If there is one thing that really impressed me about France’s defense throughout EuroBasket it was their defensive rotations. When France was playing defense, it looked like five guys on a string, rotating, helping teammates, recovering, and getting steals and forcing misses. But then came the EuroBasket Finals on Sunday. Spain ate France alive, scoring 98 points in 76 possessions with a good chunk of them coming off of broken rotations from France and their defense. So how did a team that rotated so well get burned so badly in the finals? Well, Spain is unlike every other team in the tournament because they can put 5 offensive threats on the court at the same time, and that really bothered France, and even when they did rotate correctly, they got burned:
Those two shots that the Spanish bigs knocked down there are the shots that France were willing to give up the whole tournament as they rotated the man covering that big to the middle of the floor to take away the pick and roll pass. It didn’t really hurt them because many teams didn’t really have two bigs who could be an offensive threat, and they were leaving open the less offensively skilled one of the two. Against Spain, a team that has three bigs who can knock down that shot, the individual talent of all five guys on the court was far too great for these rotations to work. So what happened? France stopped rotating and started playing selfish defense, staying with their man despite needing to rotate:
With EuroBasket’s semifinals taking place this afternoon, I thought it would make sense to preview the games by looking at one key question from each game.
Can Bo McCalebb Have A Big Game?
If Macedonia have any chance of continuing their dream run and turning it into an Olympic bid (which is guaranteed to both finalists) Bo McCalebb is going to have to have a big game. In recent games, McCalebb, who is 7th among all EuroBasket players in points per 28 minutes averaging 17.8, plays the team game for most of it and then when it comes to crunch time, he steps up, attacks the rim, and tries to be the guy to get Macedonia the win. That has worked so far, but it won’t work when playing against Spain. Spain has the 4th best defense in terms of points allowed per 70 possessions, and they have an ability to extend and put pressure on an offense, taking them out of what they are trying to run.
The one whole in Spain’s defense? Providing help when there is dribble penetration out of isolation situations. Out of the 65 isolation possessions that Spain has seen during the tournament (isolation isn’t something seen a lot during this tournament), they have given up 58 points on 43.1% (25-58) shooting. Their PPP of 0.892 puts them 20th among the 24 EuroBasket teams. Spain’s biggest problem when handling dribble penetration is that their bigs (the Gasols and Serge Ibaka) really struggle when they have to leave their men and provide help:
With the Gasols, it seems that both Pau and Marc regonize when they need to help, but they simply don’t have the speed, athleticism, or sometimes even the desire to leave their men and provide help on time, usually leading to finishes over them when they are arriving a little too late. With Serge Ibaka, who is an athletic monster, it is something completely different. Often times, Ibaka gets caught focusing on his man a little too much and by the time he realizes that he needs to help, even he can’t get there.
We have reached the quarterfinals of EuroBasket 2011 with the final eight teams matching up over the next two days as these teams continue to fight for the two guaranteed Olympic bids. In regards to the Olympics, these quarterfinals are extremely important because a loss in this round and a loss in the subsequent consolation game means that you are out of the 2012 Olympics. There are already a lot of great preview posts out there (Seriously, go check out The Painted Area, In The Game, and Euroleague Adventures), so I thought it would be interesting to look at a key match-up for each quarterfinal game.
On paper, this match-up between Spain and Slovenia is probably the biggest mismatch. On offense, Slovenia, especially Goran Dragic, has been struggling all EuroBasket and Spain has one of the best defenses in the tournament (they were 4th in all of EuroBasket in points allowed per 70 possessions, according to In The Game). However, there is one area where the struggling Slovenians are having success offensively, and that is on the block. During this EuroBasket, Slovenia has posted a PPP of 1.0 on the block, which is good for 5th among the 24 EuroBasket participants. The good thing about post play being the only real strength of Slovenia’s offense right now is that despite having Serge Ibaka and the Gasol brothers, Spain’s post defense hasn’t been great. In fact, with Spain looking like they have figured out their PNR defense (something that really gave them problems during prep games), defending the post seems to be the only hole in their defense. In the 48 post up possessions they have seen during EuroBasket, they have given up 45 points which in terms of PPP works out to 0.9375, good for 15th among the 24 EuroBasket teams.
Digging a little further, you notice that Slovenia only posts up two players with very different results. So far during this competition, Erazem Lorbek and Mirza Begic have combined for 76.5% of Slovenia’s post up attempts. Lorbek has posted a PPP of 0.643 while Begic has a PPP of 1.667 (the highest PPP in the tournament so far).
On August 31st, EuroBasket, an European competition featuring 24 countries and a high number of NBA players. With the much anticipated exodus of NBA players to Europe not exactly happening (as of yet), this could be the last time you see some really good NBA players play in a true competitive setting for a really long time. To get everyone more familiar with what we are going to see during the EuroBasket tournament, I am going to look at each team’s offense and break down a few interesting sets that they run, using game tape from the preparation games that are currently being played.
Spain are entering EuroBasket 2011 as the favorites to win the tournament and for good reason. Their roster would be competitive in the NBA, featuring the Gasol brothers, Serge Ibaka, Rudy Fernandez, and Ricky Rubio and they run a very good offense that continuously puts them in positions to succeed.
