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Should Teams Foul Earlier?
Note: This isn’t really a breakdown, more of a rant
Fighting for their playoff lives, the Houston Rockets were down 4 points with 1:06 seconds left. Their opponent the L.A. Clippers just pulled down an offensive rebound and bring the ball upcourt:
Now, it is obvious that the Clippers are trying to kill some clock here, and they effectively do. 20 valuable seconds come off the clock before Baron Davis hits his jumper. This brings up something that has always bothered me when it comes down to coaches strategy, why don’t NBA teams foul earlier when they are losing (not counting the Hack-a-Shaq)? The Rockets don’t foul in this situation, but they aren’t the only one, most teams in the NBA won’t foul here, and I think it’s silly. In my opinion, when you are down by more than 1 possession with a minute left you want to extend the game as long as you can, and one way to do that is you foul.
Lack Of Fundamentals Cost Orlando
Going into tonight’s game with the Orlando Magic, the Atlanta Hawks were hoping to clinch a playoff spot with a win. They were in good shape for most of the game, but they allowed Orlando to get back into it late. After Vince Carter hit a fade away three with 9.9 seconds left, Atlanta had one more chance to win the game.
After Vince Carter’s three, the Magic drop everyone back on defense. Maybe this is nit-picking, but I would have loved to see the Magic show a little bit of pressure. Not necessarily press, but at least have one guy pressuring the ball. If the Magic have Carter defending Joe Johnson the full length of the court, he might have been able to speed him up and force him into a mistake. Instead, Johnson is able to walk the ball up the court and let things develop.
Inside The Run: The Bobcats Dominate Overtime
After the Wizards hit a three pointer to send the game into overtime, I thought that the Wizards were going to be able to use that momentum to steal the game from the Bobcats. However, the exact opposite happened as the Bobcats outscored the Wizards 13-4 in the final 5 minute period.
The key seemed to be the Bobcats willingness to attack the basket. The Bobcats seemed determined to get themselves inside the paint every possession of overtime. Each time, it resulted in one of two things; a trip to the foul line or an easy basket:
Possession 1 – Gerald Wallace Gets To The Line Using A Screen
On this play, the Bobcats set up what looks to be an ISO set for Gerald Wallace. At the last moment, Tyson Chandler comes up and sets a screen for Wallace. Wallace uses the screen and gets all the way to the rim, where he is fouled.
Getting The Ball Out Of Kevin Durant’s Hands
Kevin Durant scored 45 points against the Spurs last night, so when the Thunder needed a basket to send the game into overtime/take the lead (after a fantastic Serge Ibaka block), it was obvious where the Thunder were going. The playcall (and the execution) weren’t the greatest, but the real reason Durant didn’t get off a shot attempt was because of how the Spurs played defense, getting the ball out of his hands and forcing a teammate to take the shot.
As Thabo Sefolosha receives the basketball to inbounds it, Jeff Green is going to set a screen for Russell Westbrook while Serge Ibaka is going to set a screen for Kevin Durant. This is the one critique I have of the Thunder’s play. Ibaka is standing behind Durant, and they way the play is drawn up Ibaka has to run around in a circle to set the screen.
The Knicks Mental Errors Cost Them A Game
Against the Rockets (and some former Knicks), the Knicks ran out to a pretty big lead, but the Rockets were able to climb back in it. Part of it was because the Rockets are a pretty good team, but the Knicks helped out big time. The Knicks made a couple of mental errors that lead to easy baskets for the Rockets:
Poor Outlet Passing
On two separate occasions, the Knicks turned the ball over in the backcourt. The first comes after a Rockets three pointer:
Now, both J.R. Giddens and Chris Duhon are at fault here:
This is because Trevor Ariza is hanging around and it should have been noticed by either guy (or at least 1). This is something that a lot of teams do to get the ball out of the PGs hands, but it rarely turns into a steal. However, Giddens grabs the ball out of the net and just tosses to where Duhon is without looking. For his part, Duhon floats away from the basketball as it comes to him instead of meeting the ball and ensuring the catch. The Rockets went from being down 14 to being down 9 after this. This was a huge 5 point swing in this game as the Knicks went from pulling away to trying to hang on to the lead.
