At the end of each day, I am just going to put a recap thread up where you can find all of the day’s posts to make it a bit easier. Here is what we looked at for the upcoming Hawks-Magic series:
Check in tomorrow when we are going to be looking at the upcoming Bulls-Pacers series that should be set in stone soon.
Orlando Magic – Post Timeout Sets
The Stats:
0.940 PPP | 2nd best | 45% Shooting
Clipboard Award Final Standing: 24th
The Plays:
Coming out of timeouts, the Orlando Magic like to run a set with both bigs at each of the elbow as Jameer Nelson brings the ball up.
Once Nelson picks a side and enters the ball to the elbow, he immediately cuts off of the man he passed it to.
Nelson cuts off of the big with the basketball and heads straight to the corner, setting a screen for Hedo Turkoglu. Turkoglu works off of the screen, heading towards the top of the key.
This match-up between the two big men were one of the most interesting ones of the season, because when Jason Collins gets the start against Orlando, the Hawks win. With Collins’ injury looking to be minor, this battle between the two bigs is going to be one of the most important match-ups of the entire series.
Why Is It Important For Atlanta?
Obviously this is important because Jason Collins has proven he can slow Dwight Howard down. In his 4 games against the Hawks, Howard’s points per game and FG% are much lower than his season average (19.3 points on 43.1% shooting vs. 23.1 points on 59.6% shooting).
Collins in the starting lineup is also important because of the Hawks new rotation. First, you have Al Horford sliding into his natural 4 position. This is important because instead of going up against Dwight Howard, Horford is now going up against the likes of Ryan Anderson and Brandon Bass, allowing Horford to be more successful on the offensive end. This shows in the numbers as both his points per game and shooting percentage against the Magic are higher than his season average (16.8 PPG on 58% shooting vs. 15.6 PPG on 55.7% shooting).
In addition, Collins starting sends Marvin Williams to the bench, allowing them to have more scoring off of the bench instead of just Jamal Crawford in the second unit.
For the purposes of this post, this is going to be the one player from each team that you may not think of that can play a big part in the series and win it for their team.
Orlando Magic – Gilbert Arenas
Why Is He Important?
Gilbert Arenas is important for Orlando because if he is scoring, that is just another guy you can go to off of the bench to get points. However, it is important that you get Arenas going efficiently. You can’t let Gilbert Arenas isolate his defender and try to work off of the dribble anymore, he just can’t do it, and even if he could his isolations would hi-jack the Magic’s second unit.
How Can The Magic Get The Most Out Of Him?
So if you shouldn’t isolate Gilbert Arenas, how can you use him and get the most out of him (scoring, while being efficient)? Right now, the best option is letting Arenas be the ball handler in the pick and roll. In his time with Orlando, Arenas has been very effective when running the pick and roll, and not just with his scoring. If you include the results of his passes out of the pick and roll, Arenas has been posting a PPP 1.012, which is good for 24th in the NBA (of players with more than 60 possessions as a PNR ball handler). So far, Arenas has shown strong decision making when coming off of screens:
Orlando Magic – The Numbers*
Orlando Magic – Strengths
Closing Out On Shooters
According to Synergy, is the 5th best defense in terms of PPP, allowing just 0.937 points per possession on 38% shooting. To me, this is an indication of how good the Magic are at closing out on shooters. The reason why is they got a pretty strong safety night in the paint by the name of Dwight Howard:
Here, Brandon Bass takes a pretty bad angle when closing out hard on Boris Diaw. Diaw takes advantage and tries to attack the rim for a lay-up, however Dwight Howard erases Bass’ mistake and blocks Diaw’s shot.
Orlando Magic – The Numbers*
Orlando Magic – Strengths
Pick And Roll
The Orlando Magic are one of the best teams when it comes to both aspects of the pick and roll (ball handler -4th best PPP – and roll man – 1st in PPP) and a large part of it has to do with Dwight Howard. Howard has the highest PPP in the NBA (of players who set at least 20 screens), scoring 1.45 points per possession when rolling off of screens on 84.7% shooting.
Howard has had the most success setting screens on the left side of the court (he is shooting 100%), but most of the pick and rolls run for him (65.2% of total) start up at the top of the key. From here, he is shooting 82%. One of the reason why Howard has so much success setting screens is because of his mobility:
Here, Orlando run their pick and roll and the defender, Kwame Brown doesn’t even hedge hard, but because Dwight is so athletic and mobile, Brown is stuck in no man’s land and is unable to make a play on the lob.
Starting today, I am going to be getting into playoff-coverage mode. Last season I was a little disappointed in how I handled my playoff previews, and I am looking to change that this season. Every day for the next eight days we are going to dedicate all of our posts to a particular playoff series, starting with the Orlando Magic vs. Atlanta Hawks series (since that is the only one we know is definitely happening as of right now). Each day is going to have the same basic format, with 6 posts looking at a number of key factors going into a given series:
Here, we are going to look at each team’s offense and see what they do well, what they don’t do well, and any other trends that there may be on the offensive end.
Same as the offensive breakdown, except with defense.
This could be a player vs. player match-up or a team vs. team match-up (Team A’s zone defense vs. Team B’s zone offense). Either way, we are going to look at why this particular matchup is important and what each team could do to win that particular matchup.
This is going to be the one player from each team that you may not think of that can play a big part in the series and win it for their team. I will look at why they can be considered a X-factor and what they need to do to help their team win.
In the playoffs, every possession is important. Here, we are going to be looking at each team’s favorite plays coming out of timeouts and out of SLOB/BLOB situations.
For the final post of they day, I am going to be taking a look at the numbers and look at anything interesting I can find. This could be team-wide trends or player specific trends.
These posts are going to be up every hour on the hour starting at 8AM daily and running until 1PM. Just because I am dedicating a lot of time to the postseason, that doesn’t mean I will be ignoring the end of the regular season. Standard NBAPlaybook style posts that look at interesting regular season plays will be up in the early morning/late night until the regular season ends. I am really looking forward to these playoff previews and I hope you are too!
As we approach the playoffs, I have decided to put an end to The Clipboard Awards and go straight to the final standings…your winner? Doc Rivers of the Boston Celtics:
The only two coaches not to get any points through this half a season? Kurt Rambis and Paul Westphal. Now this wasn’t designed to name the best coach in the NBA or anything like that (obviously coaching in the NBA is more than drawing up plays), but I did think this was an interesting project and I hope you all enjoyed it. A few more thoughts after the jump.
