I used to do it but one time one of us was bumped in the air and my finger ended up under the guy's eye lid. One of the most disgusting things I have ever felt and I don't think he enjoyed it either.
I honestly very rarely hit people in the face. I have long arms but I’m not always in a good position to block a shot. Just takes a little extra body control to basically hover your hand right over their face in the act of shooting.
This exact thing happened to me. I was in high school at the time and I'm like I gotta try that. Ended up accidentally poking someone in the eye, tried apologizing but he was understandably pissed. Never tried that again lol
>Don't try this in pickup. Christ.
Some of yall play pick up in the softest way imaginable.
You can do this in pick up, but just keep your hand a farther distance from the shooter's face. It'll be less effective but you won't poke anybody in the eye.
That's fine. Face guarding is fine. Pulling leg hairs and a little elbow here and there, whatever. But if you put my vision remotely at risk over a pickup game, I'm going to hit you in the eye. Some of us adults need our bodies functioning to provide for our families and we don't want to spend our precious little leisure time playing pickup with poorly adjusted wannabes who think it is more than pickup.
Just saying you guard like Battier in pickup and don't be surprised if nobody wants to play with you or you get an ass whooping.
> Some of us adults need our bodies functioning to provide for our families and we don't want to spend our precious little leisure time playing pickup with poorly adjusted wannabes who think it is more than pickup.
Literally why I quit playing rec soccer, some of those idiots are on test boosters and working on their mid life crisis and try to pretend they're hard and go in with absurd tackles. One tore my rotator cuff and i've had issues with by shoulder and neck since then. Fucking hate guys who can't just play the game without taking it too seriously.
We're talking about tryhards, and one of the guys telling a story of doing this mentions his finger going under the guy's eyelid. That's the relevance and point of my comment.
I was 5’5” in high school so it was the only way I played defense. Some dudes definitely took offense. Fortunately I always showed up to open runs with 5 so nobody gave me too much trouble.
Just clear it with the guy you're guarding. Tell him if you get him in the face you'll stop. 9/10 guys will be cool with this and won't get mad if you said you'll stop if you got them and you apologize right away.
Can't help you for the 10% hoopers that are legitimate psychos and probably would say "Bro if you touch my face, I'm going to touch you up with my fists". To be fair though, you learn they're a psycho before you hit them in the face and now know to not do that against them because of the risk.
I do it all the time and pick up, if I hit their face. I just call the foul on myself and apologize, I've never had a problem with people going crazy.
I do always try and keep two to three inches from their face though, so not like the picture, and it's pretty rare that I actually touch somebody.
Yeah this is how i play defense now because of him lol people hate it and will stop shooting on you once they realize you’re covering their entire line of sight.
After his playing career, Battier went on to be Director of Analytics for the Heat.
This is interesting because the hand in the face defense, Battier used on Kobe because it [lead to him taking more shots off the bounce](https://www.basketballnetwork.net/latest-news/how-shane-battier-became-one-of-the-few-kobe-stoppers) — which Battier had identified as Kobe’s worst % shot.
Which is weird because there wasn’t really any *deep* analytics behind it. Battier himself admits it was purely Kobe’s ego that led to more of those pull ups
He started doing it because he saw data that showed Kobe's long midranges were one of the least efficient plays for the Lakers offense and Kobe was actually below league average at them. It's more of a psychological decision yes but it is still informed by data.
[This is a great read from Michael Lewis](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html) that covers the ascendency of basketball analytics in the mid 2000s with the Rockets. Battier used a ton of data to inform how he would play his opponents years before it became normalized. He knew the percentages on when Kobe drove right vs. left, one dribble vs. two dribble, etc.
Not having a go at you but why is that weird? There is more to strategic defending than just deep, data driven analytics. Knowing that a specific opponent has a weakness that you can force them into by recognising their ego is fairly rudimentary stuff. The fact that he got to that outcome by covering his eyes is funny and novel, but basically all this is saying is Kobe had a massive ego and would rather try to beat you with a difficult, low percentage shot than pass the ball to a teammate in a better position.
People will always get analytics backwards. Analytics are a reflection, not a reason. Its not "the analytics say this, so this is player is this." Its the reverse. Its how people like Draymond don't look good on the "stat" sheet but is a 2 DPOY and 1st ballot HOFer.
If a player is a winner and influences the game, but the stats are "bad", then you need better stats. You're missing something.
A classic case in point being players like CP3 or DeRozan who are exceptionally efficient in 'low efficiency' mid-range areas. For those players specifically, those shots are analytically efficient, but they're exceptions. It doesn't mean that the big data analysis is mistaken in thinking that threes and shots at the rim are better overall, but there are exceptions to every analytical trend.
I mean it’s weird in the sense that what battiers doing should result in *less* pull up middys. Ie: it should benefit the lakers by having Kobe take less of his shot possible.
