Despite missing a key cog last night, Chicago put up quite the fight against Miami. Barring injury, these are the two teams many expect to battle it out in the Eastern Conference Finals once again. With the two teams meeting three more before the playoffs, every regular season tilt, even minus a player like Deng, still helps each team experiment with new ways to slow down an opponent they are becoming more and more familiar with.

In yesterday’s match up, the latest twist in strategy came with Tom Thibodeau deployed a zone for a handful of possession starting in the middle of the first quarter. While this move was most likely meant to help Derrick Rose avoid picking up a debilitating third foul, it could be tool the Bulls use again come playoff time. The question of whether or not they use it is something that remains to be seen, but both teams now have the tape to assess whether not it will be effective and to what degree.

Before diving into the film, it’s important to review what exactly a zone does to opponent’s game preparation. Depending on its effectiveness, a scheme change like a zone can take anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes of a given practice, walk-through and/or film session to countering it. That doesn’t seem like much. But remember, in a lockout-afflicted season teams (like the Heat) have precious little practice time to perfect their own schemes, let alone react to another team’s.

If a team consistently struggles against a certain scheme then that 10-40 minutes can blow up to over 3-5 hours of practice/film/walk-throughs over the duration of a playoff series (assuming that coach wants his team to be prepared). That is time a team could spend refining their own concepts, adding new wrinkles or simply use to let their players rest their worn-down bodies. With that logic, it seems like the perfect idea for the Bulls to trot out even a marginally effective zone against the Heat, right?

When looking at the numbers, it would appear to be a no-brainer. By unofficial count, the Bulls limited Miami to 5 points over 6 possessions (0.83 PPP). Obviously, six possessions is a ridiculously small sample size. That is where the film comes into play and when looking at that, the answer becomes much less clear.

The first time we see the zone is off a sideline out-of-bounds with 3:03 left in the first quarter. LeBron James enters the ball into Mario Chalmers who quickly swings the ball to Shane Battier on the left wing. Battier reverses the ball back to Chalmers then (perhaps unintentionally) cuts along the baseline with Udonis Haslem back to the strongside of the floor.

As James’ catches on the right wing, Ronnie Brewer drops to defend both cutters, giving up a gap in the zone. LeBron, employing a basic tenant of attacking zones, punches that gap with his dribble, flattening out the defense and forcing two defenders to the ball. On the collapse, James executes a brilliant hook pass to Chalmers spotting up on the weakside wing. The result is a semi-contested 3-pointer (Chalmers could have easily used a shot-fake, one-dribble pull up attack for a cleaner look, however).

Here is the video:

On the surface, it looks as if the Bulls forced a tough shot, but in all reality Chalmers just didn’t exploit a long closeout by Hamilton efficiently enough. The next clip is a bit of a mirage as well.

Norris Cole ends up setting a screen inside the top on ball defender (Rose). James uses the ball screen to pull Hamilton high toward him. Seeing Haslem flashing middle, James threads a pass through the gap. However, Haslem doesn’t hold his position long enough and looks to change space, leaving James’ pass to find only Joakim Noah.

Even though this lead to a run out and layup for Chicago, Miami was in a great position had Haslem just used a bit more patience. In the following picture, you’ll see that if Haslem catches the ball in that spot, the Bulls defense is extremely vulnerable. Not only does he have the space to immediately shoot a foul line jumper, but Haslem can look to go high-low with Eddy Curry (if Noah rotates up) or find Shane Battier (if Boozer rotates) hunting space either behind the defense or cutting up to the opposite wing.

Upon further inspection, this turnover is an easily correctable mistake. Perhaps this concept and alignment will be something that Spolestra uses should the Bulls zone them again.

The other things zones are notorious for giving up our offensive rebounds. In one possession, the Bulls actually gave up two offensive rebounds and only escaped due to a botched putback attempt by Haslem. In the following clip, a freeze-frame highlights a blockout dilemma for Kyle Korver.

