In a back and forth game, Golden State winds up with a two point lead and a fresh shot clock thanks to an offensive rebound by Dominic McGuire. With 38 seconds left, the Warrior’s still must try to score so Dorell Wright drives to the rim late only to have his pass tipped by the Sun’s Channing Frye toward fellow Sun, Marcin Gortat. Gortat immediately finds the ageless Steve Nash who begins to the move the ball upcourt. The setting is ripe for possibilities as the two-time MVP dribbles at a backpedaling Warrior’s defense, but all that excitement fades when Phoenix calls for a timeout after advancing past halfcourt.

The play itself has no real influence, but is worth viewing to see the subtle advantage the Suns may have had after the steal. Take a look:

While Phoenix didn’t have a primary break opportunity (or even a numerical edge), the video shows that the Warriors defense was still retreating in transition as the ball crossed the timeline. With Nash being, well, Nash, it seems like anytime he can work with an advantage, he should be allowed to do so. However, even the possibility of a timeout forces Nash to further restrain the break by looking back toward head coach, Alvin Gentry, to see if he does, in fact, want to take one.

It seems like a possible opportunity lost until Gentry conjures up some late-game magic with his whiteboard and black marker. He sets up a sideline out-of-bounds play that calls for Hill to inbound, then quickly downscreen for forward Jared Dudley. Dudley makes the play work by catching off the screening, ripping baseline and engaging Hill’s defender with dribble penetration. Hill uses this advantage to circle behind, attack the rim and, viola, tie game. Check it out:

So Gentry is a genius…right?

It certainly is debatable that allowing Nash to orchestrate on the fly after the Gortat steal would have produced a similar result, but there is one thing that Suns timeout caused that isn’t. Before the whistle stopped the action, the Warriors quintet on the floor was David Lee, Nate Robinson, Wright, Monta Ellis and Dominic McGuire. After the timeout, Golden State trotted out a much stauncher unit.

Gone were Robinson and Lee (two subpar defenders) and in their stead were Brandon Rush and Ekpe Udoh (two much more effective ones). Clever screening action or not, the Suns did themselves a major disservice. By stopping the play, Gentry allowed his counterpart, Mark Jackson, to employ a much tougher group to score on.

It brings up the hard truth about the empirical data just released; coaches often put themselves in a worse spot by applying “conventional wisdom”. Instead of letting Nash operate against a weaker, unsettled defense, Gentry made the Suns inbound against a stingier, set one. While the play design was solid and executed well, Gentry, like the intoxicated Vegas tourist, essentially hit on 17 and got a 4.

Jackson, however, also opened himself up for second-guessing by calling a timeout right after the Hill make with 11 seconds left in the game to draw up this:

A zipper cut to an isolation with Ellis isn’t exactly a form of tactical brilliance. In fact, it’s probably the same thing that would have occurred had the Warriors just inbounded Hill’s make and pushed up the ball up the floor right away. The flip side is that the timeout did allow Jackson to pull McGuire and Udoh for the more offensively inclined duo of Lee and Robinson. Rush, brought in during the earlier timeout as a defensive sub, stayed on the floor.

Did the changing of personnel offset the call of an isolation against a set Phoenix defense? Given that Hill was still able to force Ellis into an extremely challenging attempt, it doesn’t appear so. That’s also not even factoring that having Ellis surrounded by four Ray Allens may not matter when the pass-challenged guard has the ball during end of game scenario. So it begs the obvious question, if the plan is to let Ellis go all John Wayne on Phoenix in the clutch, why not let him do so against an unsettled defense?

Going simply by the results, this game appeared to be managed well down the stretch. All the timeouts produced points (except for the Sun’s final one to set up a desperation 3) and the Warriors escaped with a win by, in coach-speak, putting the ball in the hands of their best player. A closer look, however, seems to reveal that the two head coaches, in this instance at least, may have just been beneficiaries of good fortune. Perhaps they should book a trip to Vegas.

