Is Rondo part of a dying breed?

To be an elite distributor one has to possess a certain amount of guile and moxie, traits that combine to produce a clever variety of ways to deliver the basketball into the hands of open teammates. Distributors, in a sense, find “angles of deployment”. Whether contorting their bodies, dribbling to new space or using crazy amounts of spin and pace, they find windows that allow for the ball to be delivered at exactly the right time.

At just 26 years old, Rajon Rondo already finds himself as a lonely master of this particular craft. Last night, he showcased just how devastating a black-belt in the art of distribution can be, especially when your teammates make long 2s at the same rate Dwight Howard converts dunks. Thanks in part to that torrid jump-shooting by his teammates, Rondo tallied 15 assists against a Heat defense that spent most of the contest overwhelmed and bewildered.

Quite of few of his dimes came due to Rondo working hard to find great angles of deployment. Part of what helps him do that so well is his tendency in transition to change sides of the floor with the dribble. This concept, which a mentor of mine termed, “changing boxes” (picture a court split into four equal quadrants) creates all sorts of subtle angles to find open teammates. Thanks to this great habit, Rondo is able to create an open shot for Greg Stiemsma on the break.

When Rondo gets the ball on the break and pushes it down the left side of the floor. He forces two Miami defenders to defend him.

Noticing Stiemsma coming down late as the trail post, Rondo pushes across the court. This is where he finds a clever way to distribute the pass. Due to the angle of his drive and the pace of the on-coming Stiemsma, Rondo delivers a flick-pass off the bounce with his right hand instead of stopping and pivoting around. It is a much quicker deliver that guarantees Stiemsma jumper will have no chance of being contested.

Here is a video of the play in real time:

That isn’t the only time during last night’s game where Rondo found a proper angle to feed Stiemsma for an open shot. Late in the third, a staggered screen for Ray Allen leaves the former Badger wide open in the short corner. Rondo, after using a pass fake, then whips an overhead pass to Stiemsma for the jumper.

While that pass looks pretty ordinary, it’s that Rondo delivered it overhead that made it work. Notice Dwyane Wade’s hands in the following picture. They are down near his waist but could quickly get up to deflect or even steal a pass delivered from chest level. But by delivering the ball with an overhead pass, Rondo insures it gets to his target unmolested.

The following two clips involve Rondo finding clever angles to deliver to Paul Pierce. In the first clip, Rondo attacks the paint after an offensive rebound. On his drive, Pierce relocates to the wing. Rondo does an excellent job of using his body to shield his defender while delivering an inside hand shovel-pass. The result is a wide-open Pierce 3.

For lower levels, coaches would most likely teach and drill a jump-stop to a reverse pivot to make that pass to Pierce. However, in the following picture you will see that the timing and speed of the game factor into Rondo’s decision. Wade, who had leaked out down the floor on the initial shot attempt, was coming back into the play. Had Rondo taken the more “fundamental” but slower approach, Pierce might have found his shot blocked or altered by Wade.

In the final video, Rondo makes an absolutely fantastic delivery in the post from the top of the key. Words don’t do this justice, so just take a look:

With a step and some sickening spin, Rondo makes a spectacular entry to Pierce on the block. The natural tendency for a player is to throw it to the wing there and let entry come from a better angle. However, take a look at where the shot clock is in the following picture.

With that little time left, a wing entry could be denied long enough to force Avery Bradley (the player on the wing) to most likely create a contested shot for himself with very little time to do so. But thanks to Rondo’s ability to seek out creative angles, the end result is a Pierce layup instead.

So while Nash, Kidd and Miller may be hanging it up soon, fear not for the demise of the distributor. Thanks to Rajon Rondo (and perhaps Ricky Rubio), this rare breed will avoid extinction.

Most have pointed to Erik Spoelstra’s decision to go over the top of any Rondo pick and rolls as the primary culprit. But in the NBA, it is important to remember two very important keys. First; pick and roll defense is always based off who is involved and in what area of the floor. The second is that on the NBA level, whatever the coverage is, a team is always going to be giving something up.