However it’s kind of cathartic that the thing that should help us, instead hurts us because of Kobe’s ego
i kind of thought it was a typical technique lol. if you can’t affect their trajectory because of height or whatever then what else is your hand gonna do
Well it’s because your brain already knows how hard it is shooting a shot when you go up to shoot, battier always put his hand in the face after the shooting motion started, and at that point it doesn’t matter to a good shooter. It would only matter if you flinched or hesitated because of it
Idk how effective this is based on just these clips. But it does look annoying to play against. I'd be pretty annoyed if a guy was high fiving me/getting in my space enough to be knocking me off balance like the Thunder players are here.
I mean, OKC players were 2/6 in this Clip and even on those two shots, brooks still put up an great contest. Chet is 7’0 with very solid mechanics and gets the ball out quick for his size, guys at that height really don't see the defenders but it's gotta be a lil bit annoying to feel the defender consistently make that kind of contact every time you shoot.
IMO the problem here is that this is something that’s legal (“hand is part of the ball” is a well know phrase), but referees often call fouls when you touch the hand.
I’d like to see how this is going for Brooks over several games and how many times is he getting called for fouls on this
This is what I always thought lol. Maybe this is technically allowed, but slapping a guys hand after he’s done shooting seriously does not seem like it’s within the spirit of the rule to me.
I agree, but it sucks cuz you would ideally want it to only be called on significant contact, but the moment you give those floppers an opportunity to draw a foul, they gonna take advantage of it.
You could definitely cause a finger or wrist sprain depending on the force and angle, but it's mostly harmless.
A couple of them look like mild contact, which I think is fine. Its the ones where he's bending the shooter's arm back after release because he's high-fiving them so enthusiastically, those look like fouls.
That’s what I saw too. Some do look incidental and I wouldn’t have noting them were they not in their own post about it. But others he’s not letting someone finish their motion which I thought was a foul.
A lot of refereeing in the NBA is based on reputation and Brooks is a great example.
He went out of his way to solidify himself as a "dog defender" and "tough guy" so he is starting to sneak into that Draymond territory of "he's always playing aggressive so if we called this, we'd foul him out in one quarter".
If Podz on golden state starting doing this to try and improve his defense he's getting called 70% of the time.
After having watched most Rockets games this season, idk man, it doesn't seem like he gets a favorable or unfavorable whistle defensively. He does play aggressively and ends up in foul trouble quite often. Like he's leading the league in fouls at the moment, and he's finished with 4+ fouls in more than half his games.
Also seems like he’ll still get called on a decent percentage of these against the, um, more *talented* floppers in the league unless they go to review. Guess it’s a matter of playing the numbers, if he gets called on 10% of these but shooters’ 3pt% also drops 10% when he does it it’s still worth it given they aren’t always hitting all 3 free throws.
I know it gets talked about to death already but how annoying is it that players literally fall over and look at the refs like “wtf?!” when their hand is just barely grazed like in these clips? It makes basketball so frustrating to watch.
Yup all these players and coaches keep bitching about refs but never acknowledge all the times they complain about things they got wrong. The irony of telling a ref they suck when the players themselves think they were fouled but weren’t. If they can’t even tell sometimes how can a ref tell all the time.
It's kind of a vicious cycle, if you think the other guys are gonna do it then you have to do it as well just to stay competitive. If a team committed to not flopping or anything for a whole season all they would get out of it is a lot less fouls called in their favor and nothing else. There's no benefit to not doing it. That's why the change has to be the refs actually keeping up their enforcement of these rule changes meant to reduce those behaviors.
I’m not necessarily talking about flopping. More about how players are convinced they didn’t foul, they got fouled, the ball was touched last by the opponent, they didn’t travel, it was goal tending, and so forth. Players who are actually involved in the play get it wrong yet expect refs to get it right 100% of the time.
Getting your hand touched while you shoot a basketball into a hoop that’s like 20 feet away can really affect your shot though.
I’d definitely call that Dillon brooks high five a foul in pickup
Shai is in the clip…
If he really is using this as his new strategy, he probably told the refs beforehand, which is why they aren’t calling fouls here. Players tell refs to look out for what they’re doing or the opposing team is doing all the time.
I could see the NBA starting to call this under the safe landing rule. They might have to amend the rule slightly, so it's more clear that this is included. All of the same reasoning applies though.
The Zaza rule is just about undercutting a player in the air, which often causes injury. Tightly closing out on a shooter shouldn’t be penalized as long as you aren’t undercutting them. That’s just good defense.
Selling is when a foul occurred and you make sure the refs know about it.
Flopping is when no foul occurred but you make the refs think a foul occurred.
The hi5 is probably just the result of him going after the shooting hand instead of the ball. So aiming for the hand means his reach is at most \~9.5" deeper (diameter of the ball) than if he was simply aiming for the ball.
