Chicago’s Adjustment: Put Rose On The Wing
After losing in game three, Derrick Rose mentioned that he would like to see more isolation sets so he could avoid double teams. While this wasn’t the adjustment made by Chicago, they did make a rather significant change to their offensive strategy for game four. They were still running ball screens for Rose, but instead of running them up top, they moved Derrick Rose to the wing (either with the dribble or by moving him off of the basketball), and ran the pick and roll there. It was an interesting change that had mixed results. In my opinion, there are two reasons why the wing pick and roll made sense for two reasons it gave Derrick Rose another release valves, and it made the defense’s rotations a lot tougher:
One of the reasons why the side pick and roll works is because it gives Derrick Rose a release valve when Miami brings the double. That release valve? Splitting the double team. With Rose taking the screen on the wing, Miami’s bigs trap, but they do it with the goal of preventing Rose from getting over the top, where he can penetrate through the middle of the lane. This creates a gap, and lets Rose get into the paint where he created scoring opportunities.
In addition to creating opportunities for himself, the wing pick and roll also created opportunities for the rest of the Bulls by putting the Heat in positions where it was simply hard to rotate over:
