That’s not what’s happening in 2024, despite Ionescu’s first appearance on the women’s basketball Olympic team and the release of the second volume of her signature shoe. Rather, compared to the first four seasons of her career, she’s flying under the radar, a mere star to the public rather than a superstar, though her impact metrics are starting to vouch for the opposite.

Ionescu currently ranks first in Positive Residual’s Estimated Contributions metric, or ‘EC,’ ahead of teammate Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson, and the rest of the W. For the first time in her career, she is not grading out as a stark negative on defense, while easily soaring to the highest offensive EC number in the database.

In many ways, those numbers match the tape, particularly on defense, where Ionescu has clearly improved from awful to mediocre. But while that is indeed a vital jump for the New York Liberty, that’s not what I’m here to discuss.

I’m here to expand on what I wrote in this mid-season article on Ionescu’s offensive leap for the Libs, which has been the story of their season through 25 games. Here’s the SparkNotes version: After turning in one of the all-time great 3-point seasons by any professional player, shooting 44.8% on 9.6 3PA per 75 possessions, she’s morphed into far more of an offensive initiator in 2024. This is in part out of necessity, with backcourt partners Courtney Vandersloot and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton missing significant time this season, and in part because Ionescu is just better at handling the ball.

Her 3-point percentage is down to 35.6% thanks to a mix of natural regression and a weightier offensive load featuring more off-the-dribble attempts, but her two-point percentage is up from 38.3% in 2023 to 49.7% this year. That’s a trade-off New York is willing to make, and a result of stark improvement in her ball-handling skills. She’s patiently waiting out traps, splitting and swerving through hedges, or getting her shoulder into her primary defender. Whether applied by individual defenders or as a team, physicality and pressure is not phasing Ionescu in 2024. She keeps her dribble alive, and all of that is resulting in easier offense for her in the paint, by way of two-point shooting and passing.

It’s not like the 2020 #1 overall pick is a completely different player this year. There are signs of the play-finishing god that helped make the Liberty’s offense unstoppable last season, when she would set a bunch of screens and then come off some more, only for Vandersloot to deliver her the ball for an open three. Ionescu feasted on screen-the-screener actions in 2023, and New York still utilizes those for her in 2024…

Thus, she has become a savior of the dreaded ‘combo guard’ label, often applied to players as a last resort, as a prayer rather than as a positional designation for players missing one crucial skill.

In 2024, Ionescu has clarified the power of the combo guard by toggling between on-ball and off-ball excellence, not just within a season or even a game, but a possession. She doesn’t just have the ability to thrive with or without the ball in her hands, but the ability to blend both of those skill-areas so as to make their borders indistinguishable.

For example, she is one of the most prolific handoff-receivers in the game, as the dribble-handoff is a play-type perfectly suited to her strengths and weaknesses. As an on-ball creator, Ionescu isn’t the twitchiest athlete, missing the blazing first step of some of her contemporaries. However, she overcomes that by tapping into the off-ball movement skills we’ve known she’s had for a long time, the ones that helped produce her all-time 3-point shooting season in 2023.

Here, Jonquel Jones and Ionescu are aiming to set up a flare screen, but the pass goes to Jones which creates some confusion. However, Ionescu seamlessly springs into a handoff, a great cut that leaves defender Lindsay Allen in the dust…

Ionescu has created an advantage off-the-ball, which she then capitalizes on by hesitating around the hedge and whipping a live-dribble feed to Jones on the roll. Now, those are the on-ball skills that have shined for Ionescu this season, she’s just accessing them by way of her work away from the ball. (It should also be noted that the space she created from Allen allowed Jones to slip the screen early and get behind the defense.)

In the absence of elite burst, one of Sabrina’s notable strengths as an athlete is, well, her strength, specifically in her upper body. In 2023, she was one of the elite screen-setting guards in the WNBA, both for her willingness to get physical and her efficacy doing so. As a reward for her efforts, she got plenty of open 3-point looks, here bouncing off Emma Cannon after a bonafide collision like nothing happened:

When she isn’t handling the rock for New York in 2024, she’s still setting many of these screens. ‘Spain’ or ‘Stack’ action is a staple for the Liberty, with Ionescu often setting that back-screen on the roller and popping out to the 3-point line when the opportunity presents itself. On both of the following plays, the defense does well to shut down the initial action, but the ball finds its way into Sabrina’s hands, and guess what attribute shines when she decides to drive to the rim…

That’s right, her strength, as fellow Olympians Jewell Loyd and Kahleah Copper are each introduced to Ionescu’s right shoulder on their ride to the rim. Now, Ionescu isn’t setting hard screens there if she’s setting them at all, but her strength is undoubtedly a main reason she excels in those positions. As she flows from off-ball into on-ball action, the same attribute is creating her value.

Led by Head Coach Sandy Brondello, the New York Liberty insulate Ionescu’s skills perfectly, from general concepts like roster construction and spacing principles to giving their star guard a handful of opportunities each game to pick up easy layups off basic ‘UCLA’ cuts…

I covered this in my last Liberty piece for Swish Theory, but Jones and Breanna Stewart constitute the most skilled front-court in WNBA history possibly, from their versatility on the defensive end to their ability to screen, shoot, and pass on the offensive end. That, as you can see in the above clip, makes up for some of Ionescu’s shortcomings. She doesn’t have to roast her defender off the dribble because she can rely on Jones and Stewart to set good screens and hit her when she makes the proper cuts and relocations.

But what’s made Ionescu a top-flight offensive player in year five of her career, despite the immense talent of her ‘supporting’ cast, is her ability to access advantages, again and again and again. The last play I’ll show is the one most representative of her 2024 season to date, a clutch bucket against Connecticut Sun, the league’s second-best defense.

Connecticut takes away the simple UCLA cut for Ionescu, as the Liberty cycle through the set to get to a Sabrina-JJ handoff. Tyasha Harris does a great job sticking to Ionescu, the Liberty still have nothing. A re-set into a Ionescu-Jones pick-and-roll that doesn’t produce anything, then a seemingly innocuous handoff back to Ionescu with seven on the shot-clock. Harris relaxes for a split-second…she’s dead in the water:

Ionescu and the Liberty flow through a handful of opportunities to create an advantage with their star guard, and it’s the one that is, at the outset, the least threatening that Ionescu capitalizes on. She’s just jogging toward the sideline to retrieve the ball from Thornton, a non-threat off the dribble, but never lets Harris off her hip while waiting for the second defender to clear the area, ultimately finishing with a soft floater on the baseline.

Unlike the man she’s frequently been compared to, Steph Curry, Ionescu’s lineup constructions allow us to claim her as a combo guard. Her backcourt partners in 2024 are either Courtney Vandersloot — the Hall-of-Fame epitome of a pass-first, table-setting point guard — or Leonie Fiebich/Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, two players above six feet tall that nicely fit a ‘3-and-D’ description. That’s a different context than the one Curry has operated throughout his prime, always as the smallest player on the floor, forever a full-time point guard regardless of how often Draymond Green has the ball in his hands.

But it’s not lineup construction that should drive this discussion, it’s looking at how Ionescu creates and maintains advantages regardless of who is on the floor with her. We often discuss the merits of a player’s on-ball and off-ball value separately, but Ionescu makes that impossible. The beauty and efficacy of her offensive game isn’t just all the various things she’s good at, but how they stack on top of each other.

Despite what Positive Residual’s impact metrics say, Sabrina Ionescu probably isn’t the best player in the world right now, and that’s okay. She might just have to settle for being the best combo guard alive, and that is one hell of a player.

The post Sabrina Ionescu Has Reclaimed the Glory of the Combo Guard appeared first on Swish Theory.

The smallness of the players isn’t what matters in these lineups, when effective, but their skill, like wing-sized players bringing more 3-point shooting than most bigs, or guard-sized players bringing more ball-handling than more wings. A bunch of defenders who, because of their quicker foot-speed, can all defend on the perimeter. That gets you to the switch-heavy lineups we often associate with small-ball.

Yet, none of these attributes are mutually exclusive with size. They just don’t traditionally come in big packages. Now, the pendulum has shifted back to “well, size is preferable given you still meet these skill requirements,” because being big will never hurt you, now that we understand ‘big’ =/= ‘slow’ and ‘unskilled.’ I’m speaking pretty generally here, but we’re just re-discovering old truths. It’s good to be bigger than your opponent on a basketball court, just like it was in 2nd grade. And, just like then, you still have to be able to do something else besides be big; it’s the “something else” that has changed into a “something else” we don’t view as being compatible with size.

Size-advantages, then, become conditional on skill. Though a size-advantage will often manifest in the traditional sense all basketball fans recognize, like a bigger player pushing a smaller player out of the way for an offensive put-back, the line between size-advantages and skill-advantages is as blurry as ever. Think about the Rudy Gobert Discourse — please, just a second — back in 2021, when the Los Angeles Clippers played five guards and wings, spaced the arc, and torched his Utah Jazz in the playoffs.

Many correctly identified the real individual issue with Gobert, beyond the team-wide lack of perimeter defense; he couldn’t take advantage on the other end. The Clippers comfortably put guards on him, and Gobert wasn’t able to go down to the block and either post them up, work them in the dunker spot, or even grab enough o-boards to make them pay. A lack of skill begs the question: Did the Jazz really have a size-advantage, then, or just a big guy out there?

