#5 Opp FG% (43.4%)
#5 Opp PPG (91.3)
#4 Def Rating (97.1)
#3 Opp TO (16.6)
#3 Steals (8.8)
#1 Opp Rebs (39.3)

Miami’s performance in the playoffs thus far has been no different. Although the sample size is only three games, even the most novice of basketball minds can see that the Heat have completely shut down New York’s offensive attack. This one possession in Game 3 personifies Miami’s entire attitude towards team defense.

To begin this defensive possession, all five Miami defenders have their eyes on the ball while simultaneously taking away any logical passing lane. Offensively, the Knicks attempt a slot pick and roll with Anthony and Chandler. This will be the only concrete offensive decision that the Knicks will make as Miami’s defense will control the rest of the possession.

Bosh calls to “tight zone” the screen. This means that he is going to contain the ball handler’s dribble while his teammate (Battier) will go over the top of the screener and cause ball pressure from the backside. Battier’s backside ball pressure eliminates any possibility for a retreat dribble by Anthony which forces him to drive into Bosh’s containment.

On Anthony’s drive, Chalmers stunts at him to give Anthony the illusion that three Miami defenders are guarding him. Bosh is still in his “tight zone” containment and is taking away any direct passing lanes to the screener Chandler who has now rolled to the basket. Wade has shifted over to jam Chandler’s roll. Wade has not fully committed to jamming Chandler’s roll because he knows he is guarding a “Dead 3” in 2011-12 regular season 3-point shooting leader Steve Novak (47.2% according to NBA.com). Wade is in a prime position to do two things: to make a play on the ball if Anthony passes to Chandler in the lane or meet Novak on the catch if Anthony decides to make a skip pass across the court. With his speed and quick lateral explosion, LeBron James has both the right passing lane of Novak and the left passing lane of J.R. Smith covered. With all of his options taken away, Anthony is forced to make the “safe” pass to Baron Davis in the corner.

On Davis’ catch, Chalmers immediately takes away any possibility for a drive to the middle of the floor and funnels Davis down the baseline into Miami’s helpside defense. As you can now see, Wade has sealed down which takes away a direct pass to Chandler at the rim. Wade keeps his right hand in the small of Chandler’s lower back so he can release himself freely from the seal down if there is a skip pass to the “Dead 3” Novak on the left wing.

Because of Bosh’s great helpside defense and Anthony bringing his man to the ball (Battier), Davis is forced to throw a tough pass over three defenders that Novak has to jump to catch. Even though Wade was already prepared to release on his seal down, this semi-arid pass gives Wade a couple more tenths of a second to closeout on Novak.

Miami’s quick defensive rotations are now forcing the Knicks to play at a frantic pace. On the catch, Novak quickly reverses the ball to J.R. Smith. Anthony decides to lift to his primary scoring area of choice, the pinch post. Like the Heat have been doing all series long with Anthony in the pinch post, Battier immediately fronts him. Making the accurate read, Smith throws the pass over-the-top of Battier’s front. Miami defenders still have their eyes on the ball.

On Anthony’s catch, Bosh is there to meet him on his baseline side. With 5 seconds left on the shot clock, Miami has their first miscue of the defensive possession. Wade and Chalmers aren’t clear in their communication. With Wade preoccupied on the “Dead 3” Novak and Chalmers wanting to get back to his original defensive match-up of Davis, they both leave Tyson Chandler wide open at the basket. But because of the intense ball pressure by Battier/Bosh, Anthony’s back is turned to the basket therefore he can’t see Chandler at the rim.

Double teamed and with the shot clock counting down in his head, Anthony takes one dribble and throws an overhead skip pass to Davis on the left wing. As you can see, before Davis’ even catches the ball, Wade’s consistent preoccupation with Novak kicks in again and is about to pay off. Wade has already anticipated Davis’ next pass to Novak in the corner and has begun to sprint towards him.

