Against Brazil, Slovenia took the lead early and hung on for the win. That doesn’t mean it was uneventful though, as Brazil cut Slovenia’s lead to five twice late in the fourth quarter. Each time Slovenia responded with a clutch three point shot:
Post Threat Opens Up Outside
Slovenia’s offense involves a lot of cut, dives, and post ups. In addition to having that stuff get open looks, it also draws the help side defense, and that is what freed up Slovenia’s first three up by five with right around 3 minutes left.
Up five with around three minutes left, Slovenia is trying to milk the clock. Instead of having their point guard dribbling out the clock, they do it the correct way though in my opinion, they run through their offense. The first step is having a double screen set for their point guard.
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Before the FIBA Worlds started, everyone was predicting that Spain would be the team to threaten Team USA and give them a run for their money once the tournament reached the round of 16. After a puzzling loss to France and a win, the Spanish team actually had themselves set up nicely, and if all went according to plan they would be facing Team USA in the Championship game. However, Lithuania threw everyone a curveball by beating Spain 76-73. While Lithuania did a terrific job coming back from double digits in the second half, and taking the lead late, a lot of this loss can be put on Spain’s errors on both ends of the court.
Defensively
Defensively Spain did a pretty good job of matching stops with Lithuania for most of the final two minutes. However, Lithuania was able to tie the game and score the eventual game winning basket (the one that gave them the lead for good) on two pretty bad defensive lapses:
Gasol’s Bad Pick And Roll Defense
Here, Lithuania runs a pick and roll with Marc Gasol’s man as the screener. Gasol is in good position on the show, but he bites on a pump fake and closes out too hard on the shooter. This leaves the roll man wide open for a pass and forces help from Ricky Rubio to come. The roll man does a fantastic job of quickly kicking the ball out for a wide open three point shot.
Now, onto the go-ahead basket:
On this possession, Lithuania tries to run a pick and roll with Linas Kleiza as the roll man. However, the play gets blown up and the ball ends up in Kleiza’s hands a good five feet behind the three point line. The man who kicked out the ball to Kleiza cuts behind him to give Lithuania some court balance.
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Down by two with three seconds left, Brazil had starting point guard Marcelo Huertas heading to the line with a chance to tie the game. Huertas, a 66.7% free throw shooter in the tournament (4-6), missed the first one. With so little time left, there was no way Brazil could make the second foul shot and still have a chance to win. This means that Brazil needed to miss on purpose and secure the rebound to get one final shot at the basket. That is exactly what they were able to pull off.
As Huertas gets the basketball, it is obvious that Team USA is concerned with Leandro Barbosa at the top of the key. Billups is fronting him so he can’t use his speed to grab a long rebound. Despite this, the key matchup (and where Team USA should have really focused their attention) is actually on the far side block where Team USA only has one man to try and secure the rebound.
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Yesterday, Team USA faced their first real threat as they faced off against Brazil in a game that should end up deciding who wins their group. They also seemed to struggle for the first time, especially on the offensive end. Brazil shot the ball so well (in the first half at least) that it kept Team USA from getting out on the break and turning this game into a track meet. This meant that Team USA had to have success in the halfcourt, and that didn’t really happen. Let’s look at why they struggled. Two things really hurt Team USA, turnovers and bad shots.
No Movement
Team USA turned the ball over 22 times yesterday against Brazil. That really can’t happen against a team that is going to be able to make you pay for those mistakes (for the most part Brazil did in fact make Team USA pay). Some of those turnovers were questionable (those traveling calls in particular), but a lot of them were self inflicted, due to stagnant offense with everyone really standing around and watching the player with the ball do their own thing:
Click To View Clip
In this clip Derrick Rose brings the ball up with nobody really doing much off of the basketball. Sure, you have those cross screens at the back but neither Andre Iguodala or Chauncey Billups work all that hard to get open as they are basically jogging through the motions. With neither wing open, Rose is forced to try and get the ball to the middle when the turnover happens.
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Team Argentina won their two FIBA World games this weekend by a total of six points. Normally when a team takes two close games back to back it is due to solid execution on both ends of the court. However, this isn’t what happened with Team Argentina, as they ended up winning despite poor execution on the offensive end. In both games Argentina suffered a key turnover late when they were looking to put the game away, forcing the defense to step up.
Poor Execution On Offense
Game 1 vs. Germany
Up by one with 47 seconds left, Argentina wants to run some clock and get a good look at the basket. Argentina’s point guard dribbles the clock out for 12 seconds before they get into their offense. When they do, they decide to run a pick and roll with Luis Scola as the screener/roll man:
As the PG comes off the screen with Scola rolling the German defense switches. Mismatch for Argentina right? Well, no, because Germany just doesn’t switch once, they essentially switch twice. The German PG, passes Scola off to a bigger help defender, then picks up the open man.
