Why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander falls a lot: Because it works

Same player. Same game. Same shot. Similar contact. Two very different outcomes.

With two minutes left in the first quarter of Game 4 in the Western Conference finals, Oklahoma City Thunder star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander possessed the ball, defended by San Antonio Spurs star guard De’Aaron Fox. Operating from the right elbow, SGA took a hard dribble and then a stepback midrange jumper. Fox closed out his airspace, contested the shot and made contact with Gilgeous-Alexander. 

The shot did not go in, but a whistle blew. Foul. Two free throws.

A few minutes later, about halfway into the second quarter, Gilgeous-Alexander possessed the ball, this time defended by Stephon Castle. Operating at the top of the key, the two-time MVP took two hard dribbles to his left and then a stepback midrange jumper. Castle contested the shot, closed out his airspace and made contact with Gilgeous-Alexander.

The shot did not go in and no whistle blew. No foul. No free throws. Gilgeous-Alexander wasn’t pleased, raising his right arm in protest and staring back at the closest official, Scott Foster, as he trotted back on defense.

The big difference between the two plays? In the first one, Gilgeous-Alexander fell to the ground. In the second, he landed on two feet.

Those two plays represent a lesson in the power of falling to the hardwood. The first play, of course, generated a swarm of controversy on social media for being a flop. It was yet another example of SGA hitting the deck on a shot attempt. 

The fans aren’t letting it go, at one point chanting “flopper” when he held the ball in Game 4. Last week, I established that Gilgeous-Alexander has fallen significantly more than his high-scoring peers in this playoff run, about double the rates of guys like Jalen Brunson, James Harden and Victor Wembanyama. 

I raised a series of explanations for why that could be the case, but looking at the data, the most logical reason Gilgeous-Alexander does it so often is this: 

Falling works.

The updated SGA fall data

If you thought Gilgeous-Alexander wouldn’t fall as much after my deep dive on Friday, you were sorely mistaken.

Gilgeous-Alexander found himself on the ground often like he normally does. In Friday night’s Game 3 win, Gilgeous-Alexander fell five times on his shot attempts and hit the floor two more times on his tries during Sunday’s Game 4 loss. Along with those tumbles to the ground, Gilgeous-Alexander collected 19 free-throw attempts in the two games, more than he did before Friday’s study made the rounds. Only four of those falls, for the record, yielded free-throw attempts, so it’s not like he went to the charity stripe on a constant stream of dives.

But he doesn’t seem to be slowing down much in this department. Now that we’ve passed Game 4 in the series, we can compare his fall rates to previous series in this playoff run, which were both four-game affairs. Tallying up his count, Gilgeous-Alexander has now hit the deck on 22 shots in this four-game series against the San Antonio Spurs. The frequency is way higher than in his previous matchups, according to a film review on Sportradar. 

Against Phoenix in the first round, the OKC guard fell 11 times on his shot attempts. In the Lakers series, that same number bumped up to 13 falls. With 22 falls in this series, his fall frequency has increased significantly, and he has now fallen twice as often in the Western Conference finals on a per-game basis as he did in the first-round sweep over the Suns. 

In other words, as the stakes get higher, he’s hitting the deck more. As I wrote on Friday, there may be a few reasons for this. Perhaps the Spurs are more physical than the Lakers and Suns, with the Spurs choosing to send a message to Gilgeous-Alexander. It’s also possible that, as the postseason progresses and approaches the Finals stage, the 6-foot-6 guard wants to lessen the force impact on his feet, an explanation that has been raised with other star scorers who fall a lot.

But I think it’s more likely that it is usually a tactical decision — and a smart one at that. To see why, it’s worth breaking down these numbers a little further. 

Do falls generate a foul more often than not?

On those seven falls in the last two games, Gilgeous-Alexander drew whistles on four of them, raising his foul rate on falls to an even 50% in the playoffs (23 out of 46). That is, when he falls on shot attempts this postseason, he is getting a foul call, on average, every other tumble to the ground.

For a guy who makes nearly 90% of his free throws, falling on shot attempts has to be tempting. The math suggests that a Gilgeous-Alexander fall is worth an additional 0.9 expected points per fall on a 2-point attempt and an additional 1.35 points on a 3-point attempt fall. 

The calculus isn’t so straightforward for other stars. While Gilgeous-Alexander’s foul rate on his falls is a 50-50 coin flip this postseason, other guards haven’t seen similar odds in their favor. After breaking down the film of Brunson, Mitchell and Harden, the foul rates on their falls aren’t as high. For Brunson, he has gotten a foul call on just 20.8% of his falls to the floor this postseason. Mitchell saw 21.2% of his falls met with a whistle. Harden is closest to Gilgeous-Alexander at 40.6%.