On Novak’s catch; look at Dwyane Wade’s stance. He is so low and tight into Novak’s body that there is absolutely no way Novak can get his legs into his shot. This forces Novak to commit a cardinal offensive sin…

Feeling Wade’s intense defensive pressure, Novak places the ball above his head. This is a huge mistake. With the ball above his head, Novak’s core is expanded vertically. This takes away any strength he might have had to make a basketball move. Wade rises up slightly out of his stance, continues to shadow the ball with his hands, and uses the sideline as an extra defender. Succumbing to the smothering Heat, Novak falls out of bounds as the shot clock expires.

Here’s the possession in real time:

With more defensive efforts like this, a championship may be on the horizon for the Heat.

To say that Ibaka has been putting on a basket denying clinic this past season would be a severe understatement. Ibaka’s 3.7 blocks per game average is the highest we have seen in the NBA since Theo Ratliff in 2000-01 season. Ibaka’s dominance of that category has been so thorough that the next closest player (Javale McGee) trails him by a difference of 1.5 bpg. Not since the 1984-85 season when Hakeem Olajuwon trailed Mark Eaton by 2.9 bpg have we seen such a discrepancy between the top two shot blockers in the league (Eaton set the NBA mark with 5.6 bpg that year).

With Ibaka’s impeccable timing, high defensive acumen and freakish athleticism, there is no question why he won the NBA’s shot-blocking title this season. Also, unlike other young shot blockers, Ibaka takes the Bill Russell approach of trying to keep the ball inbounds whenever he gets his hands on it. This creates more transition scoring opportunities for two of the best fast-break finishers in the league in Westbrook and Durant. His production this year was one of the reasons that the Thunder sat atop the Western Conference standings for much of the regular season.

So what makes him so successful in the art of shot blocking? Let’s take a look at the types of blocks and how Ibaka excels at them.

1. Weakside Rotations

Most elite defenders sacrifice proper team defensive position in order to make a big, defensive play. Gambling is a part of playing defense, but just like in Vegas, you have to know when to pick your spots or you will get busted out.

In this clip vs. the Nuggets (4/25/12), while guarding Faried on the left block, Ibaka does a good job loading over to a rolling Javale McGee on the ball screen.

On the skip pass, Ibaka shifts back to put himself in a defensive position where he can see Faried, the opposite post-up and the ball all while simultaneously moving himself out of the paint to avoid an illegal defense call.

On the post feed, Ibaka now only has to focus on two things, his man and the ball. He watches McGee attempt to baseline quick-spin/counter middle Kendrick Perkins. Perkins does a great job of “walling up” which forces McGee to kill his live dribble. The moment McGee kills his dribble; Ibaka sprints over for the weakside block.

2. Walling Up

Given their height and length, every post defender at all levels is taught to “wall up” when guarding or helping on an offensive player who has killed his live dribble. This is done in an effort to avoid a cheap foul and to also force the offensive player to make a difficult shot over outstretched hands. Ibaka uses his 7’4 wingspan to his advantage in this shot blocking technique as well as anybody not named Tyson Chandler in the NBA.

In this game vs. the Clippers (4/16/12), Ibaka does a good job of showing on the ball screen set by Kenyon Martin. This show causes Chris Paul to have to flatten out his dribble.

When CP3 flattens out his dribble, he calls for another ball screen from the 5 (DeAndre Jordan). Perkins recognizes this and communicates the switch to Ibaka.

Jordan never gets a chance to set a good screen, so the Thunder posts can stay with their current switched matchups. On the retreat back down to Jordan on the left block, Ibaka puts himself in a position where he can see the ball, his man and the opposite corner. When Chris Paul makes a great bounce pass to Randy Foye in the right corner, Sefolosha is slow to react which forces Ibaka’s help on Foye’s drive. Recognizing that he has a huge size advantage and that Foye killed his live dribble early, Ibaka walls up which leads to an easy block and a shot clock violation by the Clippers.

3. Multiple Efforts

Versus the Lakers (4/22/12), Ibaka does a great job of knowing their personnel by being prepared to jump to the next logical pass when Kobe Bryant is funneled to the short corner and remaining disciplined on his close out to the shot-fake happy Pau Gasol.

