And then the phone rings. It's James Harden: "Are you signing with us, or what?" I was too surprised to give an answer: "I, uh, well, you know---" "Just remember: you're our second favorite! We're going after Bazemore first. And if he's just using us for leverage, you're our man!"
Laughed my ass off on the third one. Oh you're going to defend the three point line, have some NE-Nasty!!
This Spain PnR is getting a lot of coverage in videos out there. Of course, they love to show when it works. OKC also zoned it by Gordon and Harden's man switching for an easy turnover. It's hard for the PG to tell if his man stayed home at the nail. This play is very easy to switch on, because the SGs man is in rim protection area to defend a drive while Hardens man just leaves Harden and waits at the nail for EGo to come to him. The back screen really needs to work on Capela / Nenes man, when a natural switch of the defending PG and SG occurs. Point I'm trying to make is this play is meant to combat helping off the corner three, by just dragging that helper into the play with EGo doing that back screen. However, now you have a help man in the lane and you can just switch. Has to be an effective back screen then...because if our big doesn't get free on the guards switching then the play is zoned. We have higher success rate with the 3-man high PnR vs this 3-man Spain version, imo. The 3-man high has a shooter pick for Harden out high and our Big picks for the shooter who flairs/pop, then the big dives to the rim with Harden in normal PnR attack fashion, but with a pop man who got a pick from the big.
Appreciate harden guys.... HE DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THIS! On another note, I love this team. We're all on one accord top to bottom. It's great.
That's not really what happened. They overplayed Harden. Watch again. Gibson has Harden. In later plays, Roberson just stops and zones the kick out while EGo's man impedes Nene. That might have been mistake coverage by Roberson failing to switch, because we definitely saw Roberson pick off a Harden kick out in Game 5 for a fast break by not chasing Harden and switching to get EGo as he pops out. Don't get me wrong, that's a good play, but when you don't see us run it, or not run it effectively, it's because the defense is zoning it with 2-1 switches.
Read both Eric's and Trevor's articles. What a great site. These two just gave me greater insight into who they are. My Luv of All Things Rockets this year just went up another notch. One question, where/when is the NENE article please ? Ole Man River.....
Why the narratives pushed by Zach Lowe and a lot of fans are inaccurate. It isn't a simple pick and roll the Rockets run and it isn't as easy as a defense hugging the three point line. The Rockets system opens up multiple options for the penetrator. As long as the other 4 players on offense are paying attention, the Rockets will likely get a good shot at the basket.
It can also cause a lot of congestion in the high lane. I have seen Harden run this play and the shooter at the three point line hesitate and find an open shooter in the corner for an open look. I can't tell if it was on purpose or just a broken play with the good fortune to find a corner open or if it was designed that way.
We're fortunate to have Gordon. He's highly skilled as both a shooter and shot creator and I underrated his defense. He's perfect as a sixth man and he seems to have embraced that role. Having both him and Lou coming off the bench is just a lethal combo against other teams' second units. They buried OKC.
There is a difference, though. The Spain 3-man PnR has two natural defenders in the lane. The 3-man High PnR has all three offensive players above the arc (with at least 2 defenders above the arc), and easily turns into the standard high PnR after the flair/pop. Also, the High version keeps two corner shooters in their place and ready. The Spain one removes a corner shooter, although the wing shooter can slide down. It also seems we run the High version to pull out both bigs (using a 4, ryno/ariza, as picker). The Spain one tends to be Gordon, but Ariza has run it. This plays out such that Harden can sometimes get a big switching on him to ISO out of the High version. Also, by comparison 41 High 2-man PnR leaves Nene/Capela camped at the rim...so there is still very much three men to guard with an alley-oop to worry about. We've had great success with that, as the Center is afraid to leave Nene/Capela to help at the rim. However, this is the one OKC defended the best. Ryno did his hesitation thing as Gibson recovered after showing on Harden. So frustrating. We need that play to work.
