The Warriors score 51 in the first quarter

The also allowed 38 in that quarter!

NBA scoring has gone crazy. The scores are starting to look like the 1960s again. Look at those scores in yesterdays’s recap. There are a bunch of teams in the 130s and 140s, topping out at 149 for the Sixers.

Pro basketball teams averaged more than 118 points per game in the early run-and-gun 60s, but the game had completely changed by the 1998-1999 season, when the average dropped below 92, and very little had changed by 2011-2012, when the average was a mere 96.

But change was in the air. Ever since that year the average has been rising, and it is now above 110 for the first time since the mid 80s. The change has been driven by 3-point sharpshooting. In just the past seven seasons, the number of successful three-pointers per team per game has risen from 6 to 11, while the number of successful two-pointers has stayed steady at 30. (The number of two-point ATTEMPTS has dropped, but COMPLETIONS have not. The reason? The newly accelerated three-point game spreads out the defense, thus making it easier for the two-point shooters to find an opening. Over the same period described, the two-point shooting percentage has increased from 48% to 52%.)