In the Battle of King's Mountain, Durant played 48 minutes and scored 49 points on 16-of-23 shooting, the strongest game of his career and one of the greatest solo performances in NBA playoff history. Dismantling KD's scoring methods for this game, we found that in addition to scoring 13 points from the free throws and 12 points from the three-point line, he scored 16 points on 8-of-9 shooting in the mid-range zone. It can be said that death wielded his scythe in this field. In fact, Durant has always been a master in the middle distance field. In this year's playoffs, Durant hit 46 shots (the league's most), shooting a whopping 56.8%, and when he met a team like the Bucks that dominated the inline squat defense, the power of the mid-shot was further amplified - KD single shot KD blocked the letter brother opposite KD, and has not yet learned this seemingly simple skill. When you see a shot like this, you'll be able to sigh that the gap between superstars can be so big - Alphabet Brother's wordless singles, and today's Durant, once again made a demonstration for Alphabet Brother - Blocking and Dismantling Emergency Stop Jump Shot Around the Cover Receiving Ball Snake Dribble Jump Shot Low Back Back Jump Shot Low Dry Pull Jump Shot The Middle Shot shines dazzlingly on KD today, and not long ago, Paul swept the Nuggets with the same means. So, this ancient art deserves a new look, and in the midst of the wave of data analytics, why should we still pay attention to it? Paul launched the block, Paul dribbled in a serpentine shape, Paul came to the right side of the free throw zone, Paul took off, Paul shot, Paul scored! The 36-year-old Paul named Jokic by name and used his skills that were older than his age to blow up the new MVP. But that wasn't the way things started out. On June 7, the first game of the Suns and Nuggets series, 4 minutes and 11 seconds before the final game, Paul called Ayton to block the demolition, Gordon was separated, Jokic made up, Paul used the speed to flash out of the gap jump shot hit - this is only the first time paul in the whole game to use the block to break the mid-range jump shot to score. In the first and second games of the Nuggets series, Paul didn't have many individual attacks after launching the blocking - 8 in two games in total - but in the third and fourth games, Paul's number of blocking and dismantling attacks rose to 13 and 16 respectively. Paul is known as a master of mid-range shooting, shooting 449 times this season, shooting 52.3 percent, especially on the right side of the free throw zone — coach McMaron certainly knows that, so in the first two games of the series, when Paul called for a blocker to try to target Jokic, the Nuggets' strategy was that Jokic picked up and hit Paul — at the cost that although Paul didn't get a shot, he helped his teammates score 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting. The Nuggets are not without a long memory, after all, the Suns G1 has only 7 of 7 three-pointers in the 14, so the Nuggets decided to continue to clamp Paul on the line, but G2 was not so lucky: after Paul blocked and passed the ball, his teammates shot 4 of 8 from outside the three-point range — which is a high probability of what will happen, after all, the Suns ranked 7th in the league with a 37.8% three-point shooting rate in the regular season, Bridges, Johnson and Clegg are the league's top bottom-corner three-point shooters, and Crowder has also returned to the crosshairs. Behind the data, there is Paul's emperor-level vision and passing, and the precise and complex arrangement of Coach Monty Williams - Paul calls double cover The weak side of the no-ball cover So G3, G4 Malone coaches gave up - Jokic no longer lifted the pinch, but returned to the conservative crouch mode - probably thinking that it is better to be killed by one person with the same move than to be rubbed by various people in various ways. So, the scene at the beginning of the article began to play out over and over again, reaching the climax in G4, Paul hit the jump shot from the middle distance of the block for 8 consecutive times, almost in the same position, facing the same person, and scoring the ball in the same way - behind the Sun sweeping promotion, it was the Nuggets' helplessness, both horizontal and vertical, and finally they chose to be shot by Paul. And on the day that Paul touched the floor of the West Final again, the middle shot, this art that has been lost again and again, is back again. Coach Malone chose to put up with Paul's other set of logic, perhaps derived from the conclusion of data experts: shooting is the least efficient way to score. It's not hard to understand that in 2019, for example, the average three-point shooting rate of the NBA is 35.5%, which means that the average value of each three-point shot is 1.07 points, and in the same year, the average mid-range shooting rate of the NBA is 40.5%, and the average value of each shot is 0.81 points. This logic swept the NBA in the second decade of the 21st century, and it was more efficient to shoot three-pointers than mid-range shots, especially bottom corner three-pointers, so if you can't dominate the basket, shoot three-pointers. The rocket, driven by data analysis, set a record for consecutive three-point shots in the 2017-2020 season, averaging more than 45 three-point shots per game in a single season. The Bucks, Jazz and other teams have also been involved in this wave, and the Jazz have averaged 16.8 three-pointers per game in the regular season this season, setting a new record previously set by the Rockets. Under the premise that the basket shot is the most efficient, the increase in the number of three-point shots naturally means a decline in the number of mid-range shots - in fact, people's fascination with long-range shots began long before the advent of the era of data analysis - so when did the middle shot start to become a lost skill? TheAthletic columnist Jason Jenks has studied this, but he can't pinpoint exactly what moment was lost. When the NCAA introduced the three-point line in 1986, the Los Angeles Times said about it, he