In lacrosse, especially the shot clock era of lacrosse, every possession counts. Every ground ball, turnover and player backing up shots results in more or less possessions for each team. In today’s #FilmBreakdown session, I want to shed light on making the extra effort in the form of backing up missed shots.
Backing Up Shots: #FilmBreakdown
Clip 1- Chase 1
Penn State Defender #43 sees the Rutgers player shooting and starts running for the endline before knowing if the shot was going to hit the cage. By doing so he has a head start and is able to grab possession for his team.
Clip 2&3- Chase 2 and Chase 3
The endline dive. It has become very popular in the past years and for good reason. While I don’t have stats to back it up, my experiences point to the idea that when two players are relatively tied for an endline ball, the official will give the decision to the diving player. From a visual standpoint that player looks closer. Every possession matters.
Clip 4- Chase 4
In what may be a first for my eyes, this clip shows a Yale player diving for the chase and a Penn player knocking them out of the air with superior positioning to earn the possession.
Moral of the story; don’t just dive/chase/box out/cheat chases when the game is on the line. If you make this kind of effort on every shot, the game probably won’t ever get that close!
