Now It's Bombs Away In The Nba

For years the men who run the NBA had been looking for an ingenious follow-up to the league's masterstroke of the decade—the invention of the "loose ball foul" in 1970, a piece of work that basketball scholars are still studying for a sign that it was conceived by some form of intelligent life. When the league's board of governors convened last June on lovely Amelia Island (just off the coast of Florida, not far from Veronica Lake), the owners finally did it. By a vote of 15-7 they adopted a rule for a one-year trial that—shades of the scorned ABA!—gives three points for extra-long field goals. "I think that I shall never see a thing more lovely than a three," said Commissioner Larry O'Brien, gaveling the meetings to a close.

Clearly, the idea of bestowing an additional point for throwing up a shot that violates long-standing coaching precepts, had its detractors. Golden State owner Franklin Mieuli was so disgusted he stalked out of the meeting, saying that if the vote was final he would never attend another owners' meeting.

"Changing the two-point basket is immoral," Mieuli said at the time. "The ABA had it and folded. What have we done except hurt ourselves? We have separated ourselves from the main body of basketball by tampering with a game that has lasted for 90 years. We have paid too high a price. I could even accept raising the basket, which has always been 10 feet up, because the people are bigger. But two points for a basket is a good concept. Otherwise it wouldn't have lasted this long. Everyone else from kids on the street on up will give two points for a field goal, but the NBA will give three for outside shots. We are going to destroy the team concept."

Despite Mieuli's vision of impending doom, the three-point field goal hasn't ruined the game; if anything, it has enhanced it. Boston, with the NBA's best won-loss record, is perhaps not coincidentally also the leading percentage shooting team from three-point range (.376). Two of Boston's victories this year were made possible by three-point baskets that put games into overtime, and the Celtics won a third because Guard Chris Ford hit three against Milwaukee, including one at the buzzer that beat the Bucks 97-94. Most of the Celtics' early success with the shot has come because they have had the good sense to make it a regular part of the offense, and the good fortune to have Ford to shoot it for them.

Ford's .472 shooting percentage from behind the three-point stripe (which is 22 feet from the basket in either corner and extends out to 23'9" just beyond the top of the key) not only leads the league, but it also stacks up well against his .486 mark for all his shots from the field. And, if you care to get nasty about it, Ford's rockets are considerably more accurate than the free-throw shooting of Denver Center Kim Hughes, whose career average is .329.

Ford essays most of his three-point attempts from the corners, often after he has come down as a wingman on the Celtic fast break. "The number of times you can use it is fairly minimal," Ford says. "I don't just come down and fire it up. My coach has confidence in me to pick my spots, and so does the team." Ford's teammates haven't been slouches either at using the shot strategically. In a game at Detroit in early December, Boston trailed by three points with eight seconds remaining and had the ball out of bounds. Center Dave Cowens took the inbounds pass and tried a three-pointer, but the ball bounded off the rim and into the hands of Forward M. L. Carr. Carr could easily have taken the ball right back up and scored two points—something Celtic rookie Larry Bird said later he would have done without thinking—but instead he dribbled out to the three-point line and fired. The ball sailed through the nets as time expired, and Ford added another three-pointer to help the Celtics get a 118-114 overtime win.

While Ford has been making good use of the shot all season—he is as likely to fire it in the first quarter as in the fourth—most NBA teams have employed it "as a weapon of last resort," according to Phoenix Assistant Coach Al Bianchi, once the head coach of the ABA Virginia Squires. "In the ABA," says Bianchi, "a lot of teams used it to change the complexion of games in other periods as well as the fourth. I think the fact it is an ABA thing made a lot of NBA people hesitant about using it. The funny thing is, it's harder to hit three-point goals in the last few minutes when you're playing catch-up because teams will concede the two-pointers and pressure your three-point shooter."

The notion of each NBA team having a "three-point shooter" it could bring in when it is behind is not that farfetched, or ridiculous, depending on whom you talk to. Ford says, "I don't think teams are going to go out and get somebody like a DH in baseball." But a lot of players disagree. In any case, the frequent comparison of the three-point shot to the American League's DH rule is spurious, because the designated hitter rule removes certain options from a manager's strategy. In basketball the opposite is true. "Some coaches don't like it because it forces another strategy decision on them, and they feel they have to make enough of those already," says Utah's Tom Nissalke, another former ABA coach. "But it was instrumental in a lot of outcomes in the ABA, and I think it will reach that same status in the NBA. Teams will start drafting better long-range shooters."

One veteran NBA coach who likes the rule is Gene Shue of the San Diego Clippers. The Clippers not only lead the league by a wide margin in three-point attempts, but San Diego Guard Brian Taylor by himself has outshot every team in the NBA except Boston and New Jersey. Through the Clippers' game with Washington last Saturday, Taylor had taken a whopping 119 shots from three-point country, hitting 47 of them. "Gene told the guards he wanted us to look for that shot to open up the middle and force the other team's guards to play us more honestly," Taylor says. "He thinks it's an easy shot."

Shue frequently fools around with the shot himself during Clipper practices, as does Kansas City Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons. The difference is that Shue believes in the shot; Fitzsimmons may enjoy launching toy rockets in practice, but he doesn't want to see them in the Kings' offense. Once Kansas City's outstanding shooting guard, Otis Birdsong, asked Fitzsimmons, "What if Scott [Wedman] and I are lightin' it up some night? Can we shoot it then?" Fitzsimmons said no. "That's why our percentage for that shot is so low [eight of 56 for .142]," says Bird-song. "We only shoot them as a matter of desperation."