In last night’s win over a short-handed Pacer team, the 76ers flashed some great execution on both ends of the floor. Without Danny Granger and George Hill, Indy could only muster 86 points. However, on the other end of the floor, Philly absolutely shredded the Indiana defense with some great side pick and roll action.

The fourth possession of the game foreshadowed what was to be a long night for the Pacer defense. Quick ball reversal through the top leads to an Elton Brand post-up. Brand, without ideal positioning, kicks the ball back out two Iguodala at the top. The much-improved Spencer Hawes then sprints from the weakside block to ballscreen with Iggy on the wing. Brand, meanwhile, begins to circle back under the rim away from the ball.

This subtle movement illustrates one of the things that make Philly tough to defend in ballscreen situations. The players off the ball are usually shifting and shaping up to good operating areas as the screen is being set. Because they are still moving, opponents help defenders are prevented from settling into their stances with vision of both their man and their help responsibilities.

As Iguodala comes off the screen, Hawes slides to the short corner looking for a shot. Because Indiana was hedging hard and recovering, Hawes movement after the screen forces Hibbert to rotate across the lane in order to prevent an easy jumper as Hawes’ defender, David West, recovers back to him. Due to all the shifting movement off the ball, Brand gets lost in the shuffle and Iggy finds him for an easy dunk. Here is the video:

The next play showcases Indy’s inability to actually corral the two men involved in the ballscreen itself. In the next clip, Lou Williams and rookie Nikola Vucevic team up for a pick and pop on an emptied out side of the floor. Because the help defense has so long to rotate on this action, it is quite possibly one of the hardest to defend on the NBA level. We see why here as Williams’ slick pocket pass sets up a wide open jumper for Vucevic:

Yet another thing the Sixers do well in this action is have their screeners read space. Instead of simply always popping or always diving to the rim, Hawes, Thad Young and Vucevic make their move defense dependent. In the following clip, Roy Hibbert is checking Hawes. Knowing that Hibbert is big and immobile, Hawes sets his screen and immediately sprints toward the rim to put pressure on Hibbert to recover or the helpside defense to shift to him. Neither happens and the result is yet another dunk off this action:

Despite a dearth of deadly 3-point shooters, Philly also managed to find open looks from outside. Here Young sets a ballscreen for Holiday on the right wing. As the screen is being set, Iguodala cuts along the baseline from strongside to weak and leaves the help defense in limbo. Hibbert, perhaps thinking there is no one behind him to pick up Young on the roll, sags off Vucevic (a noted shooter in college who was 1-1 entering Monday’s game) and watches helplessly as the Swiss sniper nails a 3-pointer.

What the Sixers lack in star power on the offensive end of the floor, the make up for in discipline and execution. While we get caught up with the star-power in the NBA, sometimes it’s not who is running a specific action but how it is run. With their off-ball movement and versatile big men, Philadelphia is going to be quite a handful to defend. Indiana found that out last night.

Follow Brett on Twitter

Evan Turner’s rookie season was a tough one and his role change offensively played a part in that.  The 2010 National Player of the Year as a junior for Ohio State, Turner went from a ball dominant point guard being used primarily in pick and roll sets for the Buckeyes to a largely spot-up role player for the Philadelphia 76ers, a role that put even more of an emphasis on his set shot.

The results were not pretty.  Turner had a tough time extending his range out to NBA three point territory, making only 14 three pointers in 78 games.  As a whole, his 0.8 points per possession on jump shot attempts were in the bottom third of the league, and he shot only 40.2% on no dribble jump shots, limiting his usefulness as a spot-up player.  Turner struggled to find a comfort zone on the offensive end last year, which caused both his confidence — and his minutes — to fall.

Read more…

For the past two offseasons, we have been looking at players coming to the NBA after playing at least as season overseas. With the lockout, we are going to have plenty of time on our hands.  With that being said, I plan on doing scouting reports for each of the 30 first round picks from this past draft.

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) | Klay Thompson (#11) | Alec Burks (#12) | Markieff Morris (#13) | Marcus Morris (#14) | #15 Kawhi Leonard

With the 16th overall selection in the draft, the Philadelphia Sixers selected Nikola Vucevic, a 6’10″ big from USC who is very talented offensively and underrated as a defender.  As the lockout continues, Vucevic has been playing overseas, first with Montenegro in EuroBasket and now with KK Buducnost.

Strengths

Post Offense

Standing at 6’10″ Nikola Vucevic is a big body who had a height advantage over most of his defenders.  Smartly, USC decided to use this size to their advantage by posting Vucevic over 42% of the time.  When he makes the catch on the block, Vucevic is at his best when he is turning around his left shoulder.  This means when he makes the catch on the left block, he’s turning to the middle and when he is making the catch on the right block, he is turning towards the baseline.  In terms of PPP when turning around his left shoulder, Vucevic posted a PPP of 1.111 on the left block and a PPP 1.182 on the right block (both numbers in the top 15 percent of all college players).  His go to move on the block when making his turn around his left shoulder is the hook shot, a shot he attempted 62% of the time.  On those attempts he shot 64.6%, and it makes sense, considering he has a wingspan of 7’4.5″ that hook shot is pretty much unblockable:

On the left block, Vucevic does a great job of establishing position and then once he gets position in the paint, he is able to turn to the middle, extend for the hook, and use his great touch to get a shot over the defense.  On the right block, Vucevic does a great job of faking towards the middle and then turning baseline for the hook.  That quick little fake to the middle is able get the defense off of Vucevic’s back giving him space to get the hook shot up.

Read more…

Last week, Kate Fagan of Philly.com reported that Evan Turner was working with Herb Magee, also known as The Shot Doctor, looking to improve his shooting, and to be completely honest, Turner needs the work.  Turner, who isn’t the quickest wing player, needs that shooting threat to force the defense to respect it and close out/play closer to him.  Once that starts happening, that is when Turner can use that shooting threat to help him get to the rim and become an even better player.  For that to happen, he needs to knock down shots consistently and turn into a threat, something he couldn’t do his rookie season.  According to Synergy Sports, Turner shot just 37.4% on all jump shots (37.1% on shots inside 17 feet, 38.8% on shots outside 17 feet but inside the three point line, and 33.3% behind the three point line).

So what is Turner working on?  Well according to Fagan’s report, he was working on one specific thing having to do with his off-hand:

If you’ve made it this far in the blog post then you’re a Sixers fan and you watched enough games last year to know Turner needed some basic adjustment on his shot. He’s not a bad shooter, not by any stretch, but there were times his confidence seemed to affect his mid-range shot and there are some obvious corrections needed on his mechanics. Yesterday, Turner and Magee worked on the first of those changes: Turner’s placement of his off hand. Turner’s shooting hand is actually quite sound. He holds the ball correctly, keeps his shooting elbow in, and releases the ball off the correct fingers. On occasion, he snaps back instead of holding his follow through, but for the most part his shooting hand is not the issue. That information should relieve Sixers’ fans.

So what is the problem with Turner’s offhand?  The position it is placed on the basketball.  As a shooter, you want to use your off hand to hold the ball in place, but not to have it involved in the shot.  It should be still on the side of the basketball as the strong hand goes through the shooting motion.  What Turner does is he places the basketball right on top of the ball:

With the way Turner’s off-hand is positioned, there is no way that he can keep it from being involved with the shot and Turner is essentially shooting with two hands.  This release effects the shot because it effects the rotation, and any shooter can tell you if your rotation is off, your aren’t going to get those really good bounces.  Here is Turner’s shot live and slowed down so you can really see the effect of his off hand on his shot:

Read more…

With 43 seconds left, the Philadelphia 76ers got a bucket to cut the Miami Heat’s lead down to four points.  Here, the Philadelphia coaching staff had a decision to make, either foul, and send the Heat to the line or play it out and hope to get the stop.  The Sixers played it out:

They were able to get the stop, but the Heat (especially Wade and James) did a great job winding the clock all of the way down, getting a mismatch by using a ballscreen, and getting the shot off at the last possible second (the ball was in the air as the shot clock buzzer went off) before attempting the shot.  Basically, the Sixers went from being down 4 with 43 points to being down 4 with 17.4 seconds left.  This was the Sixers’ next possession:

Read more…

At the end of each day, I am just going to put a recap thread up where you can find all of the day’s posts to make it a bit easier.

