Great thread. Very interesting read. Off topic but something I've always been curious about - how do you cut all this footage into small YouTube clips?
@heypartner I noticed the lack of successful trapping after the initial burst and your observation that MDA immediately went to the chess game to stop them trapping makes sense. They got out to that quick lead while we were occupied testing the proficiency of their trap. Great posting.
thx. Agree with that. Plus, our defensive was not good in the 1st Q. Want to emphasize that we can't be sure trapping was the main adjustment by OKC, just because they stopped doing it. It was using help defense off the shooters, which they continued doing throughout. Help is a requirement of using traps (since that is double teaming far away from the basket), but you can send help without using traps. Traps with no help seems very dangerous, except when the PnPop is in the midrange area, and you're fine letting guys like LMA or Karl Malone shoot long twos. Against the Rockets, trapping with no help on the picker results in Capela going straight to the rim with a lot of space (see first play video and imagine Gibson didn't leave Ryno), or Ryno doing all the picking in 41-High and you are facing the math of open 3s vs long twos of other Pick n Pop tandems.
I gotcha. Will definitely be interesting to see how they come out tonight. I hope to see more of the 3 man PnR and that Spain PnR in particular regardless of how they choose to adjust their coverage. Really liked those sets and I think they will be useful against SA because Leonard, Green, and Dedmon are all stout. Would be a good way to ensure Parker/LMA don't get hidden away from the action.
@heypartner Looks like Pop isn't reading CF. I'm seeing Lee sitting back in the lane waiting for Harden on these 3 man PnR's as I'm watching the game back.
Spurs were creeping in from the sides too, to give him less space when they switched on him....leaving soft coverage on the shooters. We trapping Kawhi a lot. Looks like he's not a good enough of a creator for others to deal with it, other than meekly giving up the ball. Not sure what we did to lead to LMA being a no show.
What do you think the Spurs can really do at this point to effect a turn around in this series? Outside of the Rockets not hitting their shots (they can still drive and draw fouls), what would be a scheme Pop could employ to slow down the Rockets in your opinion?
Anyone who plays the Rockets would just pray that the shooters don't hit shots, which happens. If I were the opponent, I would make sure Harden couldn't get into the paint easily and hoped the shooters would get cold. Rockets shooters are streaky and a dry stretch is inevitable from time to time. On offense, we are trapping Leonard. They have to get LMA involved and punish our interior defense. Last night, they kept trying to get Parker going when Leonard was shut down. Parker isn't going to have that Game 7 performance against Memphis for a while. I just hope Mill and Green don't get hot very often.
We didn't too much on LMA, I don't think. But our man defense on him, was pretty tight, and we we collapsed on him when he showed that he was trouble. Even when players like Harden or someone else got switched on him, they didn't back down, and played pretty decent one on one defense.
I can't recall but did OKC or SA try to trap Harden on PnR's and make him give up the ball? In previous years, defenders would try to deny Harden the ball and that caused issues for us. But now that he is the PG, you can't really do that. It's just weird that the first game against OKC, OKC switched the bigs on Harden and Harden roasted them and yet SA did the same thing last night. I doubt they do that again.
I noticed this too. They're really cheating off on the help side, leaving that skip pass to the corner there for Harden. Green tried to pick Harden up at half court like Roberson had done and Clint immediately dropped him with a screen. Also, Harden did a decent job on Green when he provided nothing more than spot up shooting and no threat to attack off the dribble. There's one play I'd like to get your take on. It was the first play of the second quarter. Spoiler: Play Clint set a screen for Bev @ halfcourt bringing the ball up then goes over to the left wing where EGo, Lou, and Ryan are. Clint sets a screen for Lou while EGo back cuts and Ryan pops. Bev swung the ball to Lou and then Clint re-screens for a downhill PnR.
The Thunder did and MDA immediately ran some crazy sets to throw their trapping off. Last night they let the trap happen and Harden would just throw the behind the back bounce pass to Anderson/Ariza because Aldridge isn't quick enough to recover to contest the shot.
Yeah it was 3man PnR if I remember correctly. Run a screen for the screener so there's an easy open man to pass out of the trap and then have numbers advantage. The days of doubling Harden (end of games especially) are pretty much dead. He's grown and improved in this area.
On defense the Spurs switched too easily, felt like Harden was guarded by Aldridge every damn play in the first half. I imagine they will go away from the switches to some extent, play Leonard on Harden more and try to protect the paint with Dedmon. They will be at an offensive disadvantage this way. Playing OKC really primed us for this, they were bruisers in the half court. Harden not being hounded by Roberson or being funneled into a Grant/Butler/Adams front court makes the game so much easier. He looked like he barely broke a sweat last night. Spurs just don't have that personnel.
I don't remember the defense the spurs showed against us during the regular season? was it similar to what we saw last night?