With Noah and Carlos Boozer moving to contest a shot from the corner, Korver is left to try to fend off two Heat players (Battier and Mike Miller) coming in from the weakside for the rebound. Korver chooses to throw his body in front of the hard-charging Miller, which opens up a gap for Haslem (left unimpeded by Rose) to sneak in for the third shot attempt. Haslem misses a great chance, but this possession highlights the rebounding problems zones bring.

With two more match-ups on the docket in the regular season, it will be interesting to see how much (if any) zone is used by Chicago. Perhaps last night was a one-time thing centered around a need to protect Rose given his foul trouble. Or perhaps it was a chance for Thibodeau to see if a zone has a chance to slow down the Heat come playoff time. Either way, this chess match will be fun to watch.

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If you’re like me, you’ve been struggling to keep up with all the player movement in this crazy, truncated off-season. Everyday a new scroll appears on the ticker:”Tyson Chandler to the Knicks”, “David West to the Pacers”, “Chauncey Billups to the Clippers”, “Lakers decide not to give away key core member as they prepare for another Finals run.” (wait, what?!….sheesh, moving on!)  One of the least celebrated moves was Richard Hamilton reaching a buyout with Detroit and quickly inking another deal with division foe Chicago.  In Hamilton, the Bulls saw someone who could be the missing piece in their championship puzzle, perhaps a non-Derrick Rose option late in the shot-clock or late in games. I was certainly curious to see just what Rip would bring to the Bulls this season that would be an improvement over last year and what flaws the Bulls had that Hamilton could correct.

It’s probably generous to say Keith Bogans didn’t exactly set the world on fire last season, but he gave the Bulls a reliable two guard that started every game, defended his position and was assignment sure. But in the end, his production wasn’t enough and Chicago’s shooting-guard-by-committee approach saw their season end in the Eastern Conference Finals.  With an elite defense, the Bulls demise against Miami was attributed to a stunning lack of offense. According to Synergy Sports, the Bulls half-court offense went from 15th in the league during the regular season to the 14th (out of only 16) during the playoffs. In the playoffs, the Bulls half-court offense relied heavily on Derrick Rose trying to make a play with the shot-clock winding down.  Here’s a brief look at how that turned out during last season’s Eastern Conference Finals:

As you can see from these clips, a common theme throughout their run was Rose being forced to create something out of nothing far too often. In fact, during the playoffs, isolation and pick-in-roll offense accounted for over 25% of the Bulls total offense and just over 10% of those shots were taking with less than four seconds on the shot clock. The theory goes that during the playoffs, transition offense bogs down and takes a backseat to half-court basketball, leading teams like the Bulls to struggle without having an abundance of skilled players to run sets for.

Enter Rip.

According to Synergy, Bogans ran off-screens just 4% of his entire offense, an appropriate number given that he certainly didn’t carve out his NBA career by being a shooter coming off screens. Hamilton, on the other hand, had nearly 24% of his offense involve coming off them. Hamilton’s career long game of running opponents ragged off the ball will provide the Bulls with an option outside of standing around and seeing what Rose can conjure up out the ether.

That’s not all Rip can do either, when the defenses do converge on Rose, Hamilton can spread the floor and knock down a shot. Last year, Rip finished in the top 10% of players spotting up. While the offense still runs through Rose, when the defense does collapse, the Bulls now have another wing who can make them pay from the outside. Here is a look at Hamilton’s ability to move to open spots off dribble penetration:

In the above clip, you saw how naturally Rip slides in the line of sight of the driving Austin Daye to make his passing angle that much easier. On top of that, he also buries the jumper. This will be something that Rose can take advantage on his forays toward the rim. Well, assuming Rose is willing to improve upon an assist rate ranked 51st among point guards last season.

