The Warriors finished their New Year's January journey with a record of 39 wins and 11 losses.

It was an extremely tough schedule.

But during the absences of key players like Davis due to injuries, Mike Malone fully demonstrated his coaching talents.

Through personnel rotation adjustments, tactical optimization, and the "Prioritize" plan set before the regular season...

After this schedule, which many fans initially thought might cause the Warriors to fall behind, the Warriors successfully remained in the upper half of the Western Conference.

Moreover, the Warriors are only 2 wins behind the Phoenix Suns, who currently rank first in the West.

"Prioritize"—this is the code name for the strategic plan set by Qin Yue, based on Malone's pre-season labeling of different games to determine which ones the Warriors would be fully committed to and which they could slack off in.

Furthermore, it must be clarified...

Although in some games, the Warriors might choose to slack off, it does not mean they would intentionally lose those games.

The labels pre-set by Malone only decided the Warriors' level of commitment on different nights.

Moreover, on nights when the Warriors get provoked...

These pre-set labels could be nullified due to the on-court players being angered.

Like the Warriors' game against the Spurs on January 18.

After the first three quarters, as the Warriors were trailing the Spurs by as much as 19 points, Mike Malone was already thinking about the tactics for the next game.

But during the interval interview, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich suddenly said: "As long as the officiating is normal, our defense can fully handle the Warriors' offense."

This statement completely enraged every champion player among the Warriors.

Thus, a classic "big fire shutdown" was staged at Oracle Arena.

In the fourth quarter, under the leadership of Qin Yue, the frenzied Warriors attempted 17 shots from the perimeter, hitting 10 of them.

10 three-pointers in a single quarter.

In the face of these unreasonable and even illogical three-pointers, how could the Spurs' proud steel defense hold up?

Final score, 104 to 112.

After leading the Warriors to turn the tables in the final quarter, Qin Yue said in a post-game interview: "As long as the officiating is normal, our offense can crush any defense!"

In response, Popovich was very unhappy.

Popovich's dissatisfaction stemmed from the fact that the Warriors hit too many scientifically improbable threes in the fourth quarter.

This new season, as the average number of three-point attempts per game for teams has increased...

While teams have become more appreciative of three-point shots, they have gradually realized that in the current era, the reasonable number of three-point attempts should be around twenty to twenty-five per game.

Too few three-point attempts cannot alleviate the offensive pressure when breaking through a defensive wall.

But too many three-point attempts....

That's simply gambling with fate.

Especially this season, to maintain a certain level of competitiveness, the league tacitly allowed teams to use aggressive defensive strategies in some games.

Unless you have a shooter who can freely take shots against defenders and make baskets consistently at an over 35% three-point shooting percentage, blindly increasing three-point attempts is likely to be counterproductive.

As someone who has been there, Qin Yue knows clearly that there are still too few quality shooters in the current era.

When the three-point line was first invented, the NBA had never gone through the offense-focused, defense-free 80s without experiencing it.

But even in that era, when teams regularly scored over 110 points per game, three-pointers were merely seen as a gimmicky technique.

As for the reason?

Of course, because when the three-point line was introduced, how many players could guarantee that they could consistently make baskets from a long distance with a relatively stable success rate?

Just like basketball tactics that will never go obsolete, it just needs to meet the right person.

Until the mid-90s, more and more quality shooters began to emerge...

Especially after the Houston Rockets stunned everyone by winning the championship with an average of 22 three-point attempts per game①, people gradually realized that three-pointers could be a winning trick to help a team succeed.

(① During the 94/95 season playoffs, the Rockets team averaged 22 three-point attempts per game, with a shooting percentage of 39.1%.)

Compared to the roaring 80s, the NBA in the mid-90s was in the era of iron-blood basketball.

Undoubtedly, it was that year's "never underestimate the heart of a champion" Houston Rockets that led the first wave of the three-point trend.

And in the early 21st century, with the NBA's introduction of zone defense, to break through the extremely frustrating defensive walls of various teams, the current NBA has also reached an era needing reform and evolution.

Since the Warriors have already used more three-point attempts to prove that three-pointers are the key to breaking through a defensive wall, various teams will naturally follow suit.

But with tactical follow-ups...

The current NBA is facing another problem:

There are too few quality shooters.

In the free agent market, the three-point shooters who can hit with high accuracy under the current level of competition have long been snapped up by various teams.

This shortage fully demonstrates how much the current NBA needs quality shooters.

This season's Warriors are the best example.

As the only team in the 06/07 season, which averages over twenty-five three-point attempts and is ranked among the top five in the league's final standings...

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