biba
12-25-2009, 04:50 AM
Taking Inventory at Christmastime
December, 24, 2009 Dec 241:13PM By Kevin Arnovitz
The 25-30 game mark is my favorite moment in the NBA season.
Come again? What can you possibly glean from December basketball?
Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane once described his trifurcated view of the long baseball season. The first of the season is for taking inventory of what a team has. The middle third of the schedule is for making the necessary adjustments. And the final third is for making a run.
The formula works for basketball as well. The throat-clearing phase of the season is nearly over. Teams have a better feel for their assets, needs and aspirations than they did at the start of the season. That transition between observation and implementation is happening right now, and last night's slate of games offered a window into what some of the league's more interesting teams are doing.
[see article for: Orlando vs. Houston, Atlanta vs. Denver]
Portland vs. San Antonio
This is a battle of two teams with grave existential questions as we enter the second third of the season. For the Spurs, have their early-season struggles been the product of acclimating a bunch of new players, or is there something fundamentally unsound about the pieces they've added to their aging foundation?
For the Trail Blazers, who have lost Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla in recent days, there's desperation in the air, and it's compounded Wednesday night by the absence of Brandon Roy, who's nursing a sore shoulder.
The Spurs toy with Portland on the first couple of possessions, working mismatches Richard Jefferson to get him shots at the rim. But Portland is able to leverage its sole advantage over San Antonio -- speed. The Trail Blazers don't exploit that advantage in transition (only seven fast break points). Instead, they whirl around in the half-court and get some very nice looks for jump shooters, most prominently LaMarcus Aldridge (9-for-13 from the floor). Jerryd Bayless? the speedster doesn't need much help getting nice looks. He'll create them out of thin air -- on the perimeter with a quick release (with out without a high screen) or off the dribble through the seams of the defense.
Blazers Edge describes what else goes right for Portland:
The keys to the game were pretty simple. Portland packed the paint on defense, first denying the ball to Tim Duncan then daring him to score over multiple defenders and the rest of the Spurs to hit outside shots instead of driving. It was the only conceivable way to make up for the utter lack of interior power on that end. Once the shot went up the Blazers rebounded hard down to the last man. You saw four, five guys swarming the glass. On offense the plan was clear: take advantage of any mismatches (Bayless, Aldridge), use screens to get them free, and when the main guys got shot down pass the ball out quickly and hope the jumpers fall. They did. San Antonio's did somewhat but it wasn't enough. Combine that with 8 turnovers and more energy than the Spurs and you walk away with a win....as big of a win as you can get at this stage of the season...a win that didn't depend on lucky threes...a win Blazers got on a night when San Antonio shot 6 percentage points better than they. Priceless.
Reports of the Spurs' demise have been exaggerated for the better part of a decade now, but if you want to diagnose what might prevent them from playing into mid-May, you should examine their defense. In a game that features only 85 possessions per side, the Spurs surrender 98 points, which is more than acceptable against a skeletal Portland lineup. Unusual for a team coached by Gregg Popovich, the Spurs elect to double-team LaMarcus Aldridge. 48 Minutes of Hell wonders aloud:
My last question concerns Gregg Popovich’s decision to aggressively double team LaMarcus Aldridge. In Monday’s game against the Clippers, Pop chose to consistently play Chris Kaman straight up. Apparently he is more threatened by Aldridge, given that he sent two defenders at him throughout the second half. But Aldridge effectively passed out of the double, and the Blazers nailed five of the eleven three-pointers they took before scrambling rotators were able to recover. What was it about tonight’s game that made Pop more willing to stray from his “stay home” defensive strategy, and risk the open three in order to double Aldridge?
It's an interesting question and you can only assume that Popovich feels that his team might not feature the kind of one-on-one matchup advantages they're accustomed to having. The Spurs have racked up championship on the strength of their base defense, but for the first time in a long while, the Spurs are being regularly outmatched and outwitted on the perimeter.
If you simulate this game with the same shot attempts ten times, I'm not sure the Trail Blazers win more than three of the match-ups. Designating 30 of your 77 shot attempts as long 2-point jumpers is treacherous, but being lightning quick to the ball and to the glass has a way of mitigating those kinds of numbers.