Halfcourt Offense
Quick-Hitting Lob
It should be no surprise that this Spanish team is a little bit flashy, with the NBA guys on their team, they have the talent to do so. Maybe, the biggest example of Spain’s flash is the fact that they have a set play designed to get Rudy Fernandez a lob, and the fact that they run it a fair amount of the time (once or twice a game):
The play starts with Ricky Rubio bringing the basketball up and as that happens, Rudy Fernandez comes up to meet Rubio and get in position to set a ball screen (at times, Spain runs this with a pass to Fernandez and a quick handoff back to the point guard instead of a screen).
However, Fernandez has no interest in setting a screen, and he quickly cuts after showing the screen, flashing around Serge Ibaka and cutting to the rim.
For much of their exhibition schedule, where they were playing games preparing for EuroBasket, Spain has been crushing the opposition going 3-0 and winning all their games by double digits (beating France by 24, beating Lithuania by 12, and then beating Bulgaria by an amazing 37 points). Maybe it was because of their offensive dominance, or maybe it was because the games weren’t close, but but Spain’s problems with the pick and roll definitely went unnoticed (and it was definitely a problem in the first three games, even Bulgaria, who again lost by 37, were getting looks out of the pick and roll).
It went unnoticed until Lithuania, who played Spain for a second time on Thursday, were able to use the pick and roll to power a 12 point win. Lithuania, who had trouble getting into their offense the first game, found things much easier the second time around, and that was because they used the pick and roll more. So what’s the problem with Spain’s pick and roll defense? Well, when the ball handler uses a screen, the defender covering the screener (usually either Pau Gasol/Marc Gasol/Serge Ibaka) showed on the hedge, but he did so very softly, waiting for the original defender covering the ball handler to get over the screen:
Look at how far off Pau Gasol is playing in this example. He is basically showing in hopes of dissuading the ball handler from attacking the rim until his defender from going over the screen. However, what this soft hedge does is it actually gives the offensive player the advantage in this situation. This is because now he has space and options. One option is he can attack the big, who is flat footed, by using the space given to get a running start at him, which is exactly what happens in the situation shown above:
With the number of international friendlies being played increasing due to preparations being for EuroBasket at the end of the month, there are some interesting matchups and interesting finishes, I’ll be breaking those down.
The Spanish national team probably is the most talented team in this year’s EuroBasket field and on Sunday, they went up against another title contender, Lithuania. This being just a preparation game for the tournament starting on August 31st, you wouldn’t expect to see Spain to breakout some of their best stuff. However twice, they were able to get wide open alley oop dunks, using a ball screen to set up the defense.
In the first quarter, Spain was able to set up a lob for Rudy Fernandez, and even though the play wasn’t run crisply, it was still effective:
The play starts with Ricky Rubio bringing the basketball up and as that happens, Rudy Fernandez comes up to meet Rubio and get in position to set a ball screen.
However, Fernandez has no interest in setting a screen, and he quickly cuts after showing the screen, flashing around Serge Ibaka and cutting to the rim.
With the number of international friendlies being played increasing due to preparations being for EuroBasket at the end of the month, there are some interesting matchups and interesting finishes, I’ll be breaking those down.
Yesterday, Spain took the court for the first time when preparing for EuroBasket, taking on France in an international friendly that drew a lot of attention because of all the NBA players on the two rosters (I can think of 10 of the top of my head who were on these two teams). During this game, Spain ran a really simple, yet really effective play from a SLOB situation that put the ball in Ricky Rubio’s hands while providing him with plenty of space to create with:
The play starts with Ricky Rubio inbounding the ball from the side as Felipe Reyes sets a screen off of the ball for his guard who makes himself available for the ball at the top of the key.
In what might have been the best game in the FIBA Worlds so far (and that is with a ton of really good games already played), Serbia used the strength of a late three pointer and a defensive stop (though that stop was probably more Spain’s bad execution rather than Serbia’s defense) to pull ahead of the defending world and Euro champs, knocking them out of the tournament and advancing to the Semi Finals.
Serbia’s Deep Three
What was interesting about yesterday’s ending, especially Serbia’s possession, was the strategy that was implemented (and the strategy that wasn’t implemented):
Serbia starts out in a 1-4 flat set that you commonly see in the NBA. However, instead of the ISOs you normally see, Serbia sends a screener to pop out and set a screen. The sole purpose of this screen is to force Spain to switch on defense.
Before the FIBA Worlds started, everyone was predicting that Spain would be the team to threaten Team USA and give them a run for their money once the tournament reached the round of 16. After a puzzling loss to France and a win, the Spanish team actually had themselves set up nicely, and if all went according to plan they would be facing Team USA in the Championship game. However, Lithuania threw everyone a curveball by beating Spain 76-73. While Lithuania did a terrific job coming back from double digits in the second half, and taking the lead late, a lot of this loss can be put on Spain’s errors on both ends of the court.
Defensively
Defensively Spain did a pretty good job of matching stops with Lithuania for most of the final two minutes. However, Lithuania was able to tie the game and score the eventual game winning basket (the one that gave them the lead for good) on two pretty bad defensive lapses:
Here, Lithuania runs a pick and roll with Marc Gasol’s man as the screener. Gasol is in good position on the show, but he bites on a pump fake and closes out too hard on the shooter. This leaves the roll man wide open for a pass and forces help from Ricky Rubio to come. The roll man does a fantastic job of quickly kicking the ball out for a wide open three point shot.
Now, onto the go-ahead basket:
On this possession, Lithuania tries to run a pick and roll with Linas Kleiza as the roll man. However, the play gets blown up and the ball ends up in Kleiza’s hands a good five feet behind the three point line. The man who kicked out the ball to Kleiza cuts behind him to give Lithuania some court balance.
