Our FOUL/free throw shooting is going to hurt in Playoffs

who is this mandry you speak of?

 

We've all seen the Spurs (especially TD) brick numerous clutch FTs in the playoffs on the way to 4 championships.

But you make a good point. Last night was sorry.

 

good point.

 

scola's the strangest 'bad' FT shooter. he's got a horrible percentage on the year but his form looks fine, and his misses look good on release. hopefully he'll pick it up. tmac will get better as the season goes on but he's never going to be an 80% shooter from the line. landry has the most potential to improve since he's young, hopefully he can get aroudn the 70% range.

 

It could let Yao train their FT.

 

I disagree. I think McGrady is the "strangest" bad free throw shooter and he is also the one that hurts us the most. The guy is a shooting guard. I wonder how many guards who have been around his level of talent in history have shot as poorly as he does at the line. Under 70%? That's terrible. I just did a quick comparison on NBA.com by scrolling through each team. I didn't do all of them because some of them I didn't know who to compare, but McGrady is the worst FT shooter at the 2 who starts in nearly the entire league. There might be 3-5 worse that I just didn't know who to compare him to.

It kills us because he's the only one on our team who can actually get to the rim and create contact, but when he does and actually gets a call, he misses more than 30% of the time. It's really unbelievable.

And yes, I know that San Antonio has missed some clutch FTs in the playoffs, but they also make a lot of them with Manu. Our starting lineup is full of below average FT shooters other than Yao, who gets no respect from the refs anyway.

In the playoffs, we are really going to see value in Bobby Jackson and hopefully Brent Barry. Jon Barry made the good point last night that it's embarrassing that your center has to shoot your technical free throws because nobody else on the team is any good at it. Even Mr. Fundamentals Shane Battier isn't that good.

 

While we have suffered from a lack of concentration at the line in previous games, I feel like the Bulls played a big role in our problems last night. If you watched the game, you may have noticed that most of the fouls from the Bulls were hard fouls across the forearms in the paint and not touch fouls on the perimeter.

Hard fouls affect free throw shooting, which is why the Rockets tend to have good "free throw defense," as Bullard likes to say during games.

 

Great post, I couldn't agree more!

Pugs

 

McGrady and Rafer should not be as bad as they shoot. They both should be in the 75-80% range with the positions they play.

 

They would have 7 if they had made them......

 

Yeah the FT's were bad yesterday.

I don't know what's wrong with T-Mac, he usually shoots around 75%, and that's his career %, but the last couple of seasons he's been bricking them pretty bad. He's around 70% flat last season and I think he's at about 69% this season.

It does seem almost as if he is scared to go to the line late in games to make FT's, especially after the Seattle game.

Landry usually stripes them.

I dearly do HOPE that FREE THROWS are not the make or break for getting out of the first round. That would SUCK for us.

 

Bad FT shooting has already hurt the Rockets in playoffs once.

Game 5 of the Mavs vs. Rockets series. The Rockets would have won that game and the series had Tmac and Yao made all those free throws in the second half.

As for Scola's FT shooting form.... He usually misses it when he rushes it. You can tell he has rushed it by looking at how quickly he gets into shooting form and releases it. He barely looks at the basket then. When he takes his time and gathers himself, it usually looks good.

 

It is simply inexcusable for those guards to be beaten by Dikemebe from the FT line.

27.3% is not too shabby for Chuck Hayes considering his form at the free throw line. I am impressed.

 

no doubt our FT% has to improve if we are going to win close games.

how many games have we barely won or lost, but yet missed 10+ free throws?