John Bennett goes back to Saturday night and explores the factors behind L.A.’s comeback win.

Blitzing, strongside schemes that bring aggressive, well-executed rotations off pick and rolls are forcing big men all over the NBA to expand their games. Like a quarterback in football, there is an increasing need for bigs that can “make all the throws”. In the NFL, a quarterback not only has to be able hit long routes downfield, he needs to make short, accurate throws in traffic. So while “throws” out of a double team or clever bounce passes from higher up on the floor in a Princeton-style offense are still valuable skills, today’s big men need more.

Unless your team is filled with deadly shooters (or you’re facing the Nets), the days of a post player setting a screen and casually strolling down the lane are long gone. Bigs are finding defenders of all shapes and sizes blocking their path toward the rim. A catch on the roll often leaves them with barely enough time to avoid a charge, much less make an effective basketball play.
Marc Gasol, however, is becoming one of a handful of players that is capable of navigating these dicey situations. Gasol has become adept at consistently creating great looks against a scrambling defense by moving the ball quickly to an open teammate while lumbering toward the rim after a ball screen. Last night against Golden State, he flaunted his envious passing acumen on two different occasions that produce great results Memphis.

In the first video, Gasol follows a pass to Rudy Gay on the left wing with a ball screen. Gay takes one dribble then delivers a nice pocket pass to Gasol as he rolls toward the rim. However, on the weakside of the floor, the Warriors David Lee has rotated over to pick Gasol while Dorell Wright drops to cover his man (Mareese Speights). Even with the speed of the rotation, Gasol is still able to take one dribble and hit a wide open (by design of the coverage) Tony Allen for a corner 3 that he, oddly both takes and makes.

On the next play, Gasol is involved in a middle pick and roll with Mike Conley. Conley throws over the top of a soft hedge and hits Gasol rolling again toward the hoop. Gasol hops to catch a pass thrown slightly behind him, but in an insanely awesome maneuver, delivers a perfect interior bounce pass to teammate Dante Cunningham just as his feet are about to hit the ground. The awareness and skill to make a pass that accurate, that quickly, are just off the charts good. Here is the play both in real time and slowed down.

Passes like these show how deadly having a slick distributing big man like Gasol can be. Roll men that can make this type of play on a consistent basis make their teams infinitely harder guard. So while players that can pass from the block and the high post alike still have a place in this game, there is a need for bigs all over the league to train to make all the throws.

Let’s play a trivia game quickly. Which player currently ranks 18th in TS% (True Shooting Percentage), 2nd in Offensive Rebound Rate, 7th in Overall Rebound Rate and currently sits 9th in PER, sandwiched between Kobe Bryant and Russell Westbrook? If the names Howard, Love, Griffin or Anderson are popping into your head, guess again. Still stuck? Try Denver rookie Kenneth Faried.

Despite not getting regular minutes until the middle of February, Faried has authored four double-doubles in a span of 13 games. In three other contests during that stretch, Faried was either a rebound or two points away from the feat. That’s not too shabby for any rookie, much less one averaging just over 19 minutes a night.

How does he do it? In a word; energy. Most “experts” list things like dribbling, passing or shooting as the skills a certain player does or does not possess. Energy (and the related “hustle player” tag) gets chalked up as some intangible trait, a mere bonus for players that can also finish with both hands or shoot pull-up jumpers. ESPN’s own David Thorpe, perhaps due to his relationship with player’s like Joakim Noah and Udonis Haslem, has argued that energy is, in fact, a skill.

With Faried, his limitless supply of vigor and mentality to attack every ball coming off the rim like it owes him money, fuel his rebounding prowess. The Denver rookie also excels at gathering in out-of-area rebounds, something that separates the elite from the merely good in that category. Against the Kings last night, six of his 12 rebounds (as well as eight of his 20 points) came in the last three minutes of regulation and overtime. About a handful of those dozen rebounds were of the esteemed out-of-area variety.

Down three with 3:16 left on the clock. After Al Harrington misses on a deep jumper, Faried cuts across the lane and snatches a rebound between three Sacramento players. To top it off, he draws a foul and sinks both free throws to cut the Kings lead to one.

Down five with just over a minute left, Faried again goes to work on the glass. Andre Miller attacks the paint after the Nuggets inbound. His drive sucks up Faried’s defender (DeMarcus Cousins) enough for Faried to find an angle for a putback dunk that keeps the game within reach for the Nuggets.

Faried’s most impressive rebound came on the first possession of overtime. In the following video, you will see Faried defend a pick and roll, recover back to the body of Cousins, rotates and leaves his feet to contest a drive, then somehow gathers himself and explodes to snatch the rebound with two hands. Just an incredible effort play.

