Northern Expedition: Raptors at Sixers Game 3 8:00 TNT

[76ciology]

Watching this game on repeat..
1.) Brett was smart to get Raps off guard by putting Biid on Gasol and Tobias on Siakam in the first.
2.) So nice when everyone on our starting unit had their moments/fingerprints in the game. Tobias was shooting over his defender in the first half, ben defending kawhi and taking advantage whenever Lowry or Green is on him, Jimmy showing his elite PnR skills, JJ’s off screen shooting in the 3rd and Biid showing his 2 way superstar game.

The sudden appearance of the PnR element to our offense is so interesting. I wonder if Brown was purposely saving it for the playoffs or, more likely, its just something that's taken time to develop the chemistry in practice. Butler has such a unique pace to his PnR game that I could see that it might take some time practicing for them all to have a good feel for the timing.

Butler has been frustrating when he pass up shots while running it in regular season. That guy crazy

[Sixerscan]

Watching this game on repeat..
1.) Brett was smart to get Raps off guard by putting Biid on Gasol and Tobias on Siakam in the first.
2.) So nice when everyone on our starting unit had their moments/fingerprints in the game. Tobias was shooting over his defender in the first half, ben defending kawhi and taking advantage whenever Lowry or Green is on him, Jimmy showing his elite PnR skills, JJ’s off screen shooting in the 3rd and Biid showing his 2 way superstar game.

The sudden appearance of the PnR element to our offense is so interesting. I wonder if Brown was purposely saving it for the playoffs or, more likely, its just something that's taken time to develop the chemistry in practice. Butler has such a unique pace to his PnR game that I could see that it might take some time practicing for them all to have a good feel for the timing.

I don't think it's quite that sudden, they've been running more of it since the Butler trade, and then even more after they got Harris. I think in one of the post deadline Boston games they ran P&R something like 1/3rd of their possessions? Now that you have ball handlers that defenders feel like they have to go over the screen on (unlike Ben, TJ) and can attack the rim effectively (unlike JJ or in the past guys like Cov or Belinelli) the play becomes a more viable option.

I think a lot what increase there has been lately can be attributed to cutting the backup point guard out of the rotation and using Jimmy and to a lesser extent Tobias as the lead initiators more. They're running the stuff they would run for those guys during the year, there's just not also the stuff TJ would do to balance it out.

[youngcrev]

Yeah, Brett pretty much said the same thing as Sixerscan.

We haven’t had many point guards here that people go over on. Usually, when you run a pick and roll, there is a man to screen, there is somebody there. We have had guards who have been very good … but that’s not their strength. [For us] to run a pick-and-roll, you need to have somebody to screen. So when you say, well, ‘Why you are running more?’ It is because [defenders] are stuck out on Jimmy and Tobias.

I think part of the uptick in pick and rolls has been that Jimmy has been more effective with it in the postseason. He just looks a lot more assertive out there.

Playoff Jimmy P&R ball handler
5.6 POSS
.96 PPP

Regular Season Jimmy
4.4 POSS
.84 PPP

I think the other part is that another major part of our offense has been completely ineffective in the playoffs: the JJ DHO

JJ Regular season handoff:
5.2 POSS (by far the most in the league)
1.10 PPP

Playoff JJ:
3.6 POSS
.59 PPP

[BullyKing]

Watching this game on repeat..
1.) Brett was smart to get Raps off guard by putting Biid on Gasol and Tobias on Siakam in the first.
2.) So nice when everyone on our starting unit had their moments/fingerprints in the game. Tobias was shooting over his defender in the first half, ben defending kawhi and taking advantage whenever Lowry or Green is on him, Jimmy showing his elite PnR skills, JJ’s off screen shooting in the 3rd and Biid showing his 2 way superstar game.

The sudden appearance of the PnR element to our offense is so interesting. I wonder if Brown was purposely saving it for the playoffs or, more likely, its just something that's taken time to develop the chemistry in practice. Butler has such a unique pace to his PnR game that I could see that it might take some time practicing for them all to have a good feel for the timing.

I don't think it's quite that sudden, they've been running more of it since the Butler trade, and then even more after they got Harris. I think in one of the post deadline Boston games they ran P&R something like 1/3rd of their possessions? Now that you have ball handlers that defenders feel like they have to go over the screen on (unlike Ben, TJ) and can attack the rim effectively (unlike JJ or in the past guys like Cov or Belinelli) the play becomes a more viable option.

I think a lot what increase there has been lately can be attributed to cutting the backup point guard out of the rotation and using Jimmy and to a lesser extent Tobias as the lead initiators more. They're running the stuff they would run for those guys during the year, there's just not also the stuff TJ would do to balance it out.

I think your second paragraph is sort of my point of "saving it." It was pretty obvious immediately that after the trades, the second unit had more than enough ball handling between Butler and Harris that it doesn't require a traditional PG like TJ. But it wasn't necessary to remove TJ entirely from the rotation because the regular season doesn't matter that much and it was better to keep minutes low for guys like Butler. Because removing TJ but keeping Butler's minutes low would have just meant a different scrub like Korkmaz would have gotten those minutes.

[BullyKing]

Yeah, Brett pretty much said the same thing as Sixerscan.

We haven’t had many point guards here that people go over on. Usually, when you run a pick and roll, there is a man to screen, there is somebody there. We have had guards who have been very good … but that’s not their strength. [For us] to run a pick-and-roll, you need to have somebody to screen. So when you say, well, ‘Why you are running more?’ It is because [defenders] are stuck out on Jimmy and Tobias.

I think part of the uptick in pick and rolls has been that Jimmy has been more effective with it in the postseason. He just looks a lot more assertive out there.

Playoff Jimmy P&R ball handler
5.6 POSS
.96 PPP

Regular Season Jimmy
4.4 POSS
.84 PPP

I think the other part is that another major part of our offense has been completely ineffective in the playoffs: the JJ DHO

JJ Regular season handoff:
5.2 POSS (by far the most in the league)
1.10 PPP

Playoff JJ:
3.6 POSS
.59 PPP

I also think one of the reasons that Butler has been more effective with it in the postseason is the shorter rotations. In the regular season, Jimmy at PG was pretty much just a second unit thing (or to prevent hack-a-Ben late in a close game). Tough to run an effective PnR when your roll man is Bobi and you've got TJ standing in the corner doing nothing. Now Butler is running the PnR with either Embiid or Monroe (a better roll man than Bobi) or even with Simmons (in place of TJ).

Tl/dr: It's tough to run an effective PnR when the other players on the court are Harris, Boban, TJ, and Jonathan Simmons.

[Sixercise]

I also think one of the reasons that Butler has been more effective with it in the postseason is the shorter rotations. In the regular season, Jimmy at PG was pretty much just a second unit thing (or to prevent hack-a-Ben late in a close game). Tough to run an effective PnR when your roll man is Bobi and you've got TJ standing in the corner doing nothing. Now Butler is running the PnR with either Embiid or Monroe (a better roll man than Bobi) or even with Simmons (in place of TJ).

Tl/dr: It's tough to run an effective PnR when the other players on the court are Harris, Boban, TJ, and Jonathan Simmons.

Absolutely cannot be stated enough that Simmons as a roll man has drastically helped in the recent PNR mismatches that have been created in this series. But I also feel that more credit should be given to Redick for setting down screens against some of the taller Toronto players (and taking a few beatings) - which has really helped open up space. He's really busting his ass out there, even if it doesnt show up on the boxscore.