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:
In the above play, you have Derrick Rose dribbling into the wing pick and roll. Once the screen happens, you see the defense rotating over and trying to load up against Rose (in fact, right before Rose passes it, all five Heat defenders are on the strong side). The ball gets swung around to the corner quickly, forcing the rotation to come quick, giving Keith Bogans an opportunity to drive baseline. He turns it over, but that opportunity was there.
Once again here, Rose brings the basketball up to the wing and gets a screen there from Luol Deng. The defense tries to bring the trap as Luol Deng pops out instead of rolls. This forces Joel Anthony to rotate over from the opposite block to try and challenge the shot. Deng gets an open look, but can’t knock it down.
While the pick and roll on the wing had success, there were a few possessions where it failed. When that happened, it was usually because Derrick Rose held onto the basketball (without attacking) too long:
On this play, Rose gets a handoff from Omer Asik (which is essentially a variation of the pick and roll). Instead of quickly getting the ball out of his hands or trying to split the gap (things that were working for Chicago), Rose tries to dribble around the trap. This leads to a bad pass and a turnover.
Once again here, Rose gets the screen on the wing and he has Joakim Noah open on the roll right away. However, Rose has his head down determined to make the move on his own. The result is Rose settling for a jumper that he misses.
So was this a successful adjustment? In my opinion yes. Moving the pick and roll to the wing allowed Chicago to still run their pick and rolls (which is something that they have been leaning on heavily during these playoffs), but made it difficult on the defense to trap Rose. In fact, if the Bulls just knocked down a few more shots out of this, it could have been even more successful. I totally expect to see Chicago continuing this offensive strategy.
Something else that I wish the Bulls would do more of (they only did it once) still involve working Rose off of the basketball, but they changed where he was making the catch.
Here, Rose comes off of a screen away from the basketball and flashes to the top of the key, making a catch at the foul line. Rose makes the catch and goes quick, attacking the rim and drawing the foul. What makes this set is the movement, which prevents Miami from loading up on Rose, so when he attacks, he isn’t seeing that wall of defenders that he has been seeing all series.
I think if the Bulls go into game five running the same amount of wing pick and rolls while working more of this set, getting the ball to Rose at the foul line, they could have more success offensively, giving themselves a chance to come away with the win.