On the short corner feed to Andrew Bynum, Ibaka waits until Bynum picks up his dribble on the baseline spin move to leave his feet for the 1st block.

With his head completely under the net, Ibaka has enough athleticism to keep his balance and recognizes that Devin Ebanks got the offensive rebound and is about to lay it up. Ibaka explodes for the 2nd block keeping the ball inbounds the entire possession.

4. Confrontation

Every great shot blocker has been dunked on. That is the price you pay when you challenge elite athletes at the rim. But when your primary rim protector makes a huge block during a mid-air confrontation, it can ignite your team. In this game vs. Nuggets, Ibaka displays his fearlessness with a play on Corey Brewer’s drive to the basket.

On this side out of bounds, the Nuggets lift the 5 (Al Harrington) to the right elbow in an effort to catch OKC sleeping on a back door to the 2 (Ty Lawson). When that doesn’t work, the 1 (Andre Miller) reverses the ball to the 4 (Danilo Gallinari) on the left wing for a dribble hand off (DHO) to the 3 (Corey Brewer) lifting from the deep left corner. On the DHO, Brewer catches Sefolosha sliding a step behind his offensive momentum and executes a quick pocket cross over.

After the crossover, Gallinari pins (illegally) Daequan Cook behind him so Brewer only sees daylight on his straight line drive to the basket.

Because Al Harrington has stretched to the short corner, Ibaka has to make a decision to leave an above average jump shooter (39.5% on Overall Spot Ups according to Synergy Sports Technology) or help to stop the ball. Almost always, the leading rim protector will choose to step up to stop the ball and it helps that Derek Fisher is in Corey Brewer’s logical passing lane if he did decide to dump off to Al Harrington for the short corner jumper. Even though Brewer elevates way before him, Ibaka still makes a big-time defensive play while keeping the ball in-bounds.

5. Half Court Chase Down

The 5th and final way to successfully block a shot is no doubt the most difficult. More than likely, when a post player has to chase down a block in the half court, he or his teammates probably made a mistake in the assigned defensive scheme. This was the case in the Thunder’s first game of the 2012 Playoffs vs. the Mavericks (4/28/12), but nevertheless Ibaka made up for his teammate’s miscue.

On this 4-5 ball screen, Nick Collison’s man Brendan Wright sets a right wing ball screen on a great shooter in Dirk Nowitzki. Ibaka again recognizing personnel knows he can’t go under the screen because Dirk is a great 3-point shooter. Collison initially looks like he is going to zone/down the ball handler.

When Dirk recognizes how extremely far off the other three Thunder defenders are off from the midline, he picks up his dribble. This causes Collison to switch completely onto Dirk which opens up a passing lane for Dirk to deliver the ball to Wright.

After a subtle push off from Wright, Ibaka notices he is about a step and half behind Wright when Dirk releases the ball. Although he has both heels on the charging semi-circle, Daequan Cook attempting to take a charge forces Wright to have to open up his shoulders on his left-handed layup attempt. This is just the little space Ibaka needs to come in and erase two points.

There are five ways to block a shot and Ibaka has mastered them all. For the Thunder to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy this June, Ibaka will need to showcase that mastery all postseason long.

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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Whether he is twisting in the air or wrapping the ball around the hip of an oncoming defender, Nash, is one of the most imaginative passers in the history of the game. It is this type of creativity ultimately leads to him attempt insanely brilliant passes that mere mortals would never even see available to them. Last night in their comeback win, the Heat managed to use this trait against him.

For most of the night, Nash found passing lanes either closing quickly or hard to find. One could guess that head coach Erik Spoelstra had reminded his players to constantly be active with their hands up in passing lanes, which for Nash, is any opening he can squeeze the ball through. Heat defenders guarding the pick and rolls especially, were more active with their hands than most teams have been with Nash all year. One play in particular foreshadowed what was to be a rather rough night for the two-time MVP.

Early in the first quarter, Nash and Gortat engage in a middle ball screen that allows Nash to drive left along the lane. An undisciplined, non-Spoelstra prepared defense would normally collapse around Nash’s penetration and Gortat’s dive toward the rim. On a play like this, Nash normally will be able to find a shooter filling behind the action. Against the Heat, however, he found a turnover.

