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:
When the Bulls hired Boston Celtic assistant coach Tom Thibodeau, they knew that they are getting one of the best defensive minds in the NBA today. In fact Thibodeau is the man credited for Boston’s top rated defense (according to Synergy, who used Points Per Possession to rank them). However, just because Thibodeau is coming in doesn’t mean that the Bulls defense was terrible last year (they were in fact ranked 8th), and when you think of their roster, it makes sense. You have a big physical and athletic point guard in Derrick Rose, long-athletic wings, and a mobile yet physical big man in Joakim Noah. It’s scary to think about what Thibodeau can do with this roster, and that is without adding LeBron James. What I wanted to do is take a look at some changes the Bulls defense might make with Thibodeau in charge. Specifically the pick and roll.
Surprisingly enough, the Bulls were better/equal to the Celtics when defending the pick and roll (both in terms of defending the ball handler and defending the roll man), according to Synergy (Celtics’ stats in the white and Bulls’ stats in the gray):
Despite the Bulls holding their opponents to a lower points per possession number, the Boston Celtics were able to force more turnovers. Turnovers are important because they allow the team forcing them opportunities to run and get baskets in transition. With the way the Bulls’ roster is currently set up, the more they can get in transition, the better. So what do the Celtics do differently to force all these turnovers?
In Game 6, Kevin Garnett scored 22 points on over 50% shooting. You could shrug your shoulders and say that’s just a great player being great, but you’d be wrong. This one’s on Cavs coach Mike Brown. Mike Brown made an adjustment for Game 6 that resulted directly in Kevin Garnett going off. He took Antawn Jamison off of Kevin Garnett and put Shaquille O’Neal on him. In fairness to Coach Brown, Jamison was getting killed by Garnett on the inside and a switch had to be made. But why Shaq? My guess is that Mike Brown saw Jamison getting punished inside and thought, “Hey Shaq’s big. KG won’t score inside now!” almost forgetting that KG has an outside game.
Realizing the new mismatch, the Celtics went to KG early and he scored 6 of the first 12 Celtics points.
I was reading through TrueHoop’s Monday Bullets, and I came across an article on Corey Brewer and his improved shot. In it, David Thorpe talked about how Brewer improved his shot. Some of it had to do with shot selection, but a lot of it he says, has to do with the lower half of his body:
And on the second part, the mechanical side, Corey was–and sometimes still does–he gets his head and shoulders far in front of his feet when he’s going to shoot, because he’s trying to stay low. But what happens is this: when you catch the ball and then try to stand up quickly, your head goes flying backward, and that’s kicking your legs out in front of you to counter balance your head or you’re going to fall on you back. So you kick your legs out–it’s an unconscious move–and therefore your balance is awful. Because you have poor balance, it’s very hard to have a great mechanic or stroke with your right arm, and it really threw his whole shot out of whack. So I actually talked a lot about–and I know the Wolves have worked him a ton–on just being more balanced and jumping straight up and landing straight down on two legs and not one leg. Not kicking his legs out in front of him, holding that form, and putting his hand to the rim and leading to all sorts of shooting cues that we worked on a lot this summer that we still talk a lot about literally every game day, almost.
This stuff looked familiar because the Nets had their own player struggling with his shot earlier in the year with Courtney Lee. The problem was also in the lower half of his body, and over at NetsAreScorching, I took a look at it in depth:
Once a week, Maurice Brooks updates his MVP award race page over at ESPN. For this week’s edition I was asked to list the top 5 coach of the year candidates and explain why in a sentence:
1. Scott Brooks, Thunder: It’s rare that you get a young team to buy in on the defensive end, but the Thunder have (fifth in defensive efficiency), and it is because of Brooks.
That’s obviously just a small sample, so you should go ahead and check the rest out. There are lists for MVP, Most Improved, Rookie Of The Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and the Sixth Man race.
This week’s edition features a good amount of TrueHoop Network guys; including Royce Young of Daily Thunder, Jared Wade of Eight Points Nine Seconds, Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroyxysm, and Dan Feldman of Pistoned Powered. In my opinion, this really shows off the high quality of writing that is taking place here at the TrueHoop Network.