wrote. Rick Barry mentioned it in 1988, and Reggie Miller said it in 1996. In 1997, the Pacers hired Larry Bird as manager and signed chris Mullin, which was seen as a good pair, because "the lost skill of the jump shot is the signature of the two men." That same year, then-Florida coach Billy Donovan lamented that now players only want to shoot three-pointers or dunks, and "nobody puts their energy into mid-range jumpers," he said. By 2001, the NBA still had at least 38-year-old Michael Jordan "a reminder of how the mid-range jumper became a lost craft." Then the NBA adopted the new rules that year, a reporter said, which was meant to attract more viewers and higher ratings by raising the score, and he again highlighted "the loss of the middle shot." Four years later, the New York Times revived the issue, when the NCAA, breakthroughs and three-pointers were all the rage, and Luthor Hyde (who fans who lived through Yao Ming's era must remember this person) led the University of Illinois to become the NCAA's number one seed, and his beautiful mid-range stop jumper attracted attention along with the team's 32-1 record. The New York Times article was titled: "Mid-range jump shots: a lost skill that can win races." " **** Winner is king. Whether the middle shot is important depends on whether it can bring the championship trophy. Spurs legend manager Popovich once said he "hated" the three-point line, "I don't think it's basketball, I think that's the circus's trick." Popovich won the NBA championship five times (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014) and was named best manager three times (2003, 2012, 2014), and during his 24 years as manager, the Spurs have been a fan of mid-range shooting. Leonard, who came out of the Spurs, is another example of using mid-range shooting to succeed. In the 2019 playoffs, the 76ers launched a tight defense against Leonard from outside the three-point line, and when he stepped into the three-point line, the 76ers quickly contracted the box. Leonard and the Raptors quickly adapted to this defensive strategy, and in the first four games of the series, he averaged 38 points per game with 65% of the shooting, which almost destroyed the 76ers and forced them to change their strategy. A 65 percent shooting percentage means 1.3 points per shot, which is much more efficient than three points. Popovich and the Spurs' opposition, the fat guy who has left the Rockets for the 76ers, who believes in and promotes magic ball theory, and the rockets he builds are barely shooting from mid-range, has been questioned a lot, with Barkley being the most direct: "He's one of those idiots who believe in data analysis." First of all, I've always believed that data analytics is garbage. Data analysis doesn't work at all, it's just garbage made up by smart people to participate in the game, and the reason is that they don't have athletic talent. Barkley seemed to be spraying for the sake of spraying, and Steve Cole's words were difficult to refute: "The middle shot has always been a very important weapon, and when I hear someone say that the middle shot is a bad choice, I can't help but laugh." What if it's a completely empty shot? I think it's a great choice. Durant, who was still playing for the Warriors at the time, also scoffed at the so-called data analysis, "Do you still have to look at the table when discussing basketball?" Because of Curry and Thompson, the Warriors are under the impression that the Warriors, like the Rockets, are a three-point shooting team, but in fact, in the 2017-18 season when the Rockets reached their peak, the Warriors, who were at the top of the offensive efficiency, were one of the teams that shot the most in the league (the first in the league in the number of mid-range goals). In the Warriors' offensive system, the mid-range shooting and three-pointers are a pair of good friends, and they coexist peacefully and complement each other, which is more evident in the Spurs in the following year. In the summer of 2018, Leonard ran away and the Spurs traded for DeRozan, a mid-range enthusiast who barely shoots three-pointers. With little change in the rest of the lineup, adding one such player would have seen spurs of offensive performance decline if the theory of higher three-pointer value would have slipped, but in fact, spurs, who ranked 17th in offensive efficiency the previous year, rose to No. 5 in 2018-19. They had not only DeRozan in their lineup, but also Aldridge, who ranked first and second in the number of mid-range shots that season, and they fired frequently from mid-range, forcing defenders to put more troops into the mid-range area, so that the space outside the three-point line came out: That year, the Spurs shot 39.2 percent from three points, ranking first in the league. The sun is in a similar situation this year. Paul and Booker are both masters of mid-range, and their presence has allowed the Suns to get plenty of opportunities outside the bottom-corner three-point line — this season, the Suns have averaged 4.2 bottom-corner three-pointers per game (third in the league) and shot 43.8 ́ (second in the league) — with a balanced firepower distribution, Paul touched the floor of the Western Conference again, but the experience was completely different compared to the last time. In the 2017-18 season, under the "coercion and inducement" of the Rockets management and coaching staff, Paul's three-point shot set a new career high. In the Western Conference Finals G7, he was absent due to injury, and when he watched the Rockets hit 27 consecutive three-pointers, he must have wanted to return to the court and use the mid-range that his partners disdained to use to unlock the Warriors' defense. Even after embracing the magic ball theory, Paul still averaged 3.1 shots per game that year, shooting 53.9 percent. Perhaps Durant's words are the best defense of the middle shot, he once said: "The middle shot is always part of my offensive means, I don't think it is a lost art, it's just that people will not pay so much attention to it for a while, but its importance has always been there." Author: Gu Yueqing