Defending Tyreke Evans | NBA Playbook

Defending Tyreke Evans

With the Lakers in Sacramento last night to play the Kings, Tyreke Evans put up 25 points, 9 assists, and 11 rebounds.  Despite the near triple-double, I think the Lakers did a very good job defending Evans (most of the time).  The Lakers used Ron Artest (and Kobe a little) on Tyreke Evans, and he seemed to struggle a bit with them covering him.  Here is the breakdown:

  • With Ron Artest (and Kobe) Covering Evans – 17 points (on 5-12 shooting – 6 of 9 from the FT line), 6 assists, and 8 rebounds in 38:14.
  • With others (Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown) Covering Evans – 8 points (on 2-3 shooting – 4 of 5 from the FT line), 3 assists, and 3 rebounds in 4:08.

The numbers show the difference (17 points on 12 shots vs. 8 points on 3), but I think what really shows the difference is looking at the highlights.

With Ron Artest On Him

With Ron Artest covering Evans, you had a big body that wasn’t going to let Evans bully him into the paint.  The result was a lot of dribbling on the outside:

Once Evans crosses half court, he takes 7 dribbles without going inside the three point line and then passes it to Spencer Hawes.  Now Hawes hits the three, but I think the Lakers would rather have Hawes shooting threes than Evans getting inside and creating havoc.  In fact, this was how the Lakers played Evans all night as they were determined to let the other players beat him:

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And when he did attack, Artest’s size really gave Evans problems:

On this play, Evans goes away from the screen and the tries to hit Jason Thompson who is spotting up on the high post. The pass is deflected by Ron Artest though, and Thompson is forced to scramble to make the catch.

Without Ron Artest Covering Him

For a four minute stretch in the second quarter, Ron Artest was on the bench while Tyreke Evans was still on the court (he ended up playing 42:22).  This is where Tyreke Evans the bully came out, as the players who (Jordan Farmar & Shannon Brown) were defending him just couldn’t be physical with him like Ron Artest could:

These three plays were in the half court set, and you can just see the difference in how he attacked against these guys versus how he attacked Ron Artest.  There wasn’t a ton of stationary dribbles, there was just a lot of attacking.  He especially used his size well to get into the paint and get himself to the line.  The last clip, he basically runs through Jordan Farmar, getting the and one.

The Kings Counter

Evans did have 17 points when Artest was covering him, so the Kings had to have done some things right.  The Kings set up screens for Evans, allowing for Evans to get Ron Artest on his hip.  This negated his size and strength and allowed for Evans to use his speed:

Artest is too busy fighting through the multiple screens to stay in front of Evans, and this is what allows him to get to the basket.

Here, the screen gives Evans a sliver of space, and he uses his ability to take it and get to the lane.

The second way Evans was able to score and create on Ron Artest was in transition. Artest doesn’t have the speed that he used to, and running the court makes him somewhat ineffective on the defensive end.

When Evans gets a running start on Artest, Evans has a huge advantage.

Again, Evans (in transition) just blows by Artest forcing the help to come. Evans misses the lay-up, but he forces help to come, and that allows for an offensive rebound and a basket.
17
Mar 2010
POSTED BY admin
POSTED IN Defense LA Lakers Sacramento Kings
DISCUSSION 22 Comments
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  • Allbenji’s

    So basicly he was defended well & still dominated? I love it. That means he is really ungaurdable. There are only a few of those in the league & I’m glad we have one. In all fairness Tyreke was shut down once this year by Shane Battier but he is probably the best perimeter defender in the league.

  • ACME

    Again, I love Reke, but he’s not a PG. He’s a ball distributing SG, or a lead guard. Did anyone else notice that the Kings suddenly started winning again when Beno got the start instead of Omri? Love Reke and he can initiate the offense and distribute, but controlling tempo? No. Facilitating within the offensive flow? No.

    Beno can’t play defense, and really couldn’t create his own shot last night, that’s why they lost.

  • jay

    edit your post as such:

    This is where Tyreke Evans the bully came out, as the players (Jordan Farmar & Shannon Brown) who were defending him just couldn’t be physical with him like Ron Artest could:

    names should go next to players and before who.

  • MustangMBS
  • Captain Obvious

    Evans has a variety of nice moves to the right (fake left-dribble right or dribble left-reverse spin back to the right…but his moves to the left need work. Still, he’s a great young player in the league — probably ROY.

    It seems to me that a defender just needs to give space (respecting Evans’ quickness) and force left. Why can’t defenders just be disciplined and do this? Heck, even when Evans goes left, most of the time he’ll come back to the right to take the shot. For pick-and-roll situations, I’d just fight through the down-side of the pick and give up the jumpshot. His offensive game is good but seems pretty one-dimensional to me.

    Essentially, the exact opposite can be said about defending Lamar Odom or Ron Artest. Take away the left and force right. This makes sense since Lamar is a lefty. Inexplicably, Ron is a right-handed player who is more comfortable driving left or just dribbling left to take a jumpshot.

  • nick

    Impressive to somehow see that Allbenji. It shows that during a close to normal 38 minutes he scored 17 points and 6 ass and 8 boards, hardly unguardable. While in 4 minutes he scored 8 points and 3 rebs and assists. Clearly the writer is illustrating the vast difference in defensive quality, while critiquing Artest’s failing skills.