Finishing with the NBA’s best regular season record last year certainly clued in the rest of the league to how dangerous the Bulls are. Even though they took their lumps against Miami and had it eat at them for an extended off-season, it was a valuable experience for the youthful members of the team. In Richard Hamilton, the Bulls now have another veteran with a wealth of experience to help propel them to the next level in their championship quest.

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After an incredible comeback, the Chicago Bulls found themselves trailing the Heat by three points after two Chris Bosh free throws.  With no timeouts left, the Bulls had to take the ball the length of the court in 16.8 seconds and get a clean look at a three point shot.  However, they were unable to even get a shot to the rim, with Derrick Rose getting blocked by LeBron James:

In my opinion, it looked like the Bulls were trying to run Korver off of three screens away from the basketball, but he started a little too early, and it ended up being just a simple pindown from Taj Gibson.  Gibson whiffs on the screen (in part because Korver does a poor job using it) and this forces Korver to make the catch with his back to the basket then taking a dribble away from the basket.  He gets caught picking up his dribble, is forced to give it to Rose, who gets a screen, but with Haslem hedging and James recovering, the shot gets blocked.  Even though Korver ran the play wrong (starting early and not using the staggered screen that was being set for him), I just think Korver had too much area to cover with his run (we have seen this be a problem in the past), and it would have allowed Miller to recover either way.

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After losing in game three, Derrick Rose mentioned that he would like to see more isolation sets so he could avoid double teams.  While this wasn’t the adjustment made by Chicago, they did make a rather significant change to their offensive strategy for game four.  They were still running ball screens for Rose, but instead of running them up top, they moved Derrick Rose to the wing (either with the dribble or by moving him off of the basketball), and ran the pick and roll there.  It was an interesting change that had mixed results.  In my opinion, there are two reasons why the wing pick and roll made sense for two reasons it gave Derrick Rose another release valves, and it made the defense’s rotations a lot tougher:

One of the reasons why the side pick and roll works is because it gives Derrick Rose a release valve when Miami brings the double.  That release valve?  Splitting the double team.  With Rose taking the screen on the wing, Miami’s bigs trap, but they do it with the goal of preventing Rose from getting over the top, where he can penetrate through the middle of the lane.  This creates a gap, and lets Rose get into the paint where he created scoring opportunities.

In addition to creating opportunities for himself, the wing pick and roll also created opportunities for the rest of the Bulls by putting the Heat in positions where it was simply hard to rotate over:

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With just 7 seconds left on the shot clock and 2:51 left in the game, the Miami Heat had the basketball on the baseline with a 2 point lead.  Looking to get a good – but quick – look, the Heat decided to run a set play from the baseline.  The result is one of my favorite set plays of the season:

The play starts with the Mismi Heat getting in a box formation, but instead of starting the bottom players on the blocks, they are up towards the elbow.  As the ball goes to the trigger man, LeBron James, Mike Miller uses a screen set by Udonis Haslem to get to the corner.  Because Miller was knocking his shot down this game, this action really draws the attention of the defense.  Not only does Derrick Rose trails Miller over the top of the screen, but Carlos Boozer strays away from Haslem to beat Miller to the corner and take the pass away.

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In the first half of game three, LeBron James picked apart the Bulls’ defense, accumulating six assists in the first two quarters of play.  With James looking to pass rather than looking to score and playing a cerebral game, coach Tom Thibodeau went into the half, looking to make an adjustment.  That adjustment came while Joel Anthony was on the court.  Starting in the third quarter, whoever was covering Joel Anthony (Carlos Boozer except for one or two possessions) basically just left him, effectively playing a zone (In fact, after the first possession, the announce crew couldn’t figure out what to call the defense).  I started calling this a reverse box and one, because instead of four guys playing zone with one playing man, the Bulls had four players playing man and one playing zone.

