THE NICK ANDERSON EFFECT
May 7, 2009 by Andy
During my three-on-three league game last week, I pulled a “Nick Anderson.” My team was down by one point, and I had four opportunities at the free throw line to tie the game. I missed each shot by inches as it painfully rolled off the rim. I tried to ignore the grimace from my teammates.
It was only a local league game in a high school gym on the Upper West Side, but there was still pressure to make the free throws as the game wound down. Each person who has been on the line with the clock running down with his team losing can attest to this. Granted, Anderson had more pressure and was shooting free throws in the first game of the NBA Finals.
Whether you are the Orlando Magic trying to top the Houston Rockets with a free throw, or just basketball enthusiasts in an amateur league, the act of shooting free throws is the same. Anderson missed all four shots and his team lost that game, and eventually lost the next three games to the Rockets as they were swept out of the Finals. Anderson never fully recovered from that incident and lost his swagger and confidence, becoming only a shadow of his former self. I am not going to let that happen.
It’s good to learn from your mistakes, but it’s even better if you can learn from other people’s mistakes instead. Basketball is not only a physical game, it is a mental game. It is the mental toughness that separates the great players from the average.
During my missed free throws, I wasn’t fully concentrating on letting my body relax and shoot a free throw I have shot thousands of times. I was thinking too much about my form and follow through, when what I needed was to clear my head of any thoughts and just focus on a point above the rim. It was disheartening to miss all my free throws and contribute to the team’s loss. If I were Anderson, I would be thinking of my missed free throws each time I went to the charity stripe.
To learn to let go, it’s a matter of refocusing where the attention needs to be at the line. It’s easier to take a deep breath, and say a word in your head like “swish” as you release the ball to help remove any negative thoughts. Being mindful of your thoughts during the game will help you be more successful if you focus on what positive actions you can take rather than let previous negative outcomes affect your future performance.
[...] will be talking about the “greatest free throw misses” in franchise history for years to come. Nick Anderson, you are no longer [...]