The New York Liberty are eighth out of 12 WNBA teams in offensive rebounding. The are sixth in blocked shots. The traditional indicators for a team that dominates with size aren’t fully there in their statistical profile, though they do rank second in defensive-rebound rate. And yet, the team boasting MVPs and All-Stars galore wins with skill that is often inextricable from their size, over and over.

The Liberty start Breanna Stewart (6’4″) and Jonquel Jones (6’6″) in the front-court, average wingspan of about seven-feet, and that alone makes them a chore to score on in the paint. No matter what defensive coverage they’re in, typically one of them is ready to get active at the basket. You can forget about it when both are around:

Jones has the first rotation, and it’s pretty simple before her size acts as a total shot-deterrent, but Stewie’s awareness ground-coverage to get back in the play is what really stands out. She’s moving like a small guard, but ultimately contests like a big, and you can see where I’m going with this, though two contests at the rim is not quite an example of a non-traditional size advantage.

How about this play, then, where New York forces a shot-clock violation from the Indiana Fever?

Stewie makes an impromptu switch onto a driver before doubling the post, and Indiana can never reverse the ball to the weak-side of the floor. Why? Mostly because Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, a six-footer with a plus-wingspan playing the ‘2’, comes to engulf Indiana’s 5’8″ shooting guard Kelsey Mitchell before Jonquel Jones swallows Aliyah Boston up on the baseline.

New York locks up the left side of the floor on that possession, which I’ll say is about 750 square feet here (30 x 25, half the baseline). The activity and perimeter defense from all involved is an execution of small-ball principles, but in practice, they win with size the same way a post player might seal a mismatch into oblivion: taking an area of the court and overwhelming you within it.

The Liberty, thanks to the active hands and feet of Stewie and Jones, feel just as big 30 feet from the basket as they do right under it. Their aggressive switching and trapping blows up opposing offenses, and Breanna Stewart in particular is a menace here:

Poor Caitlin Clark. On the first play, she doesn’t get rid of it quick enough, and Stewie takes her lunch-money (New York trapping near the sideline is a principle this season), and on the second play, she gets it out of her hands early, only for the two-time MVP to react and deflect it, leading to a shot-clock violation. Obviously, Stewart’s instincts and hand-eye coordination here are special, but she just towers over and envelops guards on the perimeter, even six-footers like Clark.

It’s not that Stewart is big and can guard and the perimeter, it’s that she’s big and it helps her guard on the perimeter.

This is the principle that carries New York’s elite offense. You’re about to watch a play where, 1) Betnijah Laney-Hamilton gets Kelsey Mitchell on a guard-to-guard switch and backs her down causing Indiana’s D to collapse. 2) She then swings the ball, and the Liberty end up with a wide open three for Stewart, mostly because Aliyah Boston’s perimeter rotations are less than ideal, but her matchup, Jonquel Jones, is shooting 42% from three this season, so she really has no choice:

Is that a size-advantage leading to a skill-advantage? Two size-advantages stacked on top of one another? Two skill-advantages?

Head Coach Sandy Brondello frequents Laney-Hamilton as a screener/sealer type who often posts up, especially as many defenses switch guard-to-guard actions willy-nilly. Do it, and you end up with your smallest player guarding a six-footer built like one big muscle.

But perhaps the biggest key to New York’s offensive structure this season has been Jones on the perimeter. At 6’6″, she frequently acts as a fulcrum at the top of the key, and it is just incredible to watch. She’s a career 38% 3-point shooter on three attempts per game, volume and efficiency higher since she arrived in New York last year, and my people, it gets scary when teams try to defend her pick-and-pops straight up:

Opposing centers not only don’t get to protect the rim, then, but are put in rotation. Often, defenses will pre-rotate to save their bigs from getting exposed, buy the problem here is that Jones is a quick, decisive passer from the arc:

This is what happens when you roster as much top-end talent as you can imagine, as the Liberty do. But this seems like more of a skill-advantage; the only argument being that opposing bigs pulled away from the basket opens up the paint for New York’s other players to drive and score. That doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of size, but rather a reality of well-executed 5-out spacing.

But Jones is still the center who won MVP in Connecticut with a heavy post-up load, who shoots 10% better than league-average from two in down years, but 69.5% (I’m serious) this season, in a spaced-out Liberty offense while not dealing with a lower-leg injury, as she was last season.

While the Liberty do like to maintain 5-out spacing, they’re not rigid enough to miss laughing at an idea like putting smaller, quicker defenders on her to switch things up, I guess because you gotta try something, right? Worse comes to worse, you can still double, as the Chicago Sky and Los Angeles Sparks did in their matchups this season, when their 6’7″ centers in Kamilla Cardoso and Li Yueru, respectively, were injured or on the bench. Reader, if you click to play any one of these clips, make sure it’s this one:

It’s a traditional size-advantage won by posting up that leads to skill that makes you jump out of your seat, though the fact that Jones has the skill to finish 1-on-1 post-ups is a valid argument for another day. Still, what makes Jones one of the best, most unique players hooping today is, reductively, the combination of size and skill, and that’s the same thing that makes the New York Liberty tick.

Between Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner, and Brionna Jones, the Connecticut Sun have a long, big front-court that is physically imposing in a more traditional sense. They’re third in the league in rebounding, both offensive and defensive. They’re 11th in 3-point attempts per game and last in pace. Their spacing is not always ideal, but they brutalize their way past those problems on most nights anyway, and entered Wednesday’s game vs. the Liberty their equal, at 17-4. A quick look at the stats would suggest a finesse-vs-power matchup, and in the first half of the game, Bri Jones gave Jonquel legitimate problems down low, sealing and posting and making layups rarely made against Jonquel.

But these three straight possessions illustrate that all size isn’t equal.

1. Stewie helps off a non-shooter to take away the roll on a pick-and-roll, as Connecticut’s lack of outside shooting in their front-court lets New York stack the paint.
2. Jonquel Jones beating Bri Jones for a contested board, sprints the floor, seals her off, and makes a layup off a great entry pass.
3. CT runs their infamous inverted-PnR action for Alyssa Thomas, but now it’s Bri Jones’ lack of outside shooting that allows Jonquel to help in that paint. Harmless 20-footer.

You feel New York’s physicality more in those three clips, even though Connecticut isn’t physically overmatched. Jonquel Jones rebounding, running the floor, and sealing off her matchup is traditional big stuff, and she excels at that too, but there’s no help in the paint given the shooters around her on the floor. Connecticut cannot say the same, and thus, the Liberty bigs are taking up the paint, contesting shots, and grabbing boards.

Though much of that sequence is about off-ball shooting and spacing, that’s just one factor in how New York’s immense skill and smart coaching allows them to play to their size. Sandy Brondello’s team is bigger than you in the paint when they’re helping off non-shooters, sure, but they’re bigger than you on the perimeter too. They shrink you.

The New York Liberty are modern giants, with a size-advantage indistinguishable from their skill. They use the threat of paint-domination to get up the most 3-pointers in the league, and despite falling from 1st in 3-point percentage to fifth this season, they still are within decimal points of having the W’s highest offensive rating, thanks to shooting over 54% from two. Their size isn’t just for show.

But then again, neither is their skill.

The post On the New York Liberty, Who Maximize and Re-Define ‘Size’ appeared first on Swish Theory.

They are, after all, the only tangible thing we’re guaranteed, from birth to death, and treating them as we would a sacred place of worship is an act of self-love that isn’t inherently religious. Viewing healthy physical habits the way a spiritual leader views the upkeep of their temple breeds gratitude, if not for a divine creator than simply for having your body to begin with. Of course, such gratitude leads to self-acceptance, and we’re more encouraged to do our daily stretching or follow our diets when we think of them as treating our bodies/temples kindly, rather than being bred out of dissatisfaction with what we’ve been given.

So believe me when I tell you I feel like a reprobate in saying that Nikola Topić is an uncommonly gifted 18-year-old hooper regarding his processing, his understanding of where the pressure points of a defense are at any given moment, and that I’d trade a whole lot of those smarts away for his f***ing shins to be a few degrees more malleable.

First, let’s focus on the rare basketball sense Nikola Topić has, which he displayed this past season in both his time with Mega Basket of the Adriatic League, and after his call-up to Red Star, where he mostly faced Euroleague competition when he wasn’t on the shelf with a left knee injury. (His season was ended by a partially torn ACL).

With Mega, Topić was the offensive engine entrusted with running repeated pick-and-rolls, which became the layout for many of his reads. Over 13 games, he averaged seven assists and three turnovers, but given how often the ball was in his hands, conservative decision-making actually depressed each of those categories, as Topić was occasionally too smart for his own good.

Here, Topić sees two defenders come to the ball as his screen-setter dives to the rim, with the ‘lift’ shooter rising from the strong-side corner. That defender sticks with the shooter instead of recovering to the roller. Great! But then, Topić realizes there’s surely a defender in the other corner he has to worry about, and technically, he makes the right decision to skip it to that other corner to create a catch-and-shoot jumper.

