{"id":89770,"date":"2026-01-17T23:47:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/89770\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T23:47:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:47:16","slug":"t-j-mcconnell-becomes-second-player-in-nba-history-to-record-3000-assists-off-the-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/89770\/","title":{"rendered":"T.J. McConnell becomes second player in NBA history to record 3,000 assists off the bench"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indiana Pacers point guard T.J. McConnell became the second player in NBA history to record 3,000 assists off the bench Friday night.<\/p>\n

McConnell, a Pittsburgh native and Chartiers Valley High School graduate, reached the milestone<\/a> with two assists in the first quarter of Indiana’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans.<\/p>\n

The only other player to reach 3,000 assists off the bench is Lou Williams, who played 17 seasons in the NBA from 2005 to 2022. Williams recorded 3,262 assists as a reserve and added 527 as a starter. He was a three-time NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award winner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Friday’s game, McConnell now has 3,007 assists off the bench. He’s one of just five players to reach career marks of 3,000+ points, 2,000+ assists, 1,500+ rebounds, and 500+ steals as a reserve.<\/p>\n

“[I’m] just very grateful, very blessed to be in this position,” McConnell said after the game. “To be in year 11, and I mean Lou Williams, when you think about guys that come off the bench, him and Jamal Crawford, [Manu] Ginobili, are the guys you really think about. So to even be mentioned with people like that, it’s an honor.”<\/p>\n

McConnell finished Friday night’s game with nine assists as the Pacers beat the Pelicans 127-119.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been fortunate to play with some great players, been in some great locker rooms, and [I’m] just thankful for each and every teammate I’ve played with. They’ve got to make the shots, so this is about them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana Pacers point guard T.J. McConnell became the second player in NBA history to record 3,000 assists off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[44452,4794,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-89770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-nba","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}