Buddy Hield scored 9-for-11 from 3-point range, setting an NBA record for a Game 7 against the Houston Rockets.
The present-day NBA has been defined by the emergence and efficiency of 3-point shooting, and that has been extremely noticeable during the 2025 NBA playoffs. It’s difficult to fully distill wins and losses by just one statistical category, but the numbers show how important 3-point shooting has been to team success so far in the playoffs.
Let’s take a look at Sunday’s games, for example. The Golden State Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets by a 103-89 score in Game 7 of the first round of the Western Conference and did it on the strength of their 3-point shooting. The numbers don’t lie. The Warriors went 18-for-43 from 3-point range, hitting 41.9 percent of their attempts, with Buddy Hield stealing the show after going 9-for-11 from deep.
Meanwhile, the Rockets went 6-for-18, good for a 33.3% In other words, the Warriors made as many 3s as the Rockets attempted. In today’s game, it’s nearly impossible to be that far behind the opponent in made 3s and still win. It’s a big reason why the Rockets are in offseason mode and the Warriors are looking ahead to the Western Conference semifinals.
The same thing happened in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Indiana Pacers. The top-seeded Cavaliers, who cruised to a sweep in round 1, found out the hard way what it looks like when a team both struggles to hit 3s and struggles to defend the 3. The Cavs went 9-for-38 from 3-point range (23.7%), while the Pacers made 19 of their 36 attempts (52.8%). The result? The Pacers secured a 121-112 road win and grabbed the lead in the series while stealing home-court advantage.
These are only two examples, but that has been an ongoing trend in the 2025 playoffs so far. Only seven teams have shot under 30% from 3-point range so far in the postseason and have won the game, with the most notable case being the Minnesota Timberwolves in their 103-96 win over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 5 of their series on April 30. During that game, the Timberwolves went 7-for-47 from deep (14.9%) yet still found a way to win. But that has been an anomaly rather than a trend. In the 44 games so far in the playoffs, 29 of the winning teams have shot at least 35% from 3-point range, and 15 have made at least 40% of their attempts.
Furthermore, teams that have posted a plus-5 differential in 3-pointers made have gone 16-4, while teams that have posted a -3 differential in the same category own a 10-34 record. It’s clear that making 3s is a huge driver for team success on a night-to-night basis.
