With Nene, Kenyon Martin, and Chris Anderson on their team, it is no surprise that the Nuggets were one of the best team’s in the NBA in terms of Opponents’ Offensive Rebound Rate (they allowed the 5th lowest opponents’ offensive rebound rate, only allowing opponents to grab 24.57% of the available offensive rebounds). However, in game two against the the Thunder, they got killed on the defensive glass, allowing the Thunder to grab the offensive rebound 39.5% of the time. Of course, Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins are going to use their size to get quite a few offensive rebounds, but that wasn’t the only reason for the unusually high number. There was just a general lack of effort by the Nuggets when the ball was in the air, and that really hurt them:
Here, Russell Westbrook is walking along the baseline when the shot goes up. His man, Wilson Chandler looks at the shot and gets himself in position to play the rebound without worrying about Westbrook and his position. Because Westbrook isn’t boxed out, he is able to make a play on the basketball after it gets deflected, gaining control of the offensive rebound.
With Chris Paul and the Hornets destroying the Lakers’ pick and roll defense in game one, it is only natural to want to look at game two and see if a) the Hornets were able to have the same success with the pick and roll and b) if the Lakers’ were able to stop them/did anything different.
@Lakers yielded 69.2% FG (1.47 PPP) on the Pick and Roll in Game 1, but only 45.5% FG (0.71 PPP) in Game 2.
0.71 PPP is actually even better than their 0.775 PPP regular season pick and roll defense. So now the question is if they did they do anything different? Well, yes and no. Yes in that they didn’t have their bigs hedging and they didn’t switch, no in that the defense that they did use is actually their normal pick and roll defense. They just played it better.
Land O’Lakers had a great post the other day before game 2 looking at some adjustments the team needed to make and here is the one that stuck out to me:
Aggression. Following Sunday’s loss, Jackson noted his bigs needed to do a better job in support of the guards. Andrew Bynum said Monday he plans to do his part. “When you’re playing teams that don’t post the ball [frequently], you kind of get lax and stand up and down. I could be a bit more active in patrolling the lane and dealing with those floaters.”
Give up the right shots. The Lakers want to run teams off the 3-point line, and keep them out of the paint. Person noted while Paul was taking a lot of jumpers inside the arc, most were in or at the paint. Too close. The Lakers want to force jumpshooters into a true mid-range shot, that area from 15-19 feet.
This is what I had my eye on when watching the Hornets’ pick and roll, and despite their success over the course of the game, they did struggle a bit with Paul again early.
In game two of their series the Memphis Grizzlies once again did a very good job of stifling the Spurs’ offense. However late in the game, there was a possession where the Spurs pushed it in transition and the Grizzlies made a few errors, allowing the Spurs to get a big three that extended the lead to six points with three minutes left. In my opinion, the Grizzlies were forced into these errors by the strong fundamentals of the Spurs in transition.
As soon as Richard Jefferson secures the defensive rebound, Tony Parker does a great job of getting into an area where Richardson can hit him with the outlet pass.