RaptorsRepublic Shows Toronto’s Comeback Recipe
In addition to Talkhoops and Cowbell Kingdom (The TrueHoop Network’s Kings blog), Zach Harper is now writing every Thursday over at RaptorsRepublic (The TrueHoop Network’s Raptors blog). Yesterday, Zach did a great job of breaking down the Raptors’ comeback against the Hawks. Here is a tiny sample:
The recipe of a comeback has to have a couple of essential parts in no particular order. You usually need:
- A little bit of luck
- Multiple defensive stops
- Some offensive execution
- A fortunate occurrence
- Some late-game heroics
Go back in the history of every comeback in the NBA and you’ll see this same recipe. Actually, don’t go back and check on that. It doesn’t always happen. But it does happen often and it certainly happened for the Raptors on Wednesday night. Let’s check out what happened.
The first part of the comeback happened with about 1:15 left in the game with the Hawks up 105-101. Here’s how the recipe played out from here:
There is a lot of great stuff here, so yeah, definitely check it out.
The Threat Of Dwight Howard
What makes the Magic so dangerous late in games is that they have so many options. You have Vince Carter, Dwight Howard, and Rashard Lewis for starters. Late in overtime against the Heat, all three played a pretty important role in taking a 3 point lead and making it 6.
The Magic run Vince Carter off of a screen set by Dwight Howard. Dwight is going to roll straight to the rim after setting the screen.
As Dwight starts his roll, Carter returns to the side he was on before he set the screen. Michael Beasley ends up sinking in the middle, to help defend Dwight Howard on the roll.
As Vince Carter rises up to pass, Michael Beasley is actually bodied up with Howard, and Jermaine O’Neal is stuck in no man’s land at the top of the key. That means that there is no defender near Rashard Lewis.
As Rashard Lewis rises up to shoot the three, you are left to wonder who made the mistake here. Was Michael Beasley’s help designed, or did he do it on his own? I tend to believe that he did it on his own because if this was schemed there would be at least some rotation to Lewis, but there is none.
As I said at the start of the post, this is what makes the Magic so dangerous. You have a very, very, very good big man in Dwight Howard that teams need to pay attention to. Then you have 4 guys who can knock down an outside shot, and that forces the defense to make a decision. Who are they going to leave to double Dwight. Here, they picked Rashard Lewis and ended up paying for it.
The Bobcats Pull Away For Good Using A Timeout
After Russell Westbrook hit a jumper with 3:22 left in the fourth quarter, he was able to cut the Bobcats lead to 4 points. Larry Brown took a timeout, and the possession following it was a pretty important one. If the Bobcats score, they can extend the lead to 6 with about 3 minutes left. If the Bobcats don’t score, the Thunder can cut the lead to 2 or 1 points, and who knows what will happen then. As it turns out, the Bobcats run a beautiful set out of the timeout and push their lead to 6, and the Thunder don’t come closer than that the rest of the ballgame:
Boris Diaw comes to the top of the key and receives the inbounds pass. The beauty of using Diaw (who himself is a pretty good passer for his size) is that you are pulling a front court defender away from the basket, clearing the lane for the potential lob. After Stephen Jackson makes the pass, he cuts through the middle of the lane, using a Tyrus Thomas screen. Over on the far side, Raymond Felton comes up off of a screen set by Stephen Graham. Nothing really important going on over there, as you can tell by the two players jogging through the motions.
Defending Tyreke Evans
With the Lakers in Sacramento last night to play the Kings, Tyreke Evans put up 25 points, 9 assists, and 11 rebounds. Despite the near triple-double, I think the Lakers did a very good job defending Evans (most of the time). The Lakers used Ron Artest (and Kobe a little) on Tyreke Evans, and he seemed to struggle a bit with them covering him. Here is the breakdown:
- With Ron Artest (and Kobe) Covering Evans – 17 points (on 5-12 shooting – 6 of 9 from the FT line), 6 assists, and 8 rebounds in 38:14.
- With others (Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown) Covering Evans – 8 points (on 2-3 shooting – 4 of 5 from the FT line), 3 assists, and 3 rebounds in 4:08.
The numbers show the difference (17 points on 12 shots vs. 8 points on 3), but I think what really shows the difference is looking at the highlights.
With Ron Artest On Him
With Ron Artest covering Evans, you had a big body that wasn’t going to let Evans bully him into the paint. The result was a lot of dribbling on the outside:
Once Evans crosses half court, he takes 7 dribbles without going inside the three point line and then passes it to Spencer Hawes. Now Hawes hits the three, but I think the Lakers would rather have Hawes shooting threes than Evans getting inside and creating havoc. In fact, this was how the Lakers played Evans all night as they were determined to let the other players beat him:
