Most undersized post players have a hard time scoring against this Laker front line.  In fact, we even talked about how the Utah Jazz were having a tough time finishing against the Lakers’ big men earlier in the playoffs.  However, the one player who hasn’t seemed bothered by the long arm of the Lakers is Glen “Big Baby” Davis.  Davis has been the Celtics’ best player off the bench this entire series, scoring 10.25 points per game on 51.6% shooting, and maybe most importantly, Davis has only had 1 shot of his blocked during the entire series.  This is pretty significant considering that he had the largest percentage of his shots blocked in the NBA during the regular season (out of players who played 10 MPG for over 40 games).

So how has Glen Davis been able to finish at the rim this series?

No Wasted Motions

When you are smaller than the defenders who are playing against you, you can’t wait for them.  What I mean by that is if you have a step on them (or have them out of position), you can’t wait for them to recover, you need to attack.  No extra dribbles or meaningless pumpfakes:

Lamar Odom (Glen Davis’ defender) needs to hedge out on the screen, and that frees up Davis for the roll.  Paul Pierce hits him and Davis makes the catch and goes straight up with it before the help defense can make it over.  If Davis takes a dribble or makes a pump fake there, he loses his advantage and the defense would be able to alter the shot.  However, by going quickly, Davis catches the defense off guard and is able to finish with the And 1.

Using His Body

Glen Davis doesn’t have your prototypical scoring power forward body, but his body is part of the reason why he is able to finish at the hoop so effectively (especially against bigger players).  First, let’s go back to the Jazz-Lakers to see how it isn’t done:

Carlos Boozer is bigger, stronger, and more athletic than Glen Davis but because he lead with the basketball all series he was struggling to score around the rim, getting blocked a ton.  This is wrong, and Glen Davis did the exact opposite:

As Davis makes the catch on this dive to the post, Pau Gasol has his hands on him, trying to push him away from the basket.  At this point, Pau has the advantage on this play, he is in between Glen Davis and the basket plus he is bigger.

Glen Davis surveys the situation and decides that he needs a dribble this time.  As Big Baby puts the ball on the floor, he loads up ready to throw his body into Pau Gasol.  Gasol seems to feel that the contact is coming, and he braces himself.

Davis makes the contact, and now at this point he has the advantage in this situation.  Pau Gasol is off balance, and he is now almost under the basket.

Look what we have here now.  Glen Davis, the nonathletic and smaller player rises over Pau Gasol to finish at the rim.  Gasol was off balance and knocked on his heels, and this is what keeps Gasol from even jumping off the floor.  Here is the play in real time:

Another example is the first play we looked at where Glen Davis didn’t dribble:

After rising up without a dribble, Glen Davis just throws his body into two different Laker defenders.

The one who is bothered the most by the contact is Andrew Bynum.  He went from keeping his hands straight up in a position that could alter the shot to not even looking at the basket with his hands down, allowing for Davis to finish at the rim.