The present study investigated the head fake in basketball, in which a player passes in one direction while directing the head to the opposite side. The objective was to examine whether the deceptive stimulus feature head orientation induces erroneous motor responses that are measurable through center of pressure (COP) displacements. Twenty participants (M_age = 22.4) were presented with life-sized video sequences of a basketball player’s passes, performed either with or without a head fake. They were instructed to make whole-body movements as if to intercept the pass (buzzer task) or to verbally name the pass direction (vocal task). Reaction times (RTs), movement times (MTs), and COP displacements were recorded. The results of the study demonstrated that head fakes led to significantly longer RTs in both in the buzzer task, t(19) = 13.027, p < .001, and the vocal task, t(19) = 14.047, p < .001. COP analyses revealed an early erroneous shift in the buzzer task for head-fake trials that was corrected prior to the initiation of the correct response. This pattern supports a rapid, feedforward priming process rather than an interference explanation of the head-fake effect, at least in this realistic-like setting. Surprisingly, minimal but systematic COP displacements of a similar temporal structure were identified in the vocal task, suggesting the presence of overt motor activations even when no movement was intended. The findings underscore the embodied nature of decision-making processes in sports and extend the application of the rapid chase theory to complex movements.