The rise of the three-point jump shot in the NBA has been well documented. Over the past five regular seasons the average team three-point attempt rate has spiked from 24.3% to 33.7%, per basketball-reference. The analytically driven Houston Rockets actually attempted more three-pointers than two-pointers this past season!
In this three-point happy league, analyzing an individual game after removing the effects of “hot” or “cold” three-point shooting can be very informative. It allows us to see how well the teams played in all aspects of the game except three-point accuracy. We can strip aside a particularly unusual shooting performance and observe the “fundamentals” of a game, in a certain sense. This is what Three-Pointer Independent Game Score (abbreviated as 3-PIGS) does.