I went through this season’s tape chronologically after watching many of his shots/assists/turnovers from the prior season with Beograd to get a baseline, and it was immediately clear that the young Serb had the 2-on-2 situations down. You know, drive-and-kicks one pass away, hitting the dunker spot on drives, hitting the roll-man vs. drop coverage, dynamic situations in transition, that was all great. Sometimes awesome:

But you saw the wheels really turn for Topić when considering the whole court, and earlier in the season, particularly with Mega, it felt like he perceived potential advantages at a high-level, but not the actual ones, as in that first clip: It’s exciting to see an 18-year-old guard immediately processes two on the ball, and then one help defender, and then another one in the opposite corner…but the highest-value read was probably just to hit the roller anyway, right?

Same thing here, on an empty pick-and-roll where two defenders come to the ball. Topić hits the big at the top of the key, whose defender was the only helper who could recover to that roller; now he has to guard the pall, and Topić is pointing to the next read as soon as the ball leaves his hands:

But Topić probably could have made that play himself, had he not been knee-capped by a fixation on the admittedly correct help defender to fixate on. Which is why I was jumping out of my seat by the end of his season, when Topić frequently took matters into his own hands by not only analyzing help defenders, but manipulating them himself.

Look at him manipulate the low-man on this pick-and-roll with his eyes, allowing him to make the highest-value pass by not just recognizing the potential advantage, but actualizing it:

This is where I believe Topić will add value as an NBA contributor, perhaps next to a renowned advantage-creator. His ability to exploit advantages is on a clear incline, and his sense of defensive pressure points does not disappear when he’s not the ball-dominant, pick-and-roll puppeteer he was at Mega Bemax. Across eight games with Red Star, where he had a larger share of off-ball opportunities, he displayed the type of quick decision-making and connective passing every team wants to surround their big guns with:

Yes, I am high enough on Topić’s decision-making that I’m not overly worried about his 29% 3-point shooting this season with regards to his future as an off-ball contributor, though that should improve too. (He is, historically, a high-80’s free-throw shooter.) But certainly, his sell as a prospect is that of a high-volume on-ball creator who gets into the paint at will, but that’s not all he can be.

Here’s a clip from the very first game of Topić’s 2022-23 season with Beograd, where he roasts a closeout that doesn’t come near the 3-point line:

It’s another positive bit of decision-making off the catch, but it’s also instructive as to the type of driver that Nikola Topić is, even in more static situations like a half-court pick-and-roll. He will pick that ball up early, often beyond the free-throw line, and trust that he can get all the way to the rim or somewhere near it afterwards. For most of his career, this has been a fine strategy, given his straight-line burst and wonderful body control/touch while in the air.

Per Synergy, he shot 68% with Mega this season on half-court attempts at the rim, which does not include a single dunk. That’s explained by a combination of a reported 6’5.5″ wingspan and that tendency to pick the ball up early, which again, didn’t matter much with Mega against Adriatic League competition.

Plenty of his buckets looked like this, where he operates the pick-and-roll, and despite taking his final dribble outside the 3-point line, finishes over the outstretched arms of a big man whose technique and/or athleticism could use just a bit of work:

Or, perhaps something like this, where Topić executed a no-frills, straight-line drive against a big man on a switch, just blowing by him with two dribbles that don’t cover a ton of ground.

No, those don’t dribbles don’t cover much ground, and sigh, it’s time to talk about those shins.

What I’m referring to is a concept known as “shin angle,” referring to the angle between a player’s shin and the floor; the more acute (closer to parallel) it gets with the floor, the more torque/later mobility they have off that step. Think of the most flexible players you know, who can bend tight corners by getting low to the ground or change directions and demonstrate a damn-near truly parallel shin angle like the inhuman Shai Gilgeous Alexander:

This is decidedly not Nikola Topić, who has exemplary north-south pop, but with lateral mobility that belongs on a pavement court the morning after it rained. His routes to the rim take the shape of a banana, rather than a zig-zag. On his very first possession with Red Star in 2023-24, he blows by a poorly executed switch, but instead of careening right off the defender’s hip, his wide angle to the rim allows that defender to recover, though Topić evades him by hanging in the air:

On that play, we see Topić’s other athletic flaw, in that he’s not very flexible with his upper body. His shins get reasonably low to that ground there, but his center of gravity is not. Of course, if SGA and Kyrie Irving are the bar, then we’ll never be satisfied, but this is still quite the difference:

Against Euroleague bigs, Topić started to feel the weight of his driving limitations, for perhaps the first time in his life. He shot just 6-of-14 at the rim, per Synergy — small sample size, I know — but it matched the eye test, as wide driving angles that were exacerbated by aborting his dribble too early turned would-be makes against weaker competitions into some blocked shots and impossible floaters against more mobile defenders:

That said, Topić still showed flashes of downhill production, exposing weakness in point-of-attack defense. When switches and hedges were slightly off-kilter, or defenders were the slightest bit confused by, say, a ghost screen, Topić was more eager to take advantage of that daylight. Somewhat similar to his playmaking strengths and weakness, the tantalizing guard prospect has no problems identifying advantageous driving lanes. It’s creating them that we have to worry about.

I do say tantalizing guard prospect intentionally. Despite a lack of horizontal shake and a consistent outside shot, Topić offers enough talent at such a young age (18 on draft night) that I wouldn’t balk at anybody who has him in the top-tier of prospects.

That does bring me to the first larger question when evaluating Topić, though, one you might be able to guess if you’ve read the title to this piece, and that’s one of complementary skills. In a vacuum, a guard with plus-positional size who has both excellent feel and excellent touch who’s already displayed advanced acumen in the NBA’s preferred pick-and-roll style has to be near the top of your big board, right?

Well, not if you don’t believe in the glue that connects those skills. For Topić, the glue could be the horizontal shake needed to access that superb touch and feel on the ball and shooting off of it; there’s reasons to be skeptical in both areas, particularly the former. And this season, we often saw a lack of burst in small spaces dim his playmaking. Do we think he couldn’t process and execute these baseline drive-and-kicks, or could he not access these because he couldn’t turn the corner on his matchup?

This is the crux of Topić’s defense as well, where his processing and understanding of rotations is as strong as it is on offense, but the end of the floor where his lack of lateral movement skills come back to bite him even more. And speaking of defense, NBA teams will let him access his strengths even less often than Adriatic and Euroleague teams, even beyond the improvement in individual defenders.

Why would an NBA team put themselves in rotation by hard-hedging Topić, the coverage we saw in many of his on-ball passing clips from the first section? Before we even get to drop coverage, will he not have years of seeing teams test him by going under ball-screens or switching? He’s not shy to pull up from three, but brashness is a long way from effectiveness, not to mention a lack of mid-range counters that seem antithetical to his full-speed-ahead driving nature.

Finally, can a worthwhile bet be made on exposing the cracks and slippages of an NBA defense? This, after all, is what I’m most confident about in Nikola Topić’s game, that the spaces created by confusion at the point-of-attack are ripe to be uncovered by his aggressive, north-south nature. However, is a truly enticing ball-handling prospect not one who primarily thrives on creating something out of nothing?

Nikola Topić might have been the most polarizing prospect — non Zach Edey division — in this NBA Draft class before he clocked in with a negative wingspan and a partially torn ACL this month. And after diving deep into his film, despite the obvious combination of production, youth, and skill, I can say I understand the skeptics for the reasons I delved into above.

However, I disagree with them. There is feasible skill acquisition within reach that would secure Topić’s outlook as one of the best bets in the 2024 NBA Draft class to return value as an offensive creator an NBA team can depend on. We’ve gone 2,000 words without discussing his ball-handling ability, just his tendencies.

But those tendencies, namely the early pickups and lack of ground coverage, have far more to do with the shin-angle and flexibility limitations that I think will see marginal improvements as he nears legal (American) drinking age. But even if they don’t, Topić’s handle itself is where my optimism lies.

Topić has the ball on a string, both trusting it in tight spaces and in north-south situations:

There was even a glimpse or two of a late change-of-direction, such a spin move after Topić realized he didn’t have the angle to the basket simply going full speed.

Watching him prove that these dribble counters — particularly that spin move in the lane — are in his bag, but so infrequently pulling them out, is a sign that Topić has rarely had to rely on them when his signature sprints to the rim have been enough to get by. I don’t know how much I trust his horizontal shake to improve, but I do trust that he start taking the extra dribble more consistently.

In his age-18 season, it was in his bag, just unnatural for him. Still, that coveted extra dribble was the difference on possessions like these, first where he draws a foul, and secondly where he makes a poor decision with the ball, resulting in a turnover:

Topić has beaten defenders to the rim all his life by putting his head down and turning it into a track-meet, facing real resistance for the first time in his mid-season jump to Red Star this past winter. There, his circuitous driving routes were exposed a bit, but more importantly, so were his lack of counters. We hardly saw late spin-moves in the lane, or shielding a shot-blocker with his body, and jumping off two feet. It would have helped here:

The glue that has bound Nikola Topić’s strengths together has been his straight-line burst, an ability that’s forced defenses to trap and hard-hedge him in an effort to prevent him from wreaking havoc in the lane. That, however, opened up his advanced play-making; the counter then would be frequent switching, but competition with Beograd and Mega rarely featured a big who could keep up with him. Transition offense was child’s play.