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Past Editions: Kyrie Irving (#1) | Derrick Williams (#2) | Tristan Thompson (#4) | Jonas Valanciunas (#5) | Jan Vesely (#6)| Bismack Biyombo (#7) | Brandon Knight (#8) | Kemba Walker (#9) | Jimmer Fredette (#10)

There is no question that Jimmer Fredette was in that group of elite shooters among the players available in the 2011 draft.  Right along with him was Klay Thompson, who the Golden State Warriors drafted one spot behind him.

Strengths

Shooting

There is no question that Thompson’s biggest strength is his shooting ability.  Thompson has a very smooth, yet quick, repeatable shooting stroke with a release point that is higher than most.  Thompson feasted on the perimeter last year with Washington State, knocking down 40.3% of all the jump shots he took (64.3% of all shots he took last year), while posting a PPP 1.094 on those shots (placing him among the top 15% of all NCAA players last year).

The area where Thompson is most impressive is in catch and shoot situations.  This past season, Thompson shot 50% in catch and shoot situations where he was considered “unguarded” by Synergy sports, posting an eFG% of 71.4%:

Thompson’s shooting form is very repeatable and very easy.  Anytime he is open in a catch and shoot situation, it is a pretty good bet that he is going to be able to knock down the shot.  What helps him get open is his ability to work off of the basketball and use screens.  Despite not being the most athletic guy, Thompson is smart enough and good enough to get a little bit of separation working off of the ball and at his height (6’7″) and with his high release, that little bit of separation is all he needs to be able to get a shot off:

In my opinion, what is most impressive about Thompson and his ability to work off of the basketball is that he is always catching the ball squared up to the rim.  He’s not catching then turning his body to square up, so he isn’t wasting time after the catch.  Thompson makes the catch, and if the separation is there, he is pulling up, and usually knocking the shot down.

It’s not just in catch and shoot situations where Thompson can knock shots down.  He is also very good off of the dribble, and again, it is due to his quick shot and high release point.  Off the dribble, Thompson shot 40.2% and his PPP of 0.957 put him in the top 12% of all NCAA players:

Again, all Thompson really needs is a sliver of space and he is going to be able to get his shot off.  His ability to knock down this midrange jumper off of the dribble is important because teams are going to close out hard on Thompson off of the catch, putting themselves at a disadvantage and giving Thompson an opportunity to create separation with the dribble.  The fact that Thompson can use his dribble to get an open shot is always in the defense’s mind, and if that causes them to hesitate on the closeout for even a second, Thompson is at an advantage.

Passing

We already looked at one way Thompson is able to take advantage of the attention he gets when he makes the catch and is a threat to shoot the basketball (setting up the defense for a midrange jumper).  Another way that Thompson is able to take advantage of that attention is by hitting the open man when the defense steps up to him.  Thompson is a very good passer and again, he is able to use his height and vision to be able to see over help defenders and make the correct pass more often than not:

You see the attention that Thompson gets when making his catch, and instead of forcing things, he is smart enough and a good enough passer to hit the open man in a position where his teammate can score.

Weaknesses

Defense

While Thompson’s lateral quickness doesn’t really hurt him on the offensive end (his shooting ability evens things out), it does hurt him defensively.  Playing off of the basketball on defense all of last season, he didn’t face a lot of one on one situations, but he did face a lot of catch and shoot situations (according to Synergy this made up 46.4% of his total defensive possessions) and he was in the bottom 50% in terms of PPP allowed.  Thompson’s lack of footspeed forces him to close out hard on his man, and when that happens, they tend to be able to blow right by him:

In the NBA, where wing players are isolated much more often (Thompson only faced 21 isolation possessions defensively all of last year), Thompson is going to have a lot of trouble staying in front of people.  His length should help, but it will only help if he is able to stay in front and contest, and I don’t know how often that will happen.

