Welcome to the very first installment of “Basketball, Neat.” This will be an intermittent column throughout the 2015-16 NBA season where DIME will discuss some basketball play or trend without extraneous information.
If you’re a fan of single-malt Scotch, you should be familiar with ordering a drink, neat. That’s what this is, but with basketball. So there will be none of the usual contextual or superficial noise you might hear on Twitter or even in our pieces at DIME. This isn’t some referendum on basketball coverage or anything quite so lofty; it’s just a tiny place to talk exclusively about hoops. We’d like to nerd out about basketball for a little bit before we go back to the overarching culture of basketball and the NBA we normally cover. We hope you like it, but it’s primarily just a selfish way to publish what we’re already talking about with each other.
What’s the very first “Basketball, Neat” topic?
The play David Blatt designed for his Cavs with under four seconds left in Tuesday night’s thrilling, 97-95, Bulls win over the defending Eastern Conference Champions. You saw LeBron get blocked, and then Jimmy Butler intercepted the ensuing inbounds pass. But what were the Cavs trying to do on that very last play after they called timeout?
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Jack: Remember James’ buzzer-beater to win Game 4 of the Cavaliers’ first-round series against the Bulls last May? That instant classic shot came on the opposite side of the floor from where the four-time MVP first lined up on Tuesday night, and it’s safe to say that Butler and the Bulls knew it.
That’s only a part of what Blatt was counting on with his awesome, intricate, yet ultimately failed baseline out of bounds play to end the season opener, though. This set not only leveraged the unique strengths of the Cavaliers, but was also designed to take advantage of the Bulls’ obvious weaknesses – namely, the discomfort and inability of Nikola Mirotic and Pau Gasol to successfully navigate screens.
The process always matters far more than the results that stem from them, and Cleveland’s set is an indication of that sweeping fact throughout all sports. I’ll be surprised if we don’t see this play again, basically, and equally surprised if it doesn’t work.
Spencer: Unless this poorly plotted sans-SEO post somehow finds its way to an NBA scout, the really remarkable thing is LeBron wasn’t the first option. No, it was pretty obvious that Love was the one Cleveland wanted to take the shot, preferably behind the arc in that short corner near where Mo Williams was throwing the ball in. It mitigates any chance for an errant throw and gives them their best opportunity to end the game in regulation, since no road team is playing for overtime.
I don’t know how to ask you this without sounding really crass, but tell the three or four readers of this post why this play gave us both basketball boners? Then I’ll jump in with how it could have actually worked.
Jack: It’s all about deception.
James isn’t just the best player in the world, but has a history of beating Chicago by the most dramatic means necessary. Everyone in the United Center and millions watching across the globe thought the ball was going to LeBron here, and the Cavaliers did their best to ensure the Bulls did, too, by having him flash away and beg for a pass before running around staggered screens just below the arc. If James wasn’t getting the ball in the near corner, then he certainly was after a flare to the three-point line or a hard, vertical cut down the center of the floor, right?
Wrong, actually, and Chicago’s players reacted as if they knew it.
Love is this set’s real first option, a reality James accidentally confirms by slowing down after he reaches the top of the floor. Screening the screener is a common action on all levels of basketball. It assumes the help defender on an initial pick will be so concerned with his first responsibilities that he forgets there could be more to come.
But Butler’s ability to fight through traffic makes Mirotic unconcerned by Love’s screen, allowing him to stick glued to Cleveland’s sharp-shooting big man – who, by the way, had just drained consecutive long balls. Gasol stays disciplined, too, and the Spanish national club teammates communicate a switch effectively as Thompson turns to set a pick for Love, potentially freeing him for a game-winning trey.
There was simply a lot for the Bulls’ pair of defensively-challenged bigs to account for on this play – from both mental and physical perspectives. They passed the test and it helped ensure their team a victory, but that says nothing of this set’s design or its capacity to yield a crucial basket going forward.
Spencer: The misdirection would have worked, too, if Love had set up just a little bit farther away. He should have been closer to Dellavedova in the far corner than LeBron and Tristan near the inbounds.
This would give him more room to set the second staggered screen and wouldn’t give Pau and Mirotic as much time to switch. The whole action is just too cramped. Plus, if Love arrives a little later, it’ll give him some space to flare around Tristan’s screen to the arc, rather than take a hard line to the corner. This might mean Mo could loft a pass over Pau if he switches the pick like he did on the play.
Sure, it’s an above-the-break three-point attempt, but it gives Mo and Love options depending on how Pau and Mirotic play Tristan’s screen.
Plus, and I’m sure Jack will mention this in the conclusion, but why isn’t James Jones in that opposite corner? Matthew Dellavedova is a hardworking dude, but he’s a dud as a shooting threat on the weak side of the floor. Jones might’ve made Rose and Jimmy a little more leery about focusing on James.
Jack: The only way I can explain Dellavedova standing in the opposite corner instead of Jones is that the latter hadn’t played since the first quarter. Maybe Blatt thought his designated floor-spacer would be too cold to make a clutch shot? Not even that passes muster, though; Jones would draw more attention from help defenders than Dellavedova in any situation, and either player would be a third option at best here regardless.
That error lends credence to the notion that Blatt drew this play up on the fly, as do the minute spacing and timing issues that Spencer mentioned above. This set was so close to working, and it was so obviously flawed, too – which is indicative of not just Cleveland’s exceptional talent level, but its oft-maligned coach’s merit as an in-game strategist.
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