The glue to connect his playmaking and finishing in the NBA will change. No longer will it be enough to put his head down and go, and while the side-to-side athleticism will rarely leave defenders in the dust, this is where skill acquisition will elevate Topić’s game. Shooting, of course, is an obvious swing factor, but so is taking extra dribble to get further into the lane, or to the other side of the basket, prolonging his decision-making window.

Against Euroleague competition, Topić would frequently find himself with no live dribble, about to jump off of one-foot without having created an advantage, a situation he rarely found himself in with Mega or Beograd. His drive was hitting the fan, and he’d have to find a bail-out option rather than a high-level read:

I believe Nikola Topić has the necessary ball-handling ability to build a web of counters, to continue his downhill marches against NBA defenses particularly as his shooting improves, especially as he provides enough off-ball value to earn a longer leash with whatever team drafts him.

Would I still trade much of his basketball sense for that east-west shake we desire in our lead guards? It’d be the safe move, as it would likely assure Topić’s main selling point would translate to the NBA, that he’d at least be able to get into the paint vs. anybody, regardless of the decision-making surrounding his drives. Whoever drafts him would more likely be getting the version of him they’ve seen on film.

Yet, I’m a believer in this version of Topić, the only one we’re going to get, perhaps for the same reason I’m a believer in doing ten minutes of yoga a day. He is a uniquely challenging prospect to evaluate with extreme strengths and weaknesses, but in leaning toward acceptance rather than dissatisfaction, analyzing what tools he has rather that what tools he doesn’t, I’ve found the improvements Nikola Topić has to make are within reach.

The post Nikola Topić Scouting Report: On Complementary Skills, NBA Defenses, and Skill Acquisition appeared first on Swish Theory.

There’s the way he calls for the rock down low. Rather than the typical showing of the palm to the entry-passer, Burns cups his hand and gives the ‘come here’ motion, wiggling his fingers as if he was a schoolteacher inviting a student to a quiet discussion at the front of the classroom. When the hand goes up, you imagine his defender letting out the same chagrined sigh a student would. Here we go again.

But this is where the fun begins, for the rest of us.

It starts with Burns’ 6’9-and-275-pound frame, which has been covered mostly as a circus-like oddity, less so for the way he uses it to excel on the court. Burns is stronger than every individual defender he’s faced during NC State’s eight-game winning streak to the Sweet 16, including UNC’s Armando Bacot. In the ACC Championship Game, the Tar Heels largely defended Burns straight up, allowing the big man to patiently bulldoze his way to 20 points:

This is no slight to Bacot, but rather a lesson to the rest of NC State’s opponents. If even the 6’11” 24-year-old can’t bother Burns, you better come up with a different defensive strategy. And no, half-hearted help defense isn’t going to cut it either: Burns is unfairly hand-eye coordinated for someone of his size.

Prolonging the dribble is a skill associated with elite guard-play, but Burns can maintain a live dribble no matter how physical his defender gets, no matter how many digs come from the perimeter. Thus, his post-up opportunities can cover 20 feet or last for ten seconds if you’re not careful:

But Burns hasn’t just displayed incredible strength, coordination, and touch during March. He has the finer points of post-up basketball down, and while the ‘chess-match’ analogy is incredibly overused, it comes to mind when watching Burns treat help defenders defenders like pawns.

If the path to a bucket isn’t to his liking, Burns is eager to throw the ball back out and re-post. On the following play against Texas Tech, the big man twice looks toward the middle, sees too much traffic, and kicks it out before ultimately finishing with a sweeping hook. Burns isn’t solely doing this to re-establish position — though he does that too — but to clear extra defenders out of the way. Look at #2 in white evacuate the area that Burns will steam through after the second pass.

His teammates deserve their share of credit too, doing all they can to revive the art of entry-passing. But of course they’re eager to throw it down to the big fella, who predictably combines his physical traits and court-mapping ability to create opportunities for others.

Burns has posted at least four assists in five of his last nine games, and the crown jewel of his passing performances came against Oakland in the round of 32. No zone defense is particularly amenable to post play, and especially not Oakland’s zone, a funky 1-3-1/matchup hybrid. Help defenders can attack post-ups from all sorts of angles, and while the Golden Grizzlies tried to do so against Burns, they were rarely successful.

On this play, he heads middle to test the waters, but it’s just a test, so he keeps his dribble alive at the sight of two defenders. This allows him to spin back baseline, attracting another wave of help, which leaves teammate Mohamed Diarra open under the basket:

NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts posted Burns in the middle of the floor against Oakland, and what a luxury it was. Not only was there the typical help defender at the top of the key, but one in the strong-side corner as well. Burns was operating in a hail-storm, and it hardly phased him; his highlight of the game came here, when both of those helpers converged to create a triple-team. They would have been successful against any other player:

To review: Leaving Burns on an island is untenable; he’ll overwhelm his individual defender, and he’ll shoo away lackluster digs. He also has the smarts to bend help defense to his whim whether he wants to score the rock or dish it off. And even if you do bring the blitz, even it gets home on time, good luck ripping the ball away from DJ Burns.

There is one move that encapsulates the DJ Burns Experience, and I hope you didn’t think I was going to forget it. It’s the spin move, the spin that likely birthed his ‘Smooth Operator’ nickname, simultaneously graceful and violent, but poetic all the same.

When Burns feels a defender’s forearm on his back, it’s just a matter of time before he flips the equation. In the blink of an eye, Burns is digging his elbow into the back of the defender.

This is everything we’ve grown to love about his game. Burns uses the move to both get by his defender and escape help defense. And while it’s one thing to use a spin move in the post, it’s another to do so with a live dribble. Not just any live dribble either, but one that almost puts a dent in the hardwood; he spins so violently, it’s surprising he can even control the ball again, but there’s that hand-eye coordination.

There’s a lot to love about DJ Burns. Plenty of basketball players are big, but not many combine size and strength with all the skills and smarts he possesses. Of course, all that talent hasn’t just made Burns a fan favorite during NC State’s eight-game winning streak.

It’s made him impossible to guard.

The post Why Can’t Anybody Stop DJ Burns? appeared first on Swish Theory.

That’s how ex-NBA’er Tim Legler described his baseline requirements for a championship-level NBA defense on JJ Redick‘s podcast, The Old Man and the Three. And all Leglar has to point to for evidence is the NBA’s most recent champion, the Denver Nuggets.

Denver’s defense was the definition of ‘adequate’ in the 2022-’23 regular season, finishing 15th in defensive rating. But try telling that to the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat; each of those teams scored just 38 points in the second half of their respective season-ending losses to Denver. Their defense didn’t just “ramp it up,” they shut it down.

The Nuggets did it again in their most recent win, a mere regular-season triumph over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night. Their moment of truth didn’t come at half-time of an NBA Finals closeout-game, though, but when Head Coach Michael Malone chided his group for their poor defensive start, down 45-32 after 14-and-a-half minutes of play.

“I don’t know if you guys are watching. Klay’s got 21, five threes. Make him work for it. “

Over the final 33-and-a-half minutes, the Warriors scored just 58 points. Klay Thompson scored two more points, and zero after half-time. Switch: flipped.

The Warriors remain the pre-eminent test for NBA defenses. Not because they are still the league’s most fearsome offense, but because the Dubs exist to force mistakes. Splash Bro Ridiculousness aside, Golden State’s buckets are often the result of clear defensive breakdowns. Sure, it’s hardly a sin to overcommit to Steph Curry and let his screener slip to the rim, but mistakes are mistakes, and the Warriors give defenses ample opportunity to make them.

In Sunday’s contest, Denver either didn’t take the bait, or hastily covered their tracks. In doing so, their defense took the shape of their offense; Nikola Jokić led the way, and his teammates were everywhere they were supposed to be.

This started, naturally, on Steph Curry’s pick-and-rolls. With Jokić in the action, the Nuggets showed two to the ball as many teams do, but with a wrinkle. In an effort to prevent some of the 4-on-3 mastery that Draymond Green has long showcased, Denver had Curry’s defender go under the screen to jam Green before recovering to Curry. Watch Kentavious Caldwell-Pope body Green up before stealing the ball here:

In order to throw two bodies at Curry and slow down Green’s prolific short-roll ability, the Joker had to hold up on one of the toughest individual covers in the world. At least, for the split-second after Curry sees Green isn’t an immediate release valve and thinks he has space to attack, a scary proposition for a seven-footer.

Here, Jokić doesn’t fall for Curry’s hesitation move and forces a change-of-direction back toward an oncoming KCP, which results in a turnover:

Caldwell-Pope was characteristically terrific on D, whether it was nailing off-ball switches or going under these ball-screens while still providing pressure.

So too was Aaron Gordon, AKA chicken soup for Michael Malone’s soul. How easy it must be to trap ball-screens with Jokić when Gordon is on the back-line, capable of both recovering to the rim for a block…

…and recovering to the perimeter to make a textbook closeout, as the Nuggets ultimately stifle the 4-on-3 advantage Golden State spent a dynasty perfecting:

The Nuggets couldn’t prevent every 4-on-3 advantage for the Dubs — the accepted cost of trapping/hedging vs Curry — but Gordon consistently de-escalated those situations.

