In the preseason, coaches have to love situations like the Dallas Mavericks’ were in last night.  Down by 1 point with 0.4 seconds left, Rick Carlisle needed to draw up a play for the Mavs to get a quick shot at the basket.  The reason why coaches love these type of situations in the preseason, because they get to work on their late game plays against a live defense when the result doesn’t really matter.  Meaning they get to see what works and what doesn’t against defenses that don’t know the play is coming (you can work on these type of plays in practice, but you never really know if they will work or not because the defense you are running them against a team who knows what the play is).

Rick Carlisle and the Dallas Mavericks may have found a play (or at least an aspect of it) that works:

Before we look at the playcall, we need to look at something the Rockets did.  They took their center, Yao Ming, out of the paint and put him on the inbounder, Jason Kidd.  Now some people may not like taking their 7 footer out of the paint when it is obvious the opposing team needs a lob pass, but I like this move.  This forces the inbounder to complete a really tough pass.

As for what the Mavericks are doing, you have Jason Terry using a screen to come along the baseline and curl towards the basketball.  As this happens, you have Shawn Marion curling around Dirk Nowitzki.

As Marion starts to head towards the basket, Shane Battier gets himself in solid help position as he anticipates Marion’s movement.

At the last moment however, Battier decides to leave his help position and deny Dirk Nowitzki.  Using Nowitzki as the screener is what makes this play call so fantastic.  Defenses are never going to leave Dirk to help out on the backside, because he is always a threat to pop out, make the catch, and then knock down the shot (no matter if there is 5 seconds or 0.4 seconds).  The lane is now completely wide open for Kidd to lob the ball to Marion.

Another thing to take a look at is the positioning of Chase Budinger.  For some reason, Budinger is playing tight on his man, even though he isn’t really a threat (he has his back to the basketball).  He should probably be sitting in the middle of the lane to help defend any backdoor lob.

Chase Budinger doesn’t get to the basketball in time and with Courtney Lee trailing the play, Marion is able to make the catch and tip it in before the buzzer sounds.  Here is the play in real time.  One thing to pay attention to is the tremendous pass that Jason Kidd makes.  With Yao on him, Kidd has to sky the ball up there (which is why I say putting Yao out there is the correct move) and despite the funky trajectory, he puts it right on the money

Now, if you read this blog on a consistent basis or are a Mavericks’ fan the action they use (having someone run off of a Dirk screen) is something that should look familiar.

In that example, Dirk is setting a backdoor screen for Rodrigue Beaubois. Again, you can’t leave Dirk to help, and that is what opens up the backside.

Rick Carlisle does a nice job of taking a highly effective action and translating it into a late-game situation.  That’s good coaching.