A moment in time is a moment in motion. Even when halted frame-by-frame, basketball remains dynamic. In this series, I share a couple snapshots, and breakdown the available decisions within the court map of that particular moment. At the end, I present the full clip and result.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but I will keep it to less than that per picture.
At this point, Anthony Edwards has obliterated the point-of-attack defense for a 2-on-1 situation with Rudy Gobert vs Rui Hachimura, encroaching on the restricted area. The gather has been made, and his momentum is downhill. A moment in time for Ant to make his decision, with several options at his disposal.
Ant has done so much good work to this point. What originated as a handoff from Gobert out of a sideline inbounds, Ant has already left his immediate defenders Austin Reaves and AD dusted.
(Also wanted to note that Ingles set an off-ball screen that put Reaves a half step or more behind the handoff to begin with, to Ingles’ credit)
But for all intents and purposes, Ant has created a full advantage, overcoming both point-of-attack defenders. Rui steps up in help, as he should.
And that leaves Gobert wide open at the rim. The Wolves are one pass away from an open rim finish, one of the best results attainable on any given possession. Rudy is even starting to point up and call for the lob.
Per NBA.com/stats, Rudy was 73/78 on alley-oop dunk attempts last season, good for a 93.6% completion percentage and 1.87 points per shot (PPS). Pretty good. However, when Rudy was forced to adjust to the pass or was unable to easily and securely dunk it, his alley-oop layup numbers fall off dramatically: 6/14 on alley-oop layup attempts (42.9%, 0.86 PPS), cutting expected points down by over a whole point.
This could be an easy alley-oop dunk. Does Gobert’s notoriously clumsy hands influence Ant’s decision? With a moment to decide, is there trust for the passer to execute the delivery, and the receiver to cap it off?
What defenders have a path to making any sort of play on the potential lob pass? Both Reaves and Knecht are at a huge size and positioning disadvantage to cover Gobert here, and it would be uncharacteristic for either one of them, so it’s safe to count them out on this play. Otherwise the Lakers would need a spectacular recovery to the rim by AD, who does not look like he’s in any heat seeking missile-style stance to explode back into the play.
Think Giannis recovering to block Ayton’s alley-oop in the 2021 Finals. That level of play is rare. Don’t expect AD to summon that in the first game of a long season, but he is one of the handful of players in the league capable of it.
Another passing option is the corner.
But seeking corner 3’s when you have a 2-on-1 advantage converging on the rim is not the best process. Having the vision and awareness of an open corner shooter is still ideal here, but it would really have to come down to (situation and) convincing shooting personnel – Randle is the one wide open in the corner in this instance. He shot 35.4% on catch-n-shoot 3-pointers last season – 1.06 PPS. This calculus changes when it’s Donte DiVincenco standing there – 40.7% on catch-n-shoot 3’s for 1.22 PPS, but the decision should still be the rim.
Rui is the one meeting Ant at the rim. It might not matter who is at the rim, Ant will remain undeterred.
Ant has already created so much expected value at this point, where his uncontainable athleticism has awarded him three great options: the lob to an open Gobert, his own finish at the rim against a rotating defender, and an open corner catch-n-shoot for Randle.
Ant ends up loading up and rising around Rui for a finish with the foul, and-1. As a 69% finisher in the restricted area last season (1.38 PPS), it’s hard to blame Ant for taking it himself, and credit must be given for the finish. Also have to note that the extra free throw tacked on probably does not happen with the lob, and Ant carries a healthy free throw rate over from last season (0.325 FTr). But there is a higher chance of missing the field goal compared to a pin-point lob.
The decision might not matter – if the shot misses, it appears likely Rudy can mop up the mess since he is best-positioned for a roll off the rim.
Contingent on misses, this naturally dependent facet of Gobert’s game can help prop up team efficiency during poor shooting stretches. But while Gobert’s putback efficiency from last season was strong (67.5 FG% – 1.35 PPS), it is not as potent as a lob dunk.
At the same time, the potential second shot efficiency on this play should be partially credited to Ant, since the defense was beaten so badly, and they were so far out of position for a defensive rebound as well. In this specific instance with no one else around the basket to contest the board, Rudy could comfortably finish a hypothetical miss.
Ultimately, Ant gets two points on the play, with a chance at a third (which he got). No need for Gobert’s involvement. But over the course of the season, over the course of a playoff series, or even over the course of an individual game, the accumulation of the quality of decisions add up. The margins stack up, so the process of finding the most optimal shots possession-by-possession has to be a concerted, conscientious effort, and a developed habit over time.
Orlando is starting to pull away from the Heat in the second half. Anthony Black faces an aggressive Miami point-of-attack defense in this instance. With Paolo releasing freely on the roll, the conventional read is available.
AB’s height gives him the ability to simply dump this pass off over the top of Jimmy and Jaquez to Paolo, giving Paolo a rotating defender to attack, and a numbers-advantage on the weakside to potentially make a pass and keep the defense in rotation.
Bam is the backline defender responsible here for rotating to Paolo.
Coming over from guarding Wendell Carter Jr., Bam is just beginning to lean towards Paolo for a routine rotation to the short-roller.
However, AB zigs here where most would zag. Sensing the momentum of Bam – slight as it is towards Paolo in an entirely valid defensive decision by Bam – AB subverts this reasonable intuitive defensive expectation, and zips a pass into WCJ at the elbow.
