Essentially, all these words mean the same thing – they each intend to help you make more shots – but there are subtle differences which shooters must be mindful of when working with a trainer or coach so that you both can focus your attention on the right components.
Properly & Correctly
These adverb refer to improving the technique or form you use to shoot. If you’re a beginner, a coach or trainer can help you find your natural form and then adapt it to the proper / correct fundamentals ways of shooting. If you’re an experienced player, whether you’re training by yourself or with the help of a trainer or coach, you should break down each component of your shooting, identify flaws, and work on each one individually to see improvements.
Look at this list of steps and determine where you can make changes and focus your attention.
Accurately
This refers to your percentage. What most players get wrong about accuracy is that they want to improve it, but they have no baseline. If you don’t know how your current shooting accuracy is, how will you measure your progress? Shooting accurately has nothing to do with your shooting process, it’s about the result.
If you’re a casual player, you might not need to jot down your makes and misses or use an automated device like the ShotTracker to know where you stand, but you should at least make mental counts in your head as honestly as you can. If you’re a competitive player, it’s absolutely essential for you to keep a track of your progress, even if your coach doesn’t require it.
Perfectly
Unless you have the mechanics, the percentages and the track record of Steph Curry, Kyle Korver, or Dave Hopla, stay away from the word perfect. Any player who has a growth mindset will find it counterproductive to be perfect in his or her shooting form and in the shooting percentage. Shooting is an art form, a constantly evolving one, and the beauty of it is that you can always grow knowing you’ll never shoot perfectly.
Automatically
This one refers to thoughtlessness. It refers to a Zen state of mind before, during and after the shot. Keeping your mind free of distraction or distress, always remaining prepared to fire off a shot and always keeping your composure after you make or miss – these are the marks of an automatic shooter. If you want to shoot automatically, shoot the same shots you shoot in games in practice and vice versa, with the same level of clarity and confidence. Only when you take hundreds of repetitions per session over the years can your muscle memory and your confidence develop. Once you have the biomechanics and the free-spirited mindset of a conditioned shooter, you can shoot automatically.