Around the League 2020 Playoffs

[MGrand15]

This happens every time D'Antoni loses.

Rockets were playing small ball with Harden + one of the worst shooters in NBA history at guard + a bunch of average at best shooters. That's a personnel issue. And in the process - they still made LA's traditional centers unplayable.

If there's anything to take away from this is that your personnel needs to be versatile. If some team can somehow play DJ/JA off the floor, we need a lineup option that can handle that. The Lakers are lucky to have AD - who has center size with guard skills. We can't get AD but someone that can stick with stretch 5s or someone that can switch onto guards and stretch the floor.

[gigantes]

re: Westbrook's "matador" defense,

Something that surprised me just now was in looking up his advanced defensive stats and discovering that they're quite reasonable. RPM and RAPTOR, for example. There's a lot of PG's, including high-profile ones, with much worse stats. This seems to pass the eye test too, in that WB can be a real pest, relentlessly bouncing around the court and causing chaos. Maybe not staying in front of his man as much as he should, but making up for it in other ways.

Just wanted to add that.

[MrDollarBills]

Ya'll still down with small-ball?

I think it's a great option to have as a team in case you face an opponent where said strategy provides maximun effect.

But as a main philosophy? I think Houston is exhibit A as to why NOT to make it our sole identity under coach Nash.

I hope Nash appreciates the value of defense because I don't want to become another Houston.

We need guys like the Fro and Jordan to be effective in order for us to suceed.

I'm still absolutely down with small ball. Small ball has won in this league for damn near the past decade.

You can't point to Houston getting pasted to discount small ball.

Houston is losing for a few reasons:

1. Westbrick was a fringe superstar whose having an awful time transitioning to a fringe star. And he always has taken his teammates out of their rhythm and essentially made players worse with his low BBIQ, matador defense and chasing stats.

2. Although Harden is a fantastic player, over and over again he shrinks in the big moments as a scorer. He becomes passive and defeatist. He picks his spots too much when he should force it and get buckets, and turns into a pass first point guard and a shot clock violation bailout shooter. I've never seen anything like it before him. As in I've never seen such a gifted, skilled, straight up dominant scorer and playmaker, with historic efficiency and high BBIQ just turn so f'ing timid and sheepish. He's a #2 or the deadliest #3 in playoff history if you put him on the right team, but you cannot get by with him even being a 1b on most rosters once the elimination series start. He just doesn't put his big boy pants on most series. Even when he drops 30+ and multiple assists, it's always quiet and mainly in the first half.

3. The Lakers, namely LeBron and AD are so much better then people give credit to, just because people are haters, or because the Lakes, like most LeBron designed teams do not play aesthetically pleasing basketball.


Small ball is currently working just fine for the other 4 remaining teams and seemed to work well for the Warriors and even the Cavs for years, hell the Spurs too, who mainly ran 2 guards and 2 wings, or 3 guards and 1 wing with 1 big man for their last maybe 8 years of contention before Kawhigate.

Small ball with one player garnering an obscene usage rate does not win.

Kobe called out the Rockets style of play and was 100% right:

Read on Twitter

?s=09

Also, I went through the starting line ups of the last decade worth of NBA champions in the playoffs and I see nothing but traditional line ups outside of the Heat when they ran Bosh at C.

Last year's champion had a starting front line of Marc Gasol, Pascal Siakam, and Kawhi Leonard. That ain't small.

Small ball isn't a sustainable strategy over 48 minutes. Houston's lack of size and interior defense made them BBQ chicken for the Lakers. You still need to have guys that can disrupt shots in the paint and protect the glass.

[MrDollarBills]

This happens every time D'Antoni loses.

Rockets were playing small ball with Harden + one of the worst shooters in NBA history at guard + a bunch of average at best shooters. That's a personnel issue. And in the process - they still made LA's traditional centers unplayable.

If there's anything to take away from this is that your personnel needs to be versatile. If some team can somehow play DJ/JA off the floor, we need a lineup option that can handle that. The Lakers are lucky to have AD - who has center size with guard skills. We can't get AD but someone that can stick with stretch 5s or someone that can switch onto guards and stretch the floor.

That's just it though, the Lakers got away with it because of AD who can defend the paint and switch out to defend guards. Guys like him are outliers. I'm not sure where we will find someone that can do what he does.

