How to score

If your guy is off of you, shoot it.

If he’s not, read his feet.

  • Usually best to attack the lead foot. The defender has to pivot and “open the gate”. This is a very reliable way to get a half-step on your guy.
  • Depends on how he’s positioned though. If he’s shading you a lot to one side, you’d be better off just taking it rather than attacking the lead foot.
  • If he’s perfectly square, he’ll have to open the gate either way you go (albeit at a smaller angle). Square stances aren’t sound and thus aren’t too common.

Triple threat:

  • Start by jabbing at the defender’s lead foot. If he doesn’t react to the jab, go hard to the hoop. This should really get you a good full step on him. I do this move often and have a lot of success with it. If you jab fast and he doesn’t react fast enough, just keep going to the hoop! Think of A->B->C. A is triple threat, B is your jab, and C is your drive. In this move you’re going from B->C rather than A->C, so it’s faster and gets you that extra half-step.
  • If the defender reacts to your jab (which he should), step back. Now he’ll be a step (or a half-step) back and you’ll have a little room to shoot it. If he doesn’t close the space, you’ll be open and you should shoot it.
  • If he does close the space, read him. How fast is he closing the space? If he’s coming at you fast, he’ll be vulnerable to a drive. Because it’s tough to be coming at you in one direction and then to change directions and retreat backwards to slide with you as you drive. And make sure to read his feet as he closes out. Is his lead foot vulnerable to a drive?

That’s basically it. There are obviously a bunch of caveats, but this is a reliable way to score. Note that it depends on you having a reliable shot! That’s why shooting is so important. It makes the defender play you honestly and opens up a ton of stuff.

On to the caveats:

  • Probably the biggest one is to note the physical abilities of you versus your defender. My algorithm should be able to get you at least a half-step on anyone. You could be a high school player going against LeBron James, and you should be able to get a half-step on him. But a half-step isn’t always enough to make up for differences in physical abilities. They may have the speed and quickness to recover and stay with you. They may have the strength to bump you off your line as you drive. They may have the size/length and explosiveness to contest your shot even if you have a half-step on them. Physical ability is a huge part of the game. Know your limitations. (This gets into team theory, but I’m a big believer in using mismatches. The opportunity cost of you taking your guy is your teammate exploiting his mismatch).
  • Read the help defense. This is too complicated to get into here, but one defender can often guard more than one person if two offensive players are standing in the same area. For example, if you drive into an area that is crowded. This is why court spacing is important — it gives the offensive players room to work against one defender instead of two or three. But thinking about help defense really complicates things. Not only do you have to read your defenders feet and momentum and physical abilities, you have to also base your decision on where the help defense is. No one said it’d be easy! But it basically works like chess. Think: if I make this move I’ll be here, if I make that move I’ll be there. Where would I rather be, here or there?
  • As for shooting, there are a lot of caveats I think. For one, range. I said you should shoot it if the defender is giving you space, but that’s assuming that you’re a consistent shooter from that range (you shouldn’t shoot a half court shot if your defender is giving you space). Another thing: balance. Your balance and momentum play a big role in your shooting. A lot of people don’t think about whether or not they’re balanced, they just think about how much room they have, and if they have room they shoot it. Again, your decision to shoot should depend on the expected value of that shot (3 vs. 2 + likelihood of going in) relative to the expected value of not shooting (what kind of shot you could otherwise get). Don’t take a low percentage off balance shot if you could get a better one.
  • An old coach of mine said something that stuck with me: “take the first, good, open, balanced shot”. First = first. Good = high percentage (you could hit it >50% of the time in practice, or something like that). Open = you have room and are comfortable that it won’t be blocked. Balanced = self-explanatory.
  • Last thing: open. What is an open shot? I used to think of open as meaning the space between you and the defender, and I hated guys like Kobe and Dirk who take these ridiculous highly contested fade aways. Now my understanding of what open means has evolved. Open really just means that you’re comfortable that you won’t get blocked. A tall guy like Dirk could have a 6'0 point guard on him and be open because he could shoot right over him and not worry about being blocked. Similarly, if you’ve got your defender leaning backwards, even if he’s close to you, you could still be open because in that split second you know his momentum is preventing him from blocking your shot. It’s a very subtle thing and difficult to explain in words, but hopefully you understand.

I’ve glossed over this, but want to be more explicit: simple logic says that you should only shoot it if the expected value of that shot is greater than the expected value of what the best shot you otherwise could get.

  • Expected value = points * likelihood. A 2 pointer with a 50% likelihood of going in has an expected value of 1. A 3 pointer with a 50% likelihood of going in has an expected value of 1.5.
  • Say you have a shot with an expected value of 1.1. Simple logic says that this shot is only worth taking if you don’t think you could get a shot with a higher expected value. Say your team has a mismatch and you think the expected value of working it is 1.5. Simple logic says that you should work the mismatch (1.5 > 1.1). People really don’t seem to consider these sorts of alternative before they shoot it though.
  • I know that other things come into the equation. Flow of the game, who has the hot hand, getting everyone involved, keeping the defense guessing etc. But I think the basic premise is sound.