Trailing by four points with 18.7 seconds left, the Los Angeles Lakers were looking for a quick hitter, wanting to get an easy two without running a lot of time off of the clock in the hopes of extending the game.  To get that easy bucket, Los Angeles went to a play that has worked in the first round against the New Orleans Hornets.  It didn’t work this time because the Dallas Mavericks were prepared for it, and defended it well:

As soon as the ball goes to Derek Fisher, the trigger man, Kobe Bryant comes off of a staggered screen at the top of the key.

The design of this play is to make the defense think that the Lakers are running the play for Bryant, draw Dirk Nowitzki out to hedge on the screen for Bryant, and then have Pau Gasol slip the screen to the rim.  However, Nowitzki pays no attention to Bryant, keeping his eyes/body locked on Gasol.

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With the Detroit Pistons trailing the Dallas Mavericks by two points with one minute left last night, they needed to force a miss and secure the rebound to give themselves a chance.  The Pistons were able to force a miss on two separate occasions, but couldn’t get themselves a defensive rebound on either, allowing the the Mavericks to run about 43 seconds off of the clock, effectively ending the game.

1st Offensive Rebound

As Jason Kidd brings the basketball up, Tyson Chandler sets a cross screen, allowing for Dirk to flash up to the elbow.

After a dribble handoff to Jason Terry, Dirk steps up to set a screen to run the pick and pop.  As this is taking place, Jason Kidd clears out to the opposite side to give Dirk the room to pop.  Jason Maxiell is in the middle of the paint, defending Tyson Chandler.

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Against the Heat, the Utah Jazz were down by two points with 3.4 seconds left in the game.  Even though they were able to get themselves a clean look at the rim, Paul Millsap didn’t give up on the play, and that combined with a nice bounce, is what allowed him to get the offensive rebound and put it back before the buzzer sounded.

Even though it was a great effort for Millsap, Udonis Haslem’s lack of a box-out is at least partially responsible for the game going into overtime:

As C.J. Miles flashes to the corner, Paul Millsap actually pops out towards the three point line.  Despite coming off open, the ball gets passed to Miles in the corner.

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With the game tied at 94, Tyreke Evans was working an ISO situation that he created for himself (he initially waived off the screen that was supposed to be set for him).  Evans is able to get to the lane and hit a crazy double clutched layup on three people.  It was a fantastic individual play, but it was weak help defense from the Clippers that let Evans get to the rim and do his thing.

The primary suspect here is Al-Farouq Aminu (the same man who just banked home a 30 footer).  He isn’t in proper help position, and is more worried about his man than the basketball.  Where should Aminu be positioned?  Well, look at where his teammate is on the other side of the court.  Since, Evans is in the middle of the floor, Aminu should be in the same position as his teammate, one foot on the block, opened up to the basketball, with an eye on your man.

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Before the FIBA Worlds started, everyone was predicting that Spain would be the team to threaten Team USA and give them a run for their money once the tournament reached the round of 16.  After a puzzling loss to France and a win, the Spanish team actually had themselves set up nicely, and if all went according to plan they would be facing Team USA in the Championship game.  However, Lithuania threw everyone a curveball by beating Spain 76-73. While Lithuania did a terrific job coming back from double digits in the second half, and taking the lead late, a lot of this loss can be put on Spain’s errors on both ends of the court.

Defensively

Defensively Spain did a pretty good job of matching stops with Lithuania for most of the final two minutes.  However, Lithuania was able to tie the game and score the eventual game winning basket (the one that gave them the lead for good) on two pretty bad defensive lapses:

Gasol’s Bad Pick And Roll Defense

Here, Lithuania runs a pick and roll with Marc Gasol’s man as the screener.  Gasol is in good position on the show, but he bites on a pump fake and closes out too hard on the shooter.  This leaves the roll man wide open for a pass and forces help from Ricky Rubio to come.  The roll man does a fantastic job of quickly kicking the ball out for a wide open three point shot.

Now, onto the go-ahead basket:

On this possession, Lithuania tries to run a pick and roll with Linas Kleiza as the roll man.  However, the play gets blown up and the ball ends up in Kleiza’s hands a good five feet behind the three point line.  The man who kicked out the ball to Kleiza cuts behind him to give Lithuania some court balance.

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Up by one with 16.9 seconds left, Team USA needed to get one final stop to secure their win against Spain.  With Spain inbounding from the sideline at halfcourt, Team USA decided to use a zone against Spain.  It is no surprise that Jim Boeheim, Syracuse’s head coach, was involved in that decisions (from Chris Sheridan):

“In the timeout, Jim Boeheim said ‘Let’s go orange.’ We call it ‘Orange’ out of respect for Jim. He said he doesn’t have any buildings named after him in Syracuse, so we named the zone after him. And I agreed with him, but it was his suggestion,” Krzyzewski said.

Now, this was a bold call because if it doesn’t work, Coach K finds him subject to some criticism (yes, I realize this is just a friendly, but the criticism will still be there).  However, because it was smartly run and caught Spain off-guard, the zone worked well:

Team USA ran zone one possession, so it is safe to say that Spain wasn’t really expecting it.  More importantly, Team USA did a very good job of disguising their zone.  They opened up showing man to man as the ball was getting ready to be inbounded.  You have Odom covering Marc Gasol, and the 4 other members on Team USA on the perimeter as if they were waiting to match up in a man to man defense.

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Derrick Rose had an impressive 4th quarter against Spain in Team USA’s final tuneup against Spain, scoring 10 of his 24 points in the fourth, with one play in particular standing out, his lay-up over Marc Gasol with the game tied at 82.  While it appeared that Ricky Rubio was responsible for the bad defense on this possession, it was actually what Rubio couldn’t control that allowed for Rose to get to the rim.

Bad PNR Defense

This possession started with Derrick Rose dribbling the ball up and had Lamar Odom come from the low block to set a screen for Rose.  Odom originally sets up the screen on Rose’s right.

With the screen taking place, Marc Gasol (Odom’s defender) shows really hard:

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