Yet, it was Nikola Jokić who played the role of Denver’s biggest neutralizer.

Players like Sabrina Ionescu and James Harden, both possessing outlier hand-eye coordination but regarded as poor defenders for the majority of their careers, don’t suddenly lose their athletic ability when defending their basket. For all their flaws on that end of the floor, each can rack up deflections, using that same skillset that allows them to be such prolific off-the-dribble shooters on offense.

Nikola Jokić is cut from the same cloth, but has turned it up a notch. The notion that he is a negative defender is long gone. Are we surprised that his singular feel for the game is now apparent on both ends of the court?

Draymond Green just had to learn the hard way. Here, Big Honey punks Green in a vaunted 2-on-1 opportunity, feigning at his drive before breaking up the lob, forcing a turnover:

The Warriors had won that possession. A high ball-screen for Curry in early offense created the roll opportunity Denver had been trying to eliminate all night: Green storming downhill unimpeded, with a lob threat in the dunker spot. We’ve seen this movie on an infinite loop, but Jokić changed the ending.

Denver forced Golden State’s hand. Not only is Jokić now nimble enough to run aggressive schemes on the perimeter, but he has defenders like Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to fill the gaps. Let him roam around the basket, and the mistakes Golden State forces don’t amount to much. Slip your little off-ball screens, sure, and slip right into the hands of Nikola Jokić:

The defining sequence of the game — and perhaps this new era of Western Conference supremacy — came with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Nuggets led by five points, and each coach had subbed their big guns back in for the stretch run. Curry and Green checked in, as did Jokić and Caldwell-Pope.

As Golden State got into the meat of their out-of-timeout play, Curry floated off a flare screen from Trayce Jackson-Davis. Green watched Caldwell-Pope get caught on said screen, and passed it to a soon-to-be wide-open Curry.

Only, Jokić broke the rules. Green knew Jokić was too smart to get beat on the slip from Jackson-Davis, but didn’t consider the obviousness of that line of thinking. So the two-time MVP picked off Green’s pass and headed the other way to run a 2-on-1 fast-break against the greatest defender of his generation. The roles had been reversed, and the two basketball savants locked into a three-second chess match.

It was over before it started:

The Denver Nuggets still have it. Their defense is much like their offense, led by Nikola Jokić and capable of exploding for game-breaking stretches.

And of course, they’ll still dunk on you.

The post How the Denver Nugget Defense Dominates appeared first on Swish Theory.

Still, no handshake is complete without a wink. Your project could cut the line. Maybe the prognosticators were wrong. Maybe all he needs is a summer of professional weight-lifting and nutrition plans to flash potential and production at 19 years old. You never know.

Well, we found out pretty quickly with Scoot Henderson. He is nearly a lock to finish his rookie season dead-last in the NBA in eFG% and TS%, among qualified players. The Portland Trail Blazers go from bad to awful — getting outscored by just under 11 points per 100 — when Scoot takes the court. His early play was littered with missed shots and turnovers that just didn’t look right, quickly quieting the noise around the #3 overall pick:

The winking eye has faded, and what remains are the harsh realities of life as an NBA point guard who just turned 20. Disappointed? Perhaps. But should we be worried?

Jumper Watch

To answer that, we first have to talk about the jumper, his biggest pre-draft question mark. Scoot settled into his rookie year All-Star break shooting 31% from deep and somewhere between 33% and 34% on mid-range attempts. No matter where you get your statistics, the numbers tell a story of a broken shot.

Hold off, though, on declaring doomsday. It depends which of Scoot’s Jekyll-and-Hyde jumpers we’re talking about. If it’s the all-too common version where his energy transfer is corrupted by an exaggerated knee-bend, then yes. It’s broken:

After exerting so much energy to just get off the ground, — damn-near doing a squat — Scoot has little left for, you know, the actual shot attempt. It’s a symptom of poor lower-body organization, and it can manifest in other ways; he has one foot on red and one foot on green here:

The optimist’s case is quite easy to make: When Scoot gives himself a chance, he can shoot the rock. When his lower body complies, you expect the league’s least efficient scorer to knock it down. Even on a pound-dribble, side-step three:

Of course, slightly more power is required for deeper shots, but in general: The closer Scoot’s load-up looks to this, the better.

That’s the diagnosis on one of the worst jump-shooters in the NBA, but what’s the prognosis? Well, considering the raw numbers, it’s quite positive. The optimist has evidence of Scoot confidently step into sound pull-up threes when defenders duck under screens.

After a 2-of-21 start from deep in his first first five games, an ankle injury sidelined the young guard. Since his subsequent absence, Scoot is shooting a respectable 34% from deep. Overall, Scoot is making an eye-opening 35.2% of his threes off-the-dribble, but an also eye-opening 26.9% of his catch-and-shoot attempts. He is far more comfortable walking into pull-ups with the ball in hand, planning those steps to make sure nothing goes awry. This looks pretty good!

Anecdotally, his mechanics feel more consistent in recent weeks, though we still haven’t seen a percentage-boosting hot streak. I can’t, uh, spit on your head and tell you it’s raining by declaring that one of the NBA’s worst jump-shooters is actually a sniper, but there are signs of life.

Scoot will have ample opportunity — whether on or off the ball — to catch that heater. As you can see, defenders don’t show him a ton of respect beyond the arc.

The Magic is There

Or maybe it’s a form of respect. See, Scoot still displays the talent that Portland ultimately swung on. No matter how much space a defender puts between himself and Henderson, a minor slip-up still means Scoot is gone. Lu Dort learned this lesson the hard way, twice beat by a Scoot special: a ball-screen rejection:

The young man had us worried to start the year. Not about his athleticism or even ball-handling skills, but his advantage-perception. Scoot looked like a victim of overtraining. He had come from the shadowy G League Ignite and had every move in the bag. But in the fall, it looked like those moves were drilled into his muscle memory by high-level trainers and coaches, practiced on cones and chairs. Applying them against live bodies proved difficult.

The results were often ugly, like the offensive foul that led off this article, occasionally innocuous. Take this pseudo-Smitty that goes nowhere:

Did Scoot think Isaac Okoro was still on his hip, or that Evan Mobley was going to lunge at him? That would have been a nasty counter, if so, but Scoot reached in his bag for a solution that didn’t apply.

In the new year, that’s happened less frequently. Here, Dillon Brooks and Jock Landale think conservative ball-screen coverage is a piece of cake until they get hit with an evil, downhill tween/in-n-out combo:

Scoot’s shooting remains a concern, even for optimists. There’s talent to work with, and it does feel as if the lower-body organization has improved over the year. But until Scoot starts truly making more shots, those are words of affirmation rather than evidence points.

However, his driving has improved over his first half-season. He’s often more explosive than his matchup, but now he’s busting out appropriate, high-level dribble sequences to get by defenders. Throw in a consistent jump-shot (or, sigh, a real DeAndre Ayton screen) and this skill pops even more. But if there’s one worry that’s been quelled, it’s Scoot bringing the offensive goods at the point-of-attack. He’s gonna live in the paint; it’s not the first layer of defense that bothers him.

The Launch Pad

It’s the second and third. Ever the swing skill for young guards, Scoot picks the ball up too early on most his drives. His handle, impressive and aggressive in space, freezes up in the presence of even light help defense, and his shots at the rim are often unreasonably difficult.

When Scoot gets to the launch-pad, about ten or 12 feet from the basket, that’s it. He’s picking the dribble up and taking off, whether it’s off one foot or two. Even for a flammable, long-armed athlete like him, it’s too much:

Scoot is now taking 38% of his shots at the rim, per Cleaning the Glass. That’s a Ja Morant figure; he’s living around the cylinder. But he is only making 46% of these attempts, firmly in basement-territory. It doesn’t add up until you turn on the tape. Weak digs, stunts, defenders on hips, and big bodies in front of him abort his dribble. This one isn’t egregious, but the 6’2″ draft jewel should be able to dribble low through this nonchalant Jokić dig:

Aside from depressing his finishing numbers, Scoot’s launch-pad tendencies have blinded him from the weak-side. He views the second defender he inevitably attracts as a challenge, a big body to finish over, rather than a sign that someone is open on the other side of the floor:

Sure, these potential kick-outs aren’t glaringly obvious, and all are fairly late-developing plays. But through 43 games, Scoot hasn’t made many of these last-second decisions, or rather, adjustments on his drives. He’s set on taking a floater or layup once he picks the ball up, and thus, his decision-making window is real tight. There is currently little read-and-react to his game inside 15-feet.

Listen. Scoot is getting into that lane and drawing help defense, the ultimate point-guard building block. And yes, this seems like a correctable habit. But isn’t it mildly concerning that seeing multiple defenders doesn’t trigger passing instincts like, ‘Hey, I just left Jae Crowder in the dust, and I’m looking at Giannis Antetokounmpo preparing to meet me at the rim. Someone must be open!’

That’s why this play, from an early February game against the Denver Nuggets, put a big smile on my face. Scoot progresses to the fourth pick-and-roll read (shot -> roll -> corner skip -> slot), reading not just the low-man, but the second weak-side defender as well.

We can work on the passing accuracy later.

