At the end of the Boston Celtics’ game against the New York Knicks, we saw yet another situation of a team needing a basket with less than one second left on the clock.  At risk of sounding like a broken record, we saw another example why protecting the rim and forcing a catch and shoot is the correct decision here.

The biggest debate in the comments section about this topic is whether or not executing a lob is harder than getting a clean look from three with under a second left.  I think after tonight, we have our answer.  In this case, Amar’e Stoudemire makes the catch behind the three point line, and knocks down the three pointer.  However, because there was only .4 seconds left, Amar’e was unable to get the shot off in time, and his three was disallowed.

While the Celtics didn’t play a zone here, they were very conscious of the lob and were willing to give up a catch and shoot three to prevent it:

The first precaution that the Celtics take is that they don’t put their big man on the inbounds pass.  Instead, they have Glen Davis watching the inbounds man.  Also, look at how he is positioned.  He has his back to the baseline, ready to bother any pass towards the basket and giving up any basket away from the hoop.

As the ball is given to the trigger man, Danilo Gallinari curls around the perimeter and gets a backscreen from Amar’e Stoudemire.

As the backscreen is set, watch Kevin Garnett.  In case Gallinari comes off the Amar’e screen heading towards the rim looking for a lob, Garnett is in position to help and defend it.

When I first saw this play, I thought that the sagging Kevin Garnett was responsible for running Gallinari off of his route to the rim (I still am leaning towards that).  However, Knicks’ fans on Twitter tell me that this set is something the Knicks run all of the time and Gallinari never goes for the lob.  Garnett’s deep position in the paint (remember no defensive three seconds because the ball isn’t in play) is basically inviting Stoudemire to flash behind the three point line for the three.

That is exactly what he does, and Davis’ body position invites the pass to him.  Stoudemire gets the shot up and knocks it down, but he takes too long to get it off and the Celtics come away with the win.  Here is the play in real time:

Again, this shows you just how difficult it is to get a catch and shoot attempt off cleanly with under a second left.  When we looked at Miami’s play against Utah, a number of commenters mentioned that Chris Bosh was wide open and he could have gotten a shot off if given to him.

If you go and check out that post again, you realize that this is almost the same situation:

Again, I think we have our answer about weather or not the play would have worked now that we have seen Amar’e unable to get the shot off with the same amount of time in the clock.

Both Kevin Garnett and Paul Millsap were smart enough to protect the rim, and their teams were able to come away with a win because of it.