Every morning (or late-afternoon), I am going to breakdown the some key possessions from the previous night’s games.  Good possessions/bad possessions you can find them all here.

Last night there were two close games, both ending with the losing team having a chance to tie the game with a 3.  Both teams ended up with a tough look from the corner.

Denver vs. Philadelphia

Before we get to Denver’s final attempt, I wanted to show a play that the Sixers ran to isolate Andre Iguodala in the post.

This play starts with a 1-4 set, with Allen Iverson holding the ball as the clock starts to tick down.  The Sixers want to give you the illusion that this is going to be an ISO for Iverson, even though it isn’t.

When Iverson gets to dribbling, Andre Iguodala clears out to the opposite block.

Willie Green cuts through and Speights pops out to give Iverson an option.  Look what happened.  This ends up being a clearout for Iguodala in the post, where he has a mismatch against J.R. Smith.

I like how the Sixers spotted the mismatch, and they just went to it.  The play was nicely designed, sneaking AI behind the play, sort of a misdirection type deal.  The end result was Iguodala getting fouled on a lay-up attempt.

Onto Denver’s play:

The Nuggets start off with a box set.  They got both of their shooting options (Afflalo and Smith) on the weakside.

Afflalo is going to head towards the corner, coming off a Lawson screen while Smith is coming off a Nene screen.  This is a solid play on paper, but it really lacks execution.

First, Lawson doesn’t even get a body on Affllalo’s man.  Nene sets a pretty good screen, but as you see in the next screen capture, Smith doesn’t come off the screen hard at all.

J.R. Smith should have curled around to the 3 point line towards the corner, but instead, he takes himself out of the play, and he floats towards halfcourt.  This leaves Kenyon Martin with one option, Afflalo in the corner.

Kenyon Martin is forced to inbound the ball to Afflalo even though he is pretty well defended, and Afflalo ends up taking a highly contested corner 3.

Cleveland vs. Charlotte

Moving on to Cleveland, you have some similar stuff, first it is a corner 3.  I don’t know why, I just despise the corner 3 for a buzzer beater.  In my opinion, the corner 3 is the toughest 3 to make, and teams sort of gravitate to the corner at the end of the games.  In the Nuggets’ play, I think it was a solid playcall, but poor execution.  In the following playcall, I don’t really like it at all.

First, look who the trigger man is.  Mo Williams.  The team’s best shooter is inbounding the basketball.  I understand that he might be your best passer, but are you telling me Delonte West can’t inbound the basketball?  You need your best shooter out there, even if he is a decoy.

LeBron sets a backscreen for Anthony Parker, and then shoots towards the corner, where he will be getting a screen from Big Z.

Look at how this play is developing.  You only have one guy (LeBron) running behind the three point line when they need a 3.  Also, because they need a 3, the Bobcats smartly switch the Big Z screen so LeBron can’t run open.

LeBron makes the catch, jumps, and turns around in one motion, taking a 3 as he is falling out of bounds.  LeBron’s whole body is out of bounds when he releases this.  I know LeBron makes a ton of tough shots, but come on, this is damn near impossible.  The thing that really bugs me about this is that this was the number 1 option.  Again, pointing to the Denver play above, the Nuggets at least gave themselves a few options before settling for the corner 3.  Here, this was where the play was designed to go.  What was Mike Brown thinking?  Oh wait, he wasn’t drawing up the play, so we don’t need to know what he was thinking…no I’m serious, I have proof:

A head coach in the NBA can’t draw up 1 play with 3 seconds left?  And look at his reaction, he seems bewildered by what he is seeing on the clipboard…