Scoot Henderson hasn’t proven he can’t do anything. Sure, he’s struggled to shoot the ball, but not because he doesn’t have the requisite touch. When he takes his jumper, it falls. What rookie doesn’t struggle with consistency and discipline?

And indeed, the show-stopping skill has arrived as promised. Albeit in bits and pieces, but still, pretty damn big bits and pieces. There were bumps in the road and there will be more, but even disrespectful defenders have a tough time keeping Scoot in front. He works around ball-screens — even those set by Ayton — like a veteran, mixing in patience with the signature explosion and handle that make the whole experience worth it.

Here’s a boring conclusion: Scoot Henderson is mostly just living the life of a young NBA point guard. His defense is nothing to write home about, fairly competitive on the ball but sleepy off of it. He’ll laze into an upright stance, preceding a late rotation or a non-threatening closeout. So, rookie stuff.

Still, this is a lot of rookie stuff for such a touted point-guard prospect, no matter how young he is. Do we have to recalibrate our expectations for Scoot after going #3 overall threw them out of wack, or should we be worried? There are not just undeniable positives from his first four months in the league, but growth too. Is it appropriate to pounce on them, or is it grasping for straws, being too lenient on a player who has struggled mightily in his rookie season?

For now, worry is a bridge too far. But a healthy mix of concern and intrigue? Nervous excitement? That sounds more like it.

The post The Scoot Report: Checking in on the NBA’s Premier Point Guard Prospect appeared first on Swish Theory.

This is not one of those articles. The basketball world just saw Trayce Jackson-Davis follow up a strong outing against the Portland Trail Blazers with 29 minutes of shot-blocking, rebounding, rim-running excellence against the Boston Celtics on national television. So did his teammates and coaching staff; in postgame, Steve Kerr stated Jackson-Davis will be a consistent part of his rotation going forward, while Klay Thompson gave the rookie a new nickname:

Forget finding a role, Trayce Jackson-Davis just found one in front of the whole country.

So, I’m not exactly breaking news here. But in fairness, we tried to tell you. Our Charlie Cummings had this to say the day after the Dubs selected TJD late in the second round: “A clear path to a rotation spot, great value, and an experienced winning player on a cheap multi-year deal. What else could you want from the 57th pick?”

What was that clear path to a rotation spot Charlie identified so accurately? It started with Jackson-Davis being, by far, the most athletic Golden State big, the strongest interior presence on both ends of the court. Unlike the increasingly limited Kevon Looney and the perimeter-oriented Dario Šarić, TJD is a fearsome rim-runner, the first one the Warriors have employed in some time.

Not only is he an alley-oop partner for Chris Paul off the bench, but he’s already a consistent beneficiary of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson drawing two defenders (they tend to do that):

TJD is 6’9″ with a 7’1″ wingspan, can finish with either hand and has good but not extraterrestrial leaping ability. So, he’s not prime Dwight Howard, but he’s a legitimate threat. That’s more than enough when playing with the Splash Brothers.

See, we’re not totally past simple, positional math. Trayce plays the 5, so he’s guarded by the opposing 5, in this case Al Horford. When Trayce screens for Klay Thompson here, Horford jumps at the all-time great shooter, who hits his lefty big on a roll to the basket. The only thing that stands between the Warriors rookie and two points not a center, but Derrick White, one of the great rim-protecting guards the NBA has seen, but still just 6’4″. Jackson-Davis finishes right over the top:

TJD makes it look easy — and for him, it might be — but his fellow bigs aren’t able to take full advantage of the looks the Splash Bros create. Better yet, the lefty’s ability to finish at the rim may be the jelly to Golden State’s peanut butter, but the sandwich comes with a side.

On the very next possession, the Warriors flow into an identical action. Jackson-Davis hands it off to Thompson, who hits his rook right back on the roll. Derrick White is prepared though, and meets TJD with the proper respect, but it hardly matters because Jackson-Davis is already hitting a cutter for an easy layup:

This comes as no surprise, as the Indiana University product was dropping dimes consistently in Bloomington:

TJD’s lack of playing time to start the season infuriated many Warriors fans, and it’s easy to see why. The 23-year-old hasn’t exactly added many new skills, and his existing ones have translated predictably. In the words of excellent Warriors writer Joe Viray: “He’s a fundamentally sound screener who can make things immediately difficult for defenders at the point of attack; he’s nimble and mobile enough to force defenders to have to make quick decisions; his athleticism and above-the-rim capabilities make him a credible finishing threat.”

All of that was certainly on the pre-draft scouting report — and hey, it’s why the Warriors picked him — as Viray continues: “On a team that currently goes to the rim at the lowest rate among 30 teams…Jackson-Davis is an infusion of new possibilities the Warriors have yet to explore this season.”

TJD doesn’t have to be perfect to create the rim pressure the Dubs have been missing this season. And he’s not. He’s still learning how to time his rolls to the rim; on this one, a potential lob is erased because Jackson-Davis is simply too slow getting out of his screen and then doesn’t sprint to the rim…

…but his mere existence on the court makes up for the occasional rookie mistake. Jackson-Davis loves to sprint the floor in transition, and is tough for his matchups to keep up with. That creates a cascading effect here, where Horford lags behind the youngster, forcing Jayson Tatum to respect a rim-running threat. Thus, Tatum is poorly positioned to recover to Jonathan Kuminga, who catches the ball with an immediate advantage to drive to the rim (where he smokes a finger-roll):

This is TJD’s appeal, an ability to create pressure on the rim both in traditional settings, like your standard pick-and-roll, or in chaos: Golden State’s movement offense or transition. Hopefully, we see some more of this too:

The best part of that play? Jackson-Davis was slightly late in rotating over to the rim; Brown hit the paint before he did. Yet, “late for the help, early for the poster” did not apply here. Rim protectors are afforded leeway when they possess the athletic gifts Jackson-Davis does — a well-positioned rim protector who can’t jump is little more than an oversized traffic cone. Once again, TJD doesn’t have to be the perfect rookie to impact this Warriors roster; he just has to be himself.

Thanks to his fluidity at 6’9″, Jackson-Davis hasn’t just shown potential as a help-side rim protector, but when playing drop defense as well. His hips are much quicker, his feet much more nimble than his counterparts in Šarić and Looney, and thus, he can play closer to the level of the screen while giving up little on the back-end. He is not Brook Lopez, whose size and strength repel drivers from the rim and erase offensive-rebounding opportunities, nor is he Draymond Green, whose anticipation and hands allow him to play between two attackers seamlessly.

Yet, over the last two games, Jackson-Davis has made it clear he’s not going to bleed points as the last line of defense for the Dubs. Here, he meets deadly pull-up shooter Anfernee Simons outside the paint but is unmoved by Simons’ crossover, forcing the explosive guard to take a sweeping lefty hook, which DeAndre Ayton ultimately puts back:

This play results in another bucket, but the process and movement skills are undeniable. TJD meets Jayson Tatum at the arc, who throws an in-n-out at the young big. Jackson-Davis closes then opens his hips instantly to stick with Tatum, who burrows into his chest. Jackson-Davis remains straight up through the contact, not fouling and forcing a tough floater that bangs in off the backboard:

The rookie beats one of the NBA’s best drivers to the spot, avoids fouling, and contests a tough floater that really had little business falling. Jackson-Davis has put a lot of positives on tape in his last two games, seemingly earning him a spot in the rotation after 47 minutes of play resulted in 24 points, 21 boards, and four blocks on 11-16 shooting. Yet, that defensive rep on an MVP candidate might be the most telling play he made. This dude is going to be just fine.

The case for TJD the NBA Draft prospect was not hard to make. He could move, he could pass, he could score around the rim, and he displayed those qualities in spades during four seasons at Indiana. Unfortunately, the case against him was obvious as well, and 29 NBA teams bought it, some of them twice: 6’9″, couldn’t shoot, and four seasons at Indiana.

Yet, it’s that first batch of qualities that’s shining through in The Bay. Jackson-Davis is 6’9″, perhaps undersized for a big, but he’s a bouncy, active 6’9″ with long arms, ambidextrous finishing touch, and fearlessness as a shot-blocker. And hey, it doesn’t matter if you can’t shoot when your shots are dunks and layups.

Trayce Jackson-Davis fits like a glove on the Golden State Warriors. But that’s not news, is it?

The post Finding a Role: Trayce Jackson-Davis appeared first on Swish Theory.

Jalen Johnson was Atlanta’s second-leading scorer with 18 points, two of which came on this transition dunk around Embiid:

So yeah. Ordinary stuff.

Now in his third season, this is what Jalen Johnson does. Thrust into Atlanta’s starting lineup not by way of injury or space-clearing trade, but simply because he’s played too well to keep off the court, Johnson is averaging 15 points and eight rebounds in 30 minutes a night. And as you might expect from an über-athletic, 21-year-old wing, many of his buckets come in transition.

Readers, you think Trae Young likes playing with this guy?

Whether as a ball-handler or lane-filler, Johnson is a threat to finish any transition opportunity with a bang. His insertion into the starting lineup gives both Young and Dejounte Murray a partner in crime when pushing the pace, and Atlanta’s two lead guards have grown more and more daring when feeding Johnson on the run. Why wouldn’t they?

