Three-point shooting will decide which side of history the Lakers end up on

When the basketball leaves a shooter’s hands they usually know when it’s going in.It feels soft off the fingertips, the rotation is spinning, the shot feels true. But lately for the Lakers, those shots have not been falling. In their first-round series against the Rockets, there’s one statistic that screams out amongst all the others: three-point shooting. The math is simple: whichever team shoots better from three, they win the game. For the Lakers, they started this series scorching hot from the perimeter. Game 1: Lakers at 52.6% from deep — win.Game 2: Lakers at 46.4% — win.Game 3: Lakers at 41.4% — win.Through the first three games, the Lakers efficiency from beyond the arc changed the geometry of the game.But in Games 4 and 5 of the series, when those three-point shots weren’t falling, everything collapsed. Game 4: Lakers at 22.7% — loss.Game 5: Lakers at 25.9% — loss.In the two losses the Lakers shot a combined 12 for 49 from three.

An average of 24%.That’s not a variance.

That’s a problem. In the first three games, Houston shot an average of 28.5% from three.However, in the last two games, the Rockets have not only shot at a higher clip of 37.5%, they’ve more than doubled up the Lakers in made threes overall with 26 combined made threes..“You gotta give them a lot of credit.They made shots tonight, including some guys who normally don’t make threes,” said J.J.

Redick after Game 5.“We just couldn’t make shots.

We had some good looks from three that didn’t go down.”One stat that hasn’t changed all series is the significantly more shots the Rockets have attempted compared to the Lakers.Houston has attempted 69 more field goals than Los Angeles across the five games in the series.

That’s not a typo. That’s what happens when you turn the ball over as much as the Lakers have, including more than 20 turnovers in Games 3 and 4.The Rockets also average nearly 15 offensive rebounds per game.They are the best off...