Here is what we looked at for the upcoming Heat-Sixers series:

• Offensive Breakdown
• Defensive Breakdown

Check in tomorrow when we start looking at the Western Conference.

Miami Heat – The Numbers*

• Defensive Efficiency: 100.9 (5th)
• Opp. TS%: 51.8% (4th)
• Opp. Assist Rate: 19.33 (10th)
• Opp. Turnover Rate: 12.50 (28th)
• Defensive Rebound Rate: 75.50 (5th)
• Block Rate: 5.7 (8th)
• Opp. Free Throw Rate: 30.0 (13th)
• Opp. Three Point Rate: 24.3 (5th)

Miami Heat – Strengths

Pick And Roll Defense

Much like the Celtics and the Bulls, the Miami Heat are very good when it comes to stopping the pick and roll.  In terms of stopping the ball handler, the Heat allow a PPP of 0.764 (4th lowest in the NBA) on 38% shooting.  It doesn’t get much easier for the offense when they try to hit the roll man, with the offense posting a PPP of 0.967 (7th lowest in the NBA).  While the Celtics and Bulls have the exact same strategy, the Heat do things slightly different.  They still rely heavily on help defense, but Heat like to put heavy pressure on the ball handler, having their bigs show hard and stick with the ball handler until he gives up the basketball:

As Nash comes off of a Robin Lopez screen, Big Z shows really hard.  Lopez is going to roll to the basket, and because Big Z is showing on the screen, the help man rotates over to the paint to prevent Lopez from getting an easy look.

Read more…

Miami Heat – The Numbers*

• Pace: 93.1 (20th)
• Offensive Efficiency: 109.3 (2nd)
• True Shooting Percentage: 57.2% (2nd)
• Assist Rate: 19.27 (22nd)
• Turnover Rate: 13.32 (14th)
• Offensive Rebound Rate: 24.80 (22nd)
• Free Throw Rate: 36.5 (2nd)
• Three Point Rate: 23.4 (10th)

Miami Heat – Strengths

Pick And Roll – Ball Handler

In terms of points per possession, the Miami Heat are the top team in the NBA when it comes to ball handlers coming off of ball screens.  It isn’t hard to figure out who the Heat have been setting ball screens for most and why they are so successful.  LeBron James and Dwyane Wade account for 76.5% of all the Heat’s ball screens.  Both players are scoring over 1 point per possession (1.02 to be exact) and both players are shooting around 48% when coming off of ball screens.

Wade is tough to defend when he uses a screen because he is a player who likes to go away from the screen in addition to actually using it.  Wade goes away from the screen 36.8% of the time, which is 2nd most in the NBA:

Here, LeBron James comes and sets a screen for Dwyane Wade.  Wade starts off as if he is going to use the screen, crosses over, and attacks the rim.  That one step towards the screen is enough to get his defender going towards the screen, setting him up for the cross over and drive.

Read more…

A team’s performance after a timeout may be the best way to judge a coach’s Xs & Os knowledge, and his ability to draw up plays. The Clipboard Awards is a competition where I choose the top three post-timeout plays each night, adding up the scores over the course of the season.

Play 3 (1 Point) – Paul Silas/Charlotte Bobcats

This play starts with D.J. Augustin bringing the basketball up the court, kicking it out to the wing, and then coming off of a backscreen to the block.  Augustin curls it to the opposite block and gets in position to set a screen for Stephen Jackson.  The beauty of this play is that Jackson gets to pick one of two screens to use based on how his defender is playing him.  His defender plays him over the top, cheating and trying to prevent him from coming off of the pindown screen, so Jackson simply uses the cross screen, gets open, and knocks down the easy jumper in the paint.

Read more…

After a scoring explosion from Marcus Thornton and some free throws from Beno Udrih, the Sacramento Kings found themselves winning by three points with 4.5 seconds left.  Needing a three, the Sixers ran a play that involved entering the basketball to Spencer Hawes at halfcourt, presenting the Kings with a perfect opportunity to foul up three, however they turned it down.  The result was Lou Williams knocking down a deep three, sending the game into overtime:

Using Del Harris’ rules for fouling up three (which is quickly turning into my preferred strategy as well) that include fouling with under 7 seconds left and only if the man with the ball has his back turned to the rim, the Kings had a chance to foul Hawes at halfcourt as he made the catch:

Read more…