While Paolo would have received a 2-on-1 situation with WCJ vs Bam (and possibly a 3-on-2 situation if Highsmith rotates to WCJ in a timely manner), WCJ is now the one receiving the pass and the 2-on-1 scenario vs Bam with Paolo the one cutting to the rim. What’s the difference?
Per NBA.com/stats, Paolo’s points per shot on cuts was 1.28, while WCJ’s was 1.39, the better bet in a vacuum. Last season, Paolo led Orlando with 10.2 potential assists per game, and WCJ had 2.9, not bad for a center. Point being, no matter who here receives the advantage from Anthony Black out of the pick-n-roll, both players are capable of being the one to make the next pass, or the one to finish at the rim off a cut. It speaks to the versatility of the Magic’s frontcourt and their overall play-making ability.
If a hypothetical interior rotation by Highsmith subsequently occurred and the rim was covered, the Heat’s perimeter rotations would then be tested, as KCP in the corner would be the next conventional open read
and then Harris above-the-break following that.
Since the Heat decided to put two defenders on the ball at the point-of-attack off the jump, this is the defensive path they have chosen for themselves. After Highsmith, Herro would need to be on the way to the corner to KCP, with Jimmy or Jaquez heading to Harris. When the rotations are tight, it’s definitely doable.
But the play-making chain never got that far. It didn’t need to – the dominos quickly fell into what resulted in a jam by Paolo.
Bam was caught off-balance by this alternative chain of advantages. Disoriented for a moment and left scrambling, Adebayo could not catch up on the play, as a quick connective pass by WCJ to Paolo resulted in the secure flush (80/88 on dunks last season – 90.9%, and this one was even two-handed), only desperately contested by Bam.
AB was presented with an obvious choice for the standard play, and thus predictable links in the play-making chain, but he used a little imagination and ingenuity to mix things up. AB successfully getting off the ball vs two defenders and following the natural stem of decisions out of this situation is the perfectly right play to make. Credit to him for creating another way though, puncturing the middle of the floor with the pass and giving WCJ great access to options, where he instantly found Paolo flowing to the rim.
AB’s knowledge of defensive assumptions, his size, vision and manipulation all played a factor in what culminated in a dependable two-handed dunk for the Magic’s best scorer. Pretty good.
Beginning of the fourth quarter and the Spurs are down by double-digits. While double-digit comebacks are becoming more frequent in today’s league, it is still a steep challenge as less than a quarter of teams successfully overcome that type of deficit. San Antonio will need to make the most out of every offensive possession down the stretch, on top of getting stops, to get back into this one. With 21 seconds on the shot clock, Chris Paul is leading the Spurs into their early offense. Expected points on any given possession fall precipitously every second that ticks off the shot clock, and Paul is looking for an early opportunity to strike.
For the Spurs’ attack, their fifth player Keldon Johnson, who had inbounded the ball, has yet to even cross half-court, let alone enter this snapshot. Still, there is advantage to be had by getting into this drag screen action quickly; the lowest defender three seconds into this possession is Maxi Kleber on the weakside elbow,
which is not particularly low for a low-man. But that is how far back he was able to get in three seconds. Looking further into the paint as a whole, Maxi’s left foot is the only defensive establishment the Mav’s have in the paint at the moment. No other Maverick is near the paint, and all are even further from the rim.
Chris Paul is already highly aware of the entire defense’s positioning, and the subtle offensive dynamics in motion. The Mavericks are in the middle of switching the Chris Paul-Jeremy Sochan screen.
Klay was up on the screen initially, so his switch assignment becomes more challenging here on out; he has to catch up to the cutting Sochan while simultaneously closing the pocket pass window. Meanwhile Sochan has the head start, slipping out of this screen and diving into the open waters of the current paint.
Sochan has only just placed his left foot inside the arc,
but he’s already the most dangerous threat for a rim attempt in this moment. Jeremy has turned his hips out of the screen, and he’s now facing the rim as he makes his cut. Klay, now his primary defender, is positioned on the top-side of Sochan, trailing the cut. In a race to the rim, Sochan will beat Klay, and last season Sochan made 72.7% of his finishes stemming from cuts. Pretty good.
All Chris Paul has to do now is deliver the ball. A temporary, momentary passing window, and perhaps a tight window for many players, but this is Chris Paul.
Luka could probably do more here to obstruct the passing window. He knows better.
The Spurs should already be favored to score this possession, even as soon as this moment, but the play is not over. A quick strike on a leading bounce pass by the pick-n-roll maestro to Sochan would threaten a defensive concession and test the recoverability of the Mavericks’ weakside. Kleber, who is not facing the rim like Sochan, and also does not have momentum towards the rim like Sochan, must catch up in a race to the rim for any chance to thwart the Spurs.
Incredibly, Kleber was able to close the gap and make a spectacular block at the rim.
After receiving the pass, players in Sochan’s position should understand the speed of recovery required by Kleber here to make a play, as well as the instinctual desperation to catch up to the play, and use that momentum against the late, frenzied rim protector. A simple shot fake for Sochan would do the trick to send Kleber out of the picture and/or send himself to the free throw line.
In the end, the Spurs were not able to string together enough buckets or stops in this one, falling to Dallas 109-120.
Tags:
Related Podcasts
Related Articles
