2024-03-24 12:29:36
Daniel Gafford’s shooting streak finally stopped at 33.
If you haven’t been paying attention to Daniel Gafford’s game numbers lately, you may have missed that the Dallas Mavericks big man is close to breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA record for consecutive field goals made.
Chamberlain hit 35 consecutive field goals in 1967.
In the Mavericks’ game against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, Gafford made 5 of 5 shots from the field and has made 33 consecutive field goals in the past five games. Unfortunately, his record came to an end on Thursday when the Mavericks faced the Thunder when Gafford failed to hit his first shot.
DANIEL GAFFORD MISSES A SHOT ðŸ˜
His streak of 33 consecutive FGs is the 2nd longest in league history behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 35 pic.twitter.com/X1AHO08lRU
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 15, 2024
Before he missed that shot, Gafford, while not a household name, actually had a unique skill set that could challenge and possibly break this particular record held by Wilt Chamberlain.
First of all, if you want to make 35 consecutive shots, your offensive style cannot be biased towards jump shots. Gafford is definitely not a player who relies on his jump shot. As of Thursday (3/14), 366 of his 376 shots came from the penalty area, and the vast majority of them came from the four-foot paint area, and his shooting rate exceeded 77%. According to NBA.com, he only attempted 69 non-layup or dunk shots all season.
To put it simply: Gafford chooses his shots very carefully, and these shots are almost all close-range opportunities, so he rarely takes the shot. In fact, Gafford is expected to break the best field goal percentage record in NBA history.
Among all players with at least 2,000 field goal attempts, DeAndre Jordan’s 67.4% shooting percentage is the best ever. As of now, Gafford has taken 1,527 shots and has not yet reached the 2,000 threshold, but his current shooting percentage is 70.6%.
Photo credit: Getty Images
A nearly seven-foot-tall player who can stir things up at the rim, paired with Luka Doncic (one of the best alley-oop, pick-and-roll attackers in the league), and Kyrie Irving (who creates many of the same offensive opportunities as Luka) gives Gafford a Opportunities to become more efficient. In this game against the Warriors, all five of Gafford’s points were assisted by Luka or Irving.
For any of the Mavericks’ big men, their job is simple and violent. As long as Gafford attacks the basket, whether it’s an alley-oop or a drop after the pick-and-roll, a low post containment or a block, an air cut or a rush for offensive rebounds, he will almost always score with a dunk or layup.
“My playing philosophy is definitely to maintain consistency in my game,” Gafford said after going 9-for-9 from the field in Monday’s game against the Chicago Bulls. “I have a mentality of wanting to get everything done, no matter who’s in the way. There was still no one in front of me. No matter what, it was either a dunk or a layup.”
In fact, 17 of Gafford’s 33 consecutive field goals were dunks, including five against the Warriors, and 31 of them had at least one foot in the paint (the only two that didn’t were about six inches away) Location). And maybe five of them were slightly pressured by the defense. He needs some space to jump on the way, but basically, we’re talking about easy scoring chances.
Daniel Gafford has made 33 shots in a row, 1 away from Wilt Chamberlains all-time record.
Here’s all 33.
pic.twitter.com/Hkso6y28DZ— MavsMuse (@MavsMuse) March 14, 2024
There is no doubt that Chamberlain is the holder of many NBA records, some of which are almost difficult to break: such as 100 points in a single game, averaging more than 50 points per game in a season, averaging 37.6 points per game in his rookie season, and scoring more than 70 points in a single game six times. 32 times with 60 points or more in a single game (including four consecutive games in 1962)…the list of records seems endless.
But 35 hits in a row is a pretty impressive record, and again, while Gafford doesn’t sound like the most likely candidate to break Chamberlain’s record, he’s certainly close.
If Gafford of the Washington Wizards is a good offensive player in the paint (according to Cleaning the Glass statistics, in his first 45 games with the Wizards, more than 78% of his non-garbage time shots came from the paint) , then in the Dallas Mavericks, he became a more cautious scorer, with more than 87% of his shots coming from the paint. Being able to come close to matching Chamberlain’s numbers is not something many players can talk about, but Gafford is one of them.
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