Covington snuck in because of Tucker, so yes, it was planned. If you look at it again PJ and Porzingis are pushing each other, Tucker just wins that battle because he's stronger, and Porzingis is so busy fighting off Tucker that he only goes up with one hand for the rebound The only reason Covington is able to do that is because he wasn't blocked out. If that was Boban over there maybe he does still slip past him, maybe. But I do know that if Boban gets a hand on Covington that he probably gets blocked out and the taller Porzingis and Boban likely win any battle in the air there. He slips past whats his name but it's harder to swim past guys with longer and stronger arms. I'm not saying that it wasn't the right choice, obviously it was, just that if Carlisle puts in Boban then things probably go a lot differently for us.
That was still a whole ton of luck. According to Harden, he didn't intentionally miss. So the ball bounced to that side of the basket where Covington happened to go was pure luck. They couldn't have planned where the ball would bounce. If it bounced to the right side or straight to the front instead of the left side, neither Tucker nor RoCo would have been able to grab it with Covington having gone to the other side under the back board.
Can you show me this? Which timecode on the video? I don't know how we can be watching the same video. Tucker surprise-shoves him once and it somewhat works. After that, everyone is shoulder to shoulder. Porzingis thinks he's getting the rebound (which he 1000% would if Covington is not there). You can't block out a person who is running away from the rim. I don't get why you keep saying Covington wasn't blocked out. He walked backwards away from the basket, then ran around. Kleber can foul him, he cannot box him out. Plus, in order to do that, Kleber has to give up the chance he might get the rebound, which is priority #1. I hope our opponents think they can box that out, would allow us to use it a couple more times maybe.
If you watch Tucker and Covington, they have talked about that. In fact, I'm pretty certain they thought it would bounce the other way, and Tucker panicked for a second shoving Porzingis towards where Covington is supposed to run through. Thy obviously knew they didn't know where the ball would bounce lol, it won't slip their mind I'm sure.
I am not denying that they had some kind of plan. I'm just saying that they could not have planned where the ball would come down. The video shows that RoCo was already at where he was before the ball even hit the rim. It looks like he knew where he wanted to go. But the fact that the ball happened to bounce to his spot was pure luck. My guess is that they planned to create an open spot for RoCo (which was exactly where he went) and hoped that the ball would be there. It's kind of like what the soccer goalies do to defend the penalty kick. They just make a blind guess on where the ball will be and go for that because there won't be enough time for them to react to the shot. The rest is just luck.
Last frame is hard to catch but Porzingis is so busy with Tucker that he's not balanced and can only go up with one arm. EDIT: This actually demonstrates what I mean by strength. If you look at the start, Porzingis TRIES hard to swim past Tucker but the best he can do is just get into a shoving match with him. He can't swim past him because Tucker is just stronger, that's why we get away with playing him at these positions for the same reason that Chuck Hayes got away with it. Dad strength. Yeah you can, if Covington walked backwards from the rim then he'd be boxed out as whats his face would have already had position, he did a swim move, which is a lateral side-to-side move. Do you think that works against bigger and stronger men? There's a reason bigger guys dominate the boards every year for the entire history of the sport. It's very hard to move guys like Drummond and Gobert out of position if they have it...and then you have to exert a lot more effort to even reach their length when all they have to do is a short hop to get control of the ball. I know Westbrook contradicts this but as I've mentioned a while ago Russ is the best rebounding guard in the history of the NBA and likely the only reason we're not close to last in rebounding and some seasons he's finished top 10 in rebounding as a guard is pretty insane. It helped us that Porzingis doesn't really play big and whats his face isn't a big either but if that is a bigger lineup like say the Jazz we lose in that situation.
Porzingis actually pins one of Tuckers arms which allows Tucker to steer inside better. Porzingis not very aware, definitely not a clutch player.
I think Covington is just so smart. He went to right side first (Kleiber reacts so slowly) but quickly circles baseline once he identifies ball trajectory. Some luck maybe but the fact that Tucker and RoCo were strategizing about all the possibilities lead me to believe otherwise.
Ok so I get what you're missing here. The tops of your images are cut out, otherwise you would see that in the last frame, Porzingis has the rebound secured with one hand. Tucker is not touching the ball, it is falling behind Porzingis essentially and look at where Tucker is.
Porzingis barely touches the ball. He's too unbalanced to even get a good jump because he's fighting tucker for position. I didn't put in the top of the image because it wasn't relevant to the battle of positioning that was going on between Tucker and Porzingis because for a rebound that's like 90% of actually getting a rebound. Your position and where you are at when the ball hits the rim. That is the closest Porzingis gets to touching the ball, this angle doesn't show that the ball is actually behind Porzingis because he never was in position. There is no way Porzingis gets the rebound in this situation, Dallas only hope is if the refs screw us and call a foul on Tucker. Dallas lost this play only because Covington wasn't blocked out correctly.
Kleber’s “box out” was very lazy for the situation. There’s a reason in the commentators were criticizing Dallas’s attention to detail on that play. It doesn’t take anything away from Covington and Tucker to admit that Dallas got caught napping.
