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How to train your non dominant hand in basketball

3 Tips to Help You Improve Your Weak Hand

Basketball Tip

Most players don’t know the value of being able to dribble, shoot, and pass with both hands no matter the position they play. Many athletes tend to favor one hand over the other because it’s their dominant hand and more comfortable. If you're looking to play in high school or college, it is expected of you to be able to use both hands and can even be the deciding factor when getting a spot on a team.

The players that are comfortable using both hands are the athletes that stand out. They can crossover and overtake their defender quickly with eyes on the court. They can swiftly curve any bounce pass through the defender’s arms, and they can make that breakaway layup no matter which way they’re being pushed. Here are three tips from the Doug Bruno Girls Basketball Camp staff to help players become more comfortable using both hands.

1. Dribble with Both Hands
When trying to develop your non-dominant hand, dribbling should be the first place that you start. Begin by keeping your dominant hand behind your back, forcing yourself to use your weak hand to dribble. Practice this and after time it will start to feel more and more comfortable.

Once you have mastered that, try adding in a second basketball and dribble with each hand at the same time. Remember to keep your elbows behind the ball and force the ball into ground while keeping your head up. This will improve your coordination and ball handling skills in both hands. Being able to dribble with both hands provides a huge advantage over your opponent, you can now dribble down the court on the right and left side which makes it much harder for the defender to guess which direction you plan to go.

2. Weak Hand Passing
Another way to develop your weak hand is through various passing drills. Grab a partner, stand ten feet apart, and put your dominant hand behind your back. With one ball, pass and receive with only your weak hand. As you progress, you can increase the speed and challenge your partner! Each player should pass with their non-dominant hand twenty times equaling one set. Start with four sets and increase as you feel more comfortable.

3. Off-Court Tips
Although it is important to make a point to emphasize using both hands in practice, steps need to be made around the clock to master this skill. Doing daily activities with your non-dominant hand will form the proper habits and allow you to feel more comfortable using that hand. We recommend you eat and cut your food, open doors, drawers and packages, comb your hair, brush your teeth and use your phone all with your non-dominant hand. Initially, all these tasks will feel foreign but if you stay consistent, it will become a routine.

Implementing these practice tips will help you feel more comfortable using your non-dominant hand, which allows for a smooth transition onto the court. For further help with your game, check out more drills and tips and join us this summer at a Doug Bruno Girls Basketball Camp!

How to Improve Your Weak Hand in Basketball

Would you like to know how to make your weak hand stronger? If you are not aware of what we mean by weak hand in basketball, we mean your non-dominant hand. Many players aren’t able to improve the level they play because of their reliance on one hand and their inability to use the next efficiently.

We understand that it is of extreme importance that players learn how to use their weak hands while playing basketball, but we also understand that it can be quite challenging to achieve ambidexterity. That is the reason why we don’t see it as often as we should. In or article today, we are going to review different ways in which you can improve your weak hand so that you can take your game to the next level.

I. Why Must Basketball Players Improve their Weak Hand?

II. How to Make Your Weak Hand Stronger

III. How to Develop Your Weak Hand Dribbling Skills

IV. 3 Basketball Drills to Help You Improve Your Weak Hand

V. Wrapping Things Up: How to Improve Your Weak Hand in Basketball

Why Must Basketball Players Improve their Weak Hand?

Improving your weak hand can significantly improve your game. Being able to use both hands the same way in basketball allows you to gain various advantages over your opponents. Let’s take a look at some areas of basketball that improving your weak hand can help you in.

Dribble Penetration

Players who can dribble the ball with both hands can perform a variety of moves while attacking the paint to get to the rim. If you can only dribble the ball in your dominant hand, the defense will use this flaw to force you to your weak hand. Ambidexterity allows you to penetrate the defenses easier than if you are only able to dribble with one hand.

Crossovers

Crossovers are as beautiful as they are useful. There are many different types of crossovers, some more elaborate than others. A crossover’s efficiency depends on the ability of the ball-handler to pull off the move. If you don’t have good control over the ball with your weak hand, you will find it very difficult to pull off a crossover. Players that can dribble the ball with both hands can do more elaborate and extended crossover moves because they can control the ball with their weak hand for a longer period. If you want your crossovers to be more potent or want to perform a larger variety, you will need to improve your weak hand’s strength.