One thing's for certain: No two teams will be more interesting to watch during the "middle third of the season adjustment phase" than the Trail Blazers and Spurs.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/11730/taking-inventory-at-christmastime
December, 24, 2009 Dec 241:13PM By Kevin Arnovitz
The 25-30 game mark is my favorite moment in the NBA season.
Come again? What can you possibly glean from December basketball?
Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane once described his trifurcated view of the long baseball season. The first of the season is for taking inventory of what a team has. The middle third of the schedule is for making the necessary adjustments. And the final third is for making a run.
The formula works for basketball as well. The throat-clearing phase of the season is nearly over. Teams have a better feel for their assets, needs and aspirations than they did at the start of the season. That transition between observation and implementation is happening right now, and last night's slate of games offered a window into what some of the league's more interesting teams are doing.
[see article for: Orlando vs. Houston, Atlanta vs. Denver]
Portland vs. San Antonio
This is a battle of two teams with grave existential questions as we enter the second third of the season. For the Spurs, have their early-season struggles been the product of acclimating a bunch of new players, or is there something fundamentally unsound about the pieces they've added to their aging foundation?
For the Trail Blazers, who have lost Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla in recent days, there's desperation in the air, and it's compounded Wednesday night by the absence of Brandon Roy, who's nursing a sore shoulder.
The Spurs toy with Portland on the first couple of possessions, working mismatches Richard Jefferson to get him shots at the rim. But Portland is able to leverage its sole advantage over San Antonio -- speed. The Trail Blazers don't exploit that advantage in transition (only seven fast break points). Instead, they whirl around in the half-court and get some very nice looks for jump shooters, most prominently LaMarcus Aldridge (9-for-13 from the floor). Jerryd Bayless? the speedster doesn't need much help getting nice looks. He'll create them out of thin air -- on the perimeter with a quick release (with out without a high screen) or off the dribble through the seams of the defense.
Blazers Edge describes what else goes right for Portland:
The keys to the game were pretty simple. Portland packed the paint on defense, first denying the ball to Tim Duncan then daring him to score over multiple defenders and the rest of the Spurs to hit outside shots instead of driving. It was the only conceivable way to make up for the utter lack of interior power on that end. Once the shot went up the Blazers rebounded hard down to the last man. You saw four, five guys swarming the glass. On offense the plan was clear: take advantage of any mismatches (Bayless, Aldridge), use screens to get them free, and when the main guys got shot down pass the ball out quickly and hope the jumpers fall. They did. San Antonio's did somewhat but it wasn't enough. Combine that with 8 turnovers and more energy than the Spurs and you walk away with a win....as big of a win as you can get at this stage of the season...a win that didn't depend on lucky threes...a win Blazers got on a night when San Antonio shot 6 percentage points better than they. Priceless.
Reports of the Spurs' demise have been exaggerated for the better part of a decade now, but if you want to diagnose what might prevent them from playing into mid-May, you should examine their defense. In a game that features only 85 possessions per side, the Spurs surrender 98 points, which is more than acceptable against a skeletal Portland lineup. Unusual for a team coached by Gregg Popovich, the Spurs elect to double-team LaMarcus Aldridge. 48 Minutes of Hell wonders aloud:
My last question concerns Gregg Popovich’s decision to aggressively double team LaMarcus Aldridge. In Monday’s game against the Clippers, Pop chose to consistently play Chris Kaman straight up. Apparently he is more threatened by Aldridge, given that he sent two defenders at him throughout the second half. But Aldridge effectively passed out of the double, and the Blazers nailed five of the eleven three-pointers they took before scrambling rotators were able to recover. What was it about tonight’s game that made Pop more willing to stray from his “stay home” defensive strategy, and risk the open three in order to double Aldridge?
It's an interesting question and you can only assume that Popovich feels that his team might not feature the kind of one-on-one matchup advantages they're accustomed to having. The Spurs have racked up championship on the strength of their base defense, but for the first time in a long while, the Spurs are being regularly outmatched and outwitted on the perimeter.
If you simulate this game with the same shot attempts ten times, I'm not sure the Trail Blazers win more than three of the match-ups. Designating 30 of your 77 shot attempts as long 2-point jumpers is treacherous, but being lightning quick to the ball and to the glass has a way of mitigating those kinds of numbers.
One thing's for certain: No two teams will be more interesting to watch during the "middle third of the season adjustment phase" than the Trail Blazers and Spurs.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/11730/taking-inventory-at-christmastime