In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, scoring has skyrocketed in the NBA.
On Friday, Luka Doncic scored 73 points and Devin Booker scored 62. Four days earlier, Joel Embiid scored 70 and Karl-Anthony Towns 62.
As good as those individual scorers are, the goal binge is even more evident at the level of the entire team. Last year, the Kings created the most efficient offense of all time, posting a 118.6 offensive rating. That record will likely last only one season: the Pacers, Celtics, Bucks, Clippers, Sixers and Thunder are all passing by that mark.
The phenomenon is not limited to elite teams. Michael Jordan’s best offensive team came during the 1991-92 championship season, when the Bulls averaged 115.5 points per 100 possessions, ranking number 1 in the league. This season, 17 of the league’s 30 teams are scoring at a better rate.
It’s a problem when the Nets, a team that is eight games under .500 and whose top two scorers are Mikal Bridges and Cam Thomas, are outscoring every Jordan Bulls team.
Here’s what you can and can’t do to restore balance.
Why score so much in the NBA?
A common complaint about the league today is that no one tries to fight back. It’s an easy performance, but there’s not much substance behind it.
Defensive schemes are much more complicated than 30 years ago. And the effort required to protect a larger portion of the court is significantly greater than when defenders stood watching a post for most of the game in the 1990s.
Doncic’s 73-point masterpiece is a great example. The Hawks were criticized for not playing defense (they’ve also been bad all season on that end of the floor), but if you look at all the shots, as NBA analyst Nekias Duncan did, you’ll see they used multiple coverages on Doncic. That included dropping, playing at screen level, covering, switching, blitzing and doubling.
“We tried everything we could from a tactical standpoint,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said the next day. “He’s unique because he makes plays in so many different ways.”
The Hawks played mostly solid defense, getting good results on many of Doncic’s shots, but a very cut transition work went viral, creating a narrative that no defense was played throughout the game. The truth is that they were victims of an amazing display of skill and did everything they could within the rules. It still wasn’t enough.
What the NBA can learn from European rules
If NBA defenders are playing the best possible defense allowed under the current rules and the scoring is still out of control, then there is a logical conclusion: the rules must be changed.
Doncic himself alluded to this last year in an interview with JJ Redick in which he compared European basketball to the NBA and explained why it is “100 percent” more difficult to score 30 points in a EuroLeague game.
Doncic acknowledged that the skill level is much higher in the NBA. The main reason for the higher score was related to the rules.
“It’s very different because the court is smaller. The fouls are different. The rules are different,” Doncic explained.
What rules should be changed? I’m glad you asked.
Get rid of the defensive three seconds.
The biggest rule difference between the NBA and the Euroleague is the lack of three defensive seconds. That allows Europe’s big men to stay in the paint as long as they want, creating a much more difficult path to scoring layups.
Doncic stated that by forcing a player like Rudy Gobert to come out of the paint every three seconds, “you can have 10 points more easily” in the NBA.
Getting rid of the defensive three-second rule is a no-brainer. Not that it’s a sacred rule: it was instituted in the 2002 season and most leagues don’t play by it. It is also difficult to enforce, is rarely called at the end of games, and limits tactical creativity because it makes zone defenses more difficult to employ.
Reduce the field
Doncic also stated that the larger dimensions of the court allow for more space and scoring. NBA courts measure 94 feet by 50 feet, while EuroLeague courts measure 91.9 feet by 49.2 feet (28 meters by 15 meters).
A few feet may not seem like a big difference, but having less space to defend makes rotations easier and reduces spaces for players to advance.
Giannis Antetokounmpo noticed the lack of space in the European match at the beginning of last season.
“Playing with much less space [in Europe] “It just helps me figure things out because now when I go to an NBA game, I feel like there’s a lot of room to operate and create for my teammates and myself,” Giannis said.
Victor Wembanyama echoed these sentiments after his first Summer League, pointing out the differences in the NBA game compared to France.
“The field is more open” Wembanyama said. “Here the players just fly, out there [in Europe] “It’s more on the ground, pushing the ground, big boxes.”
Allow more contact
The other rule change the league must enforce is allowing defenders to have more contact. Euroleague games allow defenders to have more control over the direction of offensive players.
Wembanaya noted that the NBA game is “less physical. I get fouled a lot, but not that many.”
That echoed Doncic’s comments in which he stated that “fouls are different” in the NBA.
“Playing in the NBA, you have guys that are almost impossible to guard, and that’s why it’s a lot harder to play in the NBA.”
These rule changes would make it much more difficult to score, as Nikola Jokic explained it back in 2022.
“Is more difficult? Yes, just because [in Europe], you need to think very fast. In the NBA, if you look at the guy, you can see that help is coming. In Europe the help is already there.”
If stars like Antetokounmpo, Jokic, Doncic and Wembanyama agree that they find it harder to score goals in Europe, then perhaps we should listen. The answer is outside: we simply have to look.
