bank shot
- noun
- /bæŋk ʃɑt/
- I thought you never missed a bank shot.
Examples
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The liveliness of the crowd had completely died down until Kobe Bryant was back at it again, putting away an easy bank shot followed by a difficult layup under the basket.
Blog text (27) -
During the game, he made a spectacular bank shot that swished through the hoop.
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Best bank shot in the game.
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"Either my aim is way the hell off, or that's the first bank shot I ever made."
Fiction book (1996) -
After another stop, Curry dropped in a 12-footer, followed by a turnaround bank shot by David Lee.
Blog text (22) -
In Game 2, LeBron makes a tough bank shot -- after OKC had cut the deficit to three -- and then two free throws -- with the Heat leading by 2 -- in the final 90 seconds.
Blog text (2) -
She practiced her bank shot for hours to improve her accuracy during the tournament.
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His signature move is the bank shot, which he uses to score from difficult angles.
Synonyms
An attempt to score in a sport, for example throwing a heavy ball in shot put
A score made by throwing the ball through the hoop in basketball
A basket scored during play by throwing the ball through the other team's hoop
An attempt to score by throwing the ball into the hoop
How Difficult
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a shot bounced off the backboard' is not derivable from the common noun senses of 'bank' (riverside or financial institution) plus 'shot' (an attempt). The sports-specific sense of 'bank' meaning 'to bounce off a surface/backboard' is specialized and unlikely to be known or predicted by a B1 learner who only knows the basic constituent meanings, making the expression non-compositional for such learners.
Etymology
Bank shot comes from a simple picture: a shot that first hits the bank, a bounce off a surface, before it goes into the hoop. One popular story says the word 'bank' came from pool, where players bounce the ball off the side, and in basketball the ball bouncing off the backboard works the same way, so the name means a shot that hits the backboard and then goes in.