The NBA’s first-ever In-Season Tournament games kicked off on Friday in an exciting fashion, but there are still a few kinks that need to be ironed out. The home teams debuted new floors for the occasion and the lines weren’t quite regulation at Ball Arena ahead of the matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and Denver Nuggets, according to Grant Williams. The Mavericks forward realized that something was off when his shot was off during the morning shootaround.
“I’m like, ‘There’s no way this is supposed to be this far,’” Williams told reporters. “Everything was short. Plus, I could just tell from the perception, either it was the blue court and it’s messing with my eyes in the empty arena, or this line is long.”
The season is young and Williams is converting 52.8% of his long-range attempts through five games for one of the league’s top shooting teams so far. The court was fixed before tip-off and Williams sank three of the Mavericks’ 17 triples.
“You could tell the line is still kind of marked on the court, so it’s going to be kind of weird,” Williams said. “But we’ll make it work. Sometimes, imperfections happen so you’ve got to adjust.”
The Mavericks seemed to adjust just fine and hit 40.5% of their shots from distance. The Nuggets were simply a little better and made 43.3% of theirs in a 125-114 win. It’s unclear whether this problem will arise again throughout the tournament, but the league could opt to do a little less moving forward to avoid confusion.