Last night the Minnesota Timberwolves and Charlotte Bobcats were locked in a tight game. The Timberwolves were up 1 with under 10 seconds left, and they were able to get the shot they want (a Boris Diaw 21 footer), however the rebound bounces off two Timberwolves and heads out of bounds. This is where Cory Brewer does something you are taught not to do in high school:
He save the ball under his own basket. Now, you can’t knock the hustle that Corey Brewer shows here, but there are other options he has. Instead of throwing it blindly underneath his own he could throw it away from the basket, into the corner (where there was a teammate). With around 5 seconds left, he can also just heave it as far as he can down the court and hope that time runs out (I understand this might have been difficult to do based on his body position).
His final option is eating the basketball and taking it out of bounds with him. Now that doesn’t sound like a smart idea, but think about it, would you rather set up your defense to try to get another stop or would you rather keep the ball in bounds as two of your teammates are falling out of bounds? By eating the basketball and going out of bounds with it, he is putting his team in a better position to win.
Now, here is another example. This is from the Nets-Celtics game last week:
The ball gets saved by Devin Harris as he is going out of bounds. By saving the ball on his own end like that, he is basically taking himself out of the play, and the Celtics are able to use this to get a wide open back-breaking jump shot..
Ever since the return of Kevin Martin, the Kings record has taken a bit of a nose-dive. This has lead to many people to say that Evans & Martin will not be able to work together. I think that is crazy. You put a great shooter (Kevin Martin) with a guy who can get to the hoop (Tyreke Evans), and it should work. In the closing moments of the 4th quarter and the start of overtime, you started to see how these two playing together can work.
Tyreke Evans Dominates Late In The 4th
The biggest effect Tyreke Evans and Kevin Martin being on the court at the same time has on opponents is on the defensive end. Defenses have to figure out how to cover both Kevin Martin and Tyreke Evans. The Knicks really struggled with it last night. This is what allowed Evans to go off late in the game:
When you have two of the best coaches in the history of the NBA going up against each other, you know there is going to be some good Xs and Os stuff to look at. Turns out, they didn’t disappoint.
Spurs’ Pick & Roll
I know what you are thinking. A pick and roll? How is that good play calling? Well, let’s take a closer look to see how good it is:
Tony Parker gets the pick, not from Tim Duncan, but from Antonio McDyess. Tim Duncan, as you can see is setting up on the low block. The purpose of this play is to isolate Duncan’s defender, Pau Gasol.
At halftime of the Celtics-Magic game, it looked like Boston was pulling away turning this game into a blowout. The Celtics had just outscored the Magic by 10 points in the second quarter, and they went into halftime with an 11 point lead. The Magic came out in the third quarter, and the game did turn into a blowout, just the other way around. The Magic outscored the Celtics in the third 36 to 11. Lets look at how they did it:
The title is pretty self-explanatory, but if you are someone who is pretty good with stats, and you want to write about it, I am looking for someone to do a weekly stats column. I already put out some feelers (posted on Twitter), but if you are interested, shoot me an e-mail over at sebastian@nbaplaybook.com
Yeah, the title was an excuse just to post that video. Anyway, after Nazr Mohammed’s bucket with 1:38 left cut the lead to 1, the Bobcats were looking to get a stop to get a chance to win the game:
I usually try to keep the Nets away from NBAPlaybook.com. For one, they are an awful team who gets blown out a lot, so there aren’t too many “key possessions.” Also, along with Mark Ginocchio, I co-run the Nets Truehoop Network blog NetsAreScorching, so most of my Nets stuff goes over there. The Nets’ game last night against Detroit showed us some things that I want to talk about here.
“The Nets have the talent, why aren’t they winning any games?” Being the blogger that talks about the Nets, I hear a variation of this question at least once a day. Whenever I am asked, I give a generic answer that involves “Injuries, them being young, and the fact that they don’t have a real coach.” You know what though, those are just excuses. When the Nets played the Pistons (a team that I think the Nets are equal with in terms of talent), you saw the real reason. They don’t execute late, while other teams do.
Last night’s Lakers-Grizzlies game was awesome. You had Kobe’s quick three, two missed foul shots from Mike Conley, then a missed game winning three from Ron Artest. With all of that action going on, it is easy to forget that the most important play was the one that happened right before the others I have mentioned. That play is the Rudy Gay 3 that took the Grizzlies lead from 2 to 5:
Up by two, the Grizzlies are in no rush here. They walk the ball up and kill 10 seconds before they even start their offense. Mark Gasol cuts through, and right after the cut, Zach Randolph comes sets a screen for Conley.
Yesterday’s Lakers-Celtics game was a very good one. You had both teams taking a sizable lead, only to see the other claw back and make things interesting. The result was Kobe being very Kobe-like, hitting a very tough jumper with Ray Allen draped all over him. The Celtics were now down 1 with 7.3 seconds left. We are going to take a look at the play that followed Kobe’s shot, and what made it so fun to watch (at least for the partial observer) was that in my opinion everyone on the court did everything right. Let’s take a look at the play after the jump.
Alright, I feel bad that I have got nothing for you, but Raptors Republic has has got you covered. There they have an excellent Xs and Os breakdown of their game last night. Highly recommended reading here.