That second part is particularly important to note when looking at the pick and roll action involving Rondo and Paul Pierce. The standard line of thinking with that duo, when the screen is set in the middle of the floor, is stay attached (or jam) with Pierce’s defender and have Rondo’s defender go under. In theory, that coverage should leave the only thing open a Rondo shot. And if we go by Key #2, a Rondo jumper from 15+ feet seems like an okay thing to give up.

However, because Rondo is so explosive at turning the corner on the ball screen, the on-ball defender, who must go under at an angle to cut off any deep penetration near the rim, finds himself at a severe disadvantage. This forces the hedging defender (assigned to Pierce) to stay with Rondo longer than he would like.

All Pierce has to do is simply screen and pop back behind the three-point line and waits for the pass. On the catch, Pierce simply reads the closeout. In the following edit, Pierce not only picks and pops for 3, but is also able to counter into a shot-fake attack and get to the rim. Take a look.

The scary part is that’s not the only negative result teams can experience from this stay-attached-and-go-under coverage. Much like Dallas does with Dirk, Pierce can cleverly (and illegally) bull rush or move into the defender going underneath and force a switch. Naturally, a pinch post isolation match-up between Pierce and a small guard is hardly a good result for a defense off this action.

Pierce misses the shot in the clip, but the bottom line is he was able to engineer a switch onto a 5’9” guard at the nail. In theory the “stay-attached and go-under” coverage seems like the right ploy because it should force Rondo to be the scoring option. In practice, teams end up with Pierce getting all the great looks.

As they did prep work for the Boston match-up, Spoelstra and his staff must have decided the key to defending this action was to keep the ball out of Pierce’s hands. The way to do that was to switch up the coverage to a “show and over” scheme.

The coverage is just like it sounds, the player guarding the screener shows hard, forcing the ball handler to re-direct towards halfcourt while the on-ball defender goes over the top of the screen. By going over the screening Pierce, the on-ball defender took the option of being dragged into a switch off the table. Hedging hard allowed the Pierce’s defender a much better chance at not being forced into a long a closeout. So what does a coverage like that give up? Take a look at the following clip.

Of the three clips, the ideal result was the Rondo floater. Assuming the on-ball defender doesn’t make a heroic effort at getting back in front while going over the top of the screen, a mid-range Rondo shot is what that coverage is conceding to give up. Given the hierarchy of efficient basketball shots, a floater from Rondo seems to be a better option than an open Pierce 3-point shot or attack on the rim.

While the other results make it seem like the coverage was a complete and abject failure, it actually hides the fact that it accomplished one key goal: it kept Pierce from getting the ball. And for those still skeptical, the coverage does actually work. Check it out.

In the last clip, the Nuggets execute incredibly well and completely stop the play. That was what Miami was hoping to get out of the scheme except they were quicker rotations and better awareness from help defenders away from accomplishing that.

Greg Popovich has made an amazing career of using the regular season in a way that better prepares his teams for the post season. Spoelstra’s decision is in that same vein. Should Miami go to war with Boston in a playoff series this spring, the Heat are now better prepared to stop them. In the end, Spoelstra essentially tried something new in a relatively meaningless game and it failed (rather miserably). It doesn’t mean, however, that it wasn’t worth trying.

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With 9.8 seconds left on the clock and the ball being taken out of bounds near the hash, Doc Rivers drew up a late game gem. The play called for Rajon Rondo to act as the triggerman entering the ball into a Paul Pierce cutting off a Kevin Garnett screen toward the top of the key.

After Rondo clears through opposite, Ray Allen comes off a Mickael Pietrus screen sprinting toward Pierce.

Upon reaching Pierce, Allen sets a brush screen (or perhaps simply slips) while Garnett moves from the short corner to flare screen for Allen toward the wing.