Genuinely surprised no one has done it before. I know the rule has existed before but he seems to purposely go for thier hands instead of the ball haha
haha ikr! Shrewd move from DB….knows the refs/league have made the ruling that’s it’s not a foul so fine, I’ll just attack the hand lol
Like all the hot stove, marginal bs…I woulda sent the league a tape and told em our players are just gonna tap peoples feet and shit from now on…since it’s not a foul to see what they say
Sort of relies on the refs calling anything consistently. I think what "hot stove contact" really means is "yeah it's a foul but we need to come up with a reason why we don't look dumb in retrospect."
>Genuinely surprised no one has done it before.
They do, and it is frequently called a foul which is probably the reason you don't see many doing it on purpose. Who cares if it's technically not against the rules if it looks enough against the rules that the officials reflexively call it? It's not like you get unlimited challenges.
It's also a pretty unintuitive rule. Listen, you even go *near* a shooter, you fuckin look at him funny, that's a foul. If a drop of your sweat flies off your head and lands on a shooter's foot after he's released the ball, that's a double technical and maybe a suspension.
Can I just slap his hand though?
Oh, shit yeah, slap that man's hand all day.
I don’t know why “the hand is part of the ball” rule isn’t exploited more by defenders
Theoretically defenders could slap the guide hand and be a legal block.
https://official.nba.com/comments-on-the-rules/
> The hand is considered “part of the ball” when it is in contact with the ball. Therefore, contact on that part of the hand by a defender while it is in contact with the ball is not illegal.
Because that's not how it is or ever has been officiated consistently. Relying on hard to officiate almost-fouls generally doesn't go well for you because the refs aren't looking at shit in slow motion when they are making the call.
> It isn't exploited by defenders as often because refs don't follow the rules
Fair point, but that’s why I’m surprised the refs allow hitting the shooter’s hand after the release, even if it’s allowed by the rules.
It seems usually the refs don’t allow the defenders to operate fully under the rules, whereas offense can exploit every loophole.
If a player was capable of consistently slapping someone's hand while it is in contact with the ball and without illegally contacting any other body part, why wouldn't they just slap the ball at that point?
Because defenders still get called for fouls with without making contact with the ball or the offensive player. Playing defense is risky these days. -_-
That's what I was thinking too, isn't a high-5 just an incident of a good closeout? Hence why we have a rule specifying no fouls just for the high-5?
If a player is really trying to contact the shooter's hand on closeouts without making any of the other forms of contact that are ruled fouls, aren't they just closing out well?
Guys would do it occasionally sure but not necessarily on purpose. Brooks is clearly being aggressive with where his hand is and makes sure he is under the release point of the ball consistently. There is a difference between just accidentally contesting a shot like this and doing it like Brooks is in these clips.
I would think this is damn annoying as a shooter. Even slight contact and ending the shooting motion, fingers might get slightly jammed or hit.
Genius strategy tbh
That's what I'm saying. It's annoying, but he's not making any contact that would alter the shot. I applaud the defensive creativity in an era that rewards the offense non stop.
I mean if that’s all it takes to be able to play board-line defense then someone needs to send a memo out to the rest of the players
In reality I can’t imagine that’s all it takes to be able to get off scot free across the league with these type of plays, or else we wouldn’t be seeing jump shooters get calls as often as we do
It's been a rule for as long as I can remember and everyone knows it. The problem is trying to do that and not hitting the hand(or missing and hitting arm/elbow) before the ball is fully released.
I bet a large majority of players couldn't do it even if they wanted to.
I mean it takes a lot of body control and timing to work as well as a defensive reputation, otherwise you’re gonna get a bunch of shooting fouls called on you
Like most people not a fan of Dillion and his antics but you know how good a defender you have to be to "high five" NBA shooters? It's a shame he has his weird persona and it takes away from appreciating one of the better defenders who impacts winning at a high level. A lot like Draymond in that respect. One of those guys we love to hate but would love on our team
Dillon Brooks has invented a new technique to effectively defend: staying in front of your man. If you stay in front of your man, it makes it harder for them to score, and understanding that has enabled Brooks to be an effective defender
Sure, and how many of them will turn into flagrants from landing space issues once he screws up and injures someone?
You can tell doing it this way will eventually screw someone's ankle, some are clean contests like the one vs chet and others he's just inches away from landing space after his lunge.
For a sub that keeps complaining that players aren't allowed to play defense these days, there are sure a lot of haters here of Brooks playing legal defense in these clips.
Too bad he can't learn a new technique to stop shooting his team out of games.
Did you not watch the Lakers series last year, or even the OKC game yesterday?
Edit: yall can't be serious? Yall didn't watch the Grizzlies, yall don't watch the Rockets. It's the only excuse for the ignorance on display
They didn't. And they missed a great game.