Passing

Passing is one of the most important parts of basketball. Basketball, when played has a team sport, requires that the ball is moved from player to player for a team to be successful. The ball must be passed, there is no way around it. One player can’t win against 5 players. The ball has to be shared among teammates. If you are unable to pass the ball, it is even worse than being unwilling to pass the ball. Some players are only able to pass the ball properly with their dominant hand or using both hands.

If you must use your dominant hand or both hands to make a pass, it is easier for the defense to guard against, and you will be restricted in your passing ability. You should work on improving your weak hand’s strength so that you can make proper passes with your weak hand to your teammates. It is terrible if you are in a situation and cannot hit an open teammate with the ball simply because your weak hand cannot complete the pass.

Shooting close to the rim

Finishing at the rim is considered to be a high percentage shot. If you are able to make shots, it drastically improves your team’s chances of winning the game. The majority of the players we know can only play at a high level with their dominant hand. As you all know, basketball does not always allow you to finish at the rim with your dominant hand. Sometimes, you must switch to your weak hand and finish the basket.

If you cannot score at the rim by performing layups or dunks using your weak hand it severely hampers your ability to be an efficient player. Many times the defense will take away your strong hand, so having the ability to score with either hands is an added advantage that you can have that your coaches will be very thankful for.

Floaters

A filter or a teardrop is a shot performed a few feet away from the basket, oftentimes by smaller players who want to prevent bigger players from blocking their shots. Floaters are often performed with the dominant hand, but if a player masters the ability to float the ball with their non-dominant hand, they will become a bigger threat to their opponents. Sometimes when you attack the paint and try to put up a floater, the defender may be on your hip on your dominant side so you may have to switch to your non-dominant hand. Being able to use your non-dominant hand will help you make that shot easier.

Off-ball defensive reflex

When most people talk about using your non-dominant or weak hand in basketball, the focus is primarily on the offensive side of the ball. Defense is important too. You would not forget that. Many times we are playing defense, and we are guarding a player off the ball, we miss opportunities to steal passes because of our reflexes with our non-dominant hand. If we work on our reflexes with the non-dominant hand, we will be able to guard the passing lane a lot better, and this will result in a better defensive effort.

On ball defense reflex

A player that is able to use both hands to guard their opponents is a player that has the ability to guard very well. Many players will often try to get steals or disrupt their opponents’ dribbles and block shots while only using their dominant hand. If you are able to use your weak and to disrupt your opponent’s dribble or steal the ball and block shots, you will have a big defensive arsenal.

How to Make Your Weak Hand Stronger

There are a variety of weak hand basketball drills both on and off the court that we can do to improve you weak hand shooting and overall functionality of our weak hands in basketball. Let’s take a look at some things that you can work on to improve the use of your weak hand while playing.

Drills with ball

There are a variety of drills that you can do with a basketball to improve your weak hand development. Try to work on drills that include shooting, passing, and dribbling. On the defensive side, try to work with a teammate to play defense while using your weak hand. Shooting drills will improve your ability to shoot the ball at the rim and close to the rim using your weak hand. Passing drills will enhance your ability to pass the ball properly with your weak hand in games, and the dribbling drills will help you to do crossovers and dribble penetration with your weak hand.

Drills without ball

There are also drills that you can use to mimic movements in games that do not require a ball. These drills can also help you with straightening your weak hand’s functionality while playing. Doing drills without the ball will prepare you for drills with the ball.

Drills with tennis ball

You can also do drills that do not include a basketball but include other balls such as a tennis ball. Even with your dominant hand, it may be more difficult to dribble small balls than it is a basketball. So, to work on improving your dribbling skills with your non-dominant hand, you can try to do dribbling drills with a tennis ball.

Do regular life things with your weak hand

One of the reasons why your dominant hand is so easy to use is because you use it to do regular everyday things. Your non-dominant hand is more difficult to use because you do not use it as much in your day-to-day life. Outside of the basketball court, if there are activities that you do with your dominant hand that can be performed with your weak hand, try to practice using your weekend more to do these activities. This will help with your overall comfort level when using your weak hand throughout the games.

How to Develop Your Weak Hand Dribbling Skills

Developing your weekend dribbling skills is definitely important so that you can be on offensive Dynamo. Here are a few tips that you can use to develop your weak hand.

Dribble tennis balls

You can dribble balls that are more difficult to dribble than a basketball with your weak hand to improve your coordination and reflexes. Tennis balls are always good options for this.