However, two things happen that send this promising design spiraling out of control. First, Metta World Peace (my goodness is it ridiculous to type that) because too pre-occupied with Pierce leaving Allen open on the wing and Garnett with no-one to screen. Pierce makes an even bigger mistake by taking his vision away from both Peace (still ridiculous) and the weakside action in general. In a perfect world, Pierce should already be delivering a hook pass that leads Allen to an open spot on the wing.

Even though Pierce fails to read the play right, it is still savable at this point. Garnett could have chose to screen down on Gasol (or slipped to the rim, dragging Gasol with him), opening up a passing lane to Allen who still is freed from Artest (much better). Garnett also could have popped to the middle of the floor hunting a mid-range shot for himself.

He fails to do either and this is how the play ended up:

A moment that could have seen Paul Pierce or Ray Allen plunging a late-game dagger into a hated rival instead saw Mickael Pietrus wildly flinging toward the rim with a desperate heave. The end result was the overtime period that ended with Gasol’s emphatic rejection. If not for some shoddy execution by normally steady veterans late, Boston’s winning streak would still be alive and well.

Early in the first quarter, the Grizzlies run a pick and roll with (essentially) roll-replace action in the middle of the floor. Rudy Gay, handling the ball, comes off a Mareese Speights screen driving right. Marc Gasol stays high on the weakside wing in a position that theoretically should force his defender, Kevin Garnett, to either stay with him and leave the roll man open or jam the roll man and leave Gasol open.

Gay’s read is based off either of those two options. Garnett, being crafty as ever on that end of the floor, does a great job of stunting help the roll man before jumping back into Gasol’s passing lane. He times it so well that Gay gets confused in his read and throws the ball away.

The next clip will make all those high school coaches that blast the NBA for a lack of fundamentals happy. The Grizzlies run a simple isolation post up for Gasol near the left elbow. Due to Gasol’s skills as a passer and Memphis’ inability to stretch the floor with shooters, the Grizzlies run a lot of cutting action off Gasol’s post ups.

As Mike Conley enters the ball in, he immediately basket cuts low well Sam Young, located in the weakside corner, cuts hard toward the middle of the paint. Ray Allen shows off his commitment to Celtics defense by fighting through a screen to bump Young’s cut through the paint. Allen’s effort to not let Young cut across his face for an easy basket leads to a much more suitable result for the C’s defense. Instead of a possible lay-up, Speights cuts toward the foul line and fires a tough, fading jumper that is contested by both Pierce and Garnett.

In the middle of the third quarter, the Celtics have yet another great defensive possession fueled by smart, effort plays. It all starts with Paul Pierce working hard to jam Rudy Gay curling off a Conley screen. Gay’s cut is what is called false action, a basketball maneuver executed to free up a teammate for the real action in the set.

In this case, Gay is meant to tight curl toward the rim to force Rajon Rondo, Conley’s defender, to help off on him. If Rondo is forced to help off deep, Conley will be able to come off a ball screen with Gasol with much more freedom. However, thanks to Pierce working hard to get tight to Gay, Rondo doesn’t barley has to commit to help and can effectively recover to the next action.
Pierce, however, isn’t the only one working hard on this part of the play. The freeze frame shows Jermaine O’Neal with hounding ball pressure on Gasol. This ball pressure not only eliminates Gasol hitting Gay late on the curl, but also increases the Rondo’s recovery time due to the difficulty of what should be a simple pass to Conley on the wing (pay attention to bad defensive teams, things like this pass and follow will be totally uncontested).

Rondo does a great job of throwing his hands in the air after getting through the Gasol screen. His length likely disrupts any ideas of Conley quickly threading a pass to Gasol before O’Neal recovers. The end result of this possession is a long contested two by Speights in the short corner.

