Most undersized post players have a hard time scoring against this Laker front line.  In fact, we even talked about how the Utah Jazz were having a tough time finishing against the Lakers’ big men earlier in the playoffs.  However, the one player who hasn’t seemed bothered by the long arm of the Lakers is Glen “Big Baby” Davis.  Davis has been the Celtics’ best player off the bench this entire series, scoring 10.25 points per game on 51.6% shooting, and maybe most importantly, Davis has only had 1 shot of his blocked during the entire series.  This is pretty significant considering that he had the largest percentage of his shots blocked in the NBA during the regular season (out of players who played 10 MPG for over 40 games).

So how has Glen Davis been able to finish at the rim this series?

No Wasted Motions

When you are smaller than the defenders who are playing against you, you can’t wait for them.  What I mean by that is if you have a step on them (or have them out of position), you can’t wait for them to recover, you need to attack.  No extra dribbles or meaningless pumpfakes:

Lamar Odom (Glen Davis’ defender) needs to hedge out on the screen, and that frees up Davis for the roll.  Paul Pierce hits him and Davis makes the catch and goes straight up with it before the help defense can make it over.  If Davis takes a dribble or makes a pump fake there, he loses his advantage and the defense would be able to alter the shot.  However, by going quickly, Davis catches the defense off guard and is able to finish with the And 1.

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Dwight Howard played much better in the post in Game 2, scoring 30 points on 9 for 13 shooting.  The main reason was that he was much more effective in the post, and he was much more effective in the post because he limited the number of times he “gathered” after making his move.  What do I mean by gather?

Dwight Howard has one of the quickest big man spin moves I have ever seen.  However, when he comes out of that spin move notice that he hesitates and allows the defense to get back to him, negating the effect the spin move has.  He was still able to convert on this play because of his size advantage over Rasheed Wallace.  This was the only time that Dwight did it in game 2.  Let’s go back to game 1 and look at some of his moves against Kendrick Perkins (A game where he really struggled).
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The one thing you are guaranteed to hear when you listen to someone talk about the Jazz-Lakers series is the word “length.”  Rightfully so, the Lakers have 3 seven-footers on their roster while the Jazz are playing most of the time with two undersized Power Forward’s on the court.  This size disadvantage is really presenting the Jazz with some problems, most importantly, they are struggling to finish at the rim.  Especially because Mehmet Okur isn’t there to pull a big away from the basket.  This means that the Lakers’ big men are allowed to just sit in the lane against the Jazz.  As Kevin Arnovitz tweeted last night, the Jazz missed 20 shots in the paint in the first half of Game 2.  So what are the Jazz bigs doing wrong?  What can the Jazz do when they get the ball in the paint?  Let’s take a look:

Why They Got Blocked

Bringing The Ball Down

Big guys in the paint are taught not to bring the ball down when they make the catch the day they start playing basketball, that is how important it is.  Usually though, you don’t want to bring it down because you don’t want the smaller players to be able to get their hands on the basketball.  Another reason (which is why it is important in this context) is it allows for shot-blockers to gather and get in position to block the shot.

As the pass gets made to Boozer, look at how high he makes the catch.  If he just takes it straight from there, he would be able to get the ball at the rim before any of the bigs can alter the shot.

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With the Bobcats down 1 (with 22 seconds left) and needing a win to clinch a spot in the playoffs, you knew that Larry Brown would draw up something special.  As the Bobcats came out of the timeout, you just had a feeling that they were going to run something good.  Even if they missed, Larry Brown was going to take this possession seriously, if only to work on late game situations for the playoffs:

As the ball gets handed to Stephen Jackson, Boris Diaw quickly turns and puts his defender on his back to receive the basketball.  This is the second time in two days we have seen this, and I think we are going to be seeing this more often, especially if you are confident with how your PF handles the basketball.  Why risk a 5 second violation running a play when you can quickly get it to your PF and run a play from there (its a given that you are talking about a situation where there is time on the clock.  If there is 1 or 2 seconds left, teams won’t be doing this).

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Note:  This isn’t really a breakdown, more of a rant

Fighting for their playoff lives, the Houston Rockets were down 4 points with 1:06 seconds left.  Their opponent the L.A. Clippers just pulled down an offensive rebound and bring the ball upcourt:

Now, it is obvious that the Clippers are trying to kill some clock here, and they effectively do.  20 valuable seconds come off the clock before Baron Davis hits his jumper.  This brings up something that has always bothered me when it comes down to coaches strategy, why don’t NBA teams foul earlier when they are losing (not counting the Hack-a-Shaq)?  The Rockets don’t foul in this situation, but they aren’t the only one, most teams in the NBA won’t foul here, and I think it’s silly.  In my opinion, when you are down by more than 1 possession with a minute left you want to extend the game as long as you can, and one way to do that is you foul.

