During Wednesday night’s game against the visiting Timberwolves, the Dallas Mavericks received their much-anticipated championship rings for the 2011 season. You don’t often see teams on Ring Night mirror those of the previous season, change always happens. With these 2012 Dallas Mavericks, change is certainly noticeable when looking over at the bench.

Gone is Tyson Chandler, who has taken his talents to the Big Apple this season to try to do for Carmelo Anthony what he did for Dirk Nowitzki. Just to give you an idea of how good Chandler was for the Mavs last year, Chandler finished in the top 1% of overall defense. That is a stat that is sure to make any club much better. Dallas finished last year with a .928 Points-Per-Possession, good enough for eighth in the NBA, according to Synergy Sports. Now, I don’t need to break down all the ways in which Chandler was a major asset to the Mavs, Sebastian Pruiti already did so over on Grantland.com.

The surprising turn of events has been that the Mavericks have been able to reproduce the success defensively this season that they showed last year, only minus Chandler. They are currently forth in the NBA in overall defense, coming in to today with a fantastic .859 PPP. Last season, back-up big men Ian Mahinmi played a small role on the team, accounting for only 12% of total minutes according to 82games.com. This year with Chandler gone, Mahinmi is now getting more minutes, his percentage playing time all the way up to 41%. So far, he has used his 6’11 frame to help contribute on his end to fill the shoes of Chandler.

Late in the game on Wednesday night, a game in which Rubio and the Timberwolves attacked the rim and got to the free throw line 33 times, they tried to again get to the paint create havoc. In this play, Mahinmi is going to hedge hard on Rubio, almost like a soft-double team, not worrying about the pick and pop from Pekovic.

Mahinmi is able to use his feet well and deter Rubio from thinking of a three-point attempt, then recovers to his man on the roll.

Finally, Mahinmi finishes the job with rolling onto his man, closing off any passing lane Rubio may have towards Pekovic, and contesting any shot that may come from Rubio. The play ends with a turnover as Rubio gets stuck underneath.

Brenden Haywood has also proved to be more than capable in the starting center role, starting every game so far this season. Haywood has always been known for his post-up defense, using his size and strength to keep opposing pivots as far away from the block as possible. A big reason why Dallas is second in the NBA in points in the paint defensively is because of him. 

Here, Haywood uses his strength to move Emeka Okafor off the block just enough that Okafor has to reach for the entry pass, causing Okafor to be off-balance. What Haywood is trying to do is stay body-to-body, letting his strength do the work and if need be, his length to go up and contest the shot or block it.

After letting Okafor try to back his way in deep, Haywood knows that if Okafor goes in either direction, he’s got him. He knows that each way Emeka turns, he’ll already have position on him and be able to make the shot a difficult one.

Haywood gets the block on Okafor that was set up by his being low, staying wide and using his length.

Most Dallas fans knew replacing Chandler wasn’t going to be easy. Until Wednesday night, the Mavs have made it seem so by holding opponents under 100 points for 15 consecutive games, a franchise record. Thanks to both Haywood and Mahinmi men, the Mavs are also currently ranked fourth in opponent FG%. With Dirk out of the line-up for the next week or so, the offense will have to pick up, but the defense is still the key if there is to be another ring ceremony.

Success in the playoffs (especially the Finals) relies more heavily on coaching than the regular season for a number of reasons.  You are seeing the same team over an extended period of time (4 to 7 games), so any adjustment that you make – or don’t make – will be amplified.  With the NBA Finals now completed, I thought it would be interesting to assess the performances of the two head coaches.

Over the course of the entire season, Rick Carlisle did a fantastic job with the Dallas Mavericks.  However, he probably saved his best performance of the season for the NBA Finals.  Here is a look at the decisions that Carlisle made that lead the Mavericks to the NBA title:

Replacing Peja Stojakovic With Brian Cardinal

Going into the series, many people said that the Mavericks were going to have to make a change to their rotation if they wanted to come away with the win.  Sticking to his guns, Carlisle’s rotation in game one was the similar to his rotation during the first three rounds of the playoffs, with Carlisle bringing Peja Stojakovic on the floor when giving Dirk Nowitzki his usual first quarter break.  It didn’t work.

Stojakovic simply looked overmatched on both ends of the court.  On defense, there was nobody for him to match-up with, leaving him stuck on Chris Bosh at times and even LeBron James.  On the offensive end, Miami’s speed when rotating and closing out really bothered Stojakovic’s shot, and when he tried to put the basketball on the floor, it turned into a big mess.  In three games, Stojakovic played 31 minutes for a total +/- of -21.  Maybe the biggest example of Stojakovic’s negative impact is the following game three gameflow picture from the tremendous site PopcornMachine.net.  Whenever Stojakovic went into the ballgame, the Miami Heat went on a run.  It wasn’t a coincidence (click to enlarge):

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When I wrote my series preview, I had thought that the zone was going to play a big factor in this series.  While it was used from time to time during the first five games, it wasn’t played all that often.  The came game six.  The Dallas Mavericks played zone 15 times, including 8 times in the first quarter.  The Heat did fairly well against Dallas’ zone, scoring 17 points on 15 possessions.  Looking at those numbers, it seems like the Mavericks’ zone was a failure.  It wasn’t, and all you need to do is look at the first quarter to prove otherwise.

After a Chris Bosh jumper midway through the first quarter, the Heat stretched their lead to nine, scoring 20 points in the first 5:41 of the game, and putting them on pace to score about 40 points.  Despite the Heat (and especially LeBron James) hitting jumper after jumper, the Dallas Mavericks went zone on the next possession, and played it for the remainder of the quarter.  The Heat scored just 7 points the rest of the quarter.