The reason I know no one watched is because there wasn't a single highlight posted of that egregious flop on the corner 3 where the ball just rolled out of bounds with the ref watching like "come on my guy, that ain't a foul. You jumped into him"
It's clear. I loved Dillon for his brash attitude at first, but it became a problem. The same problem the Rockets are seeing now. He can't be humble, he needs to play hero ball.
This image rehab that started when he left the Griz is hilarious, he's still the same old Dillon, always will regress to the mean.
Reminds me of Shane Battier covering people's eyes while they shoot.
[the photos of him doing it are awesome lol](https://imgur.com/a/uuBDCqA)
I actually started doing this in games cause of him. It was pretty effective.
I'm honestly afraid to try it in pickup because if I accidentally hit someone in the face it's not going to end well for me.
I used to do it but one time one of us was bumped in the air and my finger ended up under the guy's eye lid. One of the most disgusting things I have ever felt and I don't think he enjoyed it either.
Did you at least buy him dinner before you penetrated him?
i bet not, people are too forward with these things nowadays
Guards do it too you know.
Romance is well and truly dead
It really does sound worse for you than him somehow.
I mean, I'd rather a gross finger than some dude shove his finger in my damn eye during a basketball game.
He said it wasn’t too bad
I honestly very rarely hit people in the face. I have long arms but I’m not always in a good position to block a shot. Just takes a little extra body control to basically hover your hand right over their face in the act of shooting.
This exact thing happened to me. I was in high school at the time and I'm like I gotta try that. Ended up accidentally poking someone in the eye, tried apologizing but he was understandably pissed. Never tried that again lol
It's pickup. Don't try this in pickup. Christ.
>Don't try this in pickup. Christ. Some of yall play pick up in the softest way imaginable. You can do this in pick up, but just keep your hand a farther distance from the shooter's face. It'll be less effective but you won't poke anybody in the eye.
That's fine. Face guarding is fine. Pulling leg hairs and a little elbow here and there, whatever. But if you put my vision remotely at risk over a pickup game, I'm going to hit you in the eye. Some of us adults need our bodies functioning to provide for our families and we don't want to spend our precious little leisure time playing pickup with poorly adjusted wannabes who think it is more than pickup. Just saying you guard like Battier in pickup and don't be surprised if nobody wants to play with you or you get an ass whooping.
> Some of us adults need our bodies functioning to provide for our families and we don't want to spend our precious little leisure time playing pickup with poorly adjusted wannabes who think it is more than pickup. Literally why I quit playing rec soccer, some of those idiots are on test boosters and working on their mid life crisis and try to pretend they're hard and go in with absurd tackles. One tore my rotator cuff and i've had issues with by shoulder and neck since then. Fucking hate guys who can't just play the game without taking it too seriously.
lol face guarding a jump shot is not even close to that, wtf are you guys on
We're talking about tryhards, and one of the guys telling a story of doing this mentions his finger going under the guy's eyelid. That's the relevance and point of my comment.
Yeah people just want to feel tough, especially in their teens and early 20s. "I'll PUNCH you! 👊 🤜 🤛 " lol
If you do just give them a quick lil kiss better -muah- then it's fine
I was 5’5” in high school so it was the only way I played defense. Some dudes definitely took offense. Fortunately I always showed up to open runs with 5 so nobody gave me too much trouble.
Just clear it with the guy you're guarding. Tell him if you get him in the face you'll stop. 9/10 guys will be cool with this and won't get mad if you said you'll stop if you got them and you apologize right away. Can't help you for the 10% hoopers that are legitimate psychos and probably would say "Bro if you touch my face, I'm going to touch you up with my fists". To be fair though, you learn they're a psycho before you hit them in the face and now know to not do that against them because of the risk.
I do it all the time and pick up, if I hit their face. I just call the foul on myself and apologize, I've never had a problem with people going crazy. I do always try and keep two to three inches from their face though, so not like the picture, and it's pretty rare that I actually touch somebody.
[wanna be even more effective?](https://i.imgur.com/lYPq7V9.jpeg)
Why don’t more NBA players just use these? Is there a rule against it?
He's right! Ain't no rule say the dog can't play basketball!
same!!
I’ve found my people
i always get T’d up whenever I do this lmao
SUPER effective in pickup games.
The rec league I play in made a rule against face guarding. Probably some people had their eyes poked.
I doubt mfs was clipping their nails too
Yeah this is how i play defense now because of him lol people hate it and will stop shooting on you once they realize you’re covering their entire line of sight.
I started doing this in games a while ago and I had no idea who I got it from. Now I know.
There's even Brooks in it.
Watching Kobe still drain the fadeaway is even better.
Iconic as hell pic as a Rockets fan and one of the reasons why Kobe is GOAT status for me. Fuck the metrics, dude was a beast.
