Observations on Phoenix Suns at Boston Celtics, Jan 19, 2009

1. Our seats are nine rows behind the visitor’s bench, even with the baseline, great place to watch pre-game, on-court preparations by the players. The Suns warmed up at that hoop before the game. Nash stood in the far corner talking to some guy in a suit, hoisting up three-pointers while they chatted. I’m assuming but I sure don’t know, that Nash had been out there earlier in the evening doing a more focused routine. One thing I noticed and had noticed before, is how far back Nash’s shooting hand sits before the release. It’s almost flat or ninety degrees to his forearm. Not entirely unusual but it became even more pronounced when I watched Shaquille O’Neal’s warm-up shooting form. He does not have any bend-back in his shooting hand at all! None. Whereas Nash’s fingers are pointed almost directly backwards before the ball goes up to be released on a jumper or free throw, Shaq’s fingers are pointing straight up! No wonder there is no backspin, no rotation on the ball. (Is there somewhere on the Internet that says that Shaq broke his wrist or something, some physical explanation for this?) Go ahead, put your shooting hand up in the air, point your fingers straight up, palm, in other words facing forward, and imagine shooting a jumper or free throw that way. This was the form he used while warming up/practicing his shot just inside the free throw line. I want to emphasize this was NOT a jump hook or anything he was shooting. This was his form. Unworkable. Unless he has some physical deformity, this is inexcusable. He basically pushes the ball at the hoop.

2. When Shaq caught the ball low, back to the basket and he was being defended by fellow LSU matriculant, Glen “Big Baby” Davis, Shaq was unable to back Big Baby down. Never could he while dribbling, back to the hoop, gain hardly more than an inch. Dribble-pound, dribble-bump, dribble-grind. Three hundred twenty-five pounds plus and going nowhere. My guess is that no one else in the league could do that to Shaq. Davis was down low, center of gravity way down low, forearm in Shaq’s kidney. Shaq got called for one charge (Davis drawing it); Shaq traveled; Shaq missed; Shaq missed again; Shaq fell; Shaq dunked once or twice. On this night, anyway, rather amazingly, I thought, not a go-to match-up;

3. When at the beginning of the game, Brian Scalabrine was matched up defending Amare Stoudemire, I kept turning to my wife and saying, “G-a-w-w-d-d-d! There’s the match-up the Suns will go to!” I mean, there have been times in the past few years when you’ve been tempted to put Stoudemire top ten. Right? At times dominant, on big-time rolls. Forty points the norm. Alas, on this night, if Stoudemire caught the ball, matched up with the only guy on the Celtics who voted for John McCain, ten times, he failed to score ten times. His only basket on a three point scoring night was when KG was matched up with him and KG left him to double on Shaq (which elicited a “why did you do that?” look from Big Baby when Shaq found Stoudemire for a dunk). I just could not believe that he couldn’t take him. Another match-up that was going no where. Honestly, it had me wondering whether the offensive schemes for the Suns under Terry Porter are taking advantage of their players’ strengths;

4. Rondo vs. Nash. Nolo contendere. Kudos to Rondo. One sequence: from somewhere around the right wing, Rondo found himself isolated with Nash with a live dribble, Rondo threw about seventeen of the most heart-stopping, ankle-breaking, stomach-turning, head-spinning moves on Nash, sixteen of which Nash stayed with. Lay-up Rondo. Once again, what Phoenix was running was leaving Nash’s hands tied. Hands tied is not good for point guards. For one thing, Nash is among the best at transition passing. This Phoenix team (save Grant Hill occasionally) does-not-run. Secondly, Nash and the pick-and-roll? Non-existent in this game. Rondo (and the Celtics) in a rout. (It has to be mentioned that Rondo took three jumpers in this game, each out of team and ball movement, each in rhythm. Each went in. Previously, Rondo was taking jumpers either as the shot clock wound down, or when defense was daring him or embarrassing him by backing off and he had to shoot. Here, on this night, he was just a shooter shooting. Really nice to see development like that in a player.

The Harvard FT Shooters (NCAA History’s Best)

I know the answer to great team free throw shooting; learned it from Frank McLaughlin (my freshmen coach at Fordham), head coach at Harvard when the ‘83-’84 Harvard men’s basketball team set the all-time NCAA Division I Free Throw record (that still stands today): 82.2%. 