Gym work for weak hand

Even though you workout with both hands when you go to the gym, the other things you do outside of the gym may be focused on using your dominant hand, and that is why your dominant hand is naturally stronger than your weak hand. To improve your dribbling skills, try to focus some of your gym work on your non-dominant hand so that you can improve its strength.

3 Basketball Drills to Help You Improve Your Weak Hand

Here are three drills that you can use to improve the usability of your weak hand.

1. Attacking the paint with weak hand.

This drill will help you to get by defenders easier because it helps you to control the ball with two hands.

2. Stationary dribbling

Stationary dribbling with both hands is useful to boost your comfort level with your non-dominant hand.

3. Dribble, pass and shoot

This is a combo drill that works on your overall weak hand skill level. This drill should be done at game speed where possible.

Here is a link to a video with each:

Wrapping Things Up: How to Improve Your Weak Hand in Basketball

Improving your weak hand for basketball will definitely improve your game. You will be able to pass better, you will be able to shoot easier and, you will also improve your defense. There are a variety of drills that you can do to work on strengthening your weak hand. In addition to strengthening your weak hand, you should also work on your reflexes and your coordination while using your non-dominant hand.

If you found this post helpful, you’re definitely going to like our other basketball FAQ articles here.

> How to Get Longer Arms for Basketball: Can You?

> How to Get Better at Basketball: Tips & Drills

> How to Palm a Basketball

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How to develop your left hand if you are right-handed?

Most people during their lives train and develop only the right hand, and the left is given only an auxiliary role. But if our hands are the same, why not try to learn how to perform the same actions with your left hand, and why is this necessary?

The answer to this question lies in the peculiarities of the human brain. The left hemisphere controls logical thinking, speech, writing and is responsible for the work of the right half of the body, while the right hemisphere is the focus of intuition, creative perception, and coordinates the left half.

According to the observations of art therapists, the drawings made by the left hand are distinguished by extraordinary figurativeness, emotionality and realism. This is typical for artists, and those who have never been involved in drawing. In addition, people who have managed to develop the left hand along with the right, note how their life has changed with the inclusion of intuition in it and the activation of the creative perception of reality.

According to one of the theories of classical psychology, the human personality is a set of subpersonalities - different internal images: Parent, Adult, Child. The first two are critical, reasonable and rational. They live in the left hemisphere. And the third, the Inner Child, spontaneous, irrational, creative - in the right.

Therefore, the development of the left hand is the establishment of contact with the creative essence of oneself.

Developing the left hand, a person makes the brain work more productively, connecting intuitive, creative channels to logic and rationalism.

There are several effective ways to develop the left hand, and regular training will certainly lead you to achieve your goal.

Learning to write with your left hand

It's a fun, if not easy, activity. Motivation is needed to be successful in this business. For a person striving for self-development, the goal will be to enrich logical thinking with creative potential.

To make training enjoyable, you need to comfortably equip your workplace. The table lamp is now on the right, while the left side of the table is left free, as there is now a hand and a writing pad.

A stylish pen and a bright notebook with a notebook will create the right emotional mood, so that when you look at them, a desire to work arises. You will need lined paper for writing, as you will have to learn to write again. The main thing is that the process of writing with the left hand brings joy, otherwise the training will soon get bored and become ineffective.

How to arrange the notebook? To make your hands less tired during work, the upper left corner should be placed slightly higher than the right, and the left elbow should be conveniently placed on the table.

For writing with the left hand, you will need writing instruments longer than usual, since the left-hander holds the pencil a little higher than the right-hander, the distance from the sheet of paper to the grip of the pen is 3-4 cm. , and then phrases, as first graders do. This will develop the technique of writing and develop a beautiful handwriting. If such activities are not to your liking, then you can write down your thoughts or write out your favorite quotes from books, catch phrases.

In the early stages of training, it is better to write in block letters, then switch to capital letters. You need to start by writing the alphabet. You can also use the technique of tracing text written in pencil with a pen. For fun, the method of mirror writing is suitable. The letter on the contrary, with a turn of letters by 1800, will help to achieve the desired result. So did Leonardo da Vinci, in whom both hands were equally developed. In addition, writing from right to left is natural for left-handed people with a dominant right hemisphere.

To be successful, you need to practice regularly for a few minutes. This will bring more benefits than infrequent but long workouts.

