Move over Splash Bros: Cavs are best shooting team in the league

The Cleveland Cavaliers have a history of being an elite shooting team. The second edition of the LeBron James title contenders lit the world on fire surrounding The King with shooters, including setting the NBA record for the most 3-pointers in a playoff game when the Cavs poured in 25 3-pointers in a blowout win over the Atlanta Hawks in 2016.

Since James left, however, that magic has fizzled out. The Cavs have finished 20th, 21st, 29th and 20th in made 3-pointers over the past four seasons, and perhaps not coincidentally missed the playoffs in all four.

In the modern NBA, shooting often equals success; it’s why the 2015-19 Cavaliers succeeded around LeBron, and it’s the central component to the success of the Golden State Warriors dynasty. The Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, are the best-shooting backcourt in NBA history.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have improved as a 3-point shooting team this season. The Cavs are lighting opponents up and breaking records along the way.

If the Cavs wanted to be a true contender, they had to figure out how to improve as a shooting team. That’s easier said than done when you build your team around two seven-footers inside. Yet the Cavs have not only improved as a shooting team, they have excelled, and it has led to their 5-1 start and a spot among the NBA’s best teams. How impressive have this season’s Cavs been beyond the arc? They have been record-breaking, league-leading, and there is only more to come.

Cavs are best shooting team in the league: Record-breaking performances

The modern NBA is a shooter’s league, and players come into the draft better at that skill than ever before. You have to be to survive, as teams that can’t muster enough of a shooting threat get throttled on offense.

That’s why 27 times this season a player has hit at least six 3-pointers. That’s exactly the same amount in less than two weeks than the entire league hit in a full season 30 years ago in 1992-93. It’s a different league these days.

Yet even in the midst of a modern NBA obsessed with shooting, the Cavs are finding ways to stand out and break records. Just this weekend, they managed to set different 3-point records in consecutive games. That list of 27 players who have hit six 3-pointers this season? Three of them were Cavs playing in last night’s game. Donovan Mitchell, Kevin Love and Dean Wade combined for the most prolific shooting night in NBA history.

Two nights earlier the Cavs came back to beat the Boston Celtics at TD Garden, and they did so behind insane shooting performances from Mitchell and Caris LeVert. That night, in addition to other historic accomplishments, they were only the second team in NBA history to have a pair of 40-point scorers also hit five 3-pointers or more.

The Cavaliers’ barrage is coming from all angles, and it’s shattering records.

Cavs are best shooting team in the league: League-leading accuracy

The bedrock for building a team that excels at shooting is to build an offense that generates 3-point attempts. Only shooting when you are wide open can artificially boost your 3-point percentage but it doesn’t mean much in today’s game. To excel at shooting in a way that opens up the paint, you have to put willing shooters on the court and then run actions to free them up for shots.

Yet leading the league in 3-point shots also doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t knocking them down, too. To be a genuinely great shooting team, volume and accuracy must be wedded together. This year’s Cavs? Well, they’re genuinely great.

The Cavs are shooting a league-leading 42.7 percent on 3-pointers, which leads the league and by a significant margin. The 2nd-place New Orleans Pelicans are second at 40 percent, closer to Charlotte in 11th than to the Cavs. It’s early, certainly, but the Cavs are on fire from deep.

When you factor in that they are 11th in 3-point attempt rate (percentage of their shots that come from deep) that has led to the third-most made 3-pointers per game, behind only the Indiana Pacers and Boston Celtics. Who would have thought the team starting Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley would be leading the league in sharpshooting?

Cavs are best shooting team in the league: More to come

The wildest factor in the Cavs’ dominant shooting to start the season is this: it’s very likely they improve from here.

That doesn’t mean they will improve that 42.7 percent accuracy; it would be effectively tied with the 1996-97 Charlotte Hornets for the most accurate in NBA history, and they shot off of a shorter 3-point line. Even if that regresses down a bit, the Cavs are set up to only get more dangerous as a shooting team.

Last season, Darius Garland made 2.6 3-pointers per game on 38.3 percent efficiency, all while generating many of those shots by himself. Place him alongside Donovan Mitchell’s shot creation and he can be even better. Add him into what the Cavs are doing now and they get that much more dangerous from deep.

What has made this start so impressive is that it isn’t just one or two guys. This isn’t the Splash Brothers carrying a team without much spacing. The Cavs have shooting at every position and they are therefore able to put together lethal lineups. They are the only team in the league with four different players to reach six 3-pointers in a game, and the only one with five who have hit five. That diversity of shot-making will make this strength highly sustainable.

Yes, this Cavaliers team has a long way to go to be properly compared to the LeBron James teams that went to four-straight NBA Finals, or the sustained brilliance of the Splash Brothers and their four rings. Yet there is no denying the fact that the Cavs have turned a weakness into a strength, and opposing teams will feel the pressure to stop their hot shooting before it turns into an avalanche of 3-pointers blowing them out of the gym.