Finishing At The Rim

According to Synergy, Thompson is in the 55th percentile when looking at PPP around the basket.  While it isn’t terrible, it’s bad for Thompson as it is a considerable drop-off in efficiency in relation to his numbers everywhere else on the court.  As I mentioned before, Thompson needs to be a threat to make the defense pay for over-committing on the catch.  If Thompson struggles finishing around the rim, which he does right now, teams are going to close out hard on him and let him drive.  Right now, it is a better outcome then letting him shoot:

Thompson’s biggest problem right now when he attacks the rim is the fact that he shies away from contact.  Instead of going up strong, into the defense, and going up towards the rim, Thompson usually ends up contorting his body to get away from the contact and that usually ends up with him taking his lay-up going away from the rim.  Help defenders in the NBA are only going to get quicker and stronger, so Thompson needs to understand that he needs to draw contact instead of avoiding it when attacking the rim.

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It is hard to say the type of impact Klay Thompson will have this season.  I’m higher than most on him,  but that doesn’t mean he is going to have a productive rookie season where he ends up starting, especially considering that his new coach, Mark Jackson has talked about defense every chance he got (and he tried to trade away Monta Ellis – who plays no defense – for Andre Iguodala).  Can he crack the starting rotation?  I don’t know.  However, I do think he could be a very good sixth man type of player this season, coming in, working off of the basketball, and knocking down shots.

As the trigger man Matt Barnes gets the basketball, Kobe Bryant uses a screen set by Andrew Bynum on the block, comes off of it, and gets to the corner of the court where he gets the basketball.

Once Bryant gets the basketball, the Warriors are smart enough to send two defenders at him, David Lee and Dorell Wright, getting the trap set.

This is where strong fundamentals from the Warriors come into play.  As you can see, Kobe Bryant tries to split the trap as most players are taught to do.  Instead of simply letting it happen, the Warriors re-establish the trap by getting back together side by side.

Once the Warriors get their shoulder’s touching each other, there is absolutely no place for Kobe to go, and he is forced to call a timeout.  Here is the play that came out of the timeout Bryant was forced into:

The Lakers get the ball into Kobe Bryant and he is forced into a tough lay-up that he misses.  This all goes back to the trap on Bryant, and here it is in real time:

This is a great reaction by Lee and Wright, trusting their instincts and getting the trap set and not letting Bryant split it, but you have to wonder why the Lakers are running a play to get Bryant the basketball in the corner.  It is almost begging the defense to trap him (which does happen).

Now, a lot of teams run plays that start with the ball getting entered into the corner, but usually it isn’t your best player who makes the initial catch.  After the ball gets entered to the corner, then it gets swung to the go-to guy.  It would have been nice to see the Lakers run something similar in this situation.

Here, the ball eventually works its way to David Lee at the elbow.  Lee makes the catch and executes a perfect pump fake, getting Howard to leave his feet.  Once Howard leaves his feet, Lee takes one penetrating dribble towards the basket.  This penetrating dribble forces Quentin Richardson to sink in and help.  As soon as Richardson dives in to help, Lee kicks it out to Dorell Wright who knocks down the three.  Richardson actually does a good job of helping and recovering, but he just can’t close out quickly enough.

Fifteen seconds later, the Warriors had the basketball once again and once again, Howard was baiting into biting on a pump fake.  Here, David Lee and Steph Curry run a nice little handoff play, forcing Howard to switch on Curry as he attacks the rim with dribble penetration.  Howard is actually trailing Curry, and as Curry stops his dribble he shows the basketball to Howard.  Howard leaves his feet just enough where he is unable to recover to block Curry’s actual shot attempt and he hits the bucket over Howard.  Another two points for the Warriors after Dwight Howard sells out on the pump fake.

