During his time with the Houston Rockets, James Harden turned drawing fouls into an art form -- as well as a means to maintain strong efficiency while scoring at volume unprecedented in the modern NBA. The free throws on which Harden subsisted weren't as abundantly available during the playoffs, one reason why Harden's performance has suffered to some extent the deeper his teams have advanced in the postseason.
Harden's situation is a higher-end version of a challenge that also plagued DeMar DeRozan during his time with the Toronto Raptors, when DeRozan's valuable ability to get to the line during the regular season dried up as the Raptors were knocked off in the playoffs by lower-seeded teams.
As we consider the subtle ways in which the crucible of postseason basketball differs from the marathon that is the regular season, it's worth wondering whether drawing fouls translates as well in the playoffs. If so, what does that mean for the league's new collection of stars skilled at baiting their opponents into fouls, including Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young?
Free throws not distributed the same in playoffs
The funny thing about this question is that free throw rates don't decline in the postseason.
In fact, trips to the foul line make up a greater proportion of playoff plays -- any attempt to score that ends in a shot attempt, free throws or a turnover -- than they do during the regular season.
However, that change doesn't benefit everyone equally. And when we look at the active players whose rates of free throw attempts per 36 minutes change the most from the regular season -- weighting regular-season averages by minutes played each year in the playoffs -- to the postseason, familiar names get to the line far less frequently.
As expected, there's a common theme here: players who tend to draw fouls by baiting unsuspecting opponents with upfakes or rip-through moves. Those kinds of tricks are more effective against inexperienced defenders who are weeded out come playoff time, while opponents also get multiple games to adjust and avoid fouling over the course of a series.
The way the San Antonio Spurs defended Harden in the second round of the 2017 playoffs is surely the ultimate example here. By consciously keeping their hands up at all times instead of habitually reaching in, the Spurs sent Harden to the foul line just 42 times in their 4-2 series win or 6.9 attempts per 36 minutes. Harden was limited to 24.5 points per game, including 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting in the deciding Game 6.
The deeper into the playoffs Harden has gotten, the more difficult he has found it to get to the free throw line. Compared again to his rate of free throw attempts per 36 minutes in the regular season weighted by minutes played each round that year, Harden has fallen short by 0.7 FTA/36 in the opening round, 1.0 in the conference semifinals and 1.4 in the Western Conference finals. (He was even further below expectations, 1.5 FTA/36 lower, in his lone NBA Finals appearance with the Oklahoma City Thunder.)
Efficiency more difficult to retain for foul-drawers
As we switch our focus to overall scoring efficiency in the playoffs, the first thing worth remembering is that just about everybody scores less efficiently in the playoffs.
Among the 21 active players with more than 1,500 playoff minutes entering this season whose weighted regular-season scoring is better than 20 points per 36 minutes, just one had improved his true shooting percentage (TS%) from the regular season (again weighted by playoff minutes) to the postseason: Kawhi Leonard. Despite all the "Playoff P" jokes, Kawhi's LA Clippers teammate Paul George is the closest among this group to joining him.
Against that backdrop, we still see larger declines for players who depend more on getting to the free throw line. One reader had an excellent suggestion for defining this group: Use the difference between a player's true shooting percentage (which includes free throws) and his effective field goal percentage or eFG% (which does not, valuing only shots from the field). We can call this a player's free throw efficiency.
If you plot weighted free throw efficiency from the regular season against the change in players' true shooting percentage from the regular season to the playoffs, looking this time at 20-point scorers per 36 minutes with at least 1,000 playoff minutes, a nonzero relationship emerges:
Certainly, there's not a one-to-one correlation, but it's notable that just one of the nine players with the highest free throw efficiencies has done better than average in terms of maintaining his overall scoring efficiency in the playoffs (Anthony Davis). Meanwhile, two of the three players with the highest free throw efficiencies in this group are among the three to see the biggest decline in their true shooting percentages (DeRozan and Lou Williams).
Impact on 2021 postseason
Let's spin this forward now to the current playoffs. Here are the players who averaged 20 PPG with the highest free throw efficiencies to advance:
Joel Embiid, Harden and Damian Lillard all scored with above-average eFG% during the regular season (league average is .538), but they simply excel at converting when they get to the line -- Harden less frequently with the Brooklyn Nets than previously with Houston. Predictably, all three have continued to play well so far.
Jimmy Butler and Young stand out as the two players most ripe for regression based on their regular-season dependence on getting to the foul line. That happened last season with Butler, who averaged just 5.1 free throw attempts per 36 minutes in the Miami Heat's four-game sweep of the Milwaukee Bucks, down from 8.6 during the regular season. Defended largely by 2019-20 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Giannis Antetokounmpo, Butler shot 29.7% from the field and saw his TS% sink to a dismal .394.
Thus far, Young has been a different story. Both his size and penchant for baiting opponents into fouls figured to be challenges in his postseason debut. Indeed, aside from a series of trips to the line in the fourth quarter of the Hawks' Game 1 win at Madison Square Garden, Young has seen his free throws run dry. He has attempted just four in each of the past two games.
Yet Young has adapted and thrived against a New York Knicks defense that was the league's fourth stingiest on a per-possession basis this season. He has found success with his floater, making more shots in the paint but outside the restricted area (5.0) than any other player in this year's playoffs thus far, according to NBA Advanced Stats. Those shots have kept his TS% (.597) slightly better than it was during the regular season. And when Young's shots didn't fall during Friday's Game 3, he handed out 14 assists to lead the Hawks to a 2-1 series lead.
In general, players dependent on free throws do tend to struggle to some extent in the playoffs. It's early, but so far, Young looks like he might be an exception to the rule.