Individual credit must be given to Mario Chalmers for his on-ball work as well. Chalmers has developed as one of the most devastating on-ball defenders in the league. Nash found Chalmers quick and active hands a nuisance for much of the night.

So there you have it. To frustrate Steve Nash you need to combine a detailed and disciplined defensive coach with a team full of athletic players who just so happen to be among the top on-ball defenders at their position. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?

The pieces outside Rudy Gay, Mike Conley and Marc Gasol aren’t exactly equipped to light up scoreboards. The rest of the surrounding personnel in Memphis probably could be best described as “athletic” more than anything else. Jeremy Pargo, Quincy Pondexter, Tony Allen and Sam Young compromise a group that lacks polished basketball skills but can certainly fly around the floor, particularly on the defensive end. Perhaps that is why, last night, Lionel Hollins threw a small twist at the Jazz; he pressed.

At the start of the second quarter, the Grizzlies pressed the Jazz for back to back possessions with mixed results. In the first possession, coming right at the start of the quarter, a Grizzlies unit Pargo, Pondexter, Gasol, OJ Mayo and Dante Cunningham forced a 24-second violation on the Utah. Make sure to note the time in which the Jazz finally were able to settle into their offense after working hard to get the ball up the floor.

With only 14 seconds left on the clock, the combination of Utah’s lack of flex set and poor clock awareness led to a wasted possession. However, the next time the Jazz inbounded under their own basket, they handled the pressure much better and the result was two foul shots for Paul Millsap. The key to Millsap’s layup attempt came early from a blown coverage during the initial trap.

Take a look:

After this, Hollins called off the dogs outside of a few token man pressures from time to time. But this series brings up a more interesting point. To help make up for their woeful offense, and perhaps find more rest for the overworked trio of Gay, Conley and Gasol, should the Grizzlies press more?

Memphis could trot out a designed pressing lineup of Pargo, Allen, Pondexter, Young (if healthy) and either Cunningham or Hamed Haddadi for 3-4 minute stretches to perhaps confuse wear down an opponent. Unlike high school or college, the press’ goal wouldn’t be to turn the other team over. At the NBA level, there are too many composed ball handlers for that to happen with any consistency. The press would have three distinct goals:

- Wear the opponent down for the final quarter
- Shorten their operating time in the half-court
- Allow more rest time for Gasol, Gay and Conley without completely sacrificing the minutes due to playing non-productive players

(To elaborate on point three a bit more, a struggling player like Pondexter or Pargo has a bigger negative effect on the team when employed for long stretches in their standard scheme. However, when employed with a bigger purpose that doesn’t show up on a stat sheet, their negative impact is minimized justifying them being on the floor for more minutes.)

It’s a certainty the Pargo-Allen-Pondexter-Young-Haddadi/Cunningham group would be a trainwreck offensively, but Memphis could simply look to run at every opportunity and use some basic dribble-drive concepts when stuck in the half-court. Again, this lineup would only be on the floor for brief stretches and, if they accomplish their intended goals, punting offense during this time wouldn’t be a total killer.

The final upside is that by using Allen in this role if could switch up the substitution pattern in a way that allows a much better shooter (Mayo) to be on the floor with Gay, Conley and Gasol during crucial stretches. And let’s face it, those three could use the operating room. With eleven teams competing for eight spots, the Grizzlies should explore any avenue they can in order to stay in the thick of the playoff race.

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Early in the first quarter, the Grizzlies run a pick and roll with (essentially) roll-replace action in the middle of the floor. Rudy Gay, handling the ball, comes off a Mareese Speights screen driving right. Marc Gasol stays high on the weakside wing in a position that theoretically should force his defender, Kevin Garnett, to either stay with him and leave the roll man open or jam the roll man and leave Gasol open.

Gay’s read is based off either of those two options. Garnett, being crafty as ever on that end of the floor, does a great job of stunting help the roll man before jumping back into Gasol’s passing lane. He times it so well that Gay gets confused in his read and throws the ball away.