This eight minute stretch showcased why Faried has been so incredibly productive in his limited time. Since becoming a regular rotation member on February 9th, the Morehead State product has done his fair share to help the Nuggets right a listing ship. More recently, Denver has ripped off four straight wins to crawl back into the thick Western Conference playoff race. Who says energy isn’t a skill again?

Follow @BKoremenos

The Spurs found themselves on the losing end of their game against the Bulls last night, but good ole’ Pop still flashed the same creative excellence that makes him one of the best in the league. Looking to get his reserve unit in rhythm out of a dead-ball situation, Popovich called for a unique set featuring his two bigs (Matt Bonner and Tiago Splitter) to engage in a clever staggered ball screen with reserve guard Gary Neal.

The play starts off with some false action out of a 1-4 High/Horns alignment (key point being both Bonner and Splitter start at the elbows). TJ Ford starts off by hitting Splitter popping outside the arc near the right slot. As Ford cuts through, Splitter reverses to Neal then slides down toward the mid-post. Bonner, patiently waiting at the right elbow, then comes and sprints into a ball screen for Neal. With Neal’s defender, Loul Deng, being of similar size, Taj Gibson (marking Bonner) is given free reign to switch to Neal as he comes off the screen.

Had this been a straight up pick and pop between Bonner and Neal, switching the screen would have easily thrawted it thanks to Gibson’s ability to guard smaller, quicker players on the perimeter. However, with Splitter coming to set another screen, the Bulls find themselves in a bit of jam. Gibson, due to perhaps a combination of inexperience guarding the ball handler in screening situations and lack of preparation, drops low to avoid the second screen. His decision is going to force Asik (defending Splitter) to be responsible for showing hard, above the screen, in order to prevent a jumpshot for the sweet-shooting Neal.

Miscommunication now plays a part as both Asik and Gibson attempt to contest any Neal jumper. Both of them being above Splitter allows him to cleanly roll to the basket.

As Splitter dives hard toward the rim, CJ Watson is forced to scramble over from the weakside in a vain attempt stop the roll.

The result is an assist for Neal on a rather easy finish for Splitter. Here is the play in real time:

Twist action is defined by some as any pick and roll that includes a screen-re-screen combination. Whether that features two screeners or simply some clever pivoting by one, it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on opposing defense. Normally, the Clippers scheme isn’t exactly the birthplace of clever concepts. But in the second quarter of last night’s game against Minnesota, they defied expectations and the result was one of Chris Paul’s patented floaters finding the bottom of the net.

The play starts with Paul receiving a screen from Reggie Evans near the left slot. The T’Wolves decide to send the on-ball defender (Martell Webster) over the top of the screen while having Evans’ man (Derrick Williams) zone up the paint to protect against Paul penetration.

Evans, instead of diving down the middle of the lane, instead screens and loops high around an on-coming DeAndre Jordan. Jordan is coming to complete the re-screen part of the “twist” and free Paul toward the middle of the court. The way the Clippers’ bigs exchange put quite a lot of strain on Kevin Love and Derrick Williams to communicate and execute the right coverage.

With Williams having zoned up near the paint on the first screen, he is in no position to offer any type of hedge on Jordan’s screen. Love, Jordan’s original defender, now is faced with the choice to either switch to Evans (and prevent a possible lob) or hedge/zone-up on the on-coming Jordan screen.

Love ends up being caught in no-man’s land and the Wolves D find themselves at the mercy of Chris Paul coming free off a ball screen in the middle of the floor. With the sharp-shooting Mo Williams on the wing, JJ Barea can’t commit to stopping the ball and this allows Paul to get deep into the paint.

Here is a look at the play in real time:

Here’s how the Heat hassled and harrassed Jeremy Lin into a long night down in South Beach.

Just a short while ago, Beckley Mason shook the basketball world to the core (hyperbole alert) with his mind-blowing, end-of-game timeout research. The stats in that article (albeit containing a few variables) show that NBA coaches, perhaps hemmed in by the expectations of their profession, are overusing timeouts and playing with worse odds than a drunk tourist in Vegas at a blackjack table. Thankfully, the NBA saw a number of close finishes last night. Armed with this new data, a fresh perspective, and a gambling metaphor, it was interesting to watch these games unfold. Of particular interest was the conclusion of Golden State’s 106-104 win in Phoenix.

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.

Follow @BKoremenos

Fatigue factors into the Blazer’s poor offensive performance last night.