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Against the Memphis Grizzlies, the New Jersey Nets erased a 21 point 1st half lead and actually had the game pretty close towards the end of the third quarter.  The Nets ended up losing the game in part because of two mistakes I see NBA teams make a lot.  The first is not using the foul to give, or using it way too early.  The the is going for the steal in a situation where you need to foul.  Now these might seem like small mistakes that just happen, but if you make them in critical situations, then they can cost you the game.  Let’s use the Nets’ game as an example:

Now, the video starts when Devin Harris takes the foul to give with 6.9 seconds left in the third quarter.  This is after he hit a jumper to cut the Grizzlies lead down to two points (After they were down 16 to start the half).  The Grizzlies re-enter the ball, and end up scoring as time runs out.  Yes, the foul is early, but the biggest problem here is where the foul takes place, right around half court.  Mike Conley isn’t a threat out there, so if Devin Harris was to allow him to dribble it down to the three point line or deeper in, it could have taken another 2 to 3 seconds off the clock.  The mistake ended up giving the Grizzlies a two point lead and taking away all the momentum from New Jersey.  Memphis also scored the first basket of the fourth quarter, so you had a 2 point game quickly jump back up to a 6 point game because of the foul.

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The Lakers-Nuggets game was a great game to watch, and with each team having a lot of players who can operate in the post you had a lot of post up opportunities.  This forced both teams to defend players posting up a good chunk of the game, and both teams did a very good job of it.

The first example comes from J.R. Smith when Kobe Bryant tries to post him in transition:

As Lamar Odom brings the ball up, Kobe takes J.R. Smith right into the middle of the lane, sealing him in the paint, and then calling for the ball.

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Every once in a while, we take a break out from breaking down possessions to look at some fundamentals.  Late in the Clippers-Bobcats game last night, you had two very similar plays happen back-to-back.  Both teams had their respective point guard attacking the basket with help coming over.  The Clippers scored on their possession while the Bobcats didn’t.  The reason?  Baron Davis stayed under control while D.J. Augustin got caught in the air.

We are going to first look at Baron’s play that happens with under a minute left and the Clippers up 2:

After dribbling the shot-clock down until there was 10 seconds left, Baron Davis starts to attack the basket.  Baron’s defender (Raymond Felton) is playing far too close to him, and this allows Baron to get around him.

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The three point contest on All-Star Saturday brings 6 of the best three point shooters in the NBA (and one of the best shooters in the history of the game, depending on who you believe), and I think this contest is the perfect chance to break down some shooting forms.

Despite every shooter in the NBA having a different shooting form, there are four basic things that should be the same (and that are the same among the best shooters in the NBA). They are the hands, the lower body, the follow through, and the landing.  I thought it would be interesting to put these shooters side by side, and break down their shots at these four points.

The Hands

Hand positioning – Hand positioning is key because this is where your rotation comes from (maybe my favorite part of the three point contest is watching the competitors shoot the money ball.  Seeing the almost perfect rotation is fun to watch).  Rotation is important on your shot because this is what helps a shooter get some good bounces.  I am sure everyone has heard of the saying “shooters roll.”  Well if you think about it, this is only said about good shooters, and this is because they put the proper rotation on the ball.

As you can see, all of the players hand positioning is basically the same.  You have the right hand right in the middle of the basketball, and the left on the side, supporting it. Cook’s form is a little funky (he takes his left hand off the ball super-early), but he still has his right hand in the center of the basketball, so it works.   The only shooter who doesn’t have the right hand positioning is Channing Frye.  His left hand is too much on top of the basketball, and his right isn’t in the center of the ball.  The result can be seen in Frye’s rotation.  Instead of the perfect end over end rotation you usually see, Frye’s balls have a side-winding type of rotation, with the ball going end over end, but it also spins from right to left.

Release Point – Now everyone’s release points here are different, but that is ok as long as the hands are in the right spots.  I just thought it was interesting to look at how the taller guys (Danilo Gallinari and Channing Frye) have higher release points.  This helps get their shots off, because if they keep it high, nobody contesting the shot would ever be able to block it.

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Last night the Minnesota Timberwolves and Charlotte Bobcats were locked in a tight game.  The Timberwolves were up 1 with under 10 seconds left, and they were able to get the shot they want (a Boris Diaw 21 footer), however the rebound bounces off two Timberwolves and heads out of bounds.  This is where Cory Brewer does something you are taught not to do in high school:

He save the ball under his own basket.  Now, you can’t knock the hustle that Corey Brewer shows here, but there are other options he has.  Instead of throwing it blindly underneath his own he could throw it away from the basket, into the corner (where there was a teammate).  With around 5 seconds left, he can also just heave it as far as he can down the court and hope that time runs out (I understand this might have been difficult to do based on his body position).

His final option is eating the basketball and taking it out of bounds with him.  Now that doesn’t sound like a smart idea, but think about it, would you rather set up your defense to try to get another stop or would you rather keep the ball in bounds as two of your teammates are falling out of bounds?  By eating the basketball and going out of bounds with it, he is putting his team in a better position to win.

Now, here is another example.  This is from the Nets-Celtics game last week:

The ball gets saved by Devin Harris as he is going out of bounds.  By saving the ball on his own end like that, he is basically taking himself out of the play, and the Celtics are able to use this to get a wide open back-breaking jump shot..