The next clip will make all those high school coaches that blast the NBA for a lack of fundamentals happy. The Grizzlies run a simple isolation post up for Gasol near the left elbow. Due to Gasol’s skills as a passer and Memphis’ inability to stretch the floor with shooters, the Grizzlies run a lot of cutting action off Gasol’s post ups.

As Mike Conley enters the ball in, he immediately basket cuts low well Sam Young, located in the weakside corner, cuts hard toward the middle of the paint. Ray Allen shows off his commitment to Celtics defense by fighting through a screen to bump Young’s cut through the paint. Allen’s effort to not let Young cut across his face for an easy basket leads to a much more suitable result for the C’s defense. Instead of a possible lay-up, Speights cuts toward the foul line and fires a tough, fading jumper that is contested by both Pierce and Garnett.

In the middle of the third quarter, the Celtics have yet another great defensive possession fueled by smart, effort plays. It all starts with Paul Pierce working hard to jam Rudy Gay curling off a Conley screen. Gay’s cut is what is called false action, a basketball maneuver executed to free up a teammate for the real action in the set.

In this case, Gay is meant to tight curl toward the rim to force Rajon Rondo, Conley’s defender, to help off on him. If Rondo is forced to help off deep, Conley will be able to come off a ball screen with Gasol with much more freedom. However, thanks to Pierce working hard to get tight to Gay, Rondo doesn’t barley has to commit to help and can effectively recover to the next action.
Pierce, however, isn’t the only one working hard on this part of the play. The freeze frame shows Jermaine O’Neal with hounding ball pressure on Gasol. This ball pressure not only eliminates Gasol hitting Gay late on the curl, but also increases the Rondo’s recovery time due to the difficulty of what should be a simple pass to Conley on the wing (pay attention to bad defensive teams, things like this pass and follow will be totally uncontested).

Rondo does a great job of throwing his hands in the air after getting through the Gasol screen. His length likely disrupts any ideas of Conley quickly threading a pass to Gasol before O’Neal recovers. The end result of this possession is a long contested two by Speights in the short corner.

The final video is more of the same effort and execution from the C’s. Early in the possession, Gasol slips out of a potential ball screen and dives hard toward the rim. This time, Boston rookie JuJuan Johnson has to jam his dive toward the basket. Conley notices this and hits trail big, Dante Cunningham with a pass near the midline. Nearly 40 feet from the rim, Cunningham is obviously a non-shooting threat, so the fact that his defender (Johnson) is stuck near the paint shouldn’t matter.

However, Cunningham smartly passes to Gay on the wing to tries to execute a ball screen in which Johnson, sucked deep toward the foul line, would be unable to get a good hedge. Johnson, indoctrinated in this defense-first system, makes sure to sprint up to the screen and still hedge hard, forcing Gay toward half-court. Any movement away from the basket like this, in the shot-clock era of basketball especially, is a win for the defense.

Gay changes direction after coming off the screen and attacks the rim going left. Johnson smartly gets back in front to force Gay into a tough runner. Johnson’s help leaves Cunningham alone near the rim with great rebounding position. Avery Bradley, however, quickly moves from his help position on the wing to slam into Cunningham near the rim in effort to keep him off the glass as Gay’s shot goes up. His box out allows Garnett to have an angle to grab the board and end the possession.

By climbing all the way up to the second spot in Hollinger’s defensive efficiency rankings, the C’s have appeared to have turned their season around. But given that this run has come against a string of teams currently residing in the bottom half of the league’s offensive rankings, it’s fair to ponder if Celtics are still a legitimate threat come playoff time. Will this defense built on discipline, effort and execution allow the Boston to compete when facing Miami, Chicago or even Philadelphia in a seven game series? We’ll have to wait and see.

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In yesterday’s match up, the latest twist in strategy came with Tom Thibodeau deployed a zone for a handful of possession starting in the middle of the first quarter. While this move was most likely meant to help Derrick Rose avoid picking up a debilitating third foul, it could be tool the Bulls use again come playoff time. The question of whether or not they use it is something that remains to be seen, but both teams now have the tape to assess whether not it will be effective and to what degree.

