Tomase: Sam Hauser is one debatable call away from 2-point perfection

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Celtics forward Sam Hauser has become a second-unit standout with his incredible 3-point marksmanship, but one close play has denied him a perfect shooting percentage from inside the arc.

Hauser's highlight reel is full of splashes from distance, his high-arcing bombs ripping the net if they touch anything at all. He's shooting .485 on 3-pointers and just made 5 of 6 in a blowout of the Hawks on Wednesday.

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Less noticeable is his two-point prowess. Hauser has only taken nine such shots all season (versus 68 3-pointers) and he has made eight of them. Most have come on hard cuts, but he has dropped a couple of sweet floaters, too:

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In any event, a check of the game logs shows one miss, and it came Nov. 4 in a win over the Bulls. Judge for yourself whether this should've gone in the books as a Goran Dragic block.

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Derrick Jones clearly strips Hauser as he corrals the loose ball off a Malcolm Brogdon drive. Dragic, meanwhile, is in the vicinity of the play, but otherwise doesn't make contact. He's a crafty veteran, but not that crafty.

By rule, a shot can be blocked on the way up, as Miami's Gabe Vincent proved in Game 1 of the East Conference Finals last year when he was credited with three blocks, including two on Robert Williams, all of which came on strips during the gathering process.

Hauser has clearly started his shooting motion, albeit only by milliseconds. So by the letter of the law, a blocked shot is the right call, although it should go to Jones, not Dragic.

Have I devoted Zapruder film levels of scrutiny to this one highlight? Yes. Is that a good use of my time? Probably not.

But it's the difference between a perfect shooting percentage from inside the arc and one miss. Hauser will have to settle for .889.

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