Basketball sound effects

Six even bounces, each with a hard slap and a hollow ring underneath. It is the spine of any basketball cut, because the rhythm of the dribble is what tells an audience the pace of the play.

A soft brushing snap with no metal anywhere in it. The absence of a clang is the whole point: a clean shot has to sound different from a lucky one or the highlight loses its meaning.

A bright clang into a dull glass boom, with the hoop still ringing after. Reach for it when a shot has to be in doubt for a second longer than the picture allows.

Three short rubbery squeals bending upward off a polished floor. Nothing else says indoor court so quickly, and a cut with none of these in it always sounds like it was filmed elsewhere.

One hard blast with a warble in it and an abrupt stop. It is the only sound on the page that stops play rather than describing it, which makes it the natural end of a sequence.

Thousands of people murmuring and shifting under the game rather than celebrating it. Laid low it gives every court event somewhere to sit, and it makes an empty gym sound like a fixture.