When the Three Won’t Fall

Watching Beijing X-Team’s Yang Zheng clank three consecutive triples in the Streetball King tournament had me reaching for my advanced stats spreadsheet. As someone who once charted Kobe’s 81-point game frame by frame, I know a forced shot when I see one. The GIF shows textbook defensive closeouts by Unity - hands high, feet set - while Yang kept firing like it was an empty gym shootaround.

Second Quarter Collapse

X-Team entered Q2 down just 2 points (18-16), but Yang’s 0/3 three-point barrage coincided with:

• 4 fast break points surrendered
• 2 turnovers on lazy passes
• Defensive rating ballooning to 112.3

My Synergy Sports data tracker flagged this as their worst 3-minute stretch of the game. For reference, that’s worse than the Lakers’ third-quarter meltdowns… and we all know how those end.

The Analytics Don’t Lie

Crunching the numbers reveals why this was tactical suicide:

When your volume shooter is below average in every metric, maybe stop treating him like Steph Curry?

What They Should’ve Done

1. Drive-and-Kick: Unity’s bigs were slow hedging screens - attack the rim to collapse defense
2. Post Play: Their center had 3 fouls; punish them down low
3. Zone Offense: Unity played man-to-man for 8 straight possessions without adjusting

Instead, we got hero ball. Somewhere, Gregg Popovich just spilled his wine.

Final Thoughts

Down just 4 at halftime (34-30), X-Team isn’t dead yet. But if they keep ignoring analytics for highlight attempts, they’ll join my “Stat Sheet Nightmares” hall of shame alongside Westbrook’s worst OKC days. Ball don’t lie.