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Two days ago, Toronto Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell was hoisting some postpractice three-point shots. And it was not pretty — unless you enjoy seeing one ball after another skid along on a line drive to the front of the rim and a creaky-looking old pro wonder where his legs went.
Even worse, he was in competition with supposed second-year sniper Andrea Bargnani.
The youngster couldn't complain about the wear and tear of nearly two decades of professional basketball, he just missed; the pleasing arc that precedes most successful shot attempts nowhere to be found.
But there was a bounce in Mitchell's step yesterday as his team finished its preparation for tonight's game against the Milwaukee Bucks, the first of a five-games-in-eight-nights flourish that will wrap up the Raptors' regular season.
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His jump shot was falling. The legs not so creaky. The arc high and gentle, the ball falling through the net with a snap.
"Comeback," said the 44-year-old Mitchell, who last played an NBA game in 2002. "I'm going to make a comeback."
Mitchell wasn't even embarrassed about the source of the new mojo: A comment made by a reporter — based on a conversation with NBA Hall of Famer Rick Barry — about the importance of starting the shooting motion with an upward move of the upper arm, compared with a forward motion with the lower arm.
Hardly rocket science, and certainly not a concept foreign to Mitchell. But like a golfer hearing the same information in a different way at the right time, the light went on and Mitchell couldn't miss.
So pleased was he with the results that he called over assistant coach Jay Triano and asked him to pass the same insight on to Bargnani.
If it works for Mitchell and the second-year centre, look for it to be spread like the gospel. Heaven knows his team could use it.
The Raptors' well-documented slump — they've lost three games in a row, four of five and 15 of 21 — has shone a bright light on everything from Mitchell's coaching acumen to Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo's player acquisitions to all-star forward Chris Bosh's leadership to Bargnani's future.
But perhaps the most glaring shortcoming has been the Raptors' poor shooting from behind the three-point line, with everyone having a share of the collective cold hand.
In wins, the Raptors have been shooting a red-hot average of 43.9 per cent from behind the arc this season. In losses, a middling 35.2 per cent.
During their most successful month this season — an 8-5 run in January — Toronto shot 44.6 per cent from deep. During March, when Toronto was 6-11, it connected on just 34.3 per cent of threes. So far in April, the Raptors are 0-3 and, not surprisingly, have connected on just 23.6 per cent of their triples.
"Obviously, when we shoot the ball well, we're a tough team," said Anthony Parker, who has made just four triples this month in 18 attempts, despite his season-long standing as one of the NBA's top three-point shooters. "You go through slumps like that. … At some point, it becomes mental and you have to go back to the drawing board."
Two days of practice have been good for that. The Raptors regularly do drill shooting before and after their workouts, with more shooting incorporated into their practice.
One aspect Mitchell will be looking for from his three-point shooters — primarily Parker, Bargnani, Carlos Delfino and Jason Kapono — is a more aggressive posture when catching the ball.
"We're all catching the ball on the weak side like this," Mitchell said, standing tall to illustrate. "If you're like that, the defence can run at you 100 miles an hour [because the shooter isn't prepared to attack].
"If you're like this," he said, taking a lower, more athletic stance, "the defence is going to slow up, because you don't know if you're going to shoot, pass or dribble.
"It's a little thing … you have to catch the ball in a triple-threat position and that makes the defender pause. Those are the kind of little things that we have to clean up."
That and get the shoulder up high.
