Kevin Arnovitz already did a fantastic job breaking down how Ray Allen got so wide open on most of his threes last night, but I wanted to take a closer look at the Ray Allen vs. Derek Fisher match up.
I briefly mentioned this before the series started, but Derek Fisher’s off the ball defense doesn’t work when covering a shooter who can run off screens, like Ray Allen. Like I said before, Fisher does a lot of stuff when getting screened that works in pick and roll situations. He punishes the screener, he hooks his body around them, and he gets very animated sometimes drawing the foul. All that stuff works, because he has a defender hedging on the ball handler. However, off the ball, that stuff doesn’t work, because there is rarely someone hedging out.
On this play here, Ray Allen has two options. He can come off of a Big Baby screen, or he can fake going off that screen, go baseline, and come off a screen set on the baseline. He chooses the latter option.
Ron Artest is a really good defender. In fact, we have talked about his ability to defend the basketball here in the past. People are talking about this matchup, and rightfully so, but I think they talking about it for the wrong reasons. I am not worried about this matchup for the first 47 minutes of the game. Pierce is going to get his buckets, and if the Lakers take him away, others (like Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, and Kevin Garnett) are going to be able to get their points through Doc Rivers’ sets and such.
What I am worried about is when the Celtics absolutely need a bucket, and when they need a bucket late in the game they go to Pierce and let him work.
Update:Added another factor that I took into consideration and should have addressed initially.
Throughout the Western Conference playoffs, the Lakers have played against three of the better point guards in the NBA. They faced Russell Westbrook in the first round, Deron Williams in the second round, and Steve Nash in the Western Conference Finals. People are going to point to Rajon Rondo and compare him to Russell Westbrook due to the similarities in the two players. This is going to lead a lot of people to say that Kobe Bryant needs to cover Rajon Rondo, however I don’t think this is the answer for the following reasons:
The Rest Of The Team
When Kobe covered Russell Westbrook, the Lakers were able to hide Derek Fisher on the defensive end by putting him on Thabo Sefolosha. The Celtics have a much better supporting cast on the Thunder, so if Kobe is going to play Rondo, here are the rest of the matchups:
Kobe on Rondo
Fisher on Allen
Artest on Pierce
Gasol on Garnett
Bynum on Perkins
There isn’t anyway to hide Fisher on the defensive end with the lineup the Celtics throw out there.
Cross Matching
We already talked about Rondo’s rebounding in the past, and how Rondo likes to push the ball after he gets a defensive rebound:
Suns’ coach Alvin Gentry made a name for himself these playoffs for having a tremendous amount of trust in his bench. Guys like Channing Frye, Goran Dragić, and Jared Dudley each probably won a game themselves at some point during the Suns’ playoff run.
Coach Gentry had a great feel for when to keep his bench in, and when to put his his starters back in, but in Game 6 against the Lakers, he made two poor decisions regarding his rotation that probably cost his team the game. Riding Dragić, the Suns were able to cut the Lakers’ lead to 5 points with just about 6 minutes left. The 6 minute mark in the 4th quarter is usually when Gentry puts Nash and the rest of his starters back in, but in Game 6, he decided to ride the hot hand. Coming out of a timeout with 5:35 left in the game, Gentry had the perfect opportunity to go back with his starters, but he didn’t. Here were the Suns’ next two possessions on the offensive end:
At points of last night’s Orlando-Boston game the score was closer than the Suns-Lakers game the night before, but it just didn’t have that feel. Thursday night, you always had the feeling that despite the lead being as much as 18 at some points, that the Suns were just one spurt away from getting back in the game. In Boston last night, I never had that feeling, and Ray Allen was a large reason why. Up 13 early in the third quarter, Ray Allen knocked down back-to-back threes extending the lead to 19, and essentially ending the game for good. Even Stan Van Gundy talked about the importance of these threes (quote from The Baseline):
“I think after Ray’s two threes, I don’t think we quit at all, but I think what happens is your confidence and what really happens more than that is you don’t sustain your game,” Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. “You start doing things, trying to get it back in a hurry … instead of sticking with your game and going possession by possession.”
Let’s look at the two threes that ended Orlando’s season.
Three Pointer #1
Now, Rashard Lewis is the one at fault here. He gets stuck covering Ray Allen as the Magic switch the first screen on the right side. The ball gets swung around and there is a pick and roll at the opposite side, with Ray Allen standing at the top of the key. It is initially well defended, but off the ball there is some problems:
Nobody is really talking about this play, mainly because on the next possessions the Suns came down and hit the game tying three, but I thought it was an interesting move that should be looked at. For just about the entire game, the Lakers were switching all screen and rolls, basically inviting Steve Nash to become aggressive on defense. Nash obliged by putting up 29 points on 20 shots. Towards the end of the game the Suns weren’t even running the screen and roll, they were just setting the screen up high to get the switch and let Nash work against a mismatch:
As you can see, the Lakers don’t initially switch the screen, so the Suns just run it again. The second time, Gasol ends up on Nash who knocks down a step back jumper.
The Suns were coming off of a huge possession where they got two offensive rebounds and then a banked in three to tie the game at 101. All they needed to do was get 1 more stop with 3.5 seconds left to send the game into overtime. The Suns actually played really good defense to force Kobe into a tough shot, but they weren’t able to secure the rebound afterwords:
As Lamar Odom gets the basketball, Derek Fisher curls under Pau Gasol to the near corner. As this is happening Ron Artest replaces Fisher and fills his spot. The purpose of all this movement is to clear out space at the top of the key, where I think the play was designed to be run to.
We have talked about Rajon Rondo’s rebounding here in the past, and I think he is one of the better rebounding guards in the game. However, there are times where Rondo crashes the offensive boards that I think teams could make him pay for hanging around the basket. Teams don’t really try to take advantage of Rondo hanging around for an offensive rebound, mainly because they know he is quick enough to get back on defense. However in game 5, something just looked off with Rondo. I don’t know if it is fatigue or a nagging injury, but Rondo doesn’t look as quick has he has been in the first 4 games, and now you are starting to see Jameer Nelson run on him a bit.
Look at where Rondo is as the shot goes up. Normally, most PGs at this spot on the court as the shot goes up sprints back to go on defense. Not Rondo. He floats towards the basket looking for a long rebound. Here is the result:
I have to admit, I was surprised when the Suns came out and played zone for the majority of Game 4. I was thinking that it was going to be a one game thing where the Suns used the zone to grab the momentum and get themselves back in the series. However, it didn’t work that way. Coming out of halftime, the Lakers made a really nice adjustment on offense to counter the Suns’ zone. It was up to the Suns to counter that in the fourth, and coach Alvin Gentry stepped up and did.
Third Quarter
In the third quarter, the Lakers would bring the ball up and enter it to the wing opposite of where Kobe Bryant is set up. The purpose of this was to get the Suns’ basic zone to shift towards the ball and away from Kobe Bryant.
A lot of people like to talk about Doc Rivers as a coach who “lucked into” the big three and his championship. They also like to call him a poor Xs and Os coach, and I totally disagree. Sure he has one of the best shooters in the history of the NBA, in Ray Allen, on his team. Other teams know about Ray Allen too though, and Doc Rivers is still able to come up with creative ways to get him the basketball with space to shoot late in important playoffs games.
That was the case here with Game 4 tied, however Paul Pierce tried to win the game himself. Instead, Pierce ended up losing the basketball, and eventually the game.
After bringing the ball upcourt, Rajon Rondo hands the ball off to Paul Pierce. As soon as Pierce secures the basketball, Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen switch spots on the court.
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