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Joe Mazzulla disagrees that the NBA has a three-point problem
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla. Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

Joe Mazzulla disagrees that the NBA has a three-point problem

The Celtics are attempting more threes (51.1) than twos (40.0) this season — a lopsided stat only registered once before in NBA history when the 2018-19 Rockets attempted 3.4 more threes than twos.

As such, Joe Mazzulla's team — on pace to shatter the record for most threes in a season — is very much to blame for the NBA's ongoing battle with the volume of deep shots. 

Some analysts such as Shaquille O'Neal and Brian Windhorst have blamed the NBA's excessive three-point shooting for the declining ratings. Shaq believes fans are "looking at the same thing" every night with teams running actions that involve dribble-handoffs to threes, and that the mundanity of the product has made the game less interesting.

On Wednesday Mazzulla had an interesting response when asked if the game had become "boring" due to the excessive three-point attempts.

"It's an interesting perspective, because in the NFL, people aren't like, 'I want to see less scoring.' They're not going to make the end zones smaller," Mazzulla said, via WEEI's Justin Turpin. "They're not going to make the field smaller. Scoring is up across other sports. I guess my question would be why in basketball would scoring being up be an issue as opposed to other sports? Does anybody want to watch a football game and see less touchdowns?"

Interestingly, Mazzulla blamed himself for the NBA's viewership decline, noting that he doesn't watch games not involving his team.

Mazzulla's comments were likely tongue-in-cheek but represent a bigger problem for the NBA. Through last Saturday's NBA Cup semifinals, viewership for nationally-televised games (on TNT, ABC and ESPN) was down 19% year over year, per Sports Media Watch

Furthermore, the ticket sales for the NBA Cup games in Las Vegas saw a drastic drop from last year. While some cited the lack of star power for the decline — the Lakers or Warriors didn't travel to Vegas — others blamed the poor quality of the on-court product. 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver himself admitted that the league may have a three-point problem. While addressing reporters in Vegas, Silver said the NBA was "constantly having discussions" on "ways to improve stylistically the game on the floor."

The NBA's issue with excessive threes reached a boiling point last Friday when the Hornets and Bulls combined to miss a record 75 shots from deep. Don't be surprised if the NBA tweaks some rules — like taking away corner threes or limiting the number of threes — to curtail the problem after the 2024-25 season. 

Sai Mohan

A veteran sportswriter based in Portugal, Sai covers the NBA for Yardbarker and a few local news outlets. He had the honor of covering sporting events across four different continents as a newspaper reporter. Some of his all-time favorite athletes include Mike Tyson, Larry Bird, Luís Figo, Ayrton Senna and Steffi Graf.

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