Before diving into the film, it’s important to review what exactly a zone does to opponent’s game preparation. Depending on its effectiveness, a scheme change like a zone can take anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes of a given practice, walk-through and/or film session to countering it. That doesn’t seem like much. But remember, in a lockout-afflicted season teams (like the Heat) have precious little practice time to perfect their own schemes, let alone react to another team’s.

If a team consistently struggles against a certain scheme then that 10-40 minutes can blow up to over 3-5 hours of practice/film/walk-throughs over the duration of a playoff series (assuming that coach wants his team to be prepared). That is time a team could spend refining their own concepts, adding new wrinkles or simply use to let their players rest their worn-down bodies. With that logic, it seems like the perfect idea for the Bulls to trot out even a marginally effective zone against the Heat, right?

When looking at the numbers, it would appear to be a no-brainer. By unofficial count, the Bulls limited Miami to 5 points over 6 possessions (0.83 PPP). Obviously, six possessions is a ridiculously small sample size. That is where the film comes into play and when looking at that, the answer becomes much less clear.

The first time we see the zone is off a sideline out-of-bounds with 3:03 left in the first quarter. LeBron James enters the ball into Mario Chalmers who quickly swings the ball to Shane Battier on the left wing. Battier reverses the ball back to Chalmers then (perhaps unintentionally) cuts along the baseline with Udonis Haslem back to the strongside of the floor.

As James’ catches on the right wing, Ronnie Brewer drops to defend both cutters, giving up a gap in the zone. LeBron, employing a basic tenant of attacking zones, punches that gap with his dribble, flattening out the defense and forcing two defenders to the ball. On the collapse, James executes a brilliant hook pass to Chalmers spotting up on the weakside wing. The result is a semi-contested 3-pointer (Chalmers could have easily used a shot-fake, one-dribble pull up attack for a cleaner look, however).

Here is the video:

On the surface, it looks as if the Bulls forced a tough shot, but in all reality Chalmers just didn’t exploit a long closeout by Hamilton efficiently enough. The next clip is a bit of a mirage as well.

Norris Cole ends up setting a screen inside the top on ball defender (Rose). James uses the ball screen to pull Hamilton high toward him. Seeing Haslem flashing middle, James threads a pass through the gap. However, Haslem doesn’t hold his position long enough and looks to change space, leaving James’ pass to find only Joakim Noah.

Even though this lead to a run out and layup for Chicago, Miami was in a great position had Haslem just used a bit more patience. In the following picture, you’ll see that if Haslem catches the ball in that spot, the Bulls defense is extremely vulnerable. Not only does he have the space to immediately shoot a foul line jumper, but Haslem can look to go high-low with Eddy Curry (if Noah rotates up) or find Shane Battier (if Boozer rotates) hunting space either behind the defense or cutting up to the opposite wing.

Upon further inspection, this turnover is an easily correctable mistake. Perhaps this concept and alignment will be something that Spolestra uses should the Bulls zone them again.

The other things zones are notorious for giving up our offensive rebounds. In one possession, the Bulls actually gave up two offensive rebounds and only escaped due to a botched putback attempt by Haslem. In the following clip, a freeze-frame highlights a blockout dilemma for Kyle Korver.

With Noah and Carlos Boozer moving to contest a shot from the corner, Korver is left to try to fend off two Heat players (Battier and Mike Miller) coming in from the weakside for the rebound. Korver chooses to throw his body in front of the hard-charging Miller, which opens up a gap for Haslem (left unimpeded by Rose) to sneak in for the third shot attempt. Haslem misses a great chance, but this possession highlights the rebounding problems zones bring.

With two more match-ups on the docket in the regular season, it will be interesting to see how much (if any) zone is used by Chicago. Perhaps last night was a one-time thing centered around a need to protect Rose given his foul trouble. Or perhaps it was a chance for Thibodeau to see if a zone has a chance to slow down the Heat come playoff time. Either way, this chess match will be fun to watch.

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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.