Spaced Out by Mike Prada

Author:Mike Prada
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-07-28T17:43:15+00:00

10. Fake It by Taking It (A Lot)

How NBA players learn to stop worrying and let those three-pointers fly.

Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles stood in the left corner, staring down one of the most fearsome guards in the league. Patrick Beverley, the Los Angeles Clippers’ (now Minnesota Timberwolves) guard, had staked his career—his life, really—on his snarling, in-your-face defense. To say Beverley plays with emotion is like suggesting human beings live with oxygen. It is his very lifeblood.

At this moment, Beverley was doing his part to maintain the Clippers’ coordinated defensive rotations, which is no easy task against this opponent. During Quin Snyder’s coaching tenure from 2014 to 2022, the Jazz’s offense had slowly grown into one of the modern game’s platonic ideals. Their roster stacked multiple pick-and-roll operators, deadly long-range shooters, instant decision-makers, and unselfish passers around a nimble giant in Rudy Gobert with an insatiable energy for setting on-ball screens and rolling hard to the rim. That system carried the Jazz to the NBA’s best record in 2021.

Now, it whirred at full power to get the Jazz one more bucket to close out the first quarter of Game 2 in their second-round playoff series against the Clippers. So far, the Clippers had matched Utah’s power. They cut off Ingles’ pick-and-roll with Gobert using Beverley’s customary ball pressure, closed out to backup forward Georges Niang spotting up for three, contained Niang’s drive to the basket, and deterred a potential dump-off to Gobert in the lane. Niang’s only option was to pass to Ingles in the corner.

Beverley knew it, too. He needed to travel a long way to reach Ingles after rotating to Gobert, but had a beeline on Niang’s pass before it was even thrown. Beverley was in his trademark too-close-for-comfort spot by the time Ingles caught the ball, having rushed out like a fly attracted to light.

So what did Ingles, a 45-percent long-range marksman that every team desperately tried to stop from shooting that season, do? He did something that is hard for any modern player in that context and even more remarkable considering his own development path.

Joe Ingles shot a three-pointer. Specifically, he caught the pass with his arms extended up and out at 18 seconds and released the ball at 17.6 seconds while keeping it above his face.

At that moment, Ingles looked more like a volleyball setter than a three-point shooter. It didn’t matter that Beverley’s left arm extended into his face, or that Beverley’s left foot planted inches from his right, or that Beverley’s snarling face bore into his eyes. To Ingles, Beverley might as well have been invisible. He was going to shoot no matter what it took.

The ball hit the back rim and dropped through the hoop. Three points for Utah despite perfect defense from L.A. All because Joe Ingles, a 33-year-old undrafted free agent who only brought his slowpoke game and loopy shooting motion to Utah because the Clippers cut him in training camp seven years earlier, found enough power and accuracy

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