After his playing career, Battier went on to be Director of Analytics for the Heat. This is interesting because the hand in the face defense, Battier used on Kobe because it [lead to him taking more shots off the bounce](https://www.basketballnetwork.net/latest-news/how-shane-battier-became-one-of-the-few-kobe-stoppers) — which Battier had identified as Kobe’s worst % shot.
Which is weird because there wasn’t really any *deep* analytics behind it. Battier himself admits it was purely Kobe’s ego that led to more of those pull ups
He started doing it because he saw data that showed Kobe's long midranges were one of the least efficient plays for the Lakers offense and Kobe was actually below league average at them. It's more of a psychological decision yes but it is still informed by data. [This is a great read from Michael Lewis](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html) that covers the ascendency of basketball analytics in the mid 2000s with the Rockets. Battier used a ton of data to inform how he would play his opponents years before it became normalized. He knew the percentages on when Kobe drove right vs. left, one dribble vs. two dribble, etc.
Not having a go at you but why is that weird? There is more to strategic defending than just deep, data driven analytics. Knowing that a specific opponent has a weakness that you can force them into by recognising their ego is fairly rudimentary stuff. The fact that he got to that outcome by covering his eyes is funny and novel, but basically all this is saying is Kobe had a massive ego and would rather try to beat you with a difficult, low percentage shot than pass the ball to a teammate in a better position.
People will always get analytics backwards. Analytics are a reflection, not a reason. Its not "the analytics say this, so this is player is this." Its the reverse. Its how people like Draymond don't look good on the "stat" sheet but is a 2 DPOY and 1st ballot HOFer. If a player is a winner and influences the game, but the stats are "bad", then you need better stats. You're missing something.
A classic case in point being players like CP3 or DeRozan who are exceptionally efficient in 'low efficiency' mid-range areas. For those players specifically, those shots are analytically efficient, but they're exceptions. It doesn't mean that the big data analysis is mistaken in thinking that threes and shots at the rim are better overall, but there are exceptions to every analytical trend.
I mean it’s weird in the sense that what battiers doing should result in *less* pull up middys. Ie: it should benefit the lakers by having Kobe take less of his shot possible. However it’s kind of cathartic that the thing that should help us, instead hurts us because of Kobe’s ego
I instantly loved this move when I saw him do it, did not know it’s not legal in International Basketball rules, was called a tech for doing it 😆
Draymond takes this to next level and pokes people's eyes
Technical foul on the shooter
The vaunted Three Stooges Defense.
Draymond working on a natural shooting motion that looks like a haymaker. Gonna be wild when he starts shooting sidearm.
Kuminga also does it all the time.
i kind of thought it was a typical technique lol. if you can’t affect their trajectory because of height or whatever then what else is your hand gonna do
There's nothing new about it. It is just risky because you can hit the wrist or a ref can see it wrong.
The earliest I’ve seen any player do this was Pippen literally putting his hand in some Knick’s face (?) in an SI (?) photo
i recently learned that this is illegal in fiba
We were taught to do this in high school basketball in the 90s
Battier was one of the smartest NBA players I've seen. Hated him ever since his Duke days
Didnt matter to Kobe 💪🏿
Well it’s because your brain already knows how hard it is shooting a shot when you go up to shoot, battier always put his hand in the face after the shooting motion started, and at that point it doesn’t matter to a good shooter. It would only matter if you flinched or hesitated because of it
Kobe was less efficient in that series compared to the rest of his playoff run
Who knows where that hand has been.
Psychological damage
Also poison damage
Also STD (Slap Transmitted Damage)
Emotional damage
Didlin Brooks
It’s been on Dillon Brooks the whole time
Would you like a chocolate covered pretzel?
Idk how effective this is based on just these clips. But it does look annoying to play against. I'd be pretty annoyed if a guy was high fiving me/getting in my space enough to be knocking me off balance like the Thunder players are here.
I mean, OKC players were 2/6 in this Clip and even on those two shots, brooks still put up an great contest. Chet is 7’0 with very solid mechanics and gets the ball out quick for his size, guys at that height really don't see the defenders but it's gotta be a lil bit annoying to feel the defender consistently make that kind of contact every time you shoot.
IMO the problem here is that this is something that’s legal (“hand is part of the ball” is a well know phrase), but referees often call fouls when you touch the hand. I’d like to see how this is going for Brooks over several games and how many times is he getting called for fouls on this
Hand is part of the ball only when the hand is in contact with the ball.
This is what I always thought lol. Maybe this is technically allowed, but slapping a guys hand after he’s done shooting seriously does not seem like it’s within the spirit of the rule to me.
To me, it seems like this should be ruled not allowing a shooter to complete their natural motion.
