Leading the Miami Heat by one point with 54.0 seconds left, the Hawks were looking to run some time off the clock and get a clean look. Larry Drew came up with a fantastic set coming out of a timeout, however a poor pass turned a guaranteed two points into a turnover:
The set starts with Joe Johnson bringing the basketball up from the backcourt along the sideline. Mike Bibby comes from the top of the key to set a screen on the wing. After Bibby gets in position, Josh Smith comes behind him and gets ready to set the second screen, forming a staggered screen situation.
As Bibby sets his screen, Eddie House (Bibby’s defender) shows as LeBron James trails Joe Johnson around the screen.
After quickly showing Eddie House returns to defend Bibby as James continues to trail Johnson around the screen. As Johnson starts to use Josh Smith’s screen, Joel Anthony starts to show hard as per their usual pick and roll defense. The problem? The Hawks’ play is designed for Josh Smith to slip his screen, which is what he does.
As the pass gets made, look at the situation that we now have. There are three Heat defenders on the perimeter defending two Hawks’ players. Both Mario Chalmers and Dwyane Wade are in help position, but because of the quick slipped screen, they aren’t ready to dive and help. All of that means Josh Smith is all by himself ready to catch Joe Johnson’s pass and slam home the lob. One problem, Johnson’s pass is too high and it ricochets hard off of the backboard, leading to a Heat fast break.
Let’s forget about the turnover for a second and just look at the play and what the Hawks had here on the offensive end. As a coach, your job is to put your players in a position to succeed, and that is exactly what Larry Drew did here with this set.
Coach Drew knows that the Heat like to show hard on screens, and he was able to use that to his advantage by having Josh Smith slip the screen. This set might not work against a lot of teams who switch screens late or play them straight up, but it definitely works against the Heat due to their defensive strategy. Another thing that I really like about this play is that they decided to inbound the ball in the backcourt rather than at halfcourt. The reason that I like this decision is that it is an easy way to let some clock run without having Joe Johnson sitting at the top of the key and just dribbling out the clock. If that happens, you might end up with an ISO-Joe set that the Hawks wouldn’t want. Plus if you have Johnson dribble the ball up along the side the whole way down the court, it let’s the offensive players and the help defense on the weakside get set (this is important because catching the weakside help off guard is key to the play).
It’s a shame that Joe Johnson threw such a bad pass because this truly was a fantastic set that if converted, it would be a serious contender to Coach Popovich’s set of the year.