Possession 1 – LeBron James’ missed lay-up

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If you have ever played organized basketball at any level, you undoubtably heard your coach (no matter how good he is) say something to the effect of:

“Don’t leave your feet unless you know what you are doing with the basketball.”

Your coach was right about that, you never want to jump without knowing what you are going to do with the basketball because it forces you into rushing decisions because you need to let go of the ball before you hit the ground.  Rec league and high school players aren’t the only ones breaking this “rule,” as we saw in the finals, NBA players have a tendency to trust their athletic ability and leave their feet plenty of time:

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In my preview post for SBNation, I talked about Miami’s need to go back to their pick and roll defense where they trapped the basketball after allowing 49 points on 33 pick and rolls in game five (where they really went away from their trapping pick and roll defense).  Miami did just that during game six, trapping 17 of 32 pick and rolls, allowing just eight points on those pick and roll possessions:

On of the main reasons why trapping the pick and roll worked is because it kept the basketball on the perimeter.  On all of those clips, you see the ball handler getting trapped and the only option they really have is to kick the ball out to a man on the outside rather than trying to penetrate or hit the roll man.  The ball gets into the paint a grand total of 0 times on all of those plays.  The one time they try to hit the roll man, they go from Terry to Kidd to Ian Mahinmi instead of going straight to Mahinmi.  The result is a turnover.

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Ever since the Dallas Mavericks introduced their “staggered ball screen” set in game two of the Finals, I have been fascinated with play (and the Heat’s inability to stop it) and have talked about it just about every chance that I have gotten.  Due to my fascination with the play, I have noticed just about every time they have tried to run it.  During game 4 with Brian Cardinal in the game for Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavericks tried to run their staggered ball screen using Cardinal and Chandler as the two screeners.  As you probably guessed, with Cardinal not being the same kind of threat as Nowitzki, the play wasn’t even close to being effective.

Going into game 5 knowing that he needed Brian Cardinal to steal minutes on the court, he came up with a way to make his staggered ball screen effective with Nowitzki on the bench.  The adjustment was effective, leading to 7 points on the 3 possessions where Brian Cardinal was involved in the staggered ball screen:

Jason Terry brings the basketball down the court along the sideline as Brian Cardinal and Tyson Chandler get in position to set the staggered ball screen.  Once both bigs are set, Terry comes back towards the middle of the court, using the ball screens.

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One of the biggest plays of the game took place with about 2:30 seconds left in the game with the Dallas Mavericks leading the Miami Heat by three points.  After a pick and roll for Dwyane Wade, a tremendous cut by LeBron James, and a collision in the restricted area between LeBron James and Tyson Chandler, Joey Crawford made what seemed to be the incorrect call.  However, upon closer examination (and referring to a little known/used rule) we can see that Crawford made the correct call given the situation:

The play starts with Chris Bosh coming up and setting a screen for Dwyane Wade, with Wade actually using the screen.  Off the ball, LeBron James sits in the corner, being covered by Jason Kidd.

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So far this postseason, LeBron James has been one of the best ball handlers in pick and roll situations, posting a PPP (points per possession) of 1.0, ranking him 7th among all players this postseason (2nd among all players with at least 20 PNR possessions).  He’s been better than Dwyane Wade (0.934), J.J. Barea (0.961), and Derrick Rose (0.828) just to name a few.  When you think about it, it makes sense, a player like LeBron James getting coming off of a screen is a scary thought.

However, in game four, James went from being an aggressive force coming off of ball screens to being an extremely passive player, and that really hurt his game (the numbers show that).  According to  Synergy Sports Technology, LeBron James was the ball handler for 12 ball screens, scoring just 6 points (for a PPP of 0.5).  James’ production was cut in half due to his passive play.

One of the biggest problems that I had with LeBron James and his pick and roll play is that he was often dribbling away from the rim when coming off of screens.  Dribbling backwards and not looking to attack.  With the defense not worried about James attacking, it made their rotations everywhere else much easier:

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When the Dallas Mavericks broke out their staggered ball screens in game two, it game the Miami Heat a world of trouble, as they were able to score 8 points in 4 possessions on 75% shooting.  While we didn’t really see the play in game three, the Dallas Mavericks used it again in game four, and it is obvious that the play is still giving the Heat trouble.  In my post about Dallas’ pick and roll adjustment, we saw that the Mavericks ran their double staggered ball screens twice, scoring 5 points.  When rewatching the possessions, you can see that Miami is still searching for a way to stop this set:

The play starts with Dirk Nowitzki and Tyson Chandler setting screens for J.J. Barea.  On this particular possession, the Miami Heat try to hedge off of the second screener (Nowitzki in this case) as Barea’s man (Mario Chalmers) fights over the staggered ball screens.  The problem with hedging off of Nowitzki is that you don’t want to leave him and give him too much space.  So instead of the hard hedges you normally see from Joel Anthony and the Miami Heat, Anthony just steps out in the hopes of keeping Barea from getting around him.

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For much of the first half of game four, both the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks really struggled to score the basketball.  However, for a brief stretch in the second quarter the Heat found themselves a play that worked, and they went to it three straight times, coming away with 6 much needed points.  What was interesting about this set and how Miami used it was that the Heat got three different looks by running the same double cross screen action three times, showing you what a simple, yet effective, set can do to a defense:

The first time the Miami Heat ran their double cross screen set, it came off of a SLOB situation.  The play starts with the ball going Chris Bosh at the top of the key as LeBron James sets up on the elbow.

Once James makes the catch, Dwyane Wade gets a double cross screen set for him, with one screen being set by Mario Chalmers and one screen being set by Joel Anthony.

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