What bothers me about both of these plays in terms of Dwight Howard and his defense is that he sells out and bites on pump fakes that he doesn’t really need to be biting on.  In both situations, Howard should have been able to successfully challenge the shot without leaving his feet or getting out of position.  The first play, David Lee is on the elbow, and all Howard really needs to do is close out with his arms straight up and his feet on the ground.  Howard is long enough where that should be enough to bother the shot.  The second play, as Steph Curry attacks, Howard is trailing him and all he needs to do is trail him with his hands up.  The size differential is so great that just keeping his hands up should be enough to force Curry to kick the basketball out.

On both plays I think Howard was trying to make that highlight reel block instead of simply doing enough to challenge/bother the shot.  On both plays, this urge to make the highlight block left Howard out of position, allowing the Warriors to score both times.

After Steph Curry dribbles the shot clock down to 10 seconds, he uses a screen set by Dorell Wright.  Because of the situation and Thunder not wanting either Curry or Wright to get a wide open three, the Thunder switch the pick, which in my opinion is the right move here.

Because of the switch, Kevin Durant is now forced to try and defend Steph Cury one on one as Curry maintains his dribble.

Curry breaks down Durant and starts to attack the paint.  At this point, Nick Collison steps way out to show the help.  The reason he helps so high is because he wants to get outside the restricted area and attempt to take the charge.

Curry sees the help, avoids the charge, and dumps the basketball to David Lee, who does a great job of stepping in the lane to come open.

Lee makes the catch, and with Collison out of position, he is able to get the easy dunk.  Here is the play in real time:

The reason that I called this a “poor help” is because I don’t really think that Durant needs help.  When Curry gets himself caught in the air, Durant is trailing the play, but he is so long that I think he could still bother the shot in that position.  If Collison stays home on David Lee, I don’t think that Steph Curry has any options other than to force up a tough shot.

Play #3 (1 point)- Keith Smart/Golden State Warriors

In this set coming out of a timeout in the fourth quarter, Keith Smart drew up a nice play to get Lou Amundson an easy opportunity in the paint:

As Acie Law brings the basketball up, Ekpe Udoh comes from the low block and flashes to the elbow, getting the pass from Law.

Once Udoh gets the pass, Law comes cutting off of him as if he is receiving a dribble handoff.  As that happens, we have a double backscreen getting set on the weakside.  The backscreens are being set for Lou Amundson, who makes a cut coming off them along the baseline.

The double screens aren’t great, but they do achieve what they were intended to do, and that was to get Lou Amundson’s man on his back.

Amundson makes the catch in the post, and with his position he was able to make a quick move and get a basket.  Here is the play in real time:

A nice little quick hitter.  The fake dribble handoff gets the defense’s attention, and they aren’t able to recover after being hit with the double backscreen.

Play #2 (2 points)- Phil Jackson/Los Angeles Lakers

In the #2 post-timeout set of the day, Phil Jackson was able to use both of his bigs (Pau Gasol & Lamar Odom) and some off ball action to free up Odom for a wide open lay-up:

The play starts with Shannon Brown bringing the basketball up and getting it Pau Gasol, who is flashing to the high post.

Once Gasol makes the catch, we have a number of things happening.  First, Steve Blake comes from the wing and gets a screen on the block to help him try to spot up at the three point line.  After Brown makes the pass, he cuts through, replacing Lamar Odom who goes from his spot to cut off of Gasol.

Odom receives the handoff, Gasol is able to get a little screen after giving Odom the basketball.  The off the ball action of Blake getting a screen on the block grabs the attention of the two Celtics’ defenders on the weakside.

Because the Celtics’ weakside defenders are occupied, Odom is able to get to the rim and hit the lay-up.  Here is the play in real time:

The reason I like this play is because Phil Jackson showed one thing (the off ball screen for Steve Blake), and then executed something else (Gasol-Odom handoff), catching the Celtics’ defense completely off guard.

