Ray Allen’s three point shooting was a very important aspect of the Heat-Celtics series that ended last night. This postseason, Allen is shooing 19-36 from the three point line (good for 52.8%). Allen is a tremendous outside shooter, and he is going to knock a few threes down, but the Heat were leaving him wide open on attempts, and that is a major factor in Allen shooting so good from deep. It happened again in Game 5, where the Heat fought all the way back to make this a close game, only to let Ray Allen shoot the Celtics to a win.
A couple things here. The rotation starts on Ray Allen’s initial drive, and the Heat do a great job of rotating and cutting off any penetration throughout the possession. However, when the pass gets made to Kevin Garnett, two defenders run at him, leaving Ray Allen open. At his age, Kevin Garnett isn’t a threat 1 step in from the three point line, but the Heat run at him like he is, and this allows for Garnett to toss it to Allen who knocks down the wide open three.
A lot of people are talking about Dwyane Wade’s 4th quarter (as they should), but in my opinion the biggest play of the game wasn’t made by Wade, but by the much maligned Michael Beasley. The Heat’s offense really became stagnant in the final minutes of the 4th quarter as the Celtics tried to make their comeback. The Heat didn’t score a point for a good minute and a half of game time as the Celtics cut the lead to 4 points. With about 1:45 left, the Heat had the basketball, and again forced up another shot. However, the Celtics didn’t box out, and it allowed Beasley to make a fantastic play:
As the ball lands in Dorell Wright’s hands, take a look at the shot clock. There is only 7 seconds for him to work with, and the Heat’s offense is once again struggling. Udonis Haslem tries to salvage the possession by setting a screen for Wright and seeing if he can get to the lane.
With last night’s game tied at 98 with 12 seconds left, the Boston Celtics had the basketball ready to inbound it on the side. Instead of running a set play, the Celtics decided to get the ball into Paul Pierce’s hands and let him work out of an ISO set. It worked out well for the Celtics, but I feel like the Heat made a few key errors that helped the Celtics out. Here is the video in real time, count the mistakes:
How many mistakes did you guys count? By my count, I had three. Let’s go over them:
Throughout the playoffs, we are going to be looking at the teams that lost their last game and look at what they can do to try and get a win.
The Celtics pretty much blew the Miami Heat out of the water in Game 2, so there were a lot of things I could have picked for this. I decided to go with the most obvious one, the Heat and their need to stop Ray Allen from shooting that corner three point shot. How important is that shot, well, let’s take a look at Allen’s shot chart from Game 2 (via J.E. Skeets’ twitter):
We have talked about Miami’s solid defensive rotations here in the past, and the fact of the matter is they are very good at rotating defensively. However, last night the Heat’s poor rotations is what cost them the game:
With the game tied at 68 early in the 4th quarter, the Heat needed to get a stop. The Celtics made a pretty big run at the tail end of the third/start of the fourth and they had all of the momentum. If the Celtics were to go ahead, the crowd would get really into it, and it could effectively end the game.
With about a minute and a half left, the Celtics were down 4 points and looking to get a very important stop. They tried to do so by putting on some full court pressure to disrupt the Bulls rhythm. Also, they wanted to take the ball out of Rose’s hands, and they did so by sending a double team. The double team almost worked, but some poor communication at the back end of the rotations allowed Chicago to get a wide open three:
Derrick Rose crosses half court, with Nate Robinson right on his hip. However, Robinson doesn’t do too much to bother Rose.
In the fourth quarter of the Cavs game against the Celtics, LeBron James was a runaway freight train. He scored 20 points in said quarter, and he did it by attacking the basket. When James decided to put his head down and get to the rim, he either got himself an easy basket or a foul call. Conversely, nothing was dropping from the three point line as he was 0-7 from deep with his team down 2 with just about 10 seconds left. That is what makes his decision for a pull up three on a 2 on 2 situation so confusing.
We have all seen LeBron’s heat check threes before, you know, the ones that as he pulls up everyone says “No! God no!” but then it goes in to a resounding “Yes!” but those usually come after a couple makes. LeBron was so successful attacking the rim in the fourth quarter, it was just plain silly:
This was 1 of 5 plays that LeBron had where he attacked and ended up with a dunk or a lay-up. Now, let’s look at that final play:
After getting a stop, the Thunder had a 1 point lead with 2:15 seconds left. The Thunder were trying to hold onto the lead, and to do so, they needed a basket. Fortunately, Scott Brooks had a play ready to go. One that used Kevin Durant as a decoy, and while coming out of timeouts late seem to cause problems for the Thunder, this situation did not:
As Westbrook brings up the ball, Kevin Durant runs along the baseline and stops in the middle of the paint as Russell Westbrook takes the ball from the wing to the center of the floor.
As Westbrook gets to the center of the floor, he turns and returns to where he started coming off of a Jeff Green downscreen.
After Durant comes off Green’s screen, Nenad Krstic sets a second screen for Durant, freeing him up and letting him get to the middle of the paint.
As Durant comes off of the second screen, he dives right through the middle of the paint towards the opposite block. This sucks in the two Boston defenders on the weakside. As all of this action is taking place, the ball gets swung from Russell Westbrook to Thabo Sefolosha on the wing.
With all of this attention on Kevin Durant, Nenad Krstic sneaks behind Kevin Garnett undetected and sets himself up for a screen.
After a pump-fake by Sefolosha to draw the defense in a little more, he throws a skip pass to Jeff Green. Green makes the catch and gets a wide open three that he makes. Here it is in real time:
Notice how Krstic doesn’t even have to get a solid screen on Garnett. He just needs to get in his way, and that is what he does, giving Jeff Green more than enough time to rise up and knock down a three. After a three point play from Ray Allen cutting the lead down to 1 once more, the Thunder needed yet another basket. Scott Brooks figured since the play they just ran worked so well the first time, why not do it again? You tend to see this once in a while during games. If a play works and works well (as the first play did), coaches tend to go right back to it. The “run it until they can stop it” philosophy, and that is exactly what happens here:
If you watch the second play closely, you can see that Kevin Garnett (Jeff Green’s man) is aware that the Thunder are running the same play. However, the threat of Kevin Durant is so great that he needs to stay in the middle of the paint for a split second longer than he wanted to. This split second is enough time for Krstic to get his body in front of Garnett, freeing up Green for another open three that he knocks down. The Thunder were able to once again extend their lead to 4 points, and this time, they didn’t look back.
You tend to see this once in a while during games. If a play works and works well (as the first play did), coaches tend to go right back to it. The “run it until they can stop it” philosophy.
At halftime of the Celtics-Magic game, it looked like Boston was pulling away turning this game into a blowout. The Celtics had just outscored the Magic by 10 points in the second quarter, and they went into halftime with an 11 point lead. The Magic came out in the third quarter, and the game did turn into a blowout, just the other way around. The Magic outscored the Celtics in the third 36 to 11. Lets look at how they did it:
One big factor in Pacer demise against a 3-man Heat team? Tyler Hansbrough. Three terrible first half shots & two huge second half travels 15 hours ago
James and Battier came over to remind Wade that Battier wide open from the corner is a better option than Anthony finish at the rim. 15 hours ago
