How Hawks Fans Can Defend Giannis at the Free Throw Line

A lot has been said and written about how much time Giannis Antetokounmpo takes to shoot free throws.  While Giannis seems comfortable with his routine at the line, the results are somewhat uneven.  There are, however, circumstances where he gets in a groove.  I believe a lot of that has to do with fan interaction.  Of course, we’d hope that Bucks fans would be supportive of Giannis when the team is at home.  But I think that Nets fans made some mistakes in their chanting and that those mistakes helped Giannis make more free throws in game 7 in Brooklyn than he otherwise would.  I’ll describe those mistakes below and show how Hawks fans can learn from them and possibly impact Giannis’ FT shooting in games 3 and 4.

The Best Way for a Free Throw Shooter to Feel While Shooting

Although the specific emotions and their intensity can vary between players, in general we want a player to feel confident and focused when he takes a free throw.

Why Giannis’ Time Consuming Free Throws Are A Problem For Him

Two things happen when a player takes a lot of time for a shot.  Physically, gravity has more of an impact on the body and the ball over time.  Mentally, there’s more time to be distracted by outside events or by that little voice in the shooter’s head questioning if he can really make the shot.  If those distractions occur, they interfere with the confidence and focus we want the shooter to feel to give himself the best chance to make the shot.

How Bucks Fans’ “MVP” Chants Helped Giannis Make Free Throws

There is one definite benefit that Giannis got from Bucks fans chanting “MVP” and one possible one.  The possible one is that Giannis make actually feel more confident when he hears the “MVP” chants.  The only way to know that for sure is to ask Giannis.

But the “MVP” chants absolutely serve one positive purpose: they give Giannis something to focus on instead of the voice in his head.  This is likely the reason that Giannis has been shooting so well in Milwaukee.

When I work with a player to improve his FT shooting, I’ll often give him a one-syllable mantra (or a set of them) to repeat while he’s at the line.  This gives him something to focus on and keeps the distractions at a distance.  The “MVP” chant does this as well.

Learning From Brooklyn’s Mistakes

Brooklyn fans counted from 1 to 15 (20? 30?) while Giannis was at the free throw line and Giannis made a lot of free throws in game 7.  Although the count should often have resulted in the refs calling Giannis for a free throw violation, they didn’t.  And the count, as it was, made things worse.

There are three mistakes that Nets fans made when they chanted at Giannis while he was at the FT line.  1).  The predictability of their chant became something that Giannis could focus on to eliminate other distractions.  2). They didn’t put more pressure on Giannis.  3).  They didn’t distract Giannis.

1.         Be Less Predictable with the Chant

             Repeating the same thing every free throw, in this case a count up from 1 to 15, allowed Giannis to stay focused.  Had the chant changed every free throw, part of his focus would have been elsewhere, waiting to hear what would be chanted next

2.         Count Down, Not Up

            When we practice critical shots, we count down, not up.  As we count down, the pressure we’re feeling intensifies.  Counting down will not only make Giannis feel more pressure, it’ll make the refs feel more pressure, too.  That may result in the whistle being blown more often when Giannis takes too much time.

3.         Distract Giannis With Humor

            Instead of counting from 10 to 1 every time, maybe vary how you start the chant each FT and then count down from 3 to 1 at the end.  Maybe you can even get him laughing.  That would go a long way to throwing him off.

            Once when Larry Bird, one of the greatest FT shooters in NBA history, was shooting FTs against the LA Clippers, the Clippers mascot organized the fans to distract him.  It was a riot, and a lesser free throw shooter might have missed. 

            They might try writing new words to a song with an easily variable refrain, such as Old MacDonald Had a Farm.  For example, “Refs said Giannis had some harm, E-I-E-I-O.  And for this harm he got two shots, E-I-E-I-O.  With a (put something different here every time) here and a (same) there.” Etc.  You’ll likely change his focus and possibly get him laughing.

If the Hawks fans organize this, they can really make difference in this situation.  Use that power the right way and they’ll like get the result they want.

Art Rondeau is an NBA/NCAA shooting coach with unique results fixing chronically-bad free throw shooters.  He’s also a Certified Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) who developed a “Mental Zone” program credited with helping the Knicks’ Allan Houston become a first-time NBA All-Star.  Follow Art on Twitter(@ArtRondeau).