Training is not limited to the time allotted for it. The left hand should be loaded at every opportunity. For example, write down phone numbers, prescriptions and other useful information.

Left arm training requires a lot of patience, time and effort.

And it is unlikely that you will be able to immediately achieve visible quick results, so on the way to self-development you will have to stock up on patience and endurance. You should not expect a good writing speed at the first stages of training, the quality of writing, that is, a practiced skill, control of a previously naughty left hand, will be more important. The speed of writing will develop in the next stage of work.

Drawing with the left hand

The most successful way to practice. After all, the right hemisphere of the brain develops, where the creative potential is laid. Drawing allows you to better develop the motor skills of the left hand. First you need to put dots on paper, then connect them, make a schematic drawing. It is useful to start synchronous drawing by using both hands, gradually leaving the left hand in the work.

American art therapists recommend the following exercises for the development of the left hand:

Try to draw a symmetrical object using both left and right hands at the same time.
Without synchronous actions, try to draw the same thing, each hand moves in its own way.
Draw with both right and left hands at the same time, but the patterns and trajectory of the hand movements are different.
Make a drawing with the right hand, then draw the same with the left.

More detailed instructions can be found in the article "How to learn to draw beautifully".

Use the left hand in everyday work

Always use the left rather than the right hand in everyday situations: brush your teeth, comb your hair, use a fork, spoon and other cutlery. When the skills have not yet been worked out, you can not use sharp objects: a knife, a needle, a straight razor, so as not to injure yourself.

The left hand must be constantly used, bringing the movements to automatism. Do not forget about the goals of developing the left hand, reinforce the work with positive motivation so that the classes do not get bored and bring benefits.

The following techniques will help you remember to train. For example, write on the palms: "Right", "Left". Performing this or that action, use not the right, but the left hand. Visual memory will definitely work. It is useful to wear a watch not on the left, but on the right hand. An unusual sensation will remind you that everything is now done by the left hand. You can stick stickers with the inscription: "Left" on various household items (door handles, telephone, refrigerator, electric kettle).

Strengthen the left arm

In addition to writing, exercise is essential for training the left hand.

Ball exercises. Throw a tennis ball up and catch it with your left hand. After hitting the ball against the wall, catch it with your left hand. It is advisable to use rackets and, as the skill improves, change large ones to small ones. Classes in the gym with a basketball court will help improve the actions of the left hand. Stand to the right of the basketball basket and throw the ball into it with your left hand. Make 10 - 20 throws. In addition, it is useful to learn to dribble as easily with the left hand as with the right. To achieve the result, keep your right hand behind your back.
Playing badminton with your left hand will bring tangible results.
Weight lifting. It is necessary to shift the power loads from the right hand to the left. For this, manual expanders, dumbbells are suitable. Weight should be increased gradually.
Juggling. This is a useful, exciting and spectacular activity that develops dexterity and coordination of movements. You need to juggle three to four balls.
Playing musical instruments. The construction of most musical instruments requires the use of both hands equally. Yes, you can learn how to play the guitar. Guitarists pay great attention to the development of the fingers of the left hand. For this, a whole system of exercises has been developed. It will be useful to learn how to beat out a drum roll.
Swimming. Perfectly develops coordination and, accordingly, the brain. In all types of swimming, both hands are equally involved.
Spinning Another good way to develop the left hand. For the lesson you will need balls on the ropes. Holding the ends of the ropes with your hands, perform rotational movements.

The list of exercises can be supplemented by anyone who wants to engage in self-development, in accordance with their own imagination and hobbies.

The development of motor skills has a positive effect on the work of the brain, makes the reaction faster, thinking becomes flexible. However, at first, you should not expect a quick result. The opposite effect is possible. Due to the increased load on the brain, the speed of thinking and concentration slow down significantly, but as soon as the brain adapts, it will begin to work much more efficiently than before.

Skeptics are wondering if this is a myth? And is it worth the effort? However, scientists have long proven the connection between manual development and brain function. When exposed to reflex points located on the hands, impulses are sent to the central nervous system. Acupressure affects the internal organs. For example, when massaging the thumb, an increase in brain activity is achieved.

The development of the left hand improves not only brain activity, forcing the “gray cells” to work more actively, but also encourages sports, makes you move more, improve your body. And as a result - the achievement of the next step on the path to self-improvement.

