Wow. So in high school its illegal to put a hand in your opponent's face, but perfectly okay to fake kicking them in the nuts?
Why are you talking about what Kobe Bryant, opponent, should be doing to defeat Shane Battier, Houston Rocket as in "Clutchfans is a forum for fans of the Houston Rockets", defense?
No. I went to Episcopal High School and a couple guys on our team used that "technique" somewhat regularly.
Baytown Christian. Northeast's guy in a gorilla suit got in a fight with our girl in a Bulldog suit during our game at Toyota Center. I never left a game with them with a clean bill of health. ---------------------------------------------- Anyway, its a moot point to reinforce these facts on our boards, and the rest of the league (at least the teams whos fanbases chant mvp for opposing players) doesn't want to hear anything about a rule favoring the good defender. So I dunno...
Face guarding is illegal?? In fiba is very common and is absolutelly legal, in fact, one of my first lessons when playing basketball were. "On defense, eyes in the ball, hand in his face, and hand check him to know his movements, remember, eyes on the ball, hand in his face". Check Scola does this very frecuently also, fact is that PF and C should be trained to go "hands up" and not "in the face"
a method I've used that really works that I think Shane should use is putting the hand horizontal with the backside of the hand facing the opponent. The way he has it right now Kobe can still see through his fingers. Or we need to figure out if Kobe is right eye or left eye dominant and let Shane cover the dominant eye and see if that works more consistently.
How in the world could face guarding while the player has the ball/is shooting, be considered illegal? You hardly see many jump shots in the NBA being blocked. If it were illegal, it would feel like another rule to appease the Kobe/Lebron/Wades of the league. I think Shane's face guarding is perfectly fine. It's not like he is touching the player, or influencing the physical shot in any way. It's just plain good defense. Laker fans are just mad they don't have someone like Battier on their team.
Eh, I posted this in another thread yesterday, basically the same as the OP, but has another rulebook's interpretation of face guarding.
Apologies to the 12 people who have probably said this before me, but: Kobe having to shoot with a defender's hand in his face? Illegal. Kobe committing sexual assault? Perfectly legal. I love the lawyerly nuance of these Laker fans.
No way Kobe can draw contact by moving his face and make the shot the same time. Battier will just move his hand back.
