Aussies in NBA: Ingles leads league in 3P% after Kings win
No one certainly would have predicted this, back when Joe Ingles was going through a bad shooting patch in the Olympics, and overlooked by Serbia in the semi-finals. As the NBA season's progressed, Ingles has shown his shooting stroke more and more, and today's victory against the Sacramento Kings only made the message clearer: the shots are going to keep falling.
Jingles, who was named to the start today, hit 3 of 4 from downtown, taking 11 points for the night. It was another Jingles-esque performance from the swingman, as he had 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and a steal (box score) to complement the scoring. Aussie teammate Dante Exum --who also started alongside Ingles-- had 5 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals in 22 minutes today.
Today's hot shooting put Joe Ingles in a surprising position among the NBA's statistical league leaders in the regular season so far: Ingles now leads the league in three-point accuracy (h/t to The Pick and Roll's own Matt Hickey for spotting this).
The Utah Jazz swingman is ahead of the pack at 48.4% with 30 three-point makes, with the next closest being Channing Frye at 48.1%, 37 makes.
Here's how the Golden State Warriors' sharpshooting trio rank:
Kevin Durant is shooting 41.2% (27th, 47 makes)
Stephen Curry at 39.5% (37th, 92 makes), and
Klay Thompson at 38.0% (49th, 70 makes).
Meanwhile, fellow Aussie Patty Mills is splashing 43.9% of his treys (14th, 50 makes), including an efficient 4 of 7 from downtown in the Spurs' win against the Nets today (game report).
How does the NBA qualify league leaders?
According to the NBA's qualifying rules for statistical league leaders, the current 3P% leader must have made 82 3-point field goals over the course of a season. Since the regular season has not quite ended yet, the criteria is instead shrunk to a proportion of made three-pointers, according to the number of games played so far.
Full highlights
https://youtu.be/2X9XKt3bC68