In Game 6, Kevin Garnett scored 22 points on over 50% shooting.  You could shrug your shoulders and say that’s just a great player being great, but you’d be wrong.  This one’s on Cavs coach Mike Brown.  Mike Brown made an adjustment for Game 6 that resulted directly in Kevin Garnett going off.  He took Antawn Jamison off of Kevin Garnett and put Shaquille O’Neal on him.  In fairness to Coach Brown, Jamison was getting killed by Garnett on the inside and a switch had to be made.  But why Shaq?  My guess is that Mike Brown saw Jamison getting punished inside and thought, “Hey Shaq’s big.  KG won’t score inside now!” almost forgetting that KG has an outside game.

Realizing the new mismatch, the Celtics went to KG early and he scored 6 of the first 12 Celtics points.

On these first two possessions, you see that Shaq’s lack of footspeed is what hurts him here.  Shaq wants to stay up close to defend the shot, but he also has to worry about the drive.  KG has always been able to knock down that little step back, and when he uses it here, Shaq isn’t able to bother KG’s shot because he isn’t quick enough.

Another reason why this match-up doesn’t work is because the Celtics like to use KG as a screener.  That means Shaq is forced to defend the pick and roll.  That is something Shaq is really bad at doing, in fact, he might be the worst in the NBA when it comes to defending the pick and roll.  Mike Brown intentionally put Shaq in a position where he was going to defend more pick and rolls than usual.

Here, Shaq needs to come all the way out to prevent Ray Allen from going baseline. He isn’t quick enough to just hedge, so when Allen kicks it back to KG, he needs to scramble all the way back.  He doesn’t get there in time, and KG is able to knock down the jumper.

So what is the correct match-up?  Well in my opinion it is Anderson Varejao on Garnett.  Varejao isn’t afraid to bang on the inside, but he is also quick enough to stay with KG and challenge shots on the outside.  It takes Coach Brown a few tries (he started with Shaq, went to Jamison, then back to Shaq, then Varejao), but he finally gets Varejao on Garnett in the third quarter, but by then it is too late.

What I mean by that is KG got so many open jumpers and easy looks (and he knocked them down) he was able to get himself in the zone.  You always hear players say once they see the ball go in once, they are good to go.  I tend to believe that is true, and KG got to see the ball go in a ton early, and that gives him the confidence to take (and make) this tough jumper on Varejao.