Acquisition of the skill of using both hands to the same extent is the development of new thinking, the transition to a qualitatively new level of life, the enrichment of the logical, rational principle with creativity and intuition.

How does the hot hand phenomenon work? Even Shakespeare, Van Gogh and Einstein had success in courage - and this is scientifically proven in sports - Bank shot - Blogs

mystery and scientific controversy over the series. Below is a brief retelling of its main theses.

The current generation of the NBA grew up on the computer game NBA Jam. Its main feature is the change in the abilities of basketball players as they catch the courage or, in the terminology of the simulator itself, “get hot”. If a player manages to hit several times in a row, then the laws of physics for him change: and now it is more difficult for him to miss, no matter how difficult his attempts are.

The creator of the game, Mark Tarmell, came up with an original mode because he supported the Pistons in the 80s: Vinnie Johnson, nicknamed "microwave", was running in the team, and it seemed that the ball in his hands at times turns into a fireball , which flies into the ring by a homing method.

Thanks to the cult of the NBA Jam, the hot hand phenomenon is a staple of this generation of the NBA. For example, Steph Curry never hid his passion for video games and was convinced that at times exactly the same thing happens to him on the courts as with virtual basketball players: he can smear throughout the entire match, but at some point the ring moves apart and accepts any game. “In all my life, I have never met a person who would not believe in the existence of a “hot hand,” said the Golden State point guard.

The “hot hand” phenomenon goes far beyond the scope of a particular sport.

It can be seen in various areas of human activity.

William Shakespeare produced some of the best tragedies in a short period of time.

Vincent van Gogh caught inspiration, which led to the simultaneous appearance of a number of canvases at once.

Composer Rebecca Clarke wrote all of her major works early in life and then retired from music.

Albert Einstein made the major discoveries of his life in a few fruitful months.

There is even a famous article in the New Yorker about Nobel laureate Bob Dylan and his hot hand.

According to Deshan Wong's team, which went through the careers of 3,000 artists, 20,000 scientists, and 6,000 filmmakers, the pattern is very clear: 91% of financially successful artists, 90% of published scientists, and 82% directors who released films on a wide screen experienced at least one segment in their career during which they caught courage . Their most expensive pictures, most influential studies, and highest-grossing films appeared within a relatively short period.

“If we know your best work, we can assume that around the same time you released those that are in the top 3,” says Deshan Wang himself. - This is the period of the "hot hand" - whatever you do in life, your level suddenly skyrockets. You no longer belong to yourself. And all this is impossible to predict: the “hot hand” phenomenon can visit you at absolutely any moment. ”

Basketball is convenient because the hot hand phenomenon is most obvious in it. It is easy to feel, it is subject to understandable measurements, it can be made the subject of scientific work.

And here's the catch.

The “hot hand” phenomenon has indeed been carefully studied. The work that closed this topic, seemingly forever, appeared in 1985.

And although modern NBA stars live in the realities of NBA Jam, in the scientific world all these years the consensus has been exactly the opposite: there is no “hot hand” , there is only a distorted perception of random events.

“Our brain is a device that is always trying to find patterns. He finds patterns even where there are no patterns.”

In 1971, Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kanneman formulated the law of small numbers, that is, the tendency to exaggerate the likelihood that a small sample accurately reflects the properties of the general population. People mistakenly assume that a principle that works with a large number of observations will also work with a small sample.

The most famous example of this fallacy is casino roulette: players react to a sequence of colors, although a small sample does not provide any representative information.

In the 1980s, they were contacted by Tom Gilovich, a social psychologist at Cornell, who suggested testing the Law of Small Numbers using basketball as an example. "Basketball fans see a hot hand everywhere, but statistical analysis does not confirm its existence."

In 1981, the trio showed up at an NBA game and asked for help from the legendary stats guru Harvey Pollack, who worked at Philadelphia games for many years and collected all sorts of numbers even before they figured out how to process them correctly.

The evidence base for their work was based on three sources.

First, they looked at the Philadelphia players' hitting sequence and calculated the hitting percentage immediately after the player made or missed the shot. If the phenomenon of "hot hand" existed, then after hits - in their opinion - the percentage should be above average.

But that didn't happen.

The players they analyzed were more likely to score from misses than from hits. When it seemed to them that they were catching courage, nothing of the kind - in fact - happened. Even when they laid down three throws in a row, the odds were lower than when they missed multiple times in a row.