The ex-Blue Devil is a tremendously malleable athlete. He doesn’t mind jumping off one foot or two, trying to go through contact or around it, with a runway or off a standstill, or finishing with the off-hand. Johnson simply takes the most efficient route to the rim, often above it. He is a career 76% finisher inside the restricted area, per Basketball Reference, and while that career has only spanned ~1500 minutes, a number that will double by the end of this season, did you see what I just said? Seventy-six percent!

Take a transition dunk like this:

Murray leads most other players too far with that pass, but not Johnson. He lunges from the 3-point arc to the first hash mark in one step, then dunks the ball on his next. The freakiest part may be how easy he makes it looks.

Here’s an entirely different type of finish, but one that’s just as impressive. It comes in a half-court setting, where Johnson picks up an o-board, then hop-steps into a floater. In the process, the young wing pinballs off two defenders, first on the hop-step, then on the finish. Yet, neither bit of contact throws him off balance, as he finishes what should probably be an and-one:

Much of this, though, is not new. Sure, Johnson is more comfortable and stronger on the court in his third season, but being a deadly finisher at the rim has always been the foundation of his appeal, particularly as a teammate of Trae Young. This season, however, he’s filling in the rest of his game with some predictable skills, and others that may catch the uninitiated by surprise.

For the former, I’m talking about long-range shooting, of course. It’s early, but Johnson is hitting 44.1% of his threes, up from just 29% last season. I’d bet the farm he won’t finish the year in the 40s, but he does look much more comfortable as a shooter, willing to let them go even off slight movement:

Playing next to two high-usage guards in Young and Murray leaves little choice for Johnson; he’s gotta take (and make enough of) his open looks. And while there’s still some hiccups for the 2021 first-round pick in this regard — his courage is often determined by the result of his previous attempt — it’s so much easier to give Johnson 36 minutes of tick when he’s letting it fly like this.

Now that defenders have to respect the Hawks’ youngest starter, it gives Johnson the opportunity to attack closeouts and get to his bread-and-butter, served at the rim. A tale as old as time:

However the quality that’s always surprised, the quality that stirred grinning curiosity among draft prognosticators is Johnson’s passing. As a high-flying prospect, he was known for, well, what you’d expect. Dunk after dunk, with flashes of advanced shot-making and footwork inside the arc. But those who watched closely, even prior to his days at Duke, were delighted by dimes like this:

That’s continued during his burst onto the scene this season. Johnson’s passing follows the same fun formula as his finishing. Need to throw a routine bounce-pass? Fine. Need to cradle the ball off a live dribble and throw a laser across the baseline with the left? Sure:

Johnson’s passing ability has translated into the half-court as well, and we’re seeing glimpses of a connective passing style that is eminently desirable next to more ball-dominant players:

Johnson has the physical ability to make any pass, with the court-vision and understanding of defensive weak points to see them too. I’m especially intrigued by his capabilities as a roll-man. We know he can catch lobs when diving to the basket, and if he’s on the short-roll, the help defense can’t be late to the party unless they want to end up on a poster. That’ll lead to 2-on-1 situations like the below, which Johnson’s already shown a penchant for exploiting:

Whether on the perimeter or as a roll-man, patterns will become clear. There are only so many ways for a defense to guard a high pick-and-roll, and only so many ways for Johnson to see it from the corners. At just two assists a game, his passing output hasn’t matched the flashes, but the 21-year-old brings an undeniable connective juice to Atlanta’s starting lineup.

We’ll close with Johnson’s vastly improved defense, probably the reason — along with a greater willingness to shoot the three-ball — Hawks Head Coach Quin Snyder felt comfortable yanking Saddiq Bey from the starting lineup for him. The 6’8″ wing has shown two high-level skills on that end: sliding his feet, and tracking the ball. Here he is bodying up to Tyrese Maxey, completely unmoved by a series of head-fakes before swatting the ball out-of-bounds:

Johnson will still swipe at the ball on the perimeter, a habit that he’s wisely cut down on this season, but it’s almost always of his own accord. In other words, all the head-fakes and hesitations in the world won’t convince him to reach. He picks and chooses his spots, so fake-heavy isolations like Maxey’s above rarely shift Johnson. He’s guarding positions 1-4, and not in the half-ass way where the 1s aren’t shifty and the 4s are like, Dorian Finney-Smith (who’s playing great ball by the way)!

You see the agility above, and here’s the strength. Johnson bodies up to Julius Randle, is unmoved by a physical post-up, then forces the lefty into a tough, well-contested fadeaway:

Johnson’s three blocks against the Sixers brought his block-rate to 1.9%, an elite mark for non-centers that’s also in line with his career averages. Throw in strong rebounding at his position, and there’s no glaring weakness in Johnson’s D, certainly not one that would keep him off the floor.

Subpar screen navigation may hamper his ability to stick to the Tyrese Maxeys of the world for extended stretches of game-time, but that’s a small blip on the progress of his Year Three. When the Hawks faced the Oklahoma City Thunder, Quin Snyder entrusted Johnson with the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander matchup when Dejounte Murray sat. Six-eight 21-year-olds that can reasonably slide their feet with SGA on one night, then provide rebounding and shot-blocking value on another don’t come in bunches.

Johnson is not a perfect defender at this juncture — a pedestrian 2.2 deflections / 36 minutes is unbecoming of a player with his physical tools — he’s a bit static as a help defender on the perimeter. Like many young players, Johnson often seems consciously focused on tracking the ball and his man, determined not to lose either, rather than playing instinctual, athletic defense. Ball-handlers should be terrified of a Jalen Johnson stunt or dig, not breezing past whatever these are:

This is not a fatal flaw, of course, and certainly something that should improve. Johnson also has to curtail his turnovers on the offensive end, currently at two a game., rarely the result of wayward passes but often indecision on the perimeter (e.g. traveling on the catch, getting ripped when over-dribbling.) These current worries don’t detract from Johnson’s potential; hell, they aren’t even diminishing his current production.

Jalen Johnson is far from a finished product. He’s prone to getting stuck on a screen and coughing up the rock. But at 6’8″, he runs the floor like a deer, and can contort his body into any position needed to dunk the ball, fire a pass, stick to his man, or block a shot. He’s even shooting the three this season.

Still just 21 years old, Johnson’s ceiling is far from defined, and it’s easy to get starry-eyed trying to find it. But we shouldn’t ignore what the third-year man is doing right now. In a ten-point loss against Philly, Johnson was a +3 while scoring 18 points, grabbing ten boards, blocking three shots, and dishing two assists. He didn’t turn the ball over either.

A dozen games into the season, that’s now par for the course for Johnson, and it’s why Quin Snyder had no choice but to insert him into the starting lineup as one of Atlanta’s clear-cut five best players. On some nights, he’s better than that.

Jalen Johnson is finding a role for the Atlanta Hawks, and it’s easy to see why.

The post Finding a Role: Jalen Johnson appeared first on Swish Theory.

The eyes of the basketball world are trained on the Finals. Obviously. And we all have the same 48 minutes of game-tape to analyze and over-analyze. So, unique observations, at this point in the season, are few and far between – with that said, here are a couple of Game Two tidbits I found to be both interesting and key to a Heat victory.

Zone Defense

Ah yes, the infamous Miami zone vs. Denver’s unstoppable offense. Whether you believe zone defense at the NBA-level is an affront to professional sports or not, this was a matchup hyped up by the nerdiest among us. The Heat have played the most zone defense in the NBA in both this regular season and post-season. Zone is part of their Dark Magic, concocted in Pat Riley’s sunken living room.

Denver meanwhile…well, I’ll just borrow the words from CBS Sports writer Jack Maloney: “In the regular season, [the Nuggets] were second in the league in zone offense, scoring 1.156 points per possession, and in the playoffs that mark has jumped to a stunning 1.385 points per possession.”

This is less of a mystery, of course. The Nuggets are led by a lab-designed zone-buster, a 7-foot-tall wizard with soft hands, sharp vision, and a lethal mid-range jump-shot. Step one: Put that guy in the middle of your zone offense. Step Two: Profit! This, prior to the series, was much of the discussion around Miami’s zone defense and how Denver might counter it: “Well, they have Nikola Jokic, so, yeah.”

While excellent analysis, that misses one thing: The Heat do not play your run-of-the-mill zone. When you hear “zone defense” in the NBA, you imagine a red-faced head coach so perturbed by his team’s effort that he says “[expletive] this, just play some 2-3. You guys remember that from high school, right?” Well, that is not Erik Spoelstra and the Heat.

Spo’s squad change their zone, seemingly, from possession to possession, but a principle often prevails. Deny dribble penetration in the middle without sacrificing corner threes. How? Have your weak-side guards flock to the ball-side, no matter where they are. An obvious but difficult challenge, one that places heavy onus on the wings of the operation. Here’s a possession from the first half of Game Two, one that ends with an Aaron Gordon three:

That’s an outcome that the Heat will surely take. Rather than have Jamal Murray fire up a corner 3-pointer, a below average shooter in Gordon is taking one, lightly contested. That play exhibits the general structure the Heat rely on when going zone in these playoffs, specifically vs. Denver’s bench units.