The final video is more of the same effort and execution from the C’s. Early in the possession, Gasol slips out of a potential ball screen and dives hard toward the rim. This time, Boston rookie JuJuan Johnson has to jam his dive toward the basket. Conley notices this and hits trail big, Dante Cunningham with a pass near the midline. Nearly 40 feet from the rim, Cunningham is obviously a non-shooting threat, so the fact that his defender (Johnson) is stuck near the paint shouldn’t matter.

However, Cunningham smartly passes to Gay on the wing to tries to execute a ball screen in which Johnson, sucked deep toward the foul line, would be unable to get a good hedge. Johnson, indoctrinated in this defense-first system, makes sure to sprint up to the screen and still hedge hard, forcing Gay toward half-court. Any movement away from the basket like this, in the shot-clock era of basketball especially, is a win for the defense.

Gay changes direction after coming off the screen and attacks the rim going left. Johnson smartly gets back in front to force Gay into a tough runner. Johnson’s help leaves Cunningham alone near the rim with great rebounding position. Avery Bradley, however, quickly moves from his help position on the wing to slam into Cunningham near the rim in effort to keep him off the glass as Gay’s shot goes up. His box out allows Garnett to have an angle to grab the board and end the possession.

By climbing all the way up to the second spot in Hollinger’s defensive efficiency rankings, the C’s have appeared to have turned their season around. But given that this run has come against a string of teams currently residing in the bottom half of the league’s offensive rankings, it’s fair to ponder if Celtics are still a legitimate threat come playoff time. Will this defense built on discipline, effort and execution allow the Boston to compete when facing Miami, Chicago or even Philadelphia in a seven game series? We’ll have to wait and see.

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Upon closer examination, their was definitely some miscommunication here.  Considering the coach (Doc Rivers) and the players (Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett), it is interesting to see the Celtics fail to execute.  It looks that Paul Pierce is waiting for a screen to come, but it never comes because Allen and Garnett run into each other a few times.  In the postgame, Rivers eluded to the mishap:

Doc Rivers: “We didn’t execute the play, I’ll just leave it at that. Ended up leaving Paul on the island. It’s a play we’ve run several times and we just didn’t execute it. [It] was supposed to be a pick-and-roll with a flare and none of it happened, which was unusual for us. But it happened.”

Rivers is right, we have seen this play before, and by design, it is supposed to end up with Pierce working towards the right elbow (his sweet spot) with plenty of space to make a decision:

On this particular play, Pierce immediately gets up top isolated.  After waiting a few seconds, Ray Allen comes off of a backscreen, flaring to the corner.

With Allen’s defender now chasing him to the corner, the man setting the screen (in this case Jeff Green) steps up to set another screen.  This time, it is a ball screen, setting up the pick and roll.

With Allen’s man chasing him to the corner and the pick and roll action, you are now clearing up that elbow location, ready for him to work the sweet spot.  In this particular instance, Pierce attacks the lane and misses a lay-up. However, when watching the play in real time, you understand what Boston is trying to set up:

Rivers likes to use Ray Allen as a decoy, knowing that the defense will never leave him.  We have seen this concept all of the time with the Celtics late in games, and here is another instance.  This is a great way to clear space, prevent help, and allow Pierce to get to his favorite spot on the court.

Lets look at last night’s play again:

So, what went wrong?  Well, a couple things.  First, Ray Allen is the first one to get the ball out of the side and after standing around and dribbling, he gets it to Paul Pierce.  This throws off the rhythm of the entire play in my opinion.  Everyone talked about James’ defense on the actual Pierce shot attempt, but the threat of him denying Pierce and getting a five second call is probably why Allen goes to meet the basketball.

After giving up the ball to Pierce, Allen flares to the corner expecting Garnett to pop out.  This is where things fall apart.  Garnett starts to pop out, but Ray Allen tries to return to the spot to restart the play.  Garnett sees this and he tries to restart the play, at this point, Pierce understands that he just needs to go, and he does that, driving to the left and missing the shot.

This is a rare instance of the Celtics’ failing to execute, and all of it goes back to LeBron James on Paul Pierce.  Not on the shot, but on the initial inbounds pass.