I think we will be fine with our bigs and if some team wants to play small, we can just run out our death line up with KD at the 5 who will torch whatever 6'8 guy they want to run against him. We are the last team anyone should even think about trying this small ball bs against.

[MrDollarBills]

Wow, this LAL - HOU game is just plain sad, and it's only the first quarter. Lakers up 33-11 with a few minutes to go at the moment.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a team look so dangerous in the first game only to look utterly lost & figured out later in the series. While looking pretty emotionless, too.

So it looks like LeBron was exactly right when he said after game one 'they present some unique challenges to us... now it's on us to adjust and respond.' Well Boy Howdy, talk about a response. oO

Westbrick yet again costs his team another series. Rockets should of kept CP3 I mean it's Lebron and the Lakers but Westbrook clearly doesn't fit there.

Houston gave up a ton to get him. What a disaster.

[TheNetsFan]

Yup small ball has been a thing for about this past decade. You can even go as far back as the big 3 Miami HEAT when Bosh was converted into playing the 5 after being a full time PF for most of his career. I'm not saying we should go all out like the Rockets did before somebody twists my words.

Yeah for sure those Miami teams were small ball as well, good point. Truthfully, they almost started the trend. Their wings and guards had good size though, but honestly, most successful small ball teams do.

Yea actually they might have started the trend. I remember they switched Bosh to the 5 and even had Shane Battier at the 4 sometimes even Lebron.

"Small Ball" is a terrible misnomer. Bosh was 6'11". Lebron is 6'9" and built like a truck. That's playing big men with traditionally small men skills, not playing small men at big man positions.

[therealbig3]

Aren’t we already “small” if we go with KD at the 4? That leaves us with just one traditional big, and I’m fine with JA defensively, I really do think he’s capable of sticking with perimeter players reasonably well defensively, and he does protect the rim and clean up the defensive glass. He just doesn’t provide any spacing on offense, but he’s a great lob threat who does demand a lot of attention going towards the rim.

Howard and McGee were unplayable against the Rockets because they weren’t moving defensively and weren’t playing disciplined defense, while also killing LA’s spacing. Allen defensively would have been better equipped to play in that series imo, because I think he moves a lot better and plays much more disciplined than either of them.

[vincecarter4pres]

Wow the Nuggets, huh? Another game 7!

[MrDollarBills]

Yeah for sure those Miami teams were small ball as well, good point. Truthfully, they almost started the trend. Their wings and guards had good size though, but honestly, most successful small ball teams do.

Yea actually they might have started the trend. I remember they switched Bosh to the 5 and even had Shane Battier at the 4 sometimes even Lebron.

"Small Ball" is a terrible misnomer. Bosh was 6'11". Lebron is 6'9" and built like a truck. That's playing big men with traditionally small men skills, not playing small men at big man positions.

Thank you!!

Even saying that the Lakers "went small" is false. AD and Lebron are big as hell. Robert Covington and PJ Tucker were getting mauled out there.

Playing your 5 most skilled guys to close out the 4th is fine. Playing undersized for 4 quarters is a losing strategy. All you're doing is allowing for the opponent to get lay ups and offensive rebounds.

Everyone should have seen Houston get taken to 7 games by OKC and known what was coming.

[MrDollarBills]

Aren’t we already “small” if we go with KD at the 4? That leaves us with just one traditional big, and I’m fine with JA defensively, I really do think he’s capable of sticking with perimeter players reasonably well defensively, and he does protect the rim and clean up the defensive glass. He just doesn’t provide any spacing on offense, but he’s a great lob threat who does demand a lot of attention going towards the rim.

Howard and McGee were unplayable against the Rockets because they weren’t moving defensively and weren’t playing disciplined defense, while also killing LA’s spacing. Allen defensively would have been better equipped to play in that series imo, because I think he moves a lot better and plays much more disciplined than either of them.

Allen being a lob threat is the perfect balance since teams cannot pack the paint with KD, Kyrie, and Joe Harris on the floor.

You need defensive rebounding and shot blocking/resistance at the rim. These are key areas to winning basketball games.

[gigantes]

Gol'dangit. I didn't realise the game was an early one, and done missed the fun.

