Don’t Lie Movie: Evaluation of Every Killian Hayes Triple
Killian Hayes has taken a step up this season with his overall offensive production. Whether that is at a satisfactory level is still up for debate, but the improvement is undeniable.
In a small increase in minutes per game, Hayes has improved his points per game and assists per game while keeping his turnovers to just two.
If you take away the first 11 games of the season, where Hayes undoubtedly got off to a cold start, the improvement really shows. Even after a tough pair of outings in his last two, 6-for-27 from the field and 1-for-11 from the 3-point line, Hayes is averaging over 12 points and 6.6 assists per game on 42% from the field. , 34% from the 3-point line and 83% from the free throw line in the 34 games since.
While 34 games is far from a full season, those numbers would be much better than what he put up last season in his 66 games played. They would also be better than his rookie year in which he played just 26 games.
Perhaps the biggest improvement, whether you include the first 11 games or not, for Hayes has been his 3-point shooting. The former No. 7 overall pick is not only shooting a better percentage than his first two seasons, but he’s also doing it with higher volume.
Similar to Saddiq Bey’s 3-point shooting breakdown a few weeks back, we’ll see if there are any shot types, footwork, shot spots or game types that Hayes excels at in a positive or negative way this season. So the movie went on to see every 3-point attempt this season from the 6-foot-5 guard and that’s how he broke.
shot type
| Writes | FGA | FGM | FG% | % attempts | % of brands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Writes | FGA | FGM | FG% | % attempts | % of brands |
| catch and shoot | 113 | 40 | 35% | 69% | 75% |
| Turn off screens/Turn in | 3 | one | 33% | 2% | 2% |
| pace dribble | 23 | 4 | 17% | 14% | 8% |
| side/back step | 25 | 8 | 32% | fifteen% | fifteen% |
| 164 | 53 | 32% | 100% | 100% |
SHOOTING TYPE
It was somewhat surprising how great Hayes’ 3-point attempt percentage of the catch-and-shoot variety was, 69% of his attempts and 75% of his hits. One area that stood out in this regard was Hayes’ off-the-ball relocation along the 3-point line.
There’s no question that Hayes is better with the basketball in his hands and needs a lot of those possessions, but he also has to be able to play alongside other ball creators. This is true whether he’s on the Detroit Pistons or if he’s ever been traded to another team. While he may want more than 35% on catch and shoot attempts, he actually fared better on true drive and kick attempts, which we’ll discuss later.
The dribble attempt total was actually lower than expected, but it’s somewhat surprising how low the percentage was when Hayes was taking a forward dribble or with pace on his shot. In fact, he’s shooting best this year when he steps to the side or back, whether in true isolation or operating off of a ball screen.
Footwork
| Writes | FGA | FGM | FG% | % attempts | % of brands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Writes | FGA | FGM | FG% | % attempts | % of brands |
| jump stop | 14 | 3 | twenty-one% | 9% | 6% |
| Left Right | 12 | 2 | 17% | 7% | 4% |
| Right left | 138 | 48 | 35% | 84% | 91% |
| 164 | 53 | 32% | 100% | 100% |
FOOTWORK
We know Hayes has spent some time working on his shot, and therefore there may not be a lot of emphasis or importance on developing the left-to-right pass right now, but the numbers are drastic. Not only does he step right-left on 84% of his attempts, but his percentage when he does is significantly better.
You can get away with stepping right to left in most situations without causing any major problems, but there are some situations, types of plays, etc., where you should use the step left to right and right now it just doesn’t seem so comfortable. and fluent with it. Many of the jump save attempts, where he simultaneously landed on two feet instead of one-two, were instead of that left-right footwork.
socket location
| Location | FGA | FGM | FG% | % attempts | % of brands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | FGA | FGM | FG% | % attempts | % of brands |
| top of the key | 30 | eleven | 37% | 18% | twenty-one% |
| On the left | 41 | 7 | 17% | 25% | 13% |
| On the right | 54 | 24 | 44% | 33% | Four. Five% |
| Left corner | 19 | 6 | 32% | 12% | eleven% |
| Right corner | twenty | 5 | 25% | 12% | 9% |
| 164 | 53 | 32% | 100% | 100% |
SHOT LOCATION
The two big takeaways in terms of Hayes’ shot placement numbers were comparing left wing to right wing and overall shooting numbers from corners.
As we know, the corner 3-point shot should be the easiest 3-point attempt in the NBA game due to the short distance compared to other areas of the court. Again, we don’t want to see Hayes “locked in the corner,” but there will be times when he’s going to have to be able to space the floor and knock down shots when the ball ends up in his hands.
Perhaps the most interesting stat in the entire breakdown is the difference in shooting efficiency between the left and right wings. As a good friend and producer of The Pistons Pulse said when shown these numbers, “Is there a better pairing than a left-handed shooter and a right wing?”
game type
| game type | FGA | FGM | FG% | % attempts | % of brands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| game type | FGA | FGM | FG% | % attempts | % of brands |
| Transition | 8 | 5 | 63% | 5% | 9% |
| drive and kick | 62 | 25 | 40% | 38% | 47% |
| perimeter pass | 46 | eleven | 24% | 28% | twenty-one% |
| Isolation | 32 | 6 | 19% | twenty% | eleven% |
| ball screen | sixteen | 6 | 38% | 10% | eleven% |
| 164 | 53 | 32% | 100% | 100% |
GAME TYPE
Similar to the Saddiq Bey breakdown, it would be nice to see Hayes get more tries in transition, but that’s true of this team overall. Yeah, yeah, it’s hard to transition out when you have the worst defense in the league and they never stop you.
The 3-point percentage on ball screen attempts was good to see, even if it’s a small sample size, and hopefully it can continue to grow to prevent defenders from going under the screen. As you can see, Hayes could do well to remove 3-point isolation attempts in the same way that Bey needed to remove collapsing sidestep attempts from him.
Finally, it was mentioned above that Hayes was shooting a respectable number on 3-point drive-and-kick attempts and you can see that he’s the only line above 40% that has decent volume off of forehand attempts. That means he’s knocking down a lot of the shots you’d want to see after his teammates have been able to break through the defense.
His overall catch and shoot numbers are actually reduced by his poor shooting on passes that simply come from around the perimeter. Yes, some of these are after a drive-and-kick and then one more pass, but many are also where the offense was stuck and hadn’t created much lead or flow.
Miss types were also tracked for this breakdown because it seemed like Hayes was missing a lot of his short attempts. The real number ended up being that 53% of all his misses were short and the other 47% were a combination of left, right and long. One must also take into account how many really, REALLY bad glitches Hayes still has from time to time. This probably speaks to the fact that he’s still trying to get completely comfortable with shooting him.
Looking back at Hayes’ 164 3-point attempts, it was exciting to see the flow and fluidity of his shooting at times, but it was easy to see that the consistency isn’t quite there yet, especially across all types of shots and plays. It will be very interesting to see what the shot looks like for the last 34 games of the season, but hopefully we’ll at least continue to see the confident version of Killian Hayes.