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Ray Allen: Hot shooter, or just good?
By Henry Abbott
TrueHoop
Was Ray Allen's performance in the first half of Game 2 evidence that a player can get hot?
Even though it's entirely celebrated as a reality of hoops at all levels, serious research has cast doubt on the very existence of "the hot hand."
Does Ray Allen's hitting seven straight 3-pointers blow all that research to smithereens?
Allen has shot close to 7,000 3s in his career, and has made about 40% of them. (Going into the game, he was 2,685 of 6,768, regular season and playoffs combined.)
Given that -- how lucky is seven in a row? Is this a case of a guy who has something special and strange and almost religious going on? Is the zone holy ground?
Or if you have picture perfect shooting form that you practice incessantly like he does, will makes show up in a seven-strong posse once in a while, because that's just how life is?
If you flip a coin enough times, it'll come up heads seven times in a row, without ever being anything other than random, right?
All kind of research has shown that people tend to see trends where in fact things are random. It's just how our brains work. People will watch a coin land on heads again and again and assume that's a fishy coin. We think random things should look random, as in all mixed up. But in fact, truly random things sometimes look organized.
I invite those of you with better math heads than me to tell he how you'd assess Allen's performance. If you hit 40% of the time, and take 6,678 shots, how often would you end up with seven or more makes in a row?
Does Allen do that more often than you'd expect? (Bring on your probabilities!) If the answer is yes, then let's talk about the hot hand. But if the answer is no, well then let's appreciate this is the kind of night good shooters have sometimes, even without the supernatural.
And either way, there are a couple of lessons. One of them is that the most authoritative study to date found that if the hot hand exists, it's rare. And its effect is far smaller than an opposite "hunting shots" or "heat check" effect -- players hit a shot or two and then tend to take a really tough one. They apparently believe so firmly in the idea of the hot hand that after a few shots go in, they'll suspend their normal shot selection. And then they almost always miss.
(Allen may have done a little of that in the second half.)
Since digging into that research a year and a few months ago, I can assure you that if you want to see poor shot selection, make yourself a highlight reel of NBA players who have just hit two shots in a row. That third time down the court, the defense is ready for them, but they're almost always shooting anyway, no matter how horrible the look.
In the study, a player who had just hit a shot was less likely to hit his next one than a player who had just missed. The opposite of the hot hand is alive and well. That is why, as a coach, you don't just "feed the hot hand." It's an invitation for your players to suspend their best judgment, and that's no way to win.
Except for every now and again, like the first half of Game 2, when riding the hot hand -- or whatever Allen had going on -- won the Celtics a game and changed the tenor of these NBA Finals. On nights like that, it's worth remembering that even the authors of that big study say some players may get hot sometimes. And consider a newer, different study, that has found some new suggestions of the hot hand.
In for penny.
In for pound.
He's a great shooter. Declining in production since his days in Seattle, Allen's performance was a breath of fresh-air for those that love to see him tee up his pretty jumper. I love his game, just not his miles. This may prove to help the Celtics win their 18th NBA Championship, and if that is the case, all the trade talk from earlier in the season will seem almost idiotic. Key and integral in the NBA Finals. Isn't that what the Celtics were going to trade him for?
He was hot and good in game 2, that's for sure.
he is both, when he is good, he shoots 50%, when he is hot he breaks history.
A lot of slippery logic in that article. The world is rarely as simple as modelers think, and that includes stat geeks as much as magical thinkers.
It's a pity he plays for the Celtics but I could just watch Ray shoot jumper after jumper.
I didn't read this article, but it should account for the fact that an elite shooter like Allen will rarely see the poor D he saw in the 1st half against an elite defensive team like the Lakers..
This was actually one of the few "hot" games I've ever seen where I never even once thought, "how the did he make that shot?"..they were all open/wide open 3-point shots that Ray Allen SHOULD be making..
The Lakers adjusted in the 2nd half for the most part..the bigs did a better job at closing out, either forcing the miss or making him drive..they really didn't show much resistance in the 1st half..
Hes always been a pretty underrated player IMO. Not only is he the best shooter in the NBA but does every other thing well also. Plays solid D, Rarely makes bad decisions, High basketball IQ and is a good teammate.
I used to not be able to stand the guy back in Seattle when he used to cry about Bowen but he's a great player even though he's getting up there in age.
Ray Allen has one of the best jumpshots in the world, he is pure shooter. His bad shooting nights are career/hot "I can't miss" nights for other players in the league.
If you want to model your jumpshot after anyone it should be Allen or Durant.
True, but Allen hitting 3 after 3 is on both Fisher and Kobe who were on him the majority of the time. Fisher is too old/slow to be running around chasing Ray the entire time. Kobe just looks lazy sometimes trying to defend on D. And yeah the Laker bigs did adjust in the 2nd half with some good close-outs on him, but can they continue to do it for the rest of the series?
Allen is just a pleasure to watch
When he's not crying about Bruce Bowen.
yeah, no doubt. that why Bruce was so damn good. bruce woulda had him crying tonight.
He makes his shots but Durant's jump shot looks ugly to me. Not that it's Marion level ugly though.
Damn, my son is makin it BIG! He got a national question posed for him, so I guess lakaluva could call him a good hot shooter, seeing that Ray Ray aimed right at his nostrils, and hit right on target
Thanks for that. Do you have any other centuries old cliches you want to pass off as basketball analysis?
Sure does help when you're shooting jumpers 3 hours before the game.
Yep:::the next time you cross the Arizona border tape your ass cheeks shut and help your own gimp to his feet.
Savvy?
Looks at boxscore... LOL, he set an NBA record!? Guess game one wasn't a knockout blow, I'm going to have to start watching. Hope it goes 7 games and then a quake takes out both teams and LA fans.
Nope. Try again.
Ray is s great shooter. Once he gets that stroke going, it's lights out.
.........you'd still O & 42, Paul.
Ok:::the next time the Suns cross the Texas border tape your ass cheeks shut and help your own gimp to his feet.
Savvy?
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