Derek Fisher’s Weak Off The Ball Defense | NBA Playbook

Derek Fisher’s Weak Off The Ball Defense

Kevin Arnovitz already did a fantastic job breaking down how Ray Allen got so wide open on most of his threes last night, but I wanted to take a closer look at the Ray Allen vs. Derek Fisher match up.

I briefly mentioned this before the series started, but Derek Fisher’s off the ball defense doesn’t work when covering a shooter who can run off screens, like Ray Allen.   Like I said before, Fisher does a lot of stuff when getting screened that works in pick and roll situations.  He punishes the screener, he hooks his body around them, and he gets very animated sometimes drawing the foul.  All that stuff works, because he has a defender hedging on the ball handler. However, off the ball, that stuff doesn’t work, because there is rarely someone hedging out.

On this play here, Ray Allen has two options.  He can come off of a Big Baby screen, or he can fake going off that screen, go baseline, and come off a screen set on the baseline.  He chooses the latter option.

As Ray Allen starts his fake, Derek Fisher flails as if Big Baby punched him in the spine (he didn’t).  This is part of Fisher’s defensive game on screens.  He is a savvy vet, and he does draw his fair share of calls by doing this.  However, doing this off the ball puts him at such a disadvantage.

This is because, by the time that Fisher starts recovers, Ray Allen has already created a lot of separation.  This separation is key because it is what allows him to catch and shoot coming off of curl screens.

As Allen sprints to the corner, he gets another screen from Kendrick Perkins.  Fisher needs to follow him along the baseline and chase him off of the three point line.  Andrew Bynum actually does a nice job of getting into Perkins’ body and creating the space for Fisher to do this.

Instead of doing that though, Fisher decides to run full speed into Kendrick Perkins’chest.  I think he was doing this to either draw the offensive foul or punish the screener, but either way, it didn’t work.  Bynum is caught off guard by Fisher’s play and he is late with the help.  Allen knocks down the three, here it is in real time:

So how do you cover Ray Allen when he is working off the ball?  Here is a pretty good example of it:

On the above possession, Kobe works hard to avoid contact on the Celtics’ screens so he can get to Ray Allen quicker and prevent the pass from getting to him.  Now, if I had to nit-pick, I would rather have Kobe stay attached to Allen through the screens rather than shooting the gaps, because it can back-fire (it lead to a three pointer later in the quarter).

It is obvious the Lakers don’t want to keep Kobe on Ray Allen the entire game for whatever reason, but when Derek Fisher is covering Allen he is going to need to change his approach of getting through screens.

07
Jun 2010
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POSTED IN 2010 Playoffs A Closer Look Boston Celtics Defense LA Lakers
DISCUSSION 6 Comments
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  • GhostofRed

    Nice breakdown. I have to say that I’m the Lakers, I keep Kobe on Rondo and Fisher on Allen. Allen had a tremendous game and he might continue to play well against Fisher, but it’s hard to believe he’ll put up another performance like last night’s. Meantime, the Lakers’ defense against the other four Celtics is much, much better if Kobe is sagging off Rondo playing help defense and clogging the paint – or tempting Rondo into jump shots.

    In the half-court set Rondo is most effective (by far) when his penetration leads to assists. With Kobe waiting for him, that’s much more difficult.

  • StarneyBinson

    I feel like the problem on the first play is that Bynum doesn’t seem concerned/aware of Allen running baseline and taking the screen by Perkins.

    Bynum should have recognized that Allen was coming and he should have gone on his way to bump him, creating space at the same time for Fisher to run between him and Perkins.

    This might have left Perkins a bit open to roll quickly to the basket and catch a pass, but he’s not a great offensive threat. Moreover, Pau or Kobe would have rotated on him/on big baby afterwards.

  • Ryan

    I also thought Sasha was effective in his very few minutes guarding Allen. Memory could be failing me though, but he does have the length to challenge Ray’s shot.

    This is a tough decision for LA, because it’s a matter of which matchup problem they want. I thought Kobe’s help-D in Game 1 clogged up Boston’s O a bit, as GhostofRed noted.

  • Abdullah

    Derek Fisher is such a flopper, and he is the Lakers’ weak link defensively. I find it amusing that the Lakers think that they can hide Fisher on Ray Allen, the greatest shooter in NBA History (tied w/ Reggie Miller, at least, in that regard).

    I realize the Lakers are putting Kobe on Rondo so he can “rest” and not chase Allen around screens, but he was playing off Rondo so much that he was getting open shots (and layups) and nobody would box him out, leading to 4 offensive rebounds.

    Should they lose this series, I think they will look to sign a PG (Raymond Felton) using the mid-level exception to prevent teams w/ elite PGs from exploiting them.

  • Jaffe

    disagrre with them needing to find another pg, shannon brown when he plays well is actually the perfect pg, (or ariza, funny how that works). they need a guy who can handle it up the court against pressure (not sure about ariza here) make shots and play good D using length, allowing kobe to create on O with those twins in the frontcourt

  • StarneyBinson

    I guess they need someone who can bring the ball up the court (not necessarily a pg) and who can knock down 3s consistently.
    So far, Kobe and Fish (…) are the only 3-pt threat the Lakers have, they need another one to unclog the paint.

    And I agree on the Sasha on Allen comment. Vujacic can be relentless and kind of a pest, he will fight through the screens and not give up. If he can hit the 3s, that would be even better, but leaving him on the floor for a defensive assignment makes him be on the floor on the offensive end too, which isn’t always a great choice…