The Anatomy of a Shot

We talk a lot about what to do once the ball leaves the shooters stick. But let's talk a bit about what happens BEFORE the shot is taken.

Rarely does a shooter have "time and room" to shoot the ball. This is where the shooter has received a pass, or a ground ball, and he has all sorts of time to shoot without having a defender in his face or a stick across his hands.

Most of the time he is getting hounded and the main thought going through his head is not of where to shoot but on the defender in front of him. This is great news for the goalie because that means the shooter is distracted.

Keeping that pressure on the shooter in mind it's no wonder shooters will tend to shoot at the first open space they see when looking at the cage.

Here are three things the shooter thinks while they are shooting the ball:

1) Placement: The shooter sees an open spot. Or they want to shoot the ball to a certain area and they go for it. In this instance the shooter is trying to place the ball into the cage. This involves a pretty high level of skill and confidence in that the shooter thinks that he is going to hit that spot.

Pros for the shooter: If they have the accuracy they can really put the goalie in trouble by shooting to his weaknesses. Shots to the off-stick side obviously are the toughest for the goalie. If the shooter can hit it that's awesome.

Pros for the goalie: Typically a sightly slower shot because the shooter is trading off speed for accuracy. At higher levels of lacrosse shooters have greater accuracy AND velocity so this isn't always the case. But as shooters get more accurate they tend to shoot for smaller spaces (i.e. just inside the pipe, for the corners, etc.) this increases their chances for hitting the pipe or missing the cage completely.

2) Velocity: In this case the shooter doesn't really care where he shoots he's just trying to blow the ball by the goalie. Sure, he's got a spot in mind where he'd like to put the ball but he's still thinking speed.

Remember that every save breaks down to one thing: The ability of the goalie to get something in front of the ball BEORE the ball gets there. That's it. There's nothing else. So with that in mind, if a shooter can reach a certain speed with his shot it can completely eliminate the ability for the goalie to get something in front of the ball.

Pros for the shooter: If the shooter can shoot fast enough the goalie doesn't have a chance to save the ball because he physically can't move fast enough.

Pros for the goalie: Shooters who shoot for velocity tend to telegraph their shots. You can tell where they are shooting by the wind up of their stick. Shooters that shoot high tend to wind up high. Shooting low, they tend to drop the stick. (Beware the submarine shot that starts low but ends up in the top of the cage.)

Shooters that shoot for speed tend to not be as accurate. They will occaisionally miss the cage and this is obviously an advantage to the goalie. It's important to watch the wind up and to start moving in that direction even before the shot is released. For instance, if the wind up is going high your body can start moving up even before the shot is released, We are trying to steal just precious miliseconds by doing that even though we don't know exactly where it is going.

3) Deception. Trickery. This is where the shooter does something with his stick to hide the shot, or make it look like the ball is going on way while it actually goes somewhere else.

Pros for the shooter: Any time you can trick the goalie you have an advantage.

Pros for the goalie: That half second it takes the shooter to throw his fake is an extra half second for our defender to check the shooter.

Also, trick shots tend to go to a certain spot, so if you can recognize the fake you can usually start moving before the shooter even gets there. For example, the shooter fakes high and shoots low. You can honor that first fake and start to drop to make the save. Most shooters are shot, fake high shoot low. But what they forget is that the goal of faking high is to get the goalie to move high. But rarely do shooters actually see what the goalie does. They just go into their fake high shoot low program and do that. But if the goalie doesn't fall for the first fake, they have the advantage because they know where the shot is going.

Another pro for the goalie is that trick shots or fakes sometime go awry. Shots taken behind the back are rarely as accurate than those taken in front of the body. So when a shooter resorts to shooting behind the back you have a bit of an advantage. The challenge for the goalie is recognizing the behind the back shot.

Even standard fakes can go wrong. I've seen a lot of fakes in my lifetime where the shooter fakes, brings the stick back to reset and the ball flies out of the top of the stick.

What The Shooter Sees First He Will Shoot At

Hockey goalies are brilliant at giving things and then taking them away. Great for goaltending. Horrible at Christmas.

The five hole is the spot between the goalies legs. And it's a great spot for shooters to shoot at because it is this big gaping hole. But the hockey goalie will actually spread his legs so that the shooter thinks he has more to shoot at than he really does and then close his legs at the last second to stuff the shot.

So in lacrosse, shooters tend to have a lot of pressuer on them. They are running by a defender who is checking him so he doesn't have a ton of time to think. So when he takes a shot he's looking at the cage, seeing something to shoot at, and then going for it.

A Hard Lesson Learned

Back when I was in high school I was playing in a pretty big tournament and we had a night game so I was pretty pumped, and a little cocky.

I had gotten a hold of a pair of neon yellow compression shorts and thought it was a great opportunity to wear them. My game shorts were a little small, so when I got in my stance my game shorts rose up just above the neon yellow compression shorts and under the stadium lights those shorts were bright!

Guess what happened?

We got trounced. Pretty much every shot that was taken on me was hip high. Just above those neon yellow shorts. When I watched the video later it was obvious. Under the lighting conditions those neon shorts were drawing the attention of the shooters and they were shooting there! Probably the toughest save to make and I was basically telling the shooters to shoot there. Not really doing much for my odds now that's for sure.

But what it taught me was how, under pressure, shooters will shoot at what draws there attention first. They don't have time to think, "Geez, where should I put this thing. Off-stick? Nah...stick side looks better. Nah...maybe between the legs."

They don't have time for any of that that. What they are really thinking goes something like this..."Holy sh!!!!! That hurt! Ow! Oh my God! Shoot!!!!!!"

That's about it. See space. Shoot.

We'll talk more in the future about how we can use this to our advantage.

Until then. Give me your feedback on this post and we'll talk more about it.

jone94@shaw.ca