San Francisco Chronicle - NBA teams scoring less than ever

By Ron Kroichick - San Francisco Chronicle

Down here in the NBA's netherworld, the pace is slow and the scores are low. Put it this way: Tracy McGrady's 52 points Friday night were one fewer than all the Denver Nuggets managed in their loss to Detroit on Nov. 16.

The Nuggets, who host the Warriors tonight, are the poster boys for offensive futility in a league where scoring continues to drop. Explanations range from improved defense to sagging shooting skills to salary-cap reality. No matter the reason, the numbers are striking.

Ten years ago, 25 of the NBA's 27 teams averaged 100 points or more per game. This season, three of the league's 29 teams average 100-plus. The image of athletic stars soaring to the hoop often gives way to the reality of players walking the ball upcourt and clanging shots off the rim.

No team illustrates this trend better than Denver, which is averaging a league-low 81.8 points per game. The Nuggets have scored fewer than 70 points in a game six times this season. They twice have scored 22 in a half. They once scored three points in a quarter.

That happened Nov. 27 in San Antonio, where since-waived Kenny Satterfield made a short jump shot barely more than a minute into the game. The Nuggets added only one free throw the rest of the first quarter. They missed their final 14 shots, prompting coach Jeff Bzdelik to say afterward, "I had more fun getting my four wisdom teeth pulled."

This is the underbelly of the NBA, the antithesis of McGrady, Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson putting on an electrifying show. Not much is electrifying about Denver, which made a conscious effort to clear cap space, use young players and, hopefully, improve through free agency in the offseason.

The Nuggets are not alone in their perpetually frustrating quest to put the ball in the basket; Miami and Toronto also average less than 90 points per game. On the same day Denver scored 53, the second-lowest total in NBA history,

the Heat had only 65 in a loss to Washington.

This creates some ugly television viewing for hoop addicts such as Jerry Reynolds, Sacramento's director of player personnel. Reynolds saw plenty of hideous basketball in his days as the Kings' coach in the 1980s, but he keeps coming back for more.

"You have to remind yourself both teams are trying to run an offense," Reynolds said. "I kind of think you can get 70 points by crossing halfcourt and drop-kicking the ball."

Reynolds recalled watching one Miami-Cleveland game earlier this season. Before long, he realized there were better options on his remote control.

"I found myself thinking it would be much more beneficial to watch reruns of 'Seinfeld,' " Reynolds said. "I thought, 'I can learn more from George Costanza than I can from this.' "

TOLBERT'S RANT

The dearth of scoring sent Tom Tolbert on a radio rant earlier this season. Tolbert, once a player in the league and now an ABC/ESPN television analyst and KNBR radio host, offered an interesting theory on the roots of this offensive decline.

For all the talk about Detroit's Bad Boys making defense fashionable in the late 1980s, the Houston Rockets also changed the landscape. The Rockets won back-to-back championships largely by slowing down their offense and dumping the ball into Hakeem Olajuwon, who either shot or kicked the ball back out for a 3-pointer.

In other words, Houston's offense seldom involved more than two players. As teams around the league began to mimic the Rockets, by Tolbert's thinking, the game slowed and the number of shots taken dropped.

Average shots per team, already starting to dip each year, plunged from 6, 924 to 6,682 the year after Houston's title in 1993-94. It fell all the way to 6,503 in 1996-97, though it has inched up slightly since then (6,664 last season).

RISE IN 3-POINT ATTEMPTS

This decrease coincided with a rise in 3-point shot attempts, as more and more teams let fly from long range. As Tolbert put it, the bottom line consists of worse shots, worse shooters, fewer shots and better defense.

Not exactly a recipe for high-scoring thrillers.

"Nobody runs anymore," Tolbert said. "I don't understand why teams can't push the ball and pull it back out if nothing's there. A lot of coaches just want to control things on the offensive end."

Therein lies one significant factor in this equation. The enduring image of Miami, for instance, is coach Pat Riley stalking the sideline, barking out a set play and bringing the game's flow to a grinding halt.

It's quite a contrast to the free-wheeling, fastbreak days of the 1980s, when coaches often encouraged their teams to run with abandon. Riley and his Magic Johnson-led Lakers did exactly that, as did Denver and then-coach Doug Moe.

The Nuggets averaged an NBA-record 126.5 points per game in 1981-82. They scored 100 or more points in every game that season; this year's Nuggets have scored 100 in only four of their 56 games.

Moe, now a consultant with the Nuggets, accepted poor defense if it meant a high-powered offense. He knows coaches today are unwilling to make that sacrifice.

"Our tempo was so fast, we'd break down both defenses," Moe said of those wild '80s days. "Now coaches are slowing the game down and defenses are better every year, so I don't see the scoring going up anytime soon."

No question, NBA coaches emphasize defense more than they did 20 years ago. Most experts (though not Moe) say players lack the shooting skills they once had, partly because many leave college early or skip it entirely. Salary-cap restrictions bring younger, cheaper, greener players onto NBA rosters.

These are all factors in the decline of scoring, all reasons Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo approached Commissioner David Stern in January 2001 seeking change. Colangelo soon formed a special committee, and three months later, the league approved new rules designed to open up the game and increase scoring.

ZONE'S EFFECT

The most controversial rule change allowed NBA teams to play zone defense. Colangelo expected the zone to encourage teams to run fastbreaks and involve more players in the halfcourt offense, because defenses more easily could double-team the top threats.

So far, the zone has proved more advantageous for defenses. Scoring climbed slightly in the first season with the new rules (2001-02), but it since has dropped below 2000-01 levels.

"We knew it was going to take time for coaches to adjust," Colangelo said. "But I think the game is better today because we don't have isolation. . . . I think scoring will evolve and start to increase, but we're not going to see it year-by-year."

Riley disagreed, to the point where he hopes the league reconsiders and again bans the zone.

"I think the biggest mistake the league made is to allow zone defense," Riley said. "You don't have enough time to attack it. Good zones are going to confuse offenses even more and force them into jump shots."

Few teams have even bothered to play zone against Denver. The Nuggets feature only one reliable offensive threat, forward Juwan Howard. They are so young, their roster includes six players who were born in the 1980s.

Denver's early-season scoring woes prompted Bzdelik, a rookie head coach, to promise some Denver sportswriters he would take them to dinner when the Nuggets scored 100 points and won. That did not happen until Feb. 4, in the team's 48th game of the season.

There are modest signs of progress, such as a recent four-game stretch of 90 or more points. Still, the hazards of rebuilding, and the reality of today's defensive-minded NBA, are haunting the Nuggets.

"We were concerned way back in August about our ability to score," said Denver associate head coach John MacLeod, a longtime head coach in Phoenix and Dallas. "Unfortunately, our fears have become reality."

CHART (1): HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?
The Denver Nuggets are averaging only 81.8 points per game this season,  putting them on pace to set the NBA single-season record. Here are the lowest per-game averages since the 24-second shot clock was introduced in 1954:

(x) - Lockout-shortened 50-game season
Note: Miami is averaging 85.2 points per game this season

CHART (2): OFFENSIVE SLIDE
Scoring has dropped steadily in the NBA over the past two decades. Here are selected, league-wide offensive numbers from 20 years ago, 10 years ago and this season:

(x) - through Saturday's games