Jim Souhan: Cold spell slaps Twin Cities sharpshooters

The stroke is a thing of beauty. Blake Hoffarber is practicing his shot in Williams Arena, and every release is a moveable sculpture that sends the ball arcing improbably high against the backdrop of ancient rafters.

Hoffarber says he's been shooting the same way since he was "3 years old," and he's honed his motion so it appears to run on pneumatics: catch, cock, release, hold the follow-through. Instead of watching the ball backspin through the net, though, he's become accustomed this season to seeing it carom wildly off iron.

In a strange and damaging coincidence, the two most prominent basketball teams in Minnesota have watched their most accomplished shooters slump.

Hoffarber, a sophomore for the Gophers, and Mike Miller, a veteran acquired in a trade by the Timberwolves, have not only missed more than their share of three-point shots, they've missed badly at times, as if betrayed by their own personal windstorms, or an unannounced change in the geometry of the game.

Hoffarber has made 35.5 percent of his shots from the three-point line, the fifth-best percentage on his own team. Last year, he shot 42.7 percent from that distance.

Wednesday night, Miller seemed to shake the basketball shanks, hitting three of six three-pointers, making two big ones down the stretch. For the season he's shooting 34.4 percent from the three-point line. Last year, he shot 43.2 percent, and his career average is 40 percent.

What's been more alarming than the numbers, though, has been the severity of some of his misses -- he's even come close to shooting air balls from the free-throw line.

"Whenever you go through a tough time, you hold on to the ball and you guide it," Wolves coach Kevin McHale said. "You don't shoot it. You see a guy who's struggling at the free-throw line, and they look like they're saying, 'Can I get closer?' There were times, man, when I'd almost fall over the line, trying to get closer.

"Can I lean over and, like Wilt [Chamberlain], do the finger roll? There are times when it's hard to let the ball go. We used to laugh and say, when the guy is finally out of his slump, he's going to go up for his shot and he's going to try to get closer, and he's just going to come down and hand the ball to the ref."

McHale said he went through "terrible" shooting slumps during his Hall of Fame career. "For a big guy, it was different," McHale said. "I'd sprint down the middle of the floor and try to get a tip-in.

"I figured if I can get a tip-in or a runout, a dunk, then I can handle those. I can't make one from two feet, but I can make one from a foot and a half."

While Hoffarber seems to be taking the same shots from the same spots and just missing more of them, Miller's struggles have been more confounding. Miller became the key to the draft-night trade that sent O.J. Mayo and Marko Jaric to Memphis for Kevin Love and Miller. Miller, the Wolves thought, would complement Al Jefferson's low-post game by making three-pointers and spreading the floor.

Instead, Miller often has passed up good shots to pass or drive to the rim, and when he does take a three-pointer, it is often a longer-than-necessary shot at a puzzling time.

"I was able to get into a rhythm," Miller said Wednesday night.

The longer his slump lasts, the more advice Hoffarber receives.

"There's really nothing wrong with my shot," he said. "I'm just thinking about it too much."

Gophers coach Tubby Smith said he's avoided long discussions with Hoffarber.

"I just tell him to get it off quicker," Smith said. "Sometimes you have the tendency to guide it, to think about it, to hesitate, when what you need to do is just catch it and shoot it."

When you're slumping, it's hard to let go.

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m. to noon on AM-1500 KSTP. • jsouhan@startribune.com