Second, they studied how Boston players shoot from the line. All the same observations were repeated here.

Finally, they set the stage for the lab experience by inviting 26 players from Cornell's men's and women's teams to the gym. They were offered to stand at the distance from which they score from open positions with an accuracy of more than 50%, and make 100 shots - while trying to predict before each shot whether the hit will take place or not. And they got paid for it: five cents for a hit, four cents for a miss, or two cents for a hit, one cent for a miss. The more confident they felt, the more they bet. The same was done by people who stood on the rebound and served them balls.

As a result, it turned out that neither the throwers nor the rebounders could predict whether the ball would go into the basket or not. And their belief in the “hot hand” phenomenon also revealed itself during the experiment: after a successful throw, they bet more money on a hit.

In 1985, Tversky, Kanneman and Gilovich published a seminal paper in the journal Cognitive Psychology.

They came to three conclusions:

1. There is no “hot hand phenomenon” in nature, it is a cognitive illusion. After hitting, the percentage of the thrower does not increase. And this can be compared to a coin toss: a series of heads and tails is possible, but this is nothing more than an accident.

2. People tend to exaggerate swagger and trust too small samples.

3. People look at any random data and always try to find patterns in it.

Athletes did not read the study, but always took the opposite view. During an experiment in Philadelphia, scientists spoke to 76ers players Julius Irving and Darrell Dawkins, and both were absolutely sure that a “hot hand” was taking place on the court.

1985 story about a new paper from brilliant psychologists with a bold claim: There’s no such thing as the hot hand.

Jerry West: "I don't believe what they say."

Red Auerbach: “Who is this guy? So he makes a study. I couldn't care less." pic.twitter.com/8vMdZ86DP3
— Ben Cohen (@bzcohen) November 20, 2020

The reaction to the results of the study was even harsher.

“This is complete nonsense. I don't believe what they say there. There are games where you feel different,” said Jerry West.

“There is no doubt that when you hit several times in a row, you feel confident. You ask for more balls and you have no doubts about yourself,” said Dallas assistant coach Bob Weiss.

“Who are these guys anyway? Well, they wrote some scientific nonsense, and then what? Yes, I didn’t give a damn about her,” Red Auerbach closed the discussion.

Decades later, Peter Ayton and Ilan Fisher repeated similar manipulations on the data of the top scorers in the English Premier League and also confirmed that "believing in a "hot foot" is the same delusion." Ayton also had to answer for the words personally in front of the legendary coach Ron Atkinson live.

“Who are you? he shouted. - You never went into the locker room. And I went into the dressing room. I know what is it".

But what can you take from athletes?

The understanding that the “hot hand” phenomenon exists only in the collective fantasy became dominant in science for many years.

For example, the ethnographer Andreas Wilk conducted experiments on tribes that retained the primitive system: he put forward the theory that the law of small numbers is not just a prejudice programmed in people, but something that has been preserved in the collective memory of society from antiquity, because usually prey or resources in nature occur in a concentrated form.

Moreover, the neuroscientist Ben Hayden tested the same theory on monkeys - it turned out that they, too, are victims of the delusions associated with the law of small numbers.

Advanced statistics came to the NBA in the 10s. And with it, new technological solutions for collecting information.

Among the most notable is the SportVU technology: all the arenas of the league were equipped with cameras that recorded the exact position when making a shot, the degree of difficulty of the shot, the proximity of the defender and other nuances.

New technologies have prompted scientists to return to a question that had been considered solved for thirty years.

In the early 1990s, Phoenix needed someone who could sort through the new data sets and come up with a practical application for them. They brought in John Easyowitz, a Harvard student and blogger whose posts were liked by Mark Cuban.

The first thing he (and his partner, Caronyn Stein) realized was that the evidence base of the 80s study did not stand up to scrutiny on new material: Tversky, Kanneman and Gilovich did not distinguish between types of throws and equalized hits from under the shield and a three-pointer and, of course, did not take into account the complexity of the shots.

In their study, Isikowitz and Stein asked three questions:

1. Does the behavior of basketball players change when they feel they are gaining momentum?

2. Does the “hot hand” phenomenon appear at this moment?

3. What if everything that has been said about the “hot hand” phenomenon before is not true?

In the end, they learned that the behavior of not only the throwers, but also the players who defend against them change - they try to come a few inches closer to them when they think that the opponent is getting hotter. The snipers not only tried to throw more often, but also made more difficult attempts. And it became clear that in the original study they mistakenly took individual throws after hits, it turned out that all the throws are interconnected, which confirms that the players felt courage.