Coaches employ many different methods to improve their teams’ free throw chances: every player has to come to the gym at 7am twice a week to shoot a hundred (which coaches then chart and post); make ten straight before you leave the gym at the end of every practice (got that one from Jim McDonald, former head coach at Kent State); shoot FTs when players are tired after tough drills (to mimic game conditions); pluck a player and make everyone run a suicide if the player misses; shooting games like S-W-I-S-H (+1 for a swish, -1 for a miss, 0 for a make that isn’t a perfect swish; +6 wins, players shot 2 at a time and switch). Harvard used none of these strategies.

How did they do it? Well, Harvard’s all-time leading scorer (1,880 points) and certified stud (30 pts versus Duke in the greatest loss ever at Briggs Cage), Joe Carrabino, tied for 2nd in the nation at 90.5% (with Chris Mullin, “Dream Teamer”, Basketball God who everyone in Boston saw play in his high school days in the old Boston Shootout long ago). Bob Ferry (who taught little brother, Danny, future NCAA Player of the Year at Duke  everything he knew) was 4th at 90.3%. Arne Duncan (everybody’s favorite Obama Cabinet hoopster) and Duncan’s co-captain, never-say-die cohort, Keith Webster, each shot 86.7%. (Pat Smith, point guard, and for whom career stats seem elusive, got to the line rarely but never missed.) At season’s end, a writer from a national concern called Coach McLaughlin wanting to write a story on how they did it. He asked what secrets there were, what magic applied, or at least what special or innovative shooting drills they used. McLaughlin answered, “we didn’t do anything, nothing at all; they’re just great shooters.” The writer wasn’t buying it; maybe it has something to do with the innate intelligence of the players, you know . . . Harvard??? “Doubt it”, Frank said, “there have been plenty of Harvard teams that didn’t break free throw records or even shoot particularly well. Sorry, but the answer is these guys just happened to be great shooters.”

So, there it is. Frank McLaughlin, an innovative, smart, schooled-on-the-NYC playgrounds coach who had been a great player (and great shooter) at Fordham could not and would not take credit for a great thing his team had accomplished. But thinking back on that group over the years, and witnessing other teams, college and pro, go through their ups and downs at the line, during games and over the course of a season, I’ve often wondered what else came into play that year. This: I think it was all in the collective head of that team: the psyche, the ego, the competitive spirit, the unique motivation each player possessed, and the intuition McLaughlin applied. 

Nobody wanted to be the guy who missed. Just as missing in games is contagious, making them was contagious for that team. It all started with the big guy, Carrabino. Joe Carrabino had an ego the size of the centuries old campus and nerves of – well, no nerves as we know them. How’s this for proof? He made 50something straight free throws in the last 4 minutes of games over his last 2 seasons. (Let us pause for a moment to consider that . . . carve a spot for Joe Carrabino at Mount Rushmore.) Ferry, low-key and fun-loving was a close second fiddle, if you can imagine being recruited by Dean Smith and UNC and then be the sweet second option at Harvard. Smooth, perfect shooting form/stroke, my take is he was quiet about it, but he had things to prove and one of them was: if Carrabino could make all his free throws, so could he. Duncan, of course, had lots to prove, like whether he belonged there in the first place. (That’s what happens when you play JV your freshman year.) Miss your free throws and your spot becomes suspect. Plus it would be just embarrassing, wouldn’t it? Webster, the youngster of the group, was like the kid brother trying to prove he could play with the older kids in the neighborhood. Competitive, tough and tireless as a dog on the hunt, son of a 600+ win college coach, Webster wasn’t going to miss many. And Pat Smith, tenacious defender, ball distributor, like Ferry a proud product of Dematha Catholic, the “fifth starter” had no choice but to uphold his end of the bargain. Okay, maybe he wasn’t going to score as much but if he made his free throws he would once again prove his worth. In the end, they made their free throws because the other guys were making their free throws. Sure they had the strokes, the good technique, but they also, individually, had the critical mindset: that at this one simple doable task, they would not fail. It was pride, ego, competition, individual and collective desire; it was contagious and important. And it was record breaking. And McLaughlin knew enough to let them be.

Note No. 1: how many coaches in the past 24 years have challenged their teams to break Harvard’s record, set that very specific goal? I think that simple step, that simple clearly defined motivation would get some team in the record book pretty fast, plus help win some extra games. 