It was an interesting strategy and one that makes sense, considering that Joel Anthony struggles to catch and score in the paint, even without a lot of defensive pressure.  So did it work?  It is hard to say, mainly because the on the fly nature of this adjustment lead to some confusion and negated whatever effectiveness the defense could have.  Looking at the numbers, Joel Anthony was a +2 when he was on the court during the third (he was also a +2 in the first half/+4 for the game), with a lot of baskets coming from failed rotations:

This is the first offensive set of the half for the Miami Heat, and the first time they are using their new defense.  You can see that there is a little confusion, as Carlos Boozer leaves Joel Anthony and forces LeBron James to make the catch farther out on the block.  As Boozer leaves Anthony open, Noah rotates over to Anthony, leaving Chris Bosh open.  James does a great job of spotting Bosh and hitting him for the open jumper.  You can say that Noah is protecting the rim, but the whole strategy is to leave Anthony open, so Noah’s rotation shouldn’t have happened.

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So far this series, Joakim Noah has really given the Miami Heat’s pick and roll defense a lot of problems by using his passing ability to break down the help at the back end after the Bulls trap Derrick Rose coming off of ball screens.  Over at Hoopspeak.com, Brett Koremenos (you should seriously check him out on Twitter, great follow) did a great job of breaking things down.

Once again, in game three, Noah’s passing ability started to pick apart the Heat’s defense yet again.  This time, instead of just allowing it to continue, coach Erik Spoelstra and the Miami Heat made a defensive adjustment in the fourth quarter, changing how they played the pick and roll.

Before we get to the adjustment, let’s look at how Noah was able to pick apart the Heat’s defense here in game three:

On this play, Noah is the screener, setting a pick for Derrick Rose and then rolling/popping out to the foul line.  As the ball goes to him, Dwyane Wade rotates over, stepping up top him, determined to take away his space.

With Wade rotating over as Chris Bosh recovers to Noah, Keith Bogans is left wide open.  Noah does a good job of spotting the open man and hitting him.

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Something that has really hurt the Miami Heat offense all season is the big three’s tendency to stand around while they watch one player with the basketball.  Against the Chicago Bulls and their terrific isolation defense where they like to load up against the ball handler, this standing around hurts the offense more than usual.  In game two, the Heat seemed to make an effort to cut off of the basketball and make themselves available for the pass.  This player movement really helped Miami get some clean looks against Chicago’s defense:

This first example is a set play, but this set play shows how effective LeBron James can be when he is moving off of the basketball.  Here, James sets the screen for Bibby and then rolls as the ball gets swung to Dwyane Wade.  Once Wade makes the catch, he now has an option (James cutting) aside from isolation.  James comes free on the block and Wade hits him with the pass.

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After having success with the Derrick Rose/Kyle Korver pick and pop in game one, it was surprising to see the Bulls shy away from that action in game two, especially considering their offensive struggles in game two.

Chicago did try to run a similar action with 1:30 in the fourth quarter trailing by seven points, but they added another twist, and this time it really hurt the offense.  Perhaps overthinking it, the Bulls ended up making the pick and pop easier instead of harder to defend by adding a few unnecessary actions:

The set starts with Kyle Korver setting a screen for Derrick Rose on the wing as he brings the basketball down the court.  The first noticeable difference is that the Bulls are running this pick and roll early instead of sending Korver from the block.

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With the game tied and about 20 seconds left in the first half, the Miami Heat called a timeout looking to get a basket and take a two point lead into the locker room at the half.  Coming out of the timeout, the Heat ran a simple pick and roll with Chris Bosh setting a screen for LeBron James.  However, what made it so effective was all of the player movement that took place before the screen, effectively disguising the pick and roll, allowing James to come off the screen and get to the rim easily:

The play starts with LeBron James dribbling the basketball at the top near half court.  Once everyone gets in position, James Jones sprints from one corner to the other (where Dwyane Wade is standing out of the picture).  Once Jones clears through, Mike Bibby heads from his spot and sets a pindown screen for Chris Bosh.

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