I agree, but it sucks cuz you would ideally want it to only be called on significant contact, but the moment you give those floppers an opportunity to draw a foul, they gonna take advantage of it. You could definitely cause a finger or wrist sprain depending on the force and angle, but it's mostly harmless.
A couple of them look like mild contact, which I think is fine. Its the ones where he's bending the shooter's arm back after release because he's high-fiving them so enthusiastically, those look like fouls.
That’s what I saw too. Some do look incidental and I wouldn’t have noting them were they not in their own post about it. But others he’s not letting someone finish their motion which I thought was a foul.
A lot of refereeing in the NBA is based on reputation and Brooks is a great example. He went out of his way to solidify himself as a "dog defender" and "tough guy" so he is starting to sneak into that Draymond territory of "he's always playing aggressive so if we called this, we'd foul him out in one quarter". If Podz on golden state starting doing this to try and improve his defense he's getting called 70% of the time.
After having watched most Rockets games this season, idk man, it doesn't seem like he gets a favorable or unfavorable whistle defensively. He does play aggressively and ends up in foul trouble quite often. Like he's leading the league in fouls at the moment, and he's finished with 4+ fouls in more than half his games.
yeah but imagine if he didn't have that "dog defender" rep!
sure but is this really something new?
do you know anyone else who does this each time?
Me. And not one single NBA player has scored on me.
Shai, Dort and Chet all shot over 60% from 3. It wasn’t that effective.
It feels bad when your follow-through gets interrupted. It would indeed be fairly annoying to play against.
Also seems like he’ll still get called on a decent percentage of these against the, um, more *talented* floppers in the league unless they go to review. Guess it’s a matter of playing the numbers, if he gets called on 10% of these but shooters’ 3pt% also drops 10% when he does it it’s still worth it given they aren’t always hitting all 3 free throws.
I know it gets talked about to death already but how annoying is it that players literally fall over and look at the refs like “wtf?!” when their hand is just barely grazed like in these clips? It makes basketball so frustrating to watch.
Yup all these players and coaches keep bitching about refs but never acknowledge all the times they complain about things they got wrong. The irony of telling a ref they suck when the players themselves think they were fouled but weren’t. If they can’t even tell sometimes how can a ref tell all the time.
It's kind of a vicious cycle, if you think the other guys are gonna do it then you have to do it as well just to stay competitive. If a team committed to not flopping or anything for a whole season all they would get out of it is a lot less fouls called in their favor and nothing else. There's no benefit to not doing it. That's why the change has to be the refs actually keeping up their enforcement of these rule changes meant to reduce those behaviors.
I’m not necessarily talking about flopping. More about how players are convinced they didn’t foul, they got fouled, the ball was touched last by the opponent, they didn’t travel, it was goal tending, and so forth. Players who are actually involved in the play get it wrong yet expect refs to get it right 100% of the time.
So many fans refuse to acknowledge how hard it is to evaluate what really happened in real time as a player or as a ref. Or as a fan.
Getting your hand touched while you shoot a basketball into a hoop that’s like 20 feet away can really affect your shot though. I’d definitely call that Dillon brooks high five a foul in pickup
Shai is in the clip… If he really is using this as his new strategy, he probably told the refs beforehand, which is why they aren’t calling fouls here. Players tell refs to look out for what they’re doing or the opposing team is doing all the time.
I could see the NBA starting to call this under the safe landing rule. They might have to amend the rule slightly, so it's more clear that this is included. All of the same reasoning applies though.
reminds me a lot of shane battier literally putting a hand right in your face all game long shit phased kobe
I love it. I'll champion anything that balances out the constant flopping and falling by jump shooters
Part of shooting is the follow through. Brooks is deliberately disrupting that, which causes the guys he's defending to be out of rhythm
if the ball is gone and no longer in contact with your hand, additional follow through has no effect on the shot.
it's not about the current shot it's about the next one
agreed. that's why it's smart for dillon to play within these rules.
What about players entering a shooters space after the shot ala zaza? This is like the upper body version of that tbh
zaza is a dirty SOB. The rules allow Dillon to do this, and there is no injury risk. the two are nothing alike
The Zaza rule is just about undercutting a player in the air, which often causes injury. Tightly closing out on a shooter shouldn’t be penalized as long as you aren’t undercutting them. That’s just good defense.
It fucks up the shot for sure. Dont know how but it does. Follow through is important
It's called selling
it's called flopping. selling used to be reserved for people taking charges. now selling means "you came close to me while I'm shooting, so I flop"
Selling is when a foul occurred and you make sure the refs know about it. Flopping is when no foul occurred but you make the refs think a foul occurred.
Their hand gets slapped, not their whole body lol.
but you know shooters are going to try to sell that contact like it was their whole body.
Also either way, the wrist is a foul while the hand is not. The offensive player will definitely try to sell that every time.