  • Atomsk

    Evans is a lot like D-wade.. wade came into the league as point guard as well.

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  • ACME

    @MustangMBS
    Okay, I guess I see your point, but I am just so sick and tired of the broadcasters saying he’s a point guard, period. Ummm, no. Magic average 19 7 & 7 his rookie year. Kidd 11.5 7 & 4 his rookie year.

    The players he’s most compared to are MJ, LeBron and DWade…. Ummm is there anyone on the broadcast teams of those organizations that continue to claim that any of those 3 players are PGs? No, because they’re lead guards like Reke.

    Yes he’s averaging 9-10 assists, but you do understand how much he utterly dominates the ball right? Also, what kind of PG can’t run a pick and roll? The pick and pop all the time, but I haven’t seen the guy complete more than 10 pick and rolls all year.

  • keith

    Hmm not sure Artest’s size is what made the difference so much as his smarts. When Artest guards Evans he just backed off and gave him the 3, which Evans only hits about 25% of the time, and Evans seems to be looking for a way around Artest but can’t find an angle.

    But Brown/Farmar are out there picking him up way above the 3 point line! He didn’t bully them out there, he just blew by them with speed like he did to Artest when he was forced to play him more closely because of screens or Evans being able to force the issue in transition.

    It’s like guarding Rajon Rondo. He can’t shoot the 3, so I don’t know why people bother guarding him out there where he can use his ridiculous speed to get in the lane… I’d let Evans and Rondo shoot 3s all day until they prove they can hit one with someone simply closing out to box them out after the shot.

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  • ACME

    @Atomsk
    Okay, I guess, but he ain’t one now.

  • ACME

    @MustangMBS
    Also, I did not say he was a forward. I am well aware he’s a guard. I have seen many PG’s that weren’t pass first (Bibby comes to mind here in Sac), but they controlled tempo and facilitated the offense. He is not a PG, much like Bobby Jackson was not a PG.

    I keep hearing John Wall would be great, but the simple reason that would be a no would be that both players are ball-dominant guards. That’s why Memphis took Harden, because they already have KD and Westbrook.

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  • Say What?

    Tyreke isn’t a natural PG people. Nor is he a SG.

    Think of it like this… What is Lebron James’ position? What about D-Wade? Kobe Bryant? You can’t really say because they don’t really have one. They are just basketball players. Period. Tyreke Evans is no different. This game is natural for him.

    The debate about whether or not he is ROY this year is ridiculous. What does ROY stand for… Rookie of The Year. What does that mean? It means the Rookie who played the best in his first year. Even if you never saw this young 20 year old play before, and all you had to go off of was stats, wouldn’t you choose the guy who has the best all around stats? That usually means that they are a good player right? Regardless of what team and or conference that person is in (which for Tyreke is arguably the toughest), you have to be good in order to average 20.3 PPG, 5.2 Reb, 5.6 Ast, 1.4 Stl, 2.9 TO, all while only taking 16.2 shots per game, on a 46% clip. ALL FREAKING SEASON!! There’s only 15 or so games left in the season people. This kid is only 20 years old. Again, how there is any debate on this baffles me.

    Oh yeah, and for the past 4 games he’s been nearly averaging a Triple Double. Only one stat away twice, while recording 1 legitimately. If the voting for ROY were to be done by the players & coaches in the League only, and not the media and morons, you can bet everything you own that they would all choose Tyreke as the best rookie this year. Nearly all of the All-Stars have made public mention to that fact. Why do you think every team has to plan their entire defensive scheme around trying to stop him? That should speak for itself.

    The only reason others have surfaced into the debate of this ROY Race is because Kings basketball doesn’t start until 10:30pm on the East Coast. And everybody knows that the East Coast control this media hype machine that society has grown to rely on. And even for those few on the East Coast who may want to stay up late and watch a late West Coast game, why would they want to waste their valuable time watching Kings game? San Francisco / Oakland is so much cooler.

    Wow! Did I just write all that. LMAO. I think I made my point.

  • mike

    Captain Obvious :
    Evans has a variety of nice moves to the right (fake left-dribble right or dribble left-reverse spin back to the right…but his moves to the left need work. Still, he’s a great young player in the league — probably ROY.
    It seems to me that a defender just needs to give space (respecting Evans’ quickness) and force left. Why can’t defenders just be disciplined and do this? Heck, even when Evans goes left, most of the time he’ll come back to the right to take the shot. For pick-and-roll situations, I’d just fight through the down-side of the pick and give up the jumpshot. His offensive game is good but seems pretty one-dimensional to me.

    I always hear announcers and such say stuff like this and it always confuses me (with Ginobili usually). If you force Tyreke left, he’s going to drive lift, and either get an easy lay up or draw foul. You don’t score 20 ppg in the NBA if you can’t effectively go to your left. He might prefer to go right but he can easily go left if you force him that way. Same thing with Ginobili going right. Just odd that you guys think stopping an elite NBA player is so easy. Have you seen all the tricks Tyreke has in his book?

    Great stuff btw, Sebastian.

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