The Comfort Shot

A few weeks ago I wrote about Jamal Murray and his affinity for midrange jump shots. After parsing through the data and coming to a conclusion I was still left with a lingering question. Could it be that Murray shoots so many mid rangers because it’s his “comfort shot?”

Imagine a player starts a given game 1–6 from the field. The player is aware that he is off to a poor shooting night. So he instinctively goes to the spot on the floor to get his shooting back on track. Namely, his “comfort shot.” A comfort shot is a shot the player feels very confident in taking and hopefully gets the player into an offensive flow. This shot will be different for every player.

As sports fans, we like to believe that the players we root for are super-human, maybe even robotic, and that they aren’t attuned to their own performances. Yet, former players have noted the psychological benefit of simply seeing the ball go through the net (even on a free throw) and the data seems to substantiate that claim.

I was curious to know how players adjusted their in-game shooting given the circumstances of their individual performances. I looked at the top 50 usage players from the 2019–2020 season. My hunch was that after a few consecutive misses, players would take “easier” shots (i.e. shots at the rim) and after a few consecutive makes, players would attempt “harder” shots (i.e. more threes).

The data showed that after a miss and onward, the vast majority of players attempted more shots at the rim as compared to their total season average of shots at the rim. And on the flip side, three-point frequency fell.

Here is Jayson Tatum’s % point difference in shots at the rim. After he missed his last 3 plus shots, Tatum’s attempts at the rim increased by 9 percentage points. To illustrate, Tatum attempted 29% of his total shots at the rim. After 3 consecutive misses, his average was 38% of shots at the rim.

But, as his consecutive makes increased, his rim attempts went down and his three point frequency surged. After 3 plus consecutive makes, Tatum’s 3 point attempts increased by 12 percentage points as compared to his season average.

In general, after a make and onward, three point frequency tended to increase and rim frequency dropped.

Here is Luka Doncic’s % point difference in 3s taken. After 3 plus consecutive makes, Luka’s 3 point attempts increased by 25 percentage points to a whopping 68%.

But once Luka started racking up consecutive misses, just like Tatum, his three point frequency dropped considerably and his rim frequency increased.

There seems to be some inverse relationship between these two which seems intuitive to me. And this was expected. After a few straight misses, a layup is everyone’s “comfort shot” and after a few consecutive makes, an offensive player in a rhythm will expand his range.

What surprised me was that for a few players, while rim frequency increased after 3 plus misses, so did midrange jumpers which are generally viewed as one of the worst shots in basketball.

Here is CJ McCollum’s % point difference of shots in the short midrange (SMR). (There is no “made last” on the chart because there was no difference between his season average). As consecutive makes increased, his frequency of midrange shots decreased. But after a miss and onward, he went back to the midrange. I think it is reasonable to say that this is his comfort shot. DeMar DeRozan and Lou Williams have a distribution like this too. All three of these players are elite midrange jump shooters.

This isn’t a normal distribution. The distribution usually shows players decreasing their midrange jump shots after three consecutive misses. Here is Caris Levert in the SMR. After a miss, LeVert is constant in his aversion for the SMR.

The more consecutive misses for a player , the more the “comfort shot” comes into play. It isn’t so surprising if a player has more LMR jump shots after a miss than his season average. But after 3 plus misses, there is another explanation of why a player is taking a less than idea shot more often than his season average. As a player continues to miss shots, the “mental aspect” of the game becomes more apparent.

This type of data can be extremely useful to an opposing team and to a player’s team. If the opposing team knows the tendencies of a certain player given that player’s in-game performance, they can adjust appropriately on the fly and keep the player from getting into an offensive rhythm. For the player’s team, the offense can create opportunities for the player to get his comfort shot if the player is having a rough shooting night. It would be interesting to see if teams take in-game performance into account as a given game progresses.