mogrovejo
04-20-2010, 06:21 PM
Okay, I've finally watched all the games played until now and from a coaching perspective I thought the first game of this series was the best one so far - lots of interesting mismatches, with both coaches interested in exploring them. This one is about to start, looking forward to it.
The Hawks offense relies heavily on Iso plays from their guards. Their main post option is Horford that generally doesn't get more than 12/13 touches there per night, shooting in half of them or so. His ability to play the face-up game allows the Hawks to use him differently depending on the kind of defender he's matched up with. Horford isn't a prolific scorer - and being a tertiary option probably suits him well - but is a quite versatile one.
Kurt Thomas shuts down Horford on the blocks. Thomas is one of the best post defenders in the league has he has formidable technique to push people out of their comfort zones + strong fundamentals. On the other hand, at this point of his career he's too slow to defend agile guys like the Dominican post when they play a face-up game - which was exactly how the Hawks did when he was matched up with Thomas. They used him on pick'n'pops and even went to the point of running him through some pindown weakside screens to free him for a jump-shot - a zipper, the kind of play teams run for guys like Ray Allen and Michael Redd. The Bucks also guarded Horford with Ilyasova... and when this happened, Horford tried to post up in every single play. Ilyasova is too small and inexperienced as a post defender to stop Horford there. With all this, the Bucks were lucky that Horford actually had a bad night finishing good lucