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Let’s say that you are winning, trying to run clock at the end of the game and you have an open layup. Do you take it? Jason (Kansas City, MO)
This one is tough and while I feel that you will get a different answer from different people, in order for me to answer this question, I feel that I need to get more specific. For instance, if you are up by two possessions or more, I say you take the layup, but let’s say that there are 10 seconds left and you are up by one point. You have just gotten the ball and have a breakaway layup; do you take that layup with 10 seconds left? This situation actually played out several seasons ago when I was watching Georgia Tech play. A player from Georgia Tech leaked out in the press break (I think it was Will Bynum but I’m not sure) and received the ball ahead of the defense for a quick dunk. This put Georgia Tech up by three points but it left a lot of time on the clock and it created a situation where the opposing team could have gotten a very good look in a one possession game. He should have run off some time (I think he could have taken at least four or five seconds off the clock) but instead he left the door wide open for the other team to force overtime.
I don’t remember the outcome of the game but this is just one situation in which it would have been smarter not to take the layup. I think that a good rule of thumb is that if time is running out and the layup will put you up by at least two possessions, take it. If not, run time off the clock.
The next two postings are going to deal with several key questions that have been posed to me via email. I will go through a couple key questions that I felt were most important and I will do my best to respond to other questions via email. Mind you that none of the answers I give are absolutes and you might even disagree.
Question: I have a guy on my team who shoots the ball well and we honestly need his shooting prowess to keep the defense from sagging down on our big men, but there are some games where he just goes cold. At what point do I tell him to stop shooting or do I let him shoot himself out of a cold spell?
-John (Los Angeles, CA)
Answer: Well it really depends on the type of team you are. If you are a transition team, it’s a lot easier to live with one guy having a bad shooting night because you are getting up a much higher volume of shots. If you are a slowdown, Dick Bennett type team, it becomes very difficult to live with someone trying to shoot themselves out of a slump because each possession has that much more value to it. Being that I am a shooter, I have always preferred coaches who let me shoot my way out of it because shooters need confidence and a coach telling them to stop shooting doesn’t exactly build confidence. Instead if you really need him to stop shooting, you might want to let him take a couple minutes on the bench to gather himself before putting the kid back in. This gives the player time to rest up without totally shattering his confidence.
Question: Would you rather have your best shooter shoot a semi-contested shot (Defender running out on him) or would you rather he make the extra pass to a guy who is wide open and an average shooter?
-D.J. (Las Vegas, Nevada)
Answer: This is a tough one because I feel that in that instant, you want your best shooter to take that shot because he is your best shooter and most great shooters can make a shot with a defender closing out on them fairly consistently. The problem with this situation is that if you consistently miss the extra pass, it starts breaking down the chemistry of the team. I would say that it really depends on the situation. If your shooter is hot, this is a shot that you want him to take but if it is a situation early in the game, I would say make the extra pass. Championship teams always have star players who are unafraid to make that extra pass to their teammates.
When I work kids out that want to play basketball in college, I try to give them the tools they need to find the right playing situation for them. I tell them that schools will not recruit them if they don’t have their lives together off of the court, I try to prepare them mentally and physically on the court and I tell them to leave everything on the court in the workout/tryout.
I have talked to several coaches over the years about what they look for in players that come on recruiting visits or open gyms in the offseason and while the answers vary from coach to coach, they all agree on two things. They all expect all players who come on campus to be in playing shape and they are all looking for players that play hard on both ends of the court. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense because when you show up at a workout out of shape, it sends a message to the coach that you didn’t take the opportunity seriously enough. If you take plays off on defense or don’t get on the floor for a loose ball, you are telling the coach that you aren’t willing to do the little things that it takes to win. I think that the main reason that coaches look for these things is that they all know that anybody can have an off shooting day but work ethic and drive are things that you can control no matter how poorly you are shooting the ball. So my advice to all players looking for a place to play is to stay in shape, work on your game and when you get the opportunity, leave it all out on the floor.
So the other day I was thinking about some of the coaches I played for and some of the things that they have told me about certain shots. I had coaches in high school who told me that you should never shoot floaters and fade-aways. Their logic was that you aren’t on balance when you shoot a floater and you take yourself out of the play when you shoot a fade-away (like for a rebound). I believe that there are some valid points to this argument but I wouldn’t call it an absolute by any means, especially when you get to higher levels of play where players can make these shots (You wouldn’t tell the guy in the picture to stop shooting them). I think that the biggest thing about shooting shots like the floater or the fade-away is that you have learn how to shoot them properly and you have practice them. If you shoot these shots the properly (on balance), in the right situation (i.e. don’t shoot a fade away if you are a big man and you have a guard on you) and if you practice them regularly, they can be good shots. The point that I’m trying to make in this post is that as long as you understand your capabilities and limitations as a player, it isn’t about the type of shot you take, it’s about taking the right shot in the correct situation.
About ten games into my senior year of college, I wasn’t shooting the ball well. I had put in a ton of work in the summer and it was pretty discouraging that I was having trouble shooting the ball. The worst part was that I wasn’t even missing short and long, I was missing a lot of shots left and right. Missing left and right is the worst because it really isn’t that difficult to shoot the ball straight. Sometimes it is a flaw in your mechanics and sometimes it’s an issue with a lack of focus. The problem is that if you are missing left and right, you aren’t even giving the ball a chance to go in. At least if you miss short and long, the ball can catch the rim and drop in. This almost never happens when you miss left or right.
One day I was shooting around in the gym and I remembered a drill that an old trainer had told me about and that was to go up to the side of the backboard and shoot at it. The side of the backboard is a very narrow target but if you hit it straight on, the ball will bounce straight back to you. I did this to warm up before every practice and game for the rest of the season and my shooting percentages increased dramatically. I tell every kid that I workout that has a problem shooting straight to do this drill because it tightens up your mechanics and it increases your focus. When you move out from the side of the backboard and start shooting on the hoop, shooting the ball straight seems like such an easy task.
