told Zone Coverage. “The whole summer I shot from those spots on the floor.”
To Wiggins, the seemingly intuitive correlation between increased shot distance and decreasing effectiveness of that shot has been ignored as the 3-point line has become an almost arbitrary demarcation.
At practice the day after Wiggins bombed seven 3’s in the Wolves second matchup against the Thunder, Tom Thibodeau explained that the team is purposefully lining him up from a deeper distance.
“I think it’s critical. He’s gotten a lot more comfortable shooting those 3’s,” said Thibodeau. “We’re telling him to play a full step and a half off the 3-point line so he can have rhythm into the shot as the ball’s being delivered.”
This deep-3 concept while previously foreign in Minnesota — as the Wolves were last in the NBA in deep (25-to-29 foot) 3’s per 100 possessions last season — is not necessarily a new concept in the NBA. The Houston Rockets and their coach Mike D’Antoni catalyzed this revolution last season shooting 23.67 ‘deep’ 3’s per game.
“The line is there, doesn’t mean you have to stand on it,” said D’Antoni in an interview with SBNation during Houston’s 3-point barrage last season. “You can see on their form and effort, it’s just an easy shot for them. So, there’s no difference from them standing on the line.”
Again, this idea of increased distance not affecting effectiveness sounds counter-intuitive, but for D’Antoni and the Rockets the numbers bare out. Last season, the Rockets 3-point bombers — James Harden, Eric Gordon, and Ryan Anderson — shot a combined 17.2 deep 3’s per game at a 36.9 percent efficiency. Harden, Gordon, and Anderson also shot 9.6 ‘right on the line’ (less than 25 foot) 3’s per game and gained no efficiency converting those shorter 3’s at a 37.1 percent efficiency. The added distance did not matter for those players.
This logic D’Antoni (and now Thibodeau) is using does not expand to all players in the NBA, it is for a specific breed. The vast majority of teams (and players) shoot worse on these type of distanced 3’s but there is a particular archetype of shooter — like Harden, Gordon, and Anderson — that are unaffected by the distance.
Through Wiggins’ athleticism and pure shooting mechanics, Thibodeau and the Wolves coaching staff is betting Wiggins falls into this phylum. If he does, the game begins to unlock for the Wolves, just as it did for the Rockets last season.
How Deep 3’s Benefit An Offense
1. The Shot Itself is More Open
When a shooter is set well-beyond the 3-point line, the defender is inherently further from his man. A crisp pass to the set shooter, then, leads to an open or (at worst) a lightly contested 3-point attempt. Here, you can see Tony Allen focused on Harden with ball-in-hand while Anderson is set up to shoot from deep. Harden does not even need to penetrate the heart of the defense to open up Anderson, he is already open. A swift ball-reversal leads to an uncontested Anderson 3-pointer.
2. The Lane is Easier to Penetrate
Conversely, on this play, Anderson’s defender (Lance Thomas) is pulled away from Harden in fear of Anderson’s 3-point ability.
A concerned Thomas is no hindrance to Harden, who now only needs to beat his one-man isolation. This is, of course, an aspect of the game Harden thrives in. A lack of help defense places stress on Harden’s man. Harden’s craft is often credited for his ability to get to the free throw line, but another factor in his league-leading free-throw attempts is his defenders being outmatched and needing to foul to prevent layups. This is evidenced in this play, which ended in a basket and the foul for Harden.
3. The Post-Up is More Accessible
This relies on the same principles of easier penetration — more space in that area is the residual effect of distanced shooters. With perimeter defenders being pulled an extra step and a half out of the paint, helping in the post — let alone double-teaming — becomes a far more difficult proposition. If the defense respects the shooters on the perimeter, they can only shade to the post as there is a need to be able to recover an extended distance to their man.
Here, Nene catches the ball in the post, equipped with noted deep-3 shooters Gordon and Trevor Ariza surrounding him on the perimeter. Gordon and Ariza’s men can shade to Nene on the catch but then retreat as soon as he makes a fake. This, similar to Harden’s isolation, leads to scoring opportunity where the ball handler only needs to defeat his man. In this case, the one man is Steven Adams.
Deep 3 Residual Effect In Minnesota
1. The Shot Itself is More Open (for Wiggins)
Just as Anderson did in Houston last year, Wiggins looks to be on pace to shoot the highest volume of 3-point attempts in his career. By extending the range in which he is willing to shoot, more shots are open for the taking. Thus far, 25 of Wiggins’ 36 3-point attempts have been from the 25-29 foot range. The high volume of deep 3’s has increased Wiggins’ total 3-point output. After averaging 3.5 total 3’s per game last season, Wiggins is now averaging 5.1 total 3’s per game — 3.6 from deep.
Remove the two games the Wolves played without Jimmy Butler — which should be the norm — and Wiggins is averaging 6.2 total 3’s per game — 4.4 from deep.
