NBA teams break league-wide 3-point record for 6th consecutive year

NBA players are digging the long ball more and more.

Teams combined to break a league-wide record for the sixth year in a row Friday night courtesy of the 23,749th made 3-pointer, surpassing the 2016-17 total. With 93 games remaining, players are drilling threes at more than eight percent above last year's pace.

Houston Rockets superstar James Harden leads the way with 250 threes on 687 attempts, with his teammate Eric Gordon ranking second in attempts (586) and fifth in makes (212). The No. 1 seed Rockets hoist a league-high 42.4 threes per game, drilling 15.5 (36.5 percent), and need to hit just five more as a team to break the single-season record of 1,181 they set last year. To put that number in context, the Golden State Warriors were the first team to crack 1,000 made treys in a campaign just two years ago.

"We all like to get out there, shoot a lot of threes, spread the floor, and try to move the ball as much as you can," Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni told The Associated Press. "Everybody is more or less the same ... with the same outline. Just get it done in different ways."

Two-thirds of teams have either set or are on pace to set franchise records for made 3-pointers this year, with more players (91 percent of the league) taking and making them, as 3-point accuracy has increased about 1.5 percent over the past three years.