Note No. 2: I think the presence of Ray Allen and his career 90%+ free throw percentage proved motivational for Paul Pierce last year. Pierce went from 76% in ‘05-’06 and 79% in ‘06-’07 to 84% last year, the year that Ray Allen and his gaudy numbers showed up. Pierce changed his set-up: a more methodical, more one-foot-directly-in-front-of-the-other, Jeff Hornacek type set-up plus an exaggerated follow-through to get the results he had to have to be in the good company of Allen.

Ray Allen’s Layup

Ray Allen’s one-on-one (that’s being generous to Sasha Vujacic) drive and layup to seal the Celtics’ incredible come from behind victory over the Lakers last night was many things. One of the things it is is something we teach and drill players on at the NTL clinics and camps: the lefty layup off the righty dribble.

The lefty layup off the righty dribble (cousin to the righty layup off the lefty dribble) requires eliminating a step from the normal dribble-one-two that happens with the righty dribble, righty layup, etc. Allen does it perfectly because he switches the ball in the air, not on the floor (just like we teach it – but, wait a second, I don’t remember Ray Allen taking one of our clinics).

Other things to watch: 1) Vujacic does nothing to dictate to Allen; he lets Allen decide if he’s gonna take him right or take him left. Vujacic should have forced Allen to go the way the scouting report says Allen would prefer not to go. (NBA scouting reports can tell you the percentage of times a player drives one way or the other); 2) Vujacic gave the whole thing minimal effort after Allen got an advantage, a couple of soft waves was about it; rather pathetic; 3) the other perimeter defenders did NOTHING to influence Allen. I understand Bryant couldn’t leave Pierce, Odom couldn’t leave Posey, but couldn’t they have shunted or faked at Allen? Tried to make him guess, worry a little that a double might be coming, see if they could force some hesitation, maybe leading to a mis-dribble?

A truly unworthy effort from the Lakers all the way around.

Real Players Don’t Say “Glass”

Last night, near the end of the first half of the Celtics thrilling 106-102 Game Five playoff victory over the Pistons, Kevin Garnett banked in a desperation three-pointer from straight out to beat the shot clock. The shot was replayed by ESPN numerous times. Lucky shot. Big three points. I’m pretty good at lip-reading KG and what he normally says is not reprintable here, but what he didn’t say after knocking in that shot was “glass”. Cuz he didn’t mean to bank it in. But you know what? Had he intended to bank in a shot (Tim Duncan anyone?) he would not say it then either. Real players don’t say “glass”.

In a previous post, “The Great Ones Use the Glass“, we tried to help players understand that shooting the ball off the backboard is an enormously worthwhile skill to develop. What we didn’t say was shoot the ball off the backboard and shout the word “glass” as if it was the first time you ever did it. Why, I mean, what an odd and totally insecure habit. Stop it now! The reason recreational level players shout glass when they put the ball off the board is they want to make sure that everyone knows it’s not a mistake. Lord. If your game up to that point hasn’t established that you are capable of shooting the ball with some clue as to how it’s gonna get in the hoop, then maybe you should be yelling “glass”. Or “I’m new at this game!”. Or “I’m pretty sure you think I’m not very good so let me try this gimmick of announcing what I am doing. Some day, when I grow up, I won’t have to do it”.

Bank it in. Run down court and play defense like you know that they know that you know exactly what to do and how to do it on the basketball court. 

“Shooting Homework: Watch the NBA Three-Point Shooting Contest!”

One way to improve your basketball skills, and in this case, your basketball shooting skills, is to watch what the great players do and how they do it. The NBA All-Star weekend and game have nothing to do with basketball, far as I can tell, save the piling-on promotional aspect, except, EXCEPT the Three-Point Shooting Contest. There the players have to shoot the ball (under pressure, time pressure) like you have to shoot the ball in a game. Well, in a game, I guess you don’t have a rack right next to you and you do have a little more time after each shot to do something like follow-through, but the participants still have to employ good fundamentals to have success. Those fundamentals are what you as a player who wants to improve your shot should look for.

After grabbing the ball off the rack, does the player do anything to achieve good balance? Balance being critical; you can’t be leaning left, you can’t be leaning right. Is there a small one-two step? A tiny hop to adjust feet? How do they get the ball to their “shot pocket”? That spot that aligns elbow under hand, hand under ball? Do some players have the left (or off) elbow up higher than others? Do all the players have elbow-in, or are some getting away with it out? Is the head still on release? Where is the release point? In front of the middle of the head? Out to the side more? (Two-eyed shooter?) How about the extension of the shooting arm? Does it go straight out to 180 degrees? Just less? What about the follow-through? Is it consistent among all the shooters? What is the off-hand doing, and the off-arm? Does that off-hand flick out? (Bird, Kerr, Szczerbiak.) Or does it stay stone still, left hand fingers pointing straight up after the release?

