Duke basketball product Luke Kennard makes NBA history
On Friday night, Memphis Grizzlies guard Luke Kennard became the first NBA player in history to drain 10 threes in a game while shooting better than 90 percent from the field. The Duke basketball alum went 10-for-11 — all from downtown — posting a game-high 30 points in a 151-114 victory over the visiting Houston Rockets.
And the sharpshooter did so in only 24 minutes off the bench.
Moreover, Kennard's 10 made threes marked a career-high and a franchise record. He added three assists and one steal.
Meanwhile, Memphis' other Duke basketball product, 26-year-old guard Tyus Jones, scored 11 points in 23 minutes on the floor as a fill-in starter for Ja Morant. The 2015 Blue Devil national champ came up one assist shy of a double-double, and he committed only one turnover in the process.
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But back to Kennard's sizzling campaign. With only nine games remaining on the Grizzlies' regular-season slate, the 26-year-old lefty, a 2017 late lottery pick, looks like a shoo-in to finish with the league's highest 3-point percentage for the second straight year; last season, he shot a then-career-high 44.9 percent from deep.
Luke Kennard is shooting 54.7 percent beyond the arc across 17 games since a February trade sent him to the Grizzlies from the Los Angeles Clippers. That has bumped his season 3-point percentage to a new career-high of 48.6 percent, well ahead of the Boston Celtics' Al Horford, whose 45.7 percent is second-best.
The Memphis Grizzlies (46-27), sitting No. 2 in the Western Conference standings and only 3.0 games back of the Denver Nuggets, now have a day off before a road bout against the Atlanta Hawks at 6 p.m. ET Sunday.
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