Next Isikowitz and Stein successfully used the concept of "Complicated Courage". It's not just about the number of shots, but also about how difficult attempts the player made. It turned out that the hot hand did show up on the court: it showed up as a 1.2 percent improvement for players who hit one of the last four shots and a 2.4 percent improvement for players who converted two of the last four shots. Thus, if a player hit several times in a row, then he was more likely to hit in the next attempt . At least if you take into account the likelihood of implementing more complex throws. He had a slightly better chance of doing so. He gradually warmed up. And then he took courage.

“In the most extreme case, our findings challenge the general belief that the hot hand phenomenon is a fallacy,” concludes.

Finally, at the end of the 10s, Joshua Miller and Adam Sanjurjo became interested in the problem.

At first it seemed to them that the lack of research methodology of Tversky, Kanneman and Gilovich also consisted in a small amount of data.

So they did a similar experiment - they invited players and asked them to shoot from their chosen positions. But not 100 attempts, but 300. And not from a certain distance, but from certain points from which they usually hit at least 50 percent. And without trying to guess the outcome of the next hit: they just threw uninterruptedly.

According to their feelings, which were confirmed by mathematical calculations, the phenomenon of "hot hand" still existed.

But it seemed to them that something was missing.

Then they collected all the records from three-point contests and studied them carefully. It was obvious that when Craig Hodges hit 19 in a row, he could not help but catch the courage. But after checking, it turned out that the mathematical method of Tversky, Kanneman and Gilovich refused to perceive this as a “hot hand” phenomenon.

This has completely put them into a stupor.

Until one day one of them, having nothing to do, started playing with a coin.

As mentioned above, in the original '85 study, researchers were trying to determine whether players would shoot better after a series of hits than after a series of misses. Tversky, Kanneman and Gilovich came to the conclusion that what they saw in the performance of snipers can be compared to a coin toss. That is, that the percentage of heads should be the same for tosses after runs with heads and tosses that follow runs of misses.

Miller and Sanjurjo suddenly - after thirty years of active discussion of the work - saw that the problem lay in the very mathematical approach. The fact is that if you flip a coin a hundred times and then look at the results of tossing after three eagles in a row, then the percentage of eagles there will not be 50% at all, as one might think.

There are only eight options for tossing a coin three times (in parentheses is the percentage of heads after heads):

РРР (-)

PPO (-)

POP (0%)

OPP (0%)

PPO (100%)

ORO (0%)

OOP (50%)

LLC (1000%)

That is, it turns out that 250% must be divided by six. And this is only 42 percent.

Miller and Sanjurjo found that the success rate is less than the probability of success. If you take the order of a coin toss and randomly choose heads, then the chance of it coming up heads again is closer to 40 percent than 50 .

In their experiment, Tversky, Kanneman, and Gilovich divided throws into those that came after three (or more) hits in a row and those that came after three (or more) misses, and compared the percentage of hits between them. Because of this, they did not notice that the fact that the percentage of hit after a precise throw remains above 50, just speaks in favor of the “hot hand” phenomenon - because, according to their data, after a precise throw, the percentage of hits is 11 percent higher than a coin toss would suggest.

An 11 percent increase in accuracy is not just something that can't be overlooked. This is the approximate difference between a mediocre sniper and the best in the NBA . So even the data that Tversky, Kanneman and Gilovich had in the original experiment clearly points to the existence of the “hot hand” phenomenon.

And what's next?

Yes, actually, nothing.

It didn't matter much to science.

Scientists have admitted that now if you believe in a "hot hand", then you can not be considered an idiot (or an athlete). But globally they did not change their attitude towards the experiments of Tversky, Kanneman and Gilovich, because their main task was to illustrate the law of small numbers on practical material and show an erroneous attitude towards chaotic sequences. Outside of this goal, which has nothing to do with sports, but clarifies a lot in the psychology of mankind, in their opinion, everything else is too local. Let the basketball players really take courage and raise the level of the game. What does science care about this?

It didn't really matter to sports either.

Because everyone who closely follows basketball, and without any mathematical confirmations and monographs with references, understands that the “hot hand” phenomenon is quite real.