The "liberation" clips with the j.[C] basketball coming down on oki allow you to counter wakeup heats. There's the "reverse hit confirm" where kubo did meaty 2As on wakeup which whiffed so he shield canceled. Doing that all the time would make your 5A/2A get wakeup shielded though. However if the basketball whiffs through them (regardless of you doing anything), you know they're using something with invincibility (wakeup heat) and you can respond accordingly. There's probably other options available too for different situations. If they just block, they're forced into hitstun (is j.[C] level 3?) and it seems like you'd get enough time to confirm that into a mixup.