Again, this doesn’t mean that Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t getting fouled on these plays, but he simply falls way more often and it’s regularly getting the result that most players seek: a whistle. Interestingly enough, like the Dos Equis man, Wembanyama doesn’t always fall on his shots (just 10 times on his 235 shot attempts), but when he does, it gets whistles. The Spurs big man has received a shooting foul call on eight of his 10 falls in the playoffs, with most of those tumbles having been a result of forceful hits around the basket area — not on jumpers like many of Gilgeous-Alexander’s falls.

From an aesthetic standpoint, falling to the ground isn’t going to go on the right kind of highlight reel. But from an efficiency perspective, it’s hard to blame SGA. He’s leveraging the rulebook.

Shai’s balancing act

Back in March, Steve Kerr wanted to get something off his chest about Gilgeous-Alexander. The All-Star guard’s propensity to get to the free-throw line was well within his right as an NBA scorer.

“I don’t have a problem with Shai,” Kerr said. “I have a problem with the rules.”

Kerr, like Wembanyama earlier this season, chose his words carefully after facing the reigning champions. Among other things, Kerr spoke about Gilgeous-Alexander’s use of his off arm to ward off defenders and secure a driving advantage. But more generally, Kerr believes Gilgeous-Alexander is shrewdly responding to an incentive structure that encourages him to initiate and accentuate contact. 

“He’s incredibly clever. He knows exactly how to draw contact. It’s all within the rules,” Kerr said of Gilgeous-Alexander, who took 15 free throws in that game against Kerr’s Warriors.

When it comes to straight-line drives, NBA referees are instructed to judge whether a defender’s contact with a driving offensive player affects the offensive player’s SQBR, or Speed, Quickness, Balance and/or Rhythm. Two months ago, this acronym was used by the NBA referee union’s official X account to explain why they ruled in favor of the MVP on a controversial Gilgeous-Alexander play. 

The key to understanding why players might fall so much can be seen in that third term in SQBR acronym: balance. 

How does a referee determine if a defender illegally knocks a player off balance? 

And more specifically, is the contact deemed to be more than marginal? 

It’s often a subjective call, and the limits of marginal contact are not clearly explained. The term “marginal” doesn’t even appear in the official rulebook, though it often shows up in Last Two Minute reports as a reason why calls were made (or not, in some cases). Players who hit the deck after contact are simply responding to an incentive system that demands proof that you were knocked off balance beyond what can be considered marginal, however nebulous a term that might be.

Land on two feet and you might risk communicating to the referee that you’re balanced and therefore not the victim of illegal defense. The flipside, however, may be more powerful. How can you be balanced if you can’t even stand on your own two feet?

It’s the same reason why charge calls almost always come with a defender taking a hit and falling to the floor. Defenders have been conditioned to sell the contact. Gilgeous-Alexander knows that offensive players can play by the same rulebook — no matter where the shots are coming from.

Is SGA’s fall rate so high because he drives so much?

One plausible explanation for Gilgeous-Alexander’s high fall rate is that he does the thing that causes falls the most: he drives to the basket. 

According to NBA player tracking data, Gilgeous-Alexander averages 19.4 drives per game, the highest for any player who has made it out of the first round of the playoffs. It would make sense that someone who penetrates into the paint so often and perpetually plows into a wall of trees would hit the deck a lot.

Unpacking this idea isn’t as straightforward as we’d like. Unfortunately, public NBA player tracking data doesn’t tabulate fall data, but we can compare the number of drives tracked by the cameras with the number of overall falls to see whether Gilgeous-Alexander’s fall rate is commensurate with the number of drives we see from other players.

But even that explanation goes only so far. Because the Cavs have played more games than the Thunder this postseason, Mitchell has actually registered more drives in this playoff run (238) than Gilgeous-Alexander (233) and yet Mitchell has fallen 13 fewer times this playoff run. 

Brunson has just three fewer drives than Gilgeous-Alexander and yet has 22 fewer falls. Harden and Wembanyama’s track record tell a similar story. Even accounting for SGA’s high drive rate, he falls way more than we’d expect given the number of drives. A deeper look at SGA’s falls shows that 19 of them have come on jumpers, according to Yahoo Sports tracking, much like the controversial Fox one that went viral. 

Whether it’s on jumpers or drives, falling is just part of Gilgeous-Alexander’s game. And we shouldn’t expect him to change. Over the long weekend, despite the flopper chants and social media chatter, Gilgeous-Alexander fell on shot attempts more times (seven) than Brunson, Mitchell, Harden and Wembanyama combined (six). With Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell dealing with injuries, the Thunder may need to exploit every edge to take back the series.