Swish, brick, dime, handles: do you speak basketball?

You’re watching a basketball video.

A player dribbles forward, suddenly changes direction, and the defender steps exactly the wrong way.

Under the video, someone writes:

ANKLE BREAKER!

A moment later, someone throws a perfect pass.

DIME!

The shot drops without touching the rim.

SWISH!

And if you’ve only just started playing basketball, you might be wondering:

What is everyone talking about?

No worries. Basketball just has a bit of a language of its own.

Some words describe exactly what happened. Others are simply much more fun than the official explanation. And the more you play, watch games or see highlights, the more you’ll start recognising them without even trying.

Here are a few words you’re almost certain to come across.

Swish

What does it mean? A made shot that goes through the basket without touching the rim.

All you hear is the net:

sssswish.

That’s where the word comes from.

A shot can of course still go in after hitting the rim. But on a real swish, it drops through completely clean.

So: shot → no rim → only net = swish.

And yes, it feels about as good as it sounds.

Brick

A brick is pretty much the opposite.

It’s a badly missed shot, often one that crashes hard into the rim or backboard.

CLANG.

Why do basketball players call it a brick?

You’ll probably understand the first time you hear one.

Sometimes it sounds as if someone threw something much heavier than a basketball at the hoop.

And just so we’re clear: everyone shoots bricks sometimes. Beginners, good players and professionals.

Air ball

You shoot.

The ball flies towards the basket.

But it hits… absolutely nothing.

No rim. No backboard. No net.

That’s an air ball.

The ball basically just travelled through the air.

Not the prettiest shot of your life. But definitely a word you won’t forget afterwards.

Handles

If someone says, “He’s got handles!”, they don’t mean the player has handles attached somewhere.

Handles are about how well someone controls the ball, especially while dribbling.

A player with good handles can switch hands, change direction and keep the ball close without constantly losing it.

So if dribbling is getting easier and you don’t have to stare at the ball all the time?

Those handles are starting to come.

Ankle breaker

This one sounds much more dangerous than it usually is.

An ankle breaker is a really effective dribble move — often a crossover — that makes a defender lose balance, slip or clearly move the wrong way.

Thankfully, nobody’s ankles actually need to be broken.

Imagine you make it look with your body and your dribble as if you’re going left. The defender steps left. Then you suddenly change to the right.

Defender gone.

That’s the kind of moment when you might hear someone shout “ankle breaker!”

Dime

This one is harder to guess.

A dime is basketball slang for a beautiful assist.

So it’s not the shot, but the pass that puts someone in a great position to score.

You spot your teammate open. You deliver the ball at exactly the right moment. They score.

That can be a dime.

Exactly where the word came from is less certain — there are different stories about it. But the main thing to remember is:

dime = a great pass / assist.

And-one

You’ll often hear this one shouted with a lot of excitement.

AND-ONE!

Imagine you drive to the basket and shoot. A defender fouls you during the shot… but the ball still goes in.

The basket counts. And because you were fouled while shooting, you also get one free throw.

That’s what basketball players call an and-one.

You scored despite the foul — and now you get one more chance.

Posterize

You’ll mostly hear this one around spectacular dunks.

A player goes up for a dunk. A defender tries to stop them. But the dunk still goes in hard over the defender.

If the moment is spectacular enough, people sometimes say the defender got posterized.

Why? Because the image looks so dramatic it could go straight onto a basketball poster.

Great for the dunker. Slightly less great for the person standing underneath the basket in that imaginary poster.

Splash

Of course, we can’t leave this one out.

Basketball fans know the word Splash in part from the Splash Brothers, the nickname made famous by Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson and their long-range shooting.

But splash fits basketball pretty well anyway: that feeling when a shot drops beautifully through the net.

And let’s just say we at North Splash may be slightly biased towards this one.

Before you know it, you’re speaking it too

The funny thing is, you don’t need to memorise any of these words.

Play and watch enough basketball and they start sticking to the right moments on their own.

You see a shot drop cleanly through the net: Swish.

Your teammate throws a fantastic pass: Dime.

Someone dribbles as if the ball is attached to their hand: Handles.

And one day you might catch yourself watching a highlight and saying: “Ooooh… ankle breaker!”

That’s when you know.

You’re starting to speak a little basketball.