Bucks vs. Mavs

With 0.3 seconds left, the Bucks were holding onto a 2 point lead.  Here, there is just enough time for a catch and shoot, but more than likely the opposing team would be running a play right at the rim:

As the ball gets to the trigger man, J.R. Giddens gets a staggered double screen set for him from the two Dallas Mavericks’ bigs.  These screens are set so Giddens can curl around the screens and get freed up by at least one of the screens.

As this takes place, Dominique Jones flashes from the weak-side block to the ball side corner.  His defender, Dominic James, stays attached to his hip and follows him into the corner.  Now, we have talked about Jones lack of a jump shot, so there is no real reason to follow him into the corner.  James’ best bet would have been to let Jones run to the corner uncontested and stay in the paint to defend any lob.

With James running into the corner, the weak-side is completely left undefended by the Bucks.  Larry Sanders is covering a Mavs’ big man setting a screen.  He is right on his hip instead of being in help position, another mistake.

With the ball in the air, Sanders seems to see what is up, and he tries to recover to J.R. Giddens, who is cutting to the basket undefended.

Giddens makes the catch at the rim and hits the buzzer-beater, sending the game into overtime.  Here is the play in real time:

Bucks vs. Grizzlies

The next game, the Bucks were faced with yet another late game situation.  This time, there was .7 seconds left for the Grizzlies to try and win the game.  It’s funny, the Grizzlies come out in a similar set that the Mavs used a day earlier.  The one difference is that instead of the three ball-side players being in a straight line, you have two players bunched next to each other with another in the block.

As the basketball gets handed to the trigger man, both players (one big man and one guard) start towards the block at the same time.

As the big man stops and sets a screen in the middle of the lane, the guard cuts to the corner off a screen being set.  At the same time, Sam Young takes a few steps to the corner and then quickly changes directions, flashing to the top of the key off of the screen that is being set in the middle of the lane.  His defender, DeMarcus Nelson bites hard on the flash to the corner and runs himself out of position.

Sam Young is now running to the top of the key with nobody near him.  Not only is this important because he will be able to get up an uncontested shot, but because he is so wide open he can turn into the ball before making the catch.  While this doesn’t sound like a big deal, it saves valuable tenths of a seconds in a late-game situation like this.  Another thing to look at is the man defending the inbounder, Deron Washington.  Washington is doing a good job being active and taking away the pass to the corner, but that isn’t where the ball is going, and he leaves the passing lane to Sam Young wide open.

Sam Young makes the catch, rises, and fires before the Bucks can get someone to close out on him.  Here is the play in real time:

In case you didn’t know, Jones lead the Big East in scoring last year with an average of 21.4 points per game.  Most of his points came from attacking the rim.  After watching the Mavericks’ first summer league game, it is apparent that ability to get to the rim is going to translate to the NBA:

Jones makes the catch on the wing and attacks the lane through the middle of the court.  Initially, his defender cuts him off, but Jones makes a strong quick crossover.  My favorite part about the crossover is how his defender reaches, but Jones is so strong, he just discards the reach in and continues to the basket.

Again, Jones makes a catch on the wing.  This time, instead of a pump fake, Jones jab-steps towards the middle, getting his man to lean.  This opens up the baseline, and Jones takes it.  Instead of putting up a weak floater, Jones jumps directly into the help defender’s chest and finishes a lay-in.  A move like this is important, because when you jump into your defender’s chest like this you either force the foul, or you prevent the defender from getting good elevation and that keeps him from blocking your shot.

Jones’ strength was also on display in transition.  Here, the defense tries to take the foul and prevent the easy lay-up.  Jones just powers through it and finish.

Jones’ just doesn’t finish at the rim either, as he showed a pretty nice feel for finding the open teammate when driving the basketball:

This time when Jones drives, the defense collapses on him. Instead of forcing it, Jones kicks it out to his teammate for an open three.

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So why did Dominique Jones drop all the way down to 25 in the draft?  Because nobody is really confident in Jones’ ability to do anything else with the basketball.

Jump Shot

Dominique Jones doesn’t really have a good feel for his outside shot.  He shot only 31% from three, with over 150 attempts (this is important because the college three point line is where most guys get their long two point jump shot attempts from in the pros), and shot just 75% from the foul line.  Eventually teams are going to back off of Jones and force him to take jumpers.  In the game today against the Nuggets, he took only one outside shot, and missed it:

From what I see here (yes, I realize it is only one attempt), it seems like Jones isn’t comfortable catching and shooting. He doesn’t catch it in rhythm like you see most shooters do (By in rhythm, I mean you time your step into the shot to be finished right when you make the catch, so you can rise up and shoot). Here, Jones makes the catch THEN takes that little timing step. Just that little thing can throw off your shot.

Pick And Roll

The way the NBA works now is that if you handle the basketball (whether at the PG or SG position), you are going to be running the pick and roll a fair amount of the time.  With the ball in his hands, Dominique Jones looked uncomfortable running the pick and roll today: