October 29th, Dallas at Minnesota
A tight game in the third quarter, this Western Conference Finals rematch is hotly contested. Luka, who was demoralizingly great against the Wolves in the playoffs last season, is currently working off the ball to get open.
Tough situation here as a referee.
Luka and Jaden McDaniels are grabbing and pushing and grappling each other with both arms. Who is fouling who in this moment? No whistle on the play, play on.
Due to his devastating nature, Luka has the Wolves desperate to keep him away from the ball and force preferably anyone else to try and make a play. McDaniels is on the top-side of Luka, hoping to deter him from the ball.
Lively is the trigger man here…
…and his ability to make quality reads from the center position adds dimension to the Mavericks offense. In the rare instance Luka doesn’t have the ball, like in this instance, Lively can set Luka up with a handoff and subsequent screen, but Lively can also counter coverage like this by finding Luka on a basket cut.
He can also do neither if neither are open, to stay as close to error-free as possible. Dallas overall was top 5 in taking care of the ball last season (12.5 turnovers a game), and their entire center rotation of Lively, Gafford and Powell all carried an AST/TO above 1 (1.2, 1.55 and a whopping 2.63 respectively – Powell landing top 5 in the league amongst centers). When Luka is on your team, no need to try to do too much. Hand the ball off, and roll hard. If it’s not a dunk, give the ball back to Luka and Kyrie. Rinse, repeat.
Lively’s ratio was more reflective of his actual decision-making aptitude, as his playoff AST/TO maintained at 1.29 while Gafford’s fell off to 0.79. Some at the time were clamoring for more Lively playoff minutes so the Mavericks could benefit from his passing chops. Here, Lively has the chance to ignite a play.
Another piece of credit on this setup should be given to the Dallas coaching staff and scheme; Lively operating from the top of the key brings Rudy, the Wolves primary rim protector, right up to the 3-point line and far, far away from the rim.
At this point, Luka has had enough of McDaniels, and will not spend any more energy breaking through this coverage to get to the ball. Instead, Luka plants his right foot down…
…to head to the rim. McDaniels, as long and fast as he is, cannot fully cover both denying him a path to the ball and a path to the basket. But that is the concession of the coverage.
Lively will need to recognize this slight lean towards the basket in a timely manner (right at this moment) so that the pass can begin to be delivered into space while that space exists. The paint is open at this very moment, but NBA time and space can close quickly.
Gobert’s arms are active here applying ball pressure on Lively…
…because the passing angle for a leading pass into the paint is a prominent and threatening possibility. If Gobert’s peripheral vision is able to capture the Luka lean, he can preemptively have his hands ready to shoot up and deflection a potential entry pass down the middle.
Naji Marshall screening for Kyrie occupies the attention of half of the Wolves’ off-ball defenders.
Donte DiVincenzo cannot be concerned with anyone else’s assignment; his hands are full guarding Kyrie. Naz Reid sits back on the Marshall screen, at the ready to pick up Kyrie if he breaks loose to the basket.
Meanwhile, the most important defender on the play at this moment is Ant.
The low-man here, Anthony Edwards appears keyed in on Luka and Lively’s intent. It will be his responsibility to help on Luka, break up the potential pass, or even better, pick it off.
If the ball is successfully entered to Luka on this cut, Luka will be ahead of McDaniels and the Mavericks will have a momentary 2-on-1 numbers advantage…
…with McDaniels trailing, leaving Dinwiddie unguarded in the corner if Ant slides over. Perhaps if the defensive cohesion is good enough, McDaniels can hand Luka duty off to Ant, and McDaniels can peel off to pick up Dinwiddie. But that is a tough task to pull off fluidly, and it might take a defensive beat or two to get out there otherwise.
The Mavericks should be slightly favored to score in this moment, granted the pass is executed to access the 2-on-1 advantage. It should be simple math, but in an athletically dynamic arena like NBA basketball, the decisions have to be made instantaneously while windows of opportunity are open, and it may require an intense series of quick decisions. Otherwise windows will close because defensive length and athleticism will close the space, and the offense will again have to spend effort to create.
In a process of defensive elimination, Luka delivered a dazzling behind-the-back pass. Knowing that Ant had committed with his jump (good verticality by Ant) and feeling that McDaniels was still within arms length, Luka could infer the corner pocket was open. He either had peripheral vision of Dinwiddie in the corner while he was cutting, and/or Dallas will generally have those corners filled. Credit McDaniels with his effort to still make a considerable closeout and contest, but Luka had drawn him all the way to the restricted area, making the closeout just about as long as it could be.
October 30th, San Antonio at Oklahoma City
It’s hard not to highlight frames with Chris Paul at the helm. I’ll try not to include him in every edition, it’s just outstanding how he continuously makes the most of the studio space.
Wemby isn’t in the picture, but he’s on the floor. Just a couple seconds prior, he was setting a really high ball screen…65 feet from the basket. The Thunder’s full court pressure can be unrelenting with its personnel and defensive talent. They had just deployed a casual amount of it after a made basket, not allowing Paul to walk it up the floor at his own tempo and coordinate the Spurs’ attack to close the quarter heading into halftime.
Chris Paul opted to use the screen and speed up into the half-court, getting ahead of his defender Cason Wallace, who has switched onto the absent Wembyana. Jalen Williams has picked up Paul.
A moment prior, Paul was met with some legal opposition from Williams. Jalen had stayed physically disciplined and within his body, not extending any hands out onto CP (who is liable to automatically draw that contact at a moment’s notice). And in anticipation, Jalen had moved to slide his feet in front of Paul’s direction of choice (right), and his physicality was entirely passive contact, absorbing and resisting the strength of the drive to chip off a lot of CP’s downhill momentum as Paul rammed into his chest. Slowed down by the bump and now with the hang dribble, Chris Paul is considering his current array of choices.
Eight seconds into the possession, OKC’s stout point-of-attack defense has induced Chris Paul to change speeds twice already (the backcourt screen usage ramp up and the bump to slow down), one of which was more elective and the other being more of a hearty, physical welcome upon dribbling inside the 3-point line.
OKC’s team defense is also looking tight at the moment as well, with all other defenders unassociated with the point-of-attack switch positioned fairly.
Since Chris Paul has not yet entered the paint and his momentum has been severely halted, the Thunder can stay home on their assignments. Jalen has it well-handled at this moment. The stagnancy of Harrison Barnes in the nearside corner and Keldon Johnson on the opposite side…
…does not do Chris Paul any favors here.
However, the ever-cutting Sochan volunteers.
Sochan is aware of his value-add as a cutting finisher (and certainly less so as a spacer for Paul’s drive), and here he catches onto the pace that Chris Paul was coming down the floor with. He is trying to at least give Paul the option of a potential wizardly pass somewhere through Jalen Williams and Caruso and Shai.
Caruso is in a great gap position, further discouraging Paul’s path forward, on top of staying in the middle of an imaginary string between Paul and Sochan, impeding possible passes.
Caruso had caught onto Sochan’s off-ball change of pace, and is keeping himself in the same depth to the rim as Sochan’s cut, which he knows is a prominent part of Sochan’s half-court game.
The conceivable deliveries to Sochan are unclear at the moment, and passes to Barnes or Keldon leave the defense mostly indifferent, with Shai and Dort very capable of closing down the space on their respective closeouts here, especially since their off-ball defensive positioning has yet to be strained or even budged on the possession. Wemby is still making his way down the floor.
In addition to being one of the best passers of all time, Chris Paul is in my opinion one of the most underrated scorers in league history. With the body control of an abrupt stop and gather, Chris Paul gained slight separation from the lightly back-pedaling Jalen Williams, which granted himself another moment to collect. And in the beat between those moments, he found himself at the right elbow, one of his favorite spots, with space to rise up quick.
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