The Rockets' Red Glare: When Free Throws Aren’t Free
How the Rockets’ free throw shooting has doomed them against the Warriors
One of my longtime basketball bugaboos is when people complain about players missing free throws. Fans will act like it’s a free two points, but there ain’t nothing free about it. The league average free throw percentage was only 78% in 2024-25. And while an average of 1.56 points per trip to the line (2.34 on a three) is the most efficient offense in the league, you’re still leaving money on the table 22% of the time. The other part that makes steam burst out of my ears like a 19th-century locomotive is the underlying sentiment that these ingrates could somehow do better. Yeah, you may be able to shoot better than Rudy Gobert, a career 64.1% free throw shooter, from the line in an empty gym. But these are arenas with thousands of people, they’re taken amid intense cardio, and you probably got karate chopped by a human so large they are physically incapable of flying coach. I say all this to say, the Houston Rockets are going to lose their playoff series to the Golden State Warriors because they can’t hit their free throws.
The Rockets’ season is officially on the brink following their 109-106 loss to the Warriors. With the series at 3-1, the Rockets, despite two of the final three potential games at home, are all but eliminated, and they can, or the Warriors can, thank their free throw shooting. Over the series’ first four games, the Rockets have shot 63.2% from the line. Should that figure hold, they’ll secure the 28th-worst team free throw shooting in NBA playoff history. Of the 30 worst team playoff free throw shooting performances in history, only eight won at least a series, but seven of those eight teams either employed Shaquille O’Neal or Wilt Chamberlain, and the eighth team was the 1946-47 Chicago Stags in the first season of the BAA, the precursor to the NBA. On average, these lowly performing free throwers won 38.4% of their playoff games, and if you remove prime-Shaq and Wilt, that figure drops to 21.5%. So yeah, shooting under 64% from the line all but guarantees a series loss unless the Korean War hasn’t happened or you have Shaq or Wilt.
Missing free throws is functionally leaving points on the table, and the Rockets have been a mess. Their 63.2% mark in the playoffs is 10.5% below their regular-season efficiency of 73.79% and has cost them 10.1 points. And in a series where they have been outscored by only nine points, just hitting their regular season average would see them with a positive point differential. However, taking seasonal averages and inserting them into the playoffs is cheating a bit. Rotations change in the playoffs, and who takes the free throws does with it. When you adjust for who has taken the Rockets’ free throws in the playoffs, the Rockets have still underperformed handily, but not to such a massive degree.
Based on individual regular season free throw shooting, the Rockets have lost 7.87 points due to underperformance and are shooting 8.3% worse from the line than you would expect. Jalen Green and Amen Thompson have seen the largest decline, with Thompson’s 15 free throw attempts looming large. Interestingly, the Warriors have utilized a hack-a-Adams strategy, and while it’s still borne statistical fruit, he has actually shot better from the line in the playoffs.
Using the same methodology, we can go through each game to see how the outcome would have changed if each individual Rockets had hit their regular season average from the free throw line.
Wow, if the Rockets could just hit their free throws, this series would be knotted at 2-2 following their 109.471-109 game four victory! Obviously, teams can’t score fractions of a point, so it’d be a jump to say they should have won game four if everything but their free throw shooting stayed the same. Now, if the Rockets could have gotten some free throw overperformance, or were just a better free throw shooting team, then the series would be a tad different, but not all that much. The league shot 78% on free throws this season. Hitting that figure every game would only add 14.1 total points to the Rockets’ total, and the series would be 2-2.
The primary reason the Rockets are on the brink of elimination has nothing to do with the free throw line. The Rockets have an effective field goal percentage of 49.6%. That’s the third-worst mark of the playoffs, and the two teams below them, the Magic and Grizzlies, are either staring at their own 3-1 series deficit or eliminated.
Remember when I said I hated when people complained about players missing free throws? This is why. The Rockets’ free throw shooting is a real problem, but it didn’t cost them that pivotal game four. Them allowing the Warriors to post an offensive rating of 121.2 did. The Rockets’ offensive rating of 117.8 was their series high. The point being, there’s almost always something more important than free throw shooting. So yeah, the Rockets’ free throw shooting, along with their worst defensive display of the series, cost them game four, and likely the series. Missed free throws are an easy thing for people to latch onto because each one feels like it should be made, but at the end of the day, they just aren’t all that important.
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