Friday, December 10th, 2021

  The Opening Tip

• Rutgers basketball had the highlight of the night 

• How do the Heat keep finding these random contributors?

• The Rockets are on the least likely seven-game win streak in NBA history

Tonight's best games

 1. Steph Curry strolls into the 3-point record   

Steph Curry is either going to claim the all-time 3-pointers made record tomorrow, on Monday or on Tuesday. He’s nine from tying Ray Allen and 10 from owning it by himself.Our best guess: He gets five or six Saturday vs. the 76ers, takes Monday’s game in Indiana off, then goes all out on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, where he famously plays absurdly well, including a 54-point game in 2013. 

• Curry is having an MVP-type season at the age of 33. And, while 3-point shooting is down league-wide -- the NBA’s current 3-point average (.348) is its worst since 2003-04 -- he’s making 41.3 percent of his 3s on 13.3 attempts from deep a game. 

• You might not be a huge fan of his, but you must save a place for him among the all-time, all-time greats. 

There are so many stats that capture his revelatory 3-point shooting, but perhaps none more so than his makes-to-games-played ratio compared to the other members on the all-time 3-point list. Check it out:

By the time he breaks the record, he will have played 500-plus less games than Allen, who was the consensus best shooter ever before Curry found his groove.[READ: Steph Curry’s remarkable rise to three-point king]

 2. Daily GIF: Rutgers, FTW      

Ron Harper Jr. hit this insane buzzer-beater last night to top No. 1 Purdue, which was playing its first game at No. 1 in school history.It was also the Scarlet Knights’ first win over a No. 1 team in program history.

 3. Trivia time  

Including the regular season and playoffs, who hit the most 3-pointers in the 1980s?Hint: Yep, it’s him

4. The Heat found another one of these guys  

If you watched Miami’s win over Milwaukee on Wednesday, you saw someone named Max Strus hit four 3s and drop 16 points. 

You may have two questions:

1. Who is Max Strus?

2. How do the Heat keep getting these guys? 

Strus, like Duncan Robinson*, is a knock-down shooter who went undrafted and started his college career below the Division I level. And here he is, like Robinson, plucked from the scrap heap and into Miami’s rotation.In the modern NBA, where teams have tentacles in every corner of the scouting world, Miami continues to differentiate itself in the hidden gem department.*Robinson actually is not so good this year. Check out his shooting numbers.

 5.  Quick Hits 

• The Rockets are currently on a seven-game win streak, which immediately succeeded a 15-game win streak

• Here’s a trailer for HBO’s 1980s Lakers series 

• The stale Pacers are finally copping to a rebuild

• The Wolves lost to the Jazz on Wednesday then ragged on Rudy Gobert

• Kyrie Irving would take a ‘plant-based vaccine’ 

• Solomon Hill is always ragging on the Kings

• This clip of MJ explaining how he got his height will get you every time

 6.  Reads 

• The Pacers don’t know what they have in Myles Turner [The Ringer]

• Kyle Kuzma’s contributions to the Wizards are no joke [SB Nation]

• Zach Lowe’s 10 things [ESPN]