On Sunday afternoon against the Heat, Rajon Rondo had his way with the Miami Heat defense en route to his fifth triple-double of the season. It was hard not to notice him as he did it either. Multiple Celtic possessions featured Rondo galloping into the paint unmolested, a trend that helped a rather pedestrian Boston offense suddenly look invincible despite the absence of Ray Allen.

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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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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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?

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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.

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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:

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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.