This increased volume is a good sign, assuming Wiggins is able to maintain his efficiency on those attempts. This season, possessions that have ended in a Wiggins deep-3 have translated to 1.2 points per possession after the Wolves, as a team, averaged a mere 1.047 points per possession on all 3’s last season. This is to say: Wiggins could cool off fairly substantially from his current pace on the deep 3’s and they would still be more efficient shots than the average three the Wolves took last season.
These looks, much like Anderson’s in Houston, are not simply created by standing far from the hoop. Wiggins (like Anderson) is reliant on the gravity of penetration around him. In Minnesota, Butler is the catalyst for the quality of these looks as it is through his threat that the defense becomes pinched. By setting up Wiggins “a step and a half behind the line”, the Wolves have intentionally taken advantage of the defense just as the Rockets have done with Harden.
“With a guy like Jimmy it gives us a second guy who gets into the paint and force the defense to collapse,” said Thibodeau. “Then he can kick out (to Wiggins) for those good rhythm shots.”
The contra-positive to this was illustrated in the games that Butler did not play in this season — twenty-plus point losses to Indiana and Detroit. The strategy broke with Shabazz Muhammad in place of Butler. In the five games with Butler, Wiggins has shot 22 deep 3’s and converted them at a 41 percent clip. In the games without Butler not only does the deep three all but disappear, Wiggins’ total three-point output and effectiveness from three plummeted (1 of 5 in those games).
In nature, the sample sizes will be small as there have only been eight total games, but the idea reflected in those numbers plays out in the eye test. Wiggins with Butler leads to more space, which leads to Wiggins being more open, which leads to more deep 3’s in rhythm, which leads to a holistically more efficient offense for the Wolves.
2. The Lane is Easier to Penetrate (for Butler)
In today’s NBA, one-on-one isolation is frowned upon as it typically renders an inefficient possession. But there are exceptions. See: Harden in Houston last season who led the league in isolation possessions while a part of the third-most efficient offense in the league. Penetration, even if in isolation, can be a good thing especially with surrounding shooting options.
This was not the case for Butler in Chicago last season, as the Bulls shot the third-fewest threes in the league and shot them at a poor efficiency. However, Butler made a name for himself as one of the leagues better one-on-one isolators. This season, in lieu of what appears to be a shooting renaissance for Wiggins, Butler’s effectiveness in penetration should only increase. Harden did this through getting to the bucket and perhaps, more importantly, the free-throw line.
This is the goal, according to Thibodeau, make Butler Harden-light he eluded, “The free throws are the most valuable shots so if we can open up the floor and take advantage of that it’s gunna make our offense pretty potent.”
While Butler (and the Wolves) seem to have taken the first portion of the year to emphasize the open shots for Wiggins, the Butler penetrations are coming, it’s just a matter of time before the defense shifts their focus. Again, this is the same concept as Harden and Anderson in Houston, if the defense opts to take away the spot up, the isolation will be there for Butler just as it was for Harden.
3. The Post-Up is More Accessible (for Towns)
This is the most intuitive residual effect of stretching out the perimeter of the offense and for the Wolves possibly the area that will render the most positives. Karl-Anthony Towns and Jimmy Butler are both top-15 players in the NBA. Butler garnishes this accolade in two parts — by profiling as a dominant offensive creator and through being a rare breed of perimeter stopper on the defensive end — Towns’ high regard is (conversely) a product of only one dimension. Towns is an All-NBA caliber player in spite of defensive sieve-ness.
Last season, playing in a lane clogged by isolation-addict Wiggins and the perimeter-phobic Gorgui Dieng, Towns posted exceptional offensive numbers. In the second-half of the season, Towns was as offensively efficient as DeAndre Jordan in the restricted area and shot the three-ball at the same clip as Steph Curry. Towns breaks the game through his ability to dominate the offensive end in any and all areas. By being granted even more room to operate in the post — as the Butler and Wiggins offense now allows — Towns can now render Shaq-ian efficiency in the paint. Defenders cannot handle him in the paint without a double-team and the residual affect of additional space created by Wiggins extended distance makes the double-team a near impossibility.
Send a defender rogue to double-team, and the Wolves can counter through Towns’ passing ability, with an equally efficient option. On this play, with Gibson in the post, the Thunder opted to double-team. Two quick passes lead to wide-open deep 3 for Wiggins.
Last season, the Houston Rockets broke the NBA with Anderson, Gordon, and Ariza shooting open deep 3’s around Harden penetrations but they did not have a center that could punish the interior of a defense in the way Towns can. A composite of Clint Capela and Nene’s strengths still pale in comparison to Towns on offense.
Through Wiggins’ presence on the perimeter, Butler’s penetration and Towns’ dominant presence in the post, Minnesota has a chance to eclipse the efficiency the Houston offense played with last season. The Wolves can do everything the Rockets did last season and Towns allows this team to do it even better.
The question posed to the Wolves following the Butler acquisition was thus: How can a marginalization of Butler, Towns and Wiggins’ offensive game be avoided?
Thibodeau’s answer: Move Wiggins out a step and a half on the perimeter.
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