This specific playoffs changed a lot of people's perceptions as far as basketball analytics

and whether it's gone too far or whether it's even a winning strategy at the end of the day,

which obviously I have my own thoughts on.

It's May 2018 in Houston, Texas, the Rockets Warriors' Game 7 Western Conference

Final Showdown.

This is Remember That Game, the podcast about sporting events that take you on a journey

and maybe chart the path of the zeitgeist.

I'm your host Thomas Emerick, and my guest is Joseph George, who provides sports analysis

for silver bulletin and basketball analytics for the NBA G League's Mexico City Capitanez.

Houston was a fellow city of Mexico before Texas declared independence in 1836, long before

the advent of the three-point line, long before Houston clanks 37-3s in Game 7 here, May

2018.

They hired Darry out of the Celtics front office in 06 and elevate him to general manager in 07,

the first quaint guy GM, and he leads them out of the wilderness, though it would be another five years before they land James Harden.

They and the Golden State Warriors unleashed the new meta in the 2010s.

Did it seem like Mori already had the ethos of threes and spacing in mind

for the rockets prior to the hearted trade?

Yeah, for sure. I think if you look at the early rockets,

the 2007 to 2009 rockets, they still, I think,

were in the middle of maybe three-point shooting compared to where they were going to be 10

years later. But when you actually look at the way that they played defense, they consistently

held other teams to the lowest three-point rates and forced them to take the longest twos.

...