The Washington Wizards were hanging on against the Atlanta Hawks last night, as they were only down six points with about two minutes left to go. Looking to pull ahead for good, the Hawks run a nice little set play that gets Al Horford a nice game clinching lob.
The play starts out with Mike Bibby getting the ball to Joe Johnson who is way out wide. After making the pass, Bibby curls to the ball-side block.
As he finishes his curl, Bibby sets a screen for Josh Smith. Smith uses the screen to get himself free in the corner.
With their game against the Memphis Grizzlies tied at 90 with around thirty seconds left, the Mavericks needed a stop to give themselves a chance to win the game. After the Grizzlies ran an uninspired ISO set, Rudy Gay missed a jumper from the elbow. However, the Mavericks were unable to secure the defensive rebound due to a poor effort by Tyson Chandler, and it ended up costing them the game:
When Rudy Gay takes his final dribble as he starts to pull up for his jumper, Tyson Chandler seems to be in perfect position to secure the defensive rebound. He is on the inside, and it seems that he is on a spot on the court where it would be real easy to just turn and box out.
However, Chandler never gets a box-out on Gasol. Instead, Chandler decides for whatever reason that he wants to hand fight with Gasol instead of turning around, getting his butt into Gasol, and using it to box him out and keep him out of the paint. There are two real reasons why you don’t want to hand fight when trying to get the defensive rebound. The first reason is it means you aren’t boxing out. The second reason is that you can’t use your arms to actually grab the ball, because they are occupied.
Down by 2 points and with no timeouts left, the Detroit Pistons tried to get the ball to Ben Gordon at the top of the key. Unlike some teams who panic when the first option isn’t there right away, the Pistons stayed calm, went through their progressions, and got themselves a wide-open three pointer:
As Tayshaun Prince gets the basketball from the referee, Rodney Stuckey flashes quickly to the corner. As this happens, the two Piston bigs (Charlie Villanueva and Jason Maxiell) set down screens for Ben Gordon who flashes to the top of the key.
Most teams like to switch every single screen late during sideline out of bounds situations. There are situations though where defenses tend to get confused and make mistakes on their switches. This is why communication between defenders is very important, and by watching the Nets defend late (In this case, the Kings were down 5 with about 18 seconds left to go), you can tell that Coach Avery Johnson has really emphasize communication to his team.
As the Kings run their play, they start setting screens for each other. As the Nets defenders approach the screens, not only do they vocally communicate the switch, they also point to their teammate switching with them to make sure each defender knows what they are doing. In this case, both Stephen Graham and Jordan Farmar are pointing out the screen and the switch to each other.
Welcome to “Quick Hitter” a new daily post where I break down my favorite quick-hitting set play of the previous night’s action.
Last night against the Kings, Nets’ center Brook Lopez scored 20 of his 29 points in the first half, and much of it was due to coach Avery Johnson’s determination to get Lopez the ball as much as possible. One of the ways that Johnson got Lopez the ball was with a great double screen playcall that resulted in an easy dunk for Lopez.
This play starts with Brook Lopez setting a screen. While the screen helps Devin take the ball to the opposite side, the main reason for the screen is to set up DeMarcus Cousins.
Welcome to Court Vision, NBAPlaybook.com’s daily video post where we take a look at each game and try to break some things down.
There were only two games last night, so it is a shorter version of Court Vision, only running about 2:30. We talk about how Javale McGee’s inability to push Dwight out of the paint hurt him and his help defense. We also looked at Jason Richardson’s run towards the end of the 2nd quarter where he scored 11 of the Suns’ final 14 points of the half.
Through two games with the Miami Heat, LeBron James has committed 17 turnovers or 8.5 turnovers per game. This means that LeBron’s turnover rate so far after two games is 29.4. This is ridiculously high considering that his turnover rate last year was 9.3 (the league average last year was 11.24). A lot of the media (both on Twitter and in various recaps/articles) attribute these turnovers to the fact that LeBron isn’t used to their teammates.
I thought it would be interesting to go through LeBron’s 17 turnovers, figure out which ones can be attributed to not knowing his teammates, and which ones can be called “True” Turnovers, or turnovers that happen in the course of the game and that are the fault of LeBron making a bad play/decision.
Turnover 1 – Mix Up With Wade
Here, LeBron has the basketball running down the sideline and Wade is running out ahead of him. LeBron goes to kick it out to Wade in the corner as Wade cuts to the rim. Definitely a mixup as a result of not playing with each other.
Roy Hibbert has always been a pretty strong back to the basket player. Hibbert ranked 56th in the entire NBA when it came to post up opportunities (according to MySynergy), and shot 59% at the rim (according to HoopData). When you see moves like the up and under he put on Tim Duncan, you understand why:
However, Hibbert seems to be adding other skills to his game, making him a more complete big man on the offensive end:
The New Jersey Nets trailed the Detroit Pistons by two points with right around 30 seconds left as Devin Harris attacked the lane. He ended up losing control of the basketball, and it looked like it was going to be the same old Nets all over again. However, the Nets were able to recover and come away with the win due to the fact that Rip Hamilton gambled for the basketball:
We pick up the clip as Devin Harris beats the help from Richard Hamilton to get into the lane. Rip is in good help position though as he can easily return to Anthony Morrow, the Nets’ biggest shooting threat.
Welcome to Court Vision, NBAPlaybook.com’s daily video post where we take a look at each game and try to break some things down.
In Episode 1 of Court Vision, I take a look at how the Celtics defended the Heat (and what the Heat did to counter), the crazy defensive match-ups, and defensive lapses from both Aaron Brooks and Hedo Turkoglu. Thanks for taking the time to check this out everyone!