Shooters can shoot the ball different ways and have success. The key is to find the common elements among all great shooters and try to incorporate those elements into who you are as a shooter and into what your shot is already like.

Now, I gotta go buy one of those racks, actually five of them, right? Five red, white and blue balls, too. (The other twenty are in the back of the station wagon). Get ready for next year.

Technorati Tags: Three-PointShooting, All-StarGame, SteveKerr

“See the Front Rim”

When shooting, focus, really concentrate your vision, on the front of the rim. Don’t just look generally at the area of the hoop. See the front of the rim and imagine shooting the ball over the rim. Remember, the target is actually air, that slice of air that occupies the area of the circle encompassed by the round rim. To get to the target, you have to shoot “up” and have the ball come down through. When releasing, follow through intentionally with your shooting hand, wrist snapping at the basket. Given good balance with your feet, the ball will go where your hand sends it, so be aware of what your hand does on the release.

“Ready to Shoot”

(This is the sort of thing that college players work on all the time.) When considering getting a shot off (without getting it blocked), shooters often think about (and ask me about) jumping over defenders, a “quick release” and other difficult-to-achieve, nebulous approaches. True, one hopes to be unfettered when shooting; you want separation – space – between you and the defender. However, the best way to accomplish this is to be ready to shoot, ready to shoot a quality shot. This is accomplished by being as far into the process of catching-and-shooting as is possible. I remember being almost reduced to tears watching Bird just catch and flick from the corner against Arkansas in the NCAA Regional Final in 1979. His hands were already up for the catch, his knees were bent for the jump, and he was squared to the hoop for accuracy. That guy was ready to shoot, and you can be too, if you prepare to shoot before you catch the ball. Once again: hands up (palms showing), knees bent so you don’t have to take the time to do that after catching, and pivot to square up while catching so you can eliminate time and motion on your shot. Hopefully, the tears shed watching you will be tears of admiration, as well.

“Jump Shooting”

Jump. Shot. That’s pretty much how it works: jump, shot. First you jump and then you shoot. Jumping is by itself a fun and healthful kind of thing to do (we think), sort of like sprinting. I mean why jog all the time, why not sprint? “Honey, I’ll be back in 30 seconds, I’m going out for a sprint.” But we digress. Here’s how you practice learning a jump shot: get as close as you can to the hoop, on a 45 degree angle to the hoop, take one step and, jumping, bring the ball as close to the backboard as you can get it, actually try to touch the board with the ball, extending your forearm/elbow/upperarm slightly past 90 degrees. When the ball is as close to the board as it’s going to get, flick your wrist and allow your arm to nearly fully extend (relaxedly), letting the ball release with a smooth and consistent backspin, thus assuring a safe landing (of sorts) for the ball and a certain two points! Gradually back up. Use the middle of the lane, shooting over the front of the rim, too. Jump. Shot. Shoot at or just before the peak of your jump. Use your legs and the energy of the jump for strength and range. The only other thing to think about is how you are going to react when someone says to you, perhaps for the first time, “Nice jumper!”

“The Simple Layup”

“The point is, don’t shoot layups the same way every time. In general, get up as high as you can, and keep your eye on the target. I tell my players to shoot different kinds of layups each day so that their shots and the movement of their legs don’t become stereotyped. If you jump each time you practice them, you’ll strengthen your legs. If you practice layups casually, you’ll shoot them casually in the game”.

pp. 54-55 "The Smart Take From the Strong"by Pete Carril, former Princeton University head coach and legend

“The Reverse Mikan Drill”

It being the birth date of our tallest president, we think of four score and seven not as a number of years, but the potential number of points that our gangly #16, the 6’6” orator, could have picked up in the post had he practiced this move. Part of the success of playing in the post is practicing a variety of ways of finishing shots from a host of angles. The Reverse Mikan teaches you to put the ball in the basket when approaching from behind the backboard, that slim four foot area between the hoop (backboard) and the baseline. Start with your back to the baseline directly behind the rim, take a step with your left foot angling out to your right and spin the ball (slightly) off the backboard finishing with your right hand pinky in the air pointing up. Take the ball out of the net, step with your right foot angling out to the left and spin the ball with your left hand, shooting again with a slight spin, pinky pointing up. Again off the backboard. Shot five score, try to make, oh, eighty-seven.