But in the fourth quarter, they trotted out a zone agains Nikola Jokic & co., and boy did it make my brain hurt. Well, me and the Nuggets:

Gabe Vincent does a hell of a job fronting Jokic in the first clip, which was the tenet of Miami’s zone concepts in the fourth quarter. On a subsequent possession, Denver decides to let Jokic handle it up top, a much easier path to getting the ball in his hands. Welp, that results in Vincent applying extreme ball pressure and forcing a (questionable) charge.

What even is that zone? I’m damn near tempted to call it the world’s strangest-looking box-and-one, though in reality it’s more of a 2-1-2 where the ‘1’ is interchangeable. Just take a look at this possession, where Caleb Martin and Vincent switch the Jokic assignment mid-possession:

Zone defense, once you get past the high school level, is polarizing. And I get the argument; it feels almost cheap to remove the sanctity of guarding your man and taking pride in shutting him down from defense. “That ain’t basketball at its purest,” the detractors shout. But even the haters have to admit it’s a beautiful thing to watch the Heat maintain their core principles no matter what kind of funky zone they’re throwing out there.

Here, the Nuggets get creative with it, and screen for Jokic after he catches it off an inbounds, but the Heat snuff it out:

If any other team had the otherworldly gall to play zone against Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets, then their center certainly would’ve stepped up on that creative ball-screen from Denver. But Bam Adebayo and the Heat scoff at the notion. Why, so Jokic and Gordon can essentially run their famous inverted pick-and-roll? Or so Jokic can hit a devious back-cutter as the rim protector vacates the area? Nope. Erik Spoelstra’s guards are going to prevent dribble penetration – even when Jokic is on the floor, whether that means fronting him or not – and his wings are going to handle their business (although Kyle Lowry’s job here is admittedly made easier by Jimmy Butler’s recovery.)

I’ll say it. It’s a treat to watch the Miami Heat play zone defense, even on the biggest stage. Especially against one of the most fearsome zone-busters this game has ever known.

One more thing, really quick. As important as Miami’s zone defense was (a huge reason the Nuggets’ offense hovered around a pedestrian 111 offensive rating with Jokic on the court), their outside shooting was far more crucial. 49% from deep on 35 attempts? On the road? Especially when, per Cleaning the Glass, a minuscule 14% of their shots came inside the restricted area, meaning they were entirely reliant on jump-shooting? As boring as this may sound, there cannot be an explanation for Miami’s victory that doesn’t start with, “They shot the hell out of the rock.”

There are a few reasons why that happened, other than the pure shot-making talent 8-seeds are now dripping with. I tweeted a cut-up of all their 3-point attempts…

…and surmised, among other things, that the Heat successfully targeted Michael Porter Jr and Jamal Murray. You can draw your own conclusions, but it’s clear that Miami challenged those two to talk through countless screening actions and make long closeouts. Neither one did either task successfully. Aside from Bruce Brown, perhaps, the whole Denver squad was sloppy rotating and closing out to shooters. There’s a reason Jeff Green and Head Coach Mike Malone each ripped their team’s effort in postgame pressers.

But, to give the Heat some credit here, I thought they forced sloppy closeouts and missed rotations by paying careful attention to their spacing. Miami’s shooters consistently spaced multiple feet beyond the arc, and it caused problems for the Nuggets. Roll the tape:

Spacing farther away from the line not only creates longer closeouts for defenders, many of which various Nuggets botched repeatedly in their Game Two defeat. It also creates more opportunities for shooters to move without the ball – I don’t mean sprinting around screens like Steph Curry, the most commonly recognized form of off-ball-movement.

Rather, I’m talking about the art of subtly relocating, an art that Miami’s role players have perfected: Just look at Max Strus in that first clip. Relocating along the perimeter is about reading two players at once, and instinctually moving to a spot that makes the defender’s job harder but the passer’s job easier. Stus & co. did a great job of that in Game Two, and it was the cherry on top of a…Poop Sundae for Denver’s defenders. When the Nuggets weren’t busy closing out to shooters recklessly and jumping at every ball-fake, they were losing their assignments before then, unaware of perimeter relocations.

Yes, the Miami Heat shot the lights out, and that is the reason they were able to tie the series against the rightfully favored Nuggets. But don’t lose sight of the fact that Erik Spoelstra’s squad did all the little things right, executing their offensive and defensive game-plan on Sunday night. Whether they were setting up 3-point bombs or falling back into zone defense, the Heat certainly sweat the small stuff in Game Two. And it was beautiful to watch.

The post Heat in the Zone: How Miami Locked in to Take Game 2 appeared first on Swish Theory.

Taking AD off of Jokic is also the rare tactic that straddles the line between effective and overly simplistic. There are clear benefits to allowing Davis, a Hall-of-Fame rim protector, to, well, protect the rim. For stretches, it has absolutely worked in this series, keeping Davis out of foul trouble and stymieing Denver’s spacing. Combine that with its aforementioned obviousness, and you’re gonna get fans pleading for Darvin Ham to make the adjustment, then patting themselves on the back when he does. But not in the way that such fans (or even writers like myself) may plead for Steph Curry to run 50 pick-and-rolls a game, then celebrating when he runs a successful one. There are limits to reason.

So, you have an inherently noticeable tactic that the Lakers deployed towards the end of Game One and frequently went to in Game Two, occasionally to positive results. It’s easy to see why deploying AD as a roamer has been the story of the series so far; it’s easy to see why Michael Malone has made some quips about it too. But there’s something even more plain, even more significant happening on the court, perhaps the reason the team up 2-0 in the series has won those two games: The Lakers are not scoring against Nikola Jokic in the pick-and-roll.

Worse yet, the Lakers haven’t set themselves up to crash the offensive glass either, especially in Game Two. This hasn’t been a typical defensive series from Denver in regards to defending the PnR, with Jokic playing at the level. Instead, he’s largely bee playing drop, with aggressive, almost disrespectful gap help from his supporting Nuggs:

Some tactical analysis goes out the window here. Jamal Murray, Bruce Brown, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s screen navigation thus far? Good! Lakers wings and guard shooting thus far? Bad! For the series, Los Angeles is shooting just over 30% on above-the-break 3-pointers, a mark they couldn’t even clear on Thursday night.

Denver employing this strategy to great success in Game 2 did more than just discourage L.A.’s guards from getting downhill, as they saw a see of blue when peering into the paint. The were able to keep Jokic nestled under the glass, ready to battle AD, which contributed to the Lakers rebounding just 11.1% of their misses. For context, that was L.A.’s second-lowest ORB% of the whole season, which has comprised 96 total games.

There were some glimpses of faulty gap help from various Nuggets, highlighting how imperative their early help is. Just as much as it is a physical battle, forcing the Lakers to drive through a crowd, it is a mental one too: Discourage them from trying altogether. Here, Murray is late to get to the nail, and LeBron revs it up for the easiest two he’s seen all series:

The simplest answer for L.A. would be to make some damn shots. #Analysis. But really, how else are you supposed to stop defenders cheating off you from just one pass away? Another answer would be to space closer to the arc, ‘stampeding’ on the catch, which is to say catching the swing pass already in motion towards the basket. In the first set of clips, LBJ is spacing about five feet behind the line with no hope of creating the downhill pressure a high ball-screen hopes to initiate. Look to see that as an early focus for the Lakers in Game Three.

Their immediate fixes to the heavy gap help Denver displayed in Game Two was to run fully spread-PnR from the top of the key, with a potential third spacer in the dunker spot. For a split second, this seemed to be a solution. Jokic reverted back to trapping the ball-handler, and Anthony Davis, now playing 4-on-3, got an And-1 bucket over the resultant help defense:

That panacea didn’t last long, however. Just as the Nuggets had disrespected the L.A.’s shooters, they continued to play Jokic in drop coverage, daring Davis to hit the shots off the short roll that turned Jokic into an MVP (first clip), or daring LeBron to, at age 38 on one foot, get all the way downhill, now having to navigate an extra defender parked near the dunker sport (second clip):

To me, this is the story for the (potentially short) remainder of this series. Hachimura guarding Jokic is cute and all, but the Serbian supernova is figuring out that he just has to shoot over Rui, and with each passing game, his surrounding Nuggets will figure out their spots on the floor. Even if they don’t, though, it won’t matter if Los Angeles’ half court offensive rating is around 90.

Attacking the two-time MVP in the pick-and-roll was supposed to be his kryptonite, Denver’s kryptonite. Even with Jokic’s gradual defensive improvements in his career, he was thought to be best suited playing at the level of the screen, trapping or aggressively hedging against ball-handlers. How, then, could Denver survive by scrambling all the time, often defending four players with three frantic dudes? And how valuable is defensive rebounding if you start every play 25 feet from the basket?

Well, in this Western Conference Finals, none of that appears to be an issue for the Nuggets. In Game Two, Mike Malone comfortably dropped his superstar back in the paint, watched him gobble up 17 rebounds, watched his guards fight viciously over screens, and enjoyed brick after brick from the Lakers. It’s up to the purple and gold to figure out how to attack what was supposed to be the exploitable weakness of the Wester Conference’s best team. They haven’t yet. And if they don’t, this may be a shorter series than we were all hoping for.

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