Ice At the Line: Clutch Free Throw Shooting Under Pressure
#42- Ice At the Line: Clutch Free Throw Shooting Under Pressure
Making Your FT's Automatic
Making Your FT's Automatic
by Alan Lambert
Introduction
There comes a time in everybody's basketball life when your team is in the lead, you have the ball, and are fouled to stop the clock. This Playground Pointer is about being cool, calm, and collected at the foul line. Confident you can make any pressure free throw to maintain or keep a lead at the games most important moments. I will say this however, any free throw at any time of the game is crucial to your team’s success. If you go 10 for 10 from the line early in the game, you may never be put into a position to have to make that free throw with little or no time left on the clock to seal the game. Whether it's the first half, early in the second half, or late in the game, probably the most important trait you can develop in your free throw shooting is a consistent method. Let's start there and see if we can't get you to the foul line able to ice the game at the critical moments.
There are no great pressure foul shooters who vary their technique on any trip to the line, no matter how many free throws they take over the course of a game, a month, or a whole season. In fact the great ones probably vary their shots very little over the course of their whole career. The problem for most players is that their shooting mechanics are not sound, not automated, and thereby susceptible to technique "creep". What I mean by that is that most young players when developing their shots sacrifice good technique to make the shot. When they miss a shot, they keep changing their technique until they do make the shot. Then they stay with that method until they miss a few more, at which time they change their form again. If you are doing this...stop it immediately.
Tip 1- Be Consistent With Your Shot Mechanics.
Start with your feet approximately shoulder width apart, in a comfortable position, as if you standing on the end of the diving board of the high dive. The reason for this is balance. You cannot have consistent form if your body balance breaks during your free throw causing some other part of your body (your hand, wrist, or arm) to compensate for the loss of balance. Keep your knees flexed, slightly on the balls of your feet, get your wrist cocked (a 90 degree L), elbow at 90 degrees and pointing at the basket, eyes locked on the target, and start and finish your shot with one fluid motion, upper body relaxed power from your legs. Hold your follow-through high and straight with the forefinger and index finger of your shooting hand completing the following by finishing pointed at your eye target (the point on the rim, above the rim that you focus when shooting). If you start the shot at a different point each time, then you will fall into the trap adjusting your power to compensate for a different start point. If you are off long or short, adjust your shot by changing the follow-through point (normally higher, but it can be lower) which when exerting the same power from your legs will increase the arc of the shot and slightly shorten or increase the distance of the shot. This keeps you from exerting unwanted rotational forces on your shot and causing right to left free throw error misses.
Here is one last tip for your shot mechanics at the foul line, focus on how you make the shot, not on why you miss it. Many players fall into the trap of trying to correct (and subsequently over-correct) a missed why by compensating for the error. The longer I have taught shooting the more I believe it is much better to simply focus on how to make the shot correctly and the shot will correct itself. Remember same start and finish point, balance, power from the legs, relaxed upper body and high and straight follow-through.
Another thing to remember is to have the same foul shot preparation sequence prior to getting the ball to your quiet set position before initiating and releasing the game winning free throw. Some players take 2 or 3 dribbles prior to the set position for rhythm. Others take none. Step up to the line the same way each time, and make sure you locate the nail mark at every foul line which signals the absolute center of the circle. It is less important that you forward foot in exactly on the nail mark, than you put your toe to the same spot each and every time you shoot.
It is difficult to make free throws at any time without consistency; however once you become consistent with your technique more mental factors begin to become of greater importance when shooting foul shots under pressure. Arguably the most important factor in great pressure free throw shooting is your concentration.
Tip 2- Concentrate Only on the Target When You Shoot
If you are thinking about your form, thinking about what that opponent is saying next to you on the foul line, or thinking about what your parent's, girlfriend, newspapers, TV announcers, or anyone else in this whole world are saying if you make or miss the shot, you'll miss it. Great concentration starts with locking your eyes on the target, and never taking them off of the target until 2-3 seconds after you have released the shot. How can you tell if you have proper concentration? The tip off for me as a coach is to ask my player where their follow-through point was following the shot. Some players will answer....Uhhh I don't know.