Even though there was some strange playcalling, the Miami Heat deserve a lot of credit for digging in and playing fantastic defense.  This defense involved strong help defense and a unique strategy to prevent Rajon Rondo’s dribble penetration.

Curious Playcalling

While Miami’s defense stole the show, Boston did contribute to their drought with some odd playcalling choices early in this stretch:

After Pierce’s two free throws, Glen Davis wound up taking the next two shots.  Now, the fact that he was taking wasn’t the problem.  The problem was that these weren’t typical Glen Davis shots where he was the third option on a set, got an offensive rebound, or was playing off of the Big three.  These were designed plays where Davis was the primary option.

The first play, Boston dumps the ball into Davis and clears out, running an ISO for him, and he eventually misses the shot.  The second play is an off ball screen ran for Davis, allowing him to cut to the block, get the ball, and go up with the shot that is blocked.

Strong Help Defense

In addition to the curious playcall, the second play where Glen Davis gets blocked at the rim was a good example of the Heat and their help defense.  Bosh is originally on Davis, but when the off ball screen gets set, instead of Bosh fighting through, Joel Anthony steps up and gets the block.

This wasn’t a fluke.  Miami’s help defense was strong all night and it shined during the final 7 minutes of the game against Boston:

On this play, Paul Pierce gets a ball screen and Joel Anthony is late with the hedge, allowing Pierce to split the screen.  However, instead of allowing Pierce get to the rim, Chris Bosh steps up and forces Pierce to give up the ball.  What makes this play is the rotation back after the help.  Because Bosh steps up, it looks like Jermaine O’Neal is open for the easy finish.  However, Anthony was always working, rotating back, and able to block the shot.

On this play, the Boston Celtics are looking to run Ray Allen off of a couple screens away from the basketball, sending Allen off of a staggered screen that lets him curl to the basketball.

As Allen makes the catch, Anthony (covering Kevin Garnett – the screener) shows with Dwyane Wade closing out on Allen as well.  Noticing his man leaving him, Kevin Garnett slips the screen and waits for the pass from Allen (Allen might be the best player in the league when it comes to this type of pass).  However, as soon as Allen makes the catch and Anthony leaves Garnett, LeBron James is rotating over to the middle of the paint.

So when Garnett makes the catch, LeBron James is right there ready to deny the shot, which is what he does, meeting Garnett in the air and getting the block.  Here is the play in real time:

If LeBron James is making the correct reads and willing to trust his teammate and leave his man, he is a dangerous help defender because he is so athletic.  He gets where he wants to go quickly and gets himself in position to get the block.

Defending Rajon Rondo

The final aspect of the Heat’s defense during this stretch (and for the entire game) was how the Heat chose to defend Rajon Rondo.  In one situation, the Heat went to a conventional strategy, in another, they went to with a unique gameplan that seems to be working out.

Pick And Rolls

Looking at the conventional strategy, the Heat were able to neutralize Rajon Rondo coming off of screens by simply going under screens and forcing Rondo to make a play on the outside.

Here, Rondo actually runs off of two ball screens and his defenders goes underneath each one, and eventually Rondo is forced to take a jumper, one that he misses.

On this play, when Rondo’s defender goes under the screen, he actually draws the offensive foul, getting in Kevin Garnett’s way and taking the shove that he gives.

On Dribble Penetration

While going under Rajon Rondo screens is a pretty common site when watching teams defend the Celtics, the way they handled Rondo’s dribble penetration when not in a pick and roll situation was a little more unique.  Instead of playing off of him or anything like that, they played him straight up and when Rondo attacked the lane, they helped.

What made this unique is who came and helped.  Instead of sending help from a certain spot (the weakside block), they had Joel Anthony leaving Kevin Garnett and dropping into the paint, basically funneling the action back to Garnett and giving up a Garnett jumper from the elbow/top of the key.