Play #1 (3 points)- Erik Spoelstra/Miami Heat

With 6.2 seconds left (and more importantly, 2 seconds left on the shot clock) in the first half, the Miami Heat were looking to get a quick basket before the end of the half.  Erik Spoelstra was able to get LeBron James the ball under the basket for a scoring opportunity from of a unique spot on the court:

The Heat are set up in a box formation with LeBron on the block closest to the basketball and Dwyane Wade on the block farthest away from the basketball.  Once the ball gets to the trigger man, James goes across the paint and sets a screen for Wade.

Here, you have a superstar setting a screen for another superstar, you have to respect both players.  Because you have to respect both players, (and because there is so little time left on the clock) the Thunder switch the screen, with Jeff Green getting in position to stop Wade.

With the switched screen, you now have LeBron James with Daequan Cook on his back.  James is so big that there is no way Cook can get around him, giving Mike Miller a clear passing lane.

James makes the catch with Cook on his back, and he draws the foul as he is going up for the shot.  Here is the play in real time:

This is just great anticipation from Coach Spoelstra, who knew that the Thunder were going to switch screens if he had James setting a screen for Wade.  Understanding the way that the switch would work, he knew he was going to get James in the paint with a much smaller defender on his back, and his team was able to execute.

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Updated Standings

1. Erik Spoelstra – 3 points
2. Phil Jackson – 2 points
3. Keith Smart – 1 point
4. (tie) All other coaches – 0 points

*Credit to Nondescript for the name idea, the award will permanently named after this year’s winner.

The play starts with David Lee setting a screen for Steph Curry.  Curry takes that screen and uses it to get to the ball-side corner.

Immediately after Curry uses Lee’s screen, Lee gets in position to set a screen for Monta Ellis.  Lee’s screen isn’t the only screen being set as Vladimir Radmanovic gets over to set a second screen.  As this happens, Curry goes from the corner and cuts along to the baseline.

The purpose of Curry’s cut from one corner to the other is to clear the passing lane for Dorell Wright.  With nobody in his way, Wright is able to throw a nice pass to Ellis.

Ellis makes the catch and is able to rise up before his man can get back to him and challenge the shot.  Here is the play in real time:

I really like how the Warriors are able to use their two strong three point shooters to their advantage here, using Curry as a decoy when running a play for Ellis.  I also like how Keith Smart thinks about the passing lane.  Instead of sending Curry to the corner and keeping him there, he has Curry cut through, clearing the passing lane for Ellis.  Not sure how many coaches are thinking that far ahead when they have quick hitting plays like this.  Here are a few more angles of the play:

Here, Brandon Rush makes a backcut to the rim, but Monta Ellis does a good job of standing between Rush and the rim. He is able to get in that position because he isn’t really worried about a three point shot. The Warriors also switch the Hansboro screen for Danny Granger, meaning that Granger’s cut to the rim is well defended. The Pacers can’t get anyone open and are forced to call a timeout.

Again, the Pacers are trying to get a lob at the front of the rim. This time they try and get Hansboro to set a pindown screen and then have him look for a lob. Again, the Warriors switch the screens and they have a defender in position to get the deflection as the pass is made.

I am always in favor of seeing teams play zone in this situation, and even though the Warriors played man, these two plays were well defended. Why? They switched screens and ignored the three point line. Doing so allowed them to protect the rim and be in position to defend any lob pass. If you are going to play man to man in this situation, this is how it has to be done.

This week, we are going to take a look at a heads-up play that Tyreke Evans made, leading up to his incredible buzzer beater. On the other end of the spectrum, David Lee made a boneheaded play against the Miami Heat, allowing them to hit the game-clinching three with about four minutes left.

Savvy: Tyreke Evans’ Trap

After the Kings went for the quick two when trailing by three points, Sacramento found themselves down by one point with 22.2 seconds left. Since there are under 24 seconds left, the Kings either have to force a turnover or foul to get the basketball back. Sacramento decided that they wanted to try and get a quick steal, and if they were unable to get it, they would foul.  This is where Tyreke Evans made one of the smartest plays that I have seen this year.

As always, head on over and check it out!