When it comes to understanding why players make or miss big free throws, scientific researchers agree with athletes: The clutch-shot challenge is mostly mental, not mechanical.
…brings us to two theories that get to the heart of crunch-time failures. One, called the Explicit Monitoring Hypothesis, suggests we choke because pressure makes us focus too much on actions that should be routine essentially, we over think a situation. Te other is called Regulatory Focus Theory, which proposes that most people pursue life goals in one of two ways: by trying to accomplish something positive or by trying to avoid something negative.
(Troy, this is what I was thinking about for you. This article is about big free throw attempts, but I think it has good thoughts about free throw shooting in general. If you can convince yourself that every free throw you take is an opportunity of some sort, whether it is thought of as a chance for easy points (like you said, highest percentage shot in basketball other than an open layin), to showcase your practice, or maybe more simply you could think of it as fun. If you could make some sort of positive association with free throws rather than trying to avoid something negative I believe it could go a long way.)
What does this have to do with free throws?
Free throw shooting, like putting and infield throws, is exactly the kind of task athletes perform best when it’s just a procedure, that is, when the brain isn’t overly monitoring the actions of the body (find middle of rim to bring focus away from anything mechanical or any other distractions). In fact, in one study, basketball players who got specific direction on how to improve their free throw mechanics went on to shoot worse under stress than players who were simply told to do their best. That’s Explicit Monitoring in action.
But, it turns out, game situations affect free throws, too. Researchers at the university of Texas looked at every free throw attempted by NBA players in the final mute of close games for three seasons, from 2003 to 2006. They found players shot 78.2%, slightly better than their career average of 76%, when games were tied, but worse (69%) when the shooter’s team was behind by one point.
The researchers think Regulatory Focus Theory helps describe what’s going on there. When a player’s team is down a point, all of the pressure on him points in one direction: He doesn’t want to choke, and he doesn’t want to lose. But in a tied game, although he still doesn’t want to choke, he can’t lose. In fact, he has a chance to win. And holding those two competing ideas at the same time – instead of keying in on one unified dread - offers just enough of a distraction. The brain has less time or energy to screw up what the body is doing.
A lot is going on in the brain when players take free throws. And the players who do best are probably those who can push not only mechanics out of their minds but also any thought of winning and losing – and heroes and goats, too.