This is strange considering that Garnett was 10th in FG% among power forwards with at least 20 games played and 20+ minutes per game, shooting 47% during the regular season.  The Heat must have seen something in Garnett (maybe it was because he was 0-2 and looked uncomfortable from that spot in game one, or maybe it just looked like he was lagging in game two), made them comfortable leaving Garnett.  For what it’s worth, it is working so far as Garnett is 2-11 (18.2%) from 16-23 feet.

As Rondo sprints the basketball up the court, he gets an impromptu screen from Paul Pierce, freeing up a path allowing Rajon Rondo to get himself to the rim.  Instead of sending Chris Bosh from the weakside block to help, Joel Anthony leaves Garnett and sinks into the middle of the lane.

With Anthony in the paint, this allows Chris Bosh to stay in the passing lane and take away the kick out pass to Jeff Green.  Essentially what they are doing here is funneling the action back to Garnett.

When the pass gets made, Joel Anthony is deep in the paint so when the ball gets kicked out he goes ahead and closes out on him.

Anthony is mobile/athletic enough to at least bother Garnett with the closeout, even if he doesn’t get a strong closeout.  Here is the play in real time:

As you can see, the Heat are taking away just about everything here.  The drive to the rim is taken away by Anthony.  The pass to the corner is taking away with Bosh sitting in the lane.  The only option that Rajon Rondo has here is to kick the ball out to Garnett, who misses the jumper.

On this play, Mario Chalmers is pressing Rajon Rondo way up top in the backcourt, allowing Rondo to simply blow by him.  Again, Anthony leaves Garnett and provides the help, keeping Rondo out of the lane.  This is important because with the help coming from Anthony, it allows Dwyane Wade to stay with Ray Allen in the corner.  Here, he is face guarding him, not even worried about what is taking place behind him.  His only concern (as it should be) is Ray Allen on the outside.

On this play, the Heat are actually able to force a turnover on this possession using their strategy to send help from Garnett’s man.  Again, the Heat are playing Rondo very high, allowing him to get a running start and attacking the lane.  Once he gets into the paint, he is met by Joel Anthony, who leaves Garnett.  It is worth repeating that with Anthony helping off of the paint, it allows the rest of the defense to stick with their men on the outside.  Here, with James not worried about helping, he is able to return to his man easily and get the steal on Rondo’s pass.

While this worked for the Heat in game two, it is going to be interesting to see if they do it in game three and if they do, will it work?  Garnett is shooting nearly 50% from 16-23 feet, so it is worth wondering if the Heat noticed Garnett’s early struggles (on mostly open jumpers) and just started leaving him or if the Heat see something in Garnett’s shot/health and that is why they are leaving him.  The tell will be if the Heat try this again early in game three and stick with it despite Garnett hitting a few open jumpers.

The play starts with LeBron James taking the basketball out and entering it to Mario Chalmers at the top of the key.  Once Chalmers gets the basketball, Dwyane Wade comes off of a screen away from the basketball at the opposite elbow to free himself up at the wing.

Once Wade gets the basketball, James Jones (who set the initial screen for Wade) and Joel Anthony dive to the middle of the paint to set up a double screen for LeBron James, who acts as if he is going to flash to the top of the key looking for the basketball.

Here, Spoelstra gives you a perfect example of how to use two stars.  Dwyane Wade has the basketball as the off ball action is taking place to try and set up LeBron James.  Look at the attention that James attracts.  Both Kevin Garnett and Glen Davis (those who are covering the men setting off ball screens), have their head turned to the basketball because they are worried about LeBron James.  This gives Wade the opportunity to take his man baseline.

With Glen Davis turning around and reacting late, he is unable to get in proper help position and he is forced to commit a foul as Wade makes the shot, securing a three point play.  Here is the play in real time:

Just a great set by Spoelstra here.  Whether or not James was truly a decoy or not (the play could have actually been drawn up for James), this puts so much pressure on the defense, and the result is mistakes (not watching the basketball) that ends up as points for Miami.