However, good German rotation isn’t the only reason for the turnover. Argentina shoots themselves in the foot pretty bad here. Even with the good double switch, Scola still gets the ball in very good position. However, he isn’t able to complete a move because Hernan Jasen inexplicably cuts into the lane right as Scola starts his move.
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Going into the FIBA World Championships, I thought if Kevin Love could find a way to get some minutes, he could make a positive impact for Team USA because he seems to be your prototypical International-style big man. Love crashes the boards hard, passes well, and is a legitimate threat from the outside. He hasn’t been playing a ton (only 13 minutes in each of the two games), but he has made his presence felt.
Rebounding
Kevin Love is a very good rebounder in the NBA, and we shouldn’t be surprised that this skill carried over to the FIBA Worlds, but at this pace? Love has grabbed 21 rebounds in his 26 minutes of play, which comes out to an insane 31.5 rebounds per 40 minutes (h/t J.E. Skeets via John Schuhmann). How is Love able to grab so many rebounds? By simply outworking and outsmarting his opponents:
Click To View Video
Here, when the shot goes up, Love simply outworks his man to get past the boxout and get himself in good position for the offensive rebound.
Click To View Video
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The FIBA World Championships started on Saturday, and one of the major themes from the first day of games was the importance of post position for offensive players. There were two performances that illustrated this point very well. They were Ante Tomic’s game against the United States and Yi’s game against Greece.
Good Position Before The Catch
Getting good position in the post before the catch makes everything easier for the player posting his man up. Getting closer to the basket before even getting the ball, limits the amount of moves a post player needs to make. Also, it allows for an easier attempt because the post player is closer to the basket.
Click To View Video
Here, Ante Tomic (#11 from Croatia) is allowed to set up on the block before he gets the pass, and with Tomic being 7′2″ (According To DraftExpress) that position is all he really needs. After making the catch, Tomic only needs two dribbles to set himself for the turnaround jumper. Push Tomic another five feet out, and that is a tough shot. But at his size and position on the court, he is able to get off an easy shot.
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If teams are having success scoring in the post, one way defenses try to stop them is by double teaming the post. Double teams are the most effective way to keep someone from scoring in the post because you have two defenders now covering one. If the double team is effective, it can take a decent passer and turn him into a below average one. However, if a team knows how to handle a double team, they are able to take advantage of the defense’s willingness to have two players covering one.
Handling double teams is really a team effort. Not only does the man getting double teamed need to be able to make a good pass under duress, but his teammates need to provide him with a passing lane. In my opinion, the two teams that handle double teams very well are the San Antonio Spurs and the Orlando Magic. Both teams have very good big men (in Tim Duncan and Dwight Howard), so they see (and beat) plenty of double teams. Despite both teams being very successful, the Spurs and the Magic handle double teams in very different ways:
San Antonio Spurs: Cut On The Double
Whenever Tim Duncan gets double teamed, the Spurs like to send a cutter diving through the lane. In theory, it makes sense, because when a double team takes place, most teams are worried about rotating on the perimeter, so when a cut happens, it is hard to adjust to. They are able to be successful with this because they have a big man who is willing to let the double team come and make a pass over it. Also important is his teammate’s ability to time their cuts just right.
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In the weekly series Learn A Set, we are going to be looking at a set that a team runs and break it down. First we are going to look at the Xs and Os, then we will take a look at the advantages and disadvantages. The goal is to break down a set run consistently last year by every team.
To start off the Learn A Set series, I am going to be looking at a team that I know pretty well, the New Jersey Nets. Despite being terrible, the Nets actually had some pretty good sets, and when they were able to execute, they would score from them. Maybe my favorite was the set where they had a guard setting a screen for a big in the paint. If the Nets wanted to get the ball inside to one of their big men, they would run this play because not only does it prevent the defense from fronting the post, the motion away from the post keeps the double teams away. Here is the Xs and Os breakdown of it:
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My Favorite Sets is a weekly series looking at some of my favorite plays from the 2009-2010 and breaking them down using FastModel’s FastDraw program, and then showing you what it looks like live.
UPDATE: Corrected the Thunder set to show it correctly.
Last time, we looked at my favorite sets coming out of timeouts in dead ball situations. These are set plays drawn up in the huddle, so it is all on the coaches. During non-dead ball situations, it is more on the player to execute. Because it isn’t a quick hitter, where you see one or two quick passes and a shot, players are now forced to react to the defense and go from there.
Celtics Overtime Pick And Roll
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