They have very poor concentration. Some players will answer...I was right of the center of the basket. That is okay concentration. Some players will answer, I thought it was right in the middle of the basket (even though they missed the shot)...which is questionable concentration. The great shooters can and will tell you....I was slightly right just inside the front of the rim but with enough arc to make the shot. The more detail you can remember about your follow-through point, the better the shooting concentration you are likely exhibiting.
They have very poor concentration. Some players will answer...I was right of the center of the basket. That is okay concentration. Some players will answer, I thought it was right in the middle of the basket (even though they missed the shot)...which is questionable concentration. The great shooters can and will tell you....I was slightly right just inside the front of the rim but with enough arc to make the shot. The more detail you can remember about your follow-through point, the better the shooting concentration you are likely exhibiting.
Concentration also allows you to block out external distractions such as opponents trash talking, the crowd screaming their heads off, or people under the basket waving objects or hands to make you miss. If you watch the best foul shooters in the NBA it seems they are almost in a "mental zone" oblivious to these external distractions. In fact, they are. When you step to the line to make that game winning free throw, block everything else out. It's you and the target. Nothing more or less should enter your mind.
Another way to think about how good your concentration is to think of yourself as if on a crowded New York City street at 5:00 pm rush hour the week before Christmas. You are meeting your best friend and have promised to meet them at a specific location. While you are aware of all the commotion going on around you, your total focus is on seeking and finding that familiar face in the crowd. For you on the foul line, that familiar face is the target on or above the rim. Nothing, I mean nothing distraction your eyes from locking on that target and holding both your eyes and follow-through point on that target till well after the shot is released. Anything less and your concentration may fail you when your technique does not.
Tip 3- Confidence Comes from Hours of Practice With the Game on the Line
Consistency and concentration when practiced together lead to confidence. All great foul shooters want to step up to the line. It is the difference between standing in line to get your butt kicked, or standing in line to receive a big pay check. Your attitude determines your altitude in terms of your success in the game. Now to get to the point where you have that kind of confidence you need to put in the hours. You can't practice 20 free throws a day (some which are not even under pressure) and expect to step up to the line in the big game and make that crucial free throw with confidence. It takes hours and hours of foul shooting to automate your free throw shot so you never have to even think about the technique. These thousands of practice free throws assist you over time in eliminating superfluous or unwanted error in your technique. Instead of having an error creep in during the critical free throw you had that error worked out months ago. When you have practiced 100-200-300 pressure free throws every day, one more in the game seems miniscule.
Kobe Bryant was recently asked how he was able to step to the line in a recent NBA Championship game with all that pressure and make the game winning free throw. His answer was, I have shot that free throw thousands of times in practice every day. You create that mind set when you practice your free throws and you replicate it. This practice and subsequent confidence gives you a mindset late in the game of "give me the ball, and foul me". I'm going to put this game away when you foul me. Do your homework and prepare by practicing technique and concentration to create confidence.
Here are seven additional tips that will help you ice the game when the pressure is on:
1. Step up the line only when the official is prepared to hand you the ball, and you are ready to enter you pre-shot and automated foul shot routine. If anything or anyone disturbs you prior to being handed the ball, stand back and start again.
2. Once you step on the line, lock your eyes on the target and never let go.
3. If you must make two or three consecutive free throws, stay at the line on makes, and step a brief step back and start your routine again if you miss.
4. Block out any previous misses as a fluke. Concentrate only on the next free throw and how you make the shot.
5. Take a deep breath and exhale big to relax your body and release any unwanted muscle tension prior to starting your foul shot motion. This calms your nerves and let's your muscles shoot in the more relaxed mode that you do during the course of the game.
6. If you miss a free throw don't think about what caused the error prior to the next free throw. Instead focus exclusively on your routine and mechanics you have done thousands of times before in making a free throw. The previous error will correct itself without you ever thinking about it.
7. Think about making the free throw and nothing else as you lock on the target and complete your follow-through.
There are many different methods coaches use to teach shooting technique and successful foul shooting. Most are reasonably similar in terms of form, and preparation. However what each of these has in common now matter what you are taught, are consistent shot preparation and mechanics, great concentration, and confidence through proper practice. You do these three things and you can and will make that game winning free throw.
Check back next month for another Playground Pointers courtesy of The Basketball Highway®.