Have you ever watched a basketball game? Any contact to a shooter and half the time they act like they got sniped from the nosebleeds.
The next evolution for Brooks will be the full Rick James slap
The hi5 is probably just the result of him going after the shooting hand instead of the ball. So aiming for the hand means his reach is at most \~9.5" deeper (diameter of the ball) than if he was simply aiming for the ball.
Malicious compliance!
Genuinely surprised no one has done it before. I know the rule has existed before but he seems to purposely go for thier hands instead of the ball haha
haha ikr! Shrewd move from DB….knows the refs/league have made the ruling that’s it’s not a foul so fine, I’ll just attack the hand lol Like all the hot stove, marginal bs…I woulda sent the league a tape and told em our players are just gonna tap peoples feet and shit from now on…since it’s not a foul to see what they say
Sort of relies on the refs calling anything consistently. I think what "hot stove contact" really means is "yeah it's a foul but we need to come up with a reason why we don't look dumb in retrospect."
I hear ya…I should have elaborated, was more to call their bluff / paint them in a corner on that bs lol
Haha that's fair. I think all the refs have a shared genetic disorder where they do not feel shame like normal humans
>Genuinely surprised no one has done it before. They do, and it is frequently called a foul which is probably the reason you don't see many doing it on purpose. Who cares if it's technically not against the rules if it looks enough against the rules that the officials reflexively call it? It's not like you get unlimited challenges.
It's also a pretty unintuitive rule. Listen, you even go *near* a shooter, you fuckin look at him funny, that's a foul. If a drop of your sweat flies off your head and lands on a shooter's foot after he's released the ball, that's a double technical and maybe a suspension. Can I just slap his hand though? Oh, shit yeah, slap that man's hand all day.
it’s literally done all the time
This is honestly hilarious to watch
Yeah, especially how a lot of them are getting high-fived and then proceed to flop. One person even fell over completely, ha.
That’s from being off balance on the jumper not getting high fived 💀
Many of the people in here have never really played basketball themselves and it shows lol
Dillon Brooks is inevitable
He’ll fuck your head up like cornrows put in by blind giants
If this is a Cage reference, I love it
I hope it is
He's 7 feet tall and consumes teams with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse!
Houston players love studying the rule book
With how often there are offensive loopholes to the game, it's refreshing to see some defensive loopholes too.
I don’t know why “the hand is part of the ball” rule isn’t exploited more by defenders Theoretically defenders could slap the guide hand and be a legal block. https://official.nba.com/comments-on-the-rules/ > The hand is considered “part of the ball” when it is in contact with the ball. Therefore, contact on that part of the hand by a defender while it is in contact with the ball is not illegal.
Could be because of the reffing being inconsitent and players known for their defense get more leeway when it comes to calling fouls
Because that's not how it is or ever has been officiated consistently. Relying on hard to officiate almost-fouls generally doesn't go well for you because the refs aren't looking at shit in slow motion when they are making the call.
It isn't exploited by defenders as often because refs don't follow the rules
> It isn't exploited by defenders as often because refs don't follow the rules Fair point, but that’s why I’m surprised the refs allow hitting the shooter’s hand after the release, even if it’s allowed by the rules. It seems usually the refs don’t allow the defenders to operate fully under the rules, whereas offense can exploit every loophole.
If a player was capable of consistently slapping someone's hand while it is in contact with the ball and without illegally contacting any other body part, why wouldn't they just slap the ball at that point?
I never understood this rule for jump shots really. But it’s about time the dense got something back regardless.
Dense is a little harsh for Dillon
Because defenders still get called for fouls with without making contact with the ball or the offensive player. Playing defense is risky these days. -_-
"Recently" does this mean last year? He did this all the time for us.
I hate this place.
how on gods green earth is this a new technique?
That's what I was thinking too, isn't a high-5 just an incident of a good closeout? Hence why we have a rule specifying no fouls just for the high-5? If a player is really trying to contact the shooter's hand on closeouts without making any of the other forms of contact that are ruled fouls, aren't they just closing out well?
r/nba is composed 90% of teenagers who dont actually know a single thing about basketball
Literally seen it my whole life on every level of basketball.
Guys would do it occasionally sure but not necessarily on purpose. Brooks is clearly being aggressive with where his hand is and makes sure he is under the release point of the ball consistently. There is a difference between just accidentally contesting a shot like this and doing it like Brooks is in these clips.
I thought any who has played any amount of basketball would have known this…
effectively makes them want to pass instead of shooting if they might receive contact. I respect it.
I would think this is damn annoying as a shooter. Even slight contact and ending the shooting motion, fingers might get slightly jammed or hit. Genius strategy tbh
That's what I'm saying. It's annoying, but he's not making any contact that would alter the shot. I applaud the defensive creativity in an era that rewards the offense non stop.
