Jokic vs the Clippers’ Wall: How LA’s supporters section affects opposing teams’ free throw percentage

Across his illustrious career, Nikola Jokic is one of the best free-throw shooters currently playing in the NBA. With an average conversion rate of 82.4% he’s an incredibly reliable shooter and made 19 in a single game against the Timberwolves last month.

Jokic’s Denver Nuggets travel to the LA Clippers on Thursday evening, knowing that a win in Game 6 will secure their place in the next round of the playoffs. The Clippers need to win and they have a secret weapon that might help them disrupt Jokic’s free-throw shooting.

Last summer the Clippers officially opened doors of their brand-new Intuit Dome, a $2 billion state-of-the-art venue. There are countless ultra-modern features but one of the most effective has been ‘The Wall‘, a steep section of seating behind the basket closest to the away team bench.

Those 51 rows of steeply tiered seats are reserved for the most fervent supporters and cheering for the away team is forbidden. It’s proved to be an intimidating prospect for opposition players to face, particularly from the free throw line.

Sportico reports that visiting players make just 73.4% of free throws when facing The Wall, as opposed to 76.1% from the other end of the court. If The Wall was ranked as a stand-alone venue it would have the lowest free throw percentage of any stadium in the league, suggesting that it does have a genuine effect of players’ shooting.

But is that just a coincidence? A study of free throw shooting at different stadiums across the past 20 years found that any outliers in a single season reverted to the mean the following year, suggesting that the Clippers’ new stand may not prove to be the cheat code that it currently seems.

What it does have, however, is a mystique and an x-factor that could still have an impact this postseason. It’s something that even experienced players have noted this season, including Kevin Durant of the Phoenix Suns.

“Yeah, it was crazy,” Durant said last October, having just missed two fourth-quarter free throws in front of The Wall. “I was just staring at it the whole time. You’re not used to that.”

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