Dallas Mavericks: Analysis of shots for the first quarter of the season

The Dallas Mavericks are pushing for the playoffs after the first quarter of the season, but how are they shooting? Here is an in-depth look at that.

The Dallas Mavericks and the rest of the NBA are a quarter of the way through the 2018-19 season (when you read, it will be even more). Teams have played more than 20 games, so we can make the first conclusions that will not fall under the magic of over/under reaction.

After a less than stellar start to the season from the Mavs, fans started talking about the possibility of the team keeping their 2019 draft pick. However, a fantastic winning streak from Dallas has brought them above .500 and in the playoff race in the Western Conference.

In the first 21 games of the season, Dallas made 1,804 shots. We will try to analyze them in general feature.

Shots by distance

First, here is a look at the histogram of shots based on the distance.

As you can see in the histogram, most of the shots are in the zero to one foot and 25 feet area. This is not surprising because 72.39 percent of the shots Dallas has taken are from distances that can be attributed to the category “Rim or 3” (zero to three feet and 22-plus feet).

At the same time, the Mavericks try to keep up with the trends in the current NBA and minimize the number of their shots from the middle distance. For example, in the range of five to 21 feet which includes short and long mid-range shots, only from two distances of the 17 (six and ten feet) is the frequency of shots above two percent.