A look at Atlanta's second half three point attempts vs the Fever

The Atlanta Dream and Indiana Fever played for the second time in three days last night, and the rematch was every bit as competitive as the first.  Atlanta won an offensive battle on Tuesday, but Thursday they gave up in a defensive fight.  The success they had from game one's strategy didn't carry over Thursday.  In game one, they relied heavily on Brittney Griner and Brionna Jones to set the offensive tone.  Last night, though, Griner and Jones weren't able to find their groove for a multitude of reasons--the Fever defense did a great job of denying entry passes and sublime post positioning, and Griner herself fouled out for the second straight game.

Without their post players in the gameplan, Atlanta relied heavily on their three point attack in the second half, going 5/16 in the 3rd and 4th quarter and 10/29 overall.  Atlanta is now second in the league in three's attempted per contest, just under 32 a game (on 31.6%).

First, here are the three point attempts from the third quarter last night:

The Dream went 4/7 from three in the third.  What I liked about these attempts was the quality--the ball never touched the paint, but they still came off passes rather than point of attack shots.  If you look purely at the catch and shoot stats, Atlanta went 4/6.  The attempts were of high quality and came off both transition and scramble.  But they weren't from any set offense and more free flowing, which is fine, but is not indicative of a good three point shooting team.  

Here are the attempts from the fourth quarter:

In the fourth, Atlanta went 0/4 from catch and shoot threes.  Again, not a single three came from a kickout paint touch.  That's a problem because you're not making the defense work to defend you and breaking them down.  If a defense can stay in front of an offense for the entirety of the possession, they will consider it a win.  

More of a problem though was the four attempts that came off dribbles.  Atlanta went 1/5 from attempts were the shooter dribbled before hand, which are lower quality attempts.  Plenty of players may have the ability to make these shots, but they are often times the lowest quality shots in basketball because of the percentage to make.  And Atlanta shot themselves in the foot by attempting so many in the fourth.  It was indicative of an even bigger issue all around--they had no structured offense.

So Indiana did a great job of pressing the ball handlers just enough and dislodging the Atlanta bigs throughout the game that by the time the fourth quarter came around, Atlanta had no choice but to rely on lower quality three point attempts.  

No one shot was more emblematic of Atlanta's faults than this Rhyne Howard attempt in the fourth quarter.  

The Dream are down one point after a Kelsey Mitchell three pointer.  Howard, who up to this point had a strong fourth quarter and game, takes it upon herself to try to splash a haymaker over Clark, a player she's been tasked with guarding for two games and who she's been quite contentious with.  Their certainly was a level of ego to this shot--Clark is undoubtedly the most popular player in the league and Howard wanted to make a play over her on a primetime game at home.  But Howard herself had strong success getting to the hoop in the fourth quarter.  And Clark had 5 fouls as well, which means she would've had to play some level of conservative to not foul out.  And even more problematic is the fact that Atlanta is only down one point, which means they didn't need a semi-contested stepback three with 90 seconds left in the game and 14 on the shot clock.  Overall, though, Atlanta was inefficient all game in their offensive sets and had to let it rip from three.

The real credit for this should go to Indiana's defensive effort.  This was a playoff atmosphere type of game.  Familiarity breeds contempt, and Atlanta certainly played with contempt towards Indiana after Tuesday's match.  As one user on reddit pointed out, Atlanta was providing a template for the rest of the league on how to guard Clark, and if something wasn't to be done, it was going to be open season on Clark and the Fever.  Still, Indiana took a massive step towards contendership with this win.  They won a type of game that not many people believed they could win:  a defensive slobberknocker that saw both Clark and Aaliyah Boston have nonexistent offensive performances.