Imagine coming back from 19 down or whatever it was in the 3rd, going on to knock off a superteam in a crucial game six.

https://i.imgur.com/ZCTsDrn.mp4

[MrDollarBills]

There's a 2nd quiz???

https://stephennoh.github.io/nbadefensetrappingquiz/

6 out of 10 on this one. Some of those were a bit more subjective. Fun though I had to watch a few of them a couple of times to see who blew coverage. That one play that was on Caldwell Pope was horrible

[gigantes]

There's a 2nd quiz???

https://stephennoh.github.io/nbadefensetrappingquiz/

6 out of 10 on this one. Some of those were a bit more subjective. Fun though I had to watch a few of them a couple of times to see who blew coverage. That one play that was on Caldwell Pope was horrible

Ugh. I can't get anywhere with these friggin quizzes. Maybe because I had no formal bball training and didn't even play the game until my early 20's?

So right off the bat in #1-- I don't understand why they say Eric Gordan is the one who screwed up the worst. My problem with that is that Gordon had to stick to Bradley in the corner for the most part, guarding against potential skip passes by Danny Green and then AD. By the time it was clear that the final pass was going to McGee, he had virtually no chance to do anything but foul uselessly given the severe height mismatch.

MEANWHILE, at the same time, PJ Tucker is uselessly floating over to stand right behind House, completely missing the cutting McGee. To me there's no way in hell that's Gordan's fault more than Tucker's. But aside from all that, just the massive height disparities between those guys and AD & McGee left them in poor shape to defend that play in the first place.

Again, I'm just a bball nincompoop, but play #1 looked like a largely pointless exercise. Anybody agree / disagree?

[Papi_swav]

Yea actually they might have started the trend. I remember they switched Bosh to the 5 and even had Shane Battier at the 4 sometimes even Lebron.

"Small Ball" is a terrible misnomer. Bosh was 6'11". Lebron is 6'9" and built like a truck. That's playing big men with traditionally small men skills, not playing small men at big man positions.

Thank you!!

Even saying that the Lakers "went small" is false. AD and Lebron are big as hell. Robert Covington and PJ Tucker were getting mauled out there.

Playing your 5 most skilled guys to close out the 4th is fine. Playing undersized for 4 quarters is a losing strategy. All you're doing is allowing for the opponent to get lay ups and offensive rebounds.

Everyone should have seen Houston get taken to 7 games by OKC and known what was coming.

It is not a terrible misnomer. Around 2010 almost every team had 2 big men that played back to the basket ball. Lakers had the twin towers Pau and Bynum and then Dwight. Celtics had KG and Perkins etc... These were the typical types of big men each team had. Bosh was a PF his whole career than was converted into playing center in miami and Lebron was a 3 playing the 4 or Shane batter was a 3 playing the 4. This wasn't typical at that time which is why I believe they started the trend of small ball.

It's not just about height. Doesn't matter how tall Bosh is/was , he wasn't big or strong enough to bang around with guys like Bynum, Perkins, Chandler at first. I remember around that time he had to gain alot of weight in the summer to handle the 5. Lebron just happen to be a freak that can play every position like Magic Johnson. You guys are just thinking about the Rockets taking it to the extreme and ya think that's the only definition of small ball but it's not.

GS had KD playing the 4 or 5 as a 7 footer and that was/is still considered small ball. Doesn't matter how tall he is, would you want KD playing the 5 the whole game? Exactly. But if he played the 5 for one minute you would consider that being small ball.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I think the D'Atoni's Suns might have actually started this trend. Remember the Suns had Stoudemire playing the 5 and Marion playing the 4. STAT was 6'11 which is a typical center height in todays game but at the time everybody called it small ball because he was a natural PF for that time. Matrix was about 6'8 SF playing the 4 , it sounds like a typical height for the 4 now but at that time it wasn't, hence playing small.

And then after them I guess you can consider the Van Gundy Orlando Magics. Dwight was a legit center at 6'11. But Rashard lewis was a SF his whole career and Van Gundy converted him to PF. I wouldn't call this small ball really but the idea of a stretch 4 started trending shortly after, and now here we are. These teams played a part of why the NBA is the way it is today.

[Papi_swav]

Clippers had to put this series away today, never want to take it to game 7. Have to give Denver a whole lot of credit, they are a come back team. 2 times in a row they were down 16 points and came back. I'm sure the NBA wants a LA vs. LA but if Denver overcomes CLippers that is a big statement. It would be a good story if Denver actually made the finals but the NBA isn't letting that happen;

[MGrand15]

https://stephennoh.github.io/nbadefensetrappingquiz/

6 out of 10 on this one. Some of those were a bit more subjective. Fun though I had to watch a few of them a couple of times to see who blew coverage. That one play that was on Caldwell Pope was horrible

Ugh. I can't get anywhere with these friggin quizzes. Maybe because I had no formal bball training and didn't even play the game until my early 20's?