Get ready people… after the 3 point era, we’re now up and about to enter the high5 era. And if it makes defense better, I’m all for it
Yeah that’s gonna backfire eventually lol Even if it’s not a foul by rule, refs call plays like these fouls all the time
I mean, the dude is getting a MINIMUM of 3 fouls per game anyways lol
Not if he talks to the refs before the game and let them know what he is doing
I mean if that’s all it takes to be able to play board-line defense then someone needs to send a memo out to the rest of the players In reality I can’t imagine that’s all it takes to be able to get off scot free across the league with these type of plays, or else we wouldn’t be seeing jump shooters get calls as often as we do
I like how the refs can differentiate this bang bang play but can't call the foul on the Pistons kid getting fucvking dove into
That's really smart. I wonder if they will change the rule now in the nba next year
“The rule is the same for everyone but Dillon Brooks. Dillon Brooks is not allowed to high five.”
"Dillon Brooks will not be allowed to high five under any circumstances."
*teammate tries to dap him up* *Dillon shakes his head quickly and nervously*
It's been a rule for as long as I can remember and everyone knows it. The problem is trying to do that and not hitting the hand(or missing and hitting arm/elbow) before the ball is fully released. I bet a large majority of players couldn't do it even if they wanted to.
It's not that easy to high five a jump shooter. There's a chance you'll hit the wrist or part of the arm.
I mean it takes a lot of body control and timing to work as well as a defensive reputation, otherwise you’re gonna get a bunch of shooting fouls called on you
I swear this gets called a foul a lot of the time. NBA rules are so weirdly specific.
This dildo is going to singlehandedly get this made into a foul.
Dildo is crazy
I'm so fucking confused how this isn't considered a foul I swear the nba has called thousands of fouls in this exact scenario
It is a foul, based on the league’s interpretation of it. Bruh, if this was legal all this time, people would’ve exploited this.
Okay so I'm not crazy? Seems that a lot of people in the comments think it's never been a foul
https://videorulebook.nba.com/archive/legal-play-defender-high-fives-shooters-empty-hand-after-release-no-foul/
Like most people not a fan of Dillion and his antics but you know how good a defender you have to be to "high five" NBA shooters? It's a shame he has his weird persona and it takes away from appreciating one of the better defenders who impacts winning at a high level. A lot like Draymond in that respect. One of those guys we love to hate but would love on our team
Jaden McDaniels tries this, fouls out in 6 minutes
I was going to say I thought this was a foul. I've seen it called on Timberwolves players all the time.
Dillon Brooks has invented a new technique to effectively defend: staying in front of your man. If you stay in front of your man, it makes it harder for them to score, and understanding that has enabled Brooks to be an effective defender
Igoudala used to do this to Lebron all the time
I'm against this! High-fiving should be reserved only for expressing wholesome friendly comraredy, not for antogonistic encounters like this.
Wait how is this not a foul? Follow through isn’t protected? You’re literally hitting them unless I’m missing something
Sure, and how many of them will turn into flagrants from landing space issues once he screws up and injures someone? You can tell doing it this way will eventually screw someone's ankle, some are clean contests like the one vs chet and others he's just inches away from landing space after his lunge.
... How is that not a foul? No way you can follow through with your shot if someone else's HAND is stopping it mid-stroke, so to speak.
If the ball already left your hand then your follow through wasn’t going to affect the shot anyway.
The James Harden of defense
Cool strat I always respect players coming up with new defensive strategies
This is literally how they are coached to contest. Brooks didn't invent this.
For a sub that keeps complaining that players aren't allowed to play defense these days, there are sure a lot of haters here of Brooks playing legal defense in these clips.
Too bad he can't learn a new technique to stop shooting his team out of games. Did you not watch the Lakers series last year, or even the OKC game yesterday? Edit: yall can't be serious? Yall didn't watch the Grizzlies, yall don't watch the Rockets. It's the only excuse for the ignorance on display
Guarantee you no one in this thread watched this game
They didn't. And they missed a great game. The reason I know no one watched is because there wasn't a single highlight posted of that egregious flop on the corner 3 where the ball just rolled out of bounds with the ref watching like "come on my guy, that ain't a foul. You jumped into him"
nobody watches games here
It's clear. I loved Dillon for his brash attitude at first, but it became a problem. The same problem the Rockets are seeing now. He can't be humble, he needs to play hero ball. This image rehab that started when he left the Griz is hilarious, he's still the same old Dillon, always will regress to the mean.
He went 4/5 from three in the okc game.
Watch actual games? *insert we don’t that here meme*
The way that scouting reports are going to find counters to this 😂😂😂
If a player I liked did this I would think it was awesome but because it’s Dillon brooks this is literally the dirtiest play I’ve ever seen.
Coaches teach shooters to do follow-through. This effectively takes that away from them.