So right off the bat in #1-- I don't understand why they say Eric Gordan is the one who screwed up the worst. My problem with that is that Gordon had to stick to Bradley in the corner for the most part, guarding against potential skip passes by Danny Green and then AD. By the time it was clear that the final pass was going to McGee, he had virtually no chance to do anything but foul uselessly given the severe height mismatch.

MEANWHILE, at the same time, PJ Tucker is uselessly floating over to stand right behind House, completely missing the cutting McGee. To me there's no way in hell that's Gordan's fault more than Tucker's. But aside from all that, just the massive height disparities between those guys and AD & McGee left them in poor shape to defend that play in the first place.

Again, I'm just a bball nincompoop, but play #1 looked like a largely pointless exercise. Anybody agree / disagree?

The first one says the game plan is to double AD. Tucker doubles weakly but he's sorta doing his job. As soon as he starts going, Gordon needs to protect the rim / cover McGee. If AD throws a quick skip pass to the corner, you've got time to run out and contest since Bradley is furthest away from him. That's maybe a 35% shot. That's only if AD quickly sees it and passes it before anyone rotates. If he hits McGee, it's an open dunk.

The 2nd part of that play is once Gordon covers McGee, Harden basically needs to split between LBJ and Bradley. LBJ might have some sort of specific game plan against him but against normal players - even if you get the pass to the corner, Harden'll be there. He picks up whoever AD passes to. Then Tucker gets back to McGee. Gordon runs out to LBJ and everything is reset.

I think these quizzes do a cool job of testing general concepts but there's usually a lot going on in these plays. And teams defend things differently.

[therealbig3]

"Small Ball" is a terrible misnomer. Bosh was 6'11". Lebron is 6'9" and built like a truck. That's playing big men with traditionally small men skills, not playing small men at big man positions.

Thank you!!

Even saying that the Lakers "went small" is false. AD and Lebron are big as hell. Robert Covington and PJ Tucker were getting mauled out there.

Playing your 5 most skilled guys to close out the 4th is fine. Playing undersized for 4 quarters is a losing strategy. All you're doing is allowing for the opponent to get lay ups and offensive rebounds.

Everyone should have seen Houston get taken to 7 games by OKC and known what was coming.

It is not a terrible misnomer. Around 2010 almost every team had 2 big men that played back to the basket ball. Lakers had the twin towers Pau and Bynum and then Dwight. Celtics had KG and Perkins etc... These were the typical types of big men each team had. Bosh was a PF his whole career than was converted into playing center in miami and Lebron was a 3 playing the 4 or Shane batter was a 3 playing the 4. This wasn't typical at that time which is why I believe they started the trend of small ball.

It's not just about height. Doesn't matter how tall Bosh is/was , he wasn't big or strong enough to bang around with guys like Bynum, Perkins, Chandler at first. I remember around that time he had to gain alot of weight in the summer to handle the 5. Lebron just happen to be a freak that can play every position like Magic Johnson. You guys are just thinking about the Rockets taking it to the extreme and ya think that's the only definition of small ball but it's not.

GS had KD playing the 4 or 5 as a 7 footer and that was/is still considered small ball. Doesn't matter how tall he is, would you want KD playing the 5 the whole game? Exactly. But if he played the 5 for one minute you would consider that being small ball.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I think the D'Atoni's Suns might have actually started this trend. Remember the Suns had Stoudemire playing the 5 and Marion playing the 4. STAT was 6'11 which is a typical center height in todays game but at the time everybody called it small ball because he was a natural PF for that time. Matrix was about 6'8 SF playing the 4 , it sounds like a typical height for the 4 now but at that time it wasn't, hence playing small.

And then after them I guess you can consider the Van Gundy Orlando Magics. Dwight was a legit center at 6'11. But Rashard lewis was a SF his whole career and Van Gundy converted him to PF. I wouldn't call this small ball really but the idea of a stretch 4 started trending shortly after, and now here we are. These teams played a part of why the NBA is the way it is today.

And around that time, when the rest of the NBA was trying to get more shooting on the court and have stretch 4s, Billy King was like "**** that", and got us Gerald Wallace at SF, so that we could have worse spacing while everyone else got better spacing. Everyone else already had shooting at the SF spot, it was therefore pretty unique to play someone who couldn't shoot at SF. See, he was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers, we just couldn't see it at the time.

[therealbig3]

Nuggets have been really impressive. I do think they've been a little disrespected, they were the 3rd seed for a reason. They're really good.

[gigantes]

The first one says the game plan is to double AD. Tucker doubles weakly but he's sorta doing his job. As soon as he starts going, Gordon needs to protect the rim / cover McGee. If AD throws a quick skip pass to the corner, you've got time to run out and contest since Bradley is furthest away from him. That's maybe a 35% shot. That's only if AD quickly sees it and passes it before anyone rotates. If he hits McGee, it's an open dunk.

The 2nd part of that play is once Gordon covers McGee, Harden basically needs to split between LBJ and Bradley. LBJ might have some sort of specific game plan against him but against normal players - even if you get the pass to the corner, Harden'll be there. He picks up whoever AD passes to. Then Tucker gets back to McGee. Gordon runs out to LBJ and everything is reset.

I think these quizzes do a cool job of testing general concepts but there's usually a lot going on in these plays. And teams defend things differently.

Thanks a bunch. That helped.

I also did a little more reading on r/NBA, and some people were indeed arguing that Gordon's job as the far weakside defender was to help back towards the middle. I guess he did kind of fall asleep there.

[MrDollarBills]

https://stephennoh.github.io/nbadefensetrappingquiz/

6 out of 10 on this one. Some of those were a bit more subjective. Fun though I had to watch a few of them a couple of times to see who blew coverage. That one play that was on Caldwell Pope was horrible

Ugh. I can't get anywhere with these friggin quizzes. Maybe because I had no formal bball training and didn't even play the game until my early 20's?

So right off the bat in #1-- I don't understand why they say Eric Gordan is the one who screwed up the worst. My problem with that is that Gordon had to stick to Bradley in the corner for the most part, guarding against potential skip passes by Danny Green and then AD. By the time it was clear that the final pass was going to McGee, he had virtually no chance to do anything but foul uselessly given the severe height mismatch.

MEANWHILE, at the same time, PJ Tucker is uselessly floating over to stand right behind House, completely missing the cutting McGee. To me there's no way in hell that's Gordan's fault more than Tucker's. But aside from all that, just the massive height disparities between those guys and AD & McGee left them in poor shape to defend that play in the first place.

Again, I'm just a bball nincompoop, but play #1 looked like a largely pointless exercise. Anybody agree / disagree?

Well, PJ Tucker poorly committed to the double team. If you're going to double team a player, especially one who is 6'10 and skilled like AD, you have to come hard and aggressively on the double team with your arms up to disrupt his timing and sight lines. This is 8th grade level stuff and a guy like Tucker knows better.

However, Eric Gordon was lolly gagging when he needed to immediately rotate over towards the paint to cut off passing lane to the cutter the moment that Tucker rotated since he should know that the gameplan was to trap Anthony Davis on the block. McGee would have had a harder time completing that play if Gordon was in the lane in between him and the basket. Someone is always going to be open on a double team, but as a team you have to take away the immediate option, which was PJ Tucker's man (McGee), and force Davis into making a much more difficult pass (which would be the cross court pass into the corner to Avery Bradley). A player like Kyle Lowry, who is an excellent team defender, would have been in that spot the moment Davis caught the ball and most likely would have flopped into a charge had McGee attempted to cut down the lane.

Good team defense means having good situational awareness and knowing where you need to be when running a defensive scheme. It's why guys like Taurean Prince, who is a decent defender one on one, sucks as a team defender because he's got the bball IQ of a fruit fly. D'Angelo Russell used to constantly fall asleep on defense away from the ball when he played with us. Stuff like this separates the middling teams from the elite ones. Watch how Miami plays team defense. They hit those traps hard and guys rotate to their spots. You can't play defense being half assed or lazy, which is a problem that most teams have.

Either way, the reality is, you shouldn't have a 6'7 player (Danuel House) and a 6'5 player (PJ Tucker) playing PF and C and expecting a dude that's 6'4 and no athleticism to break up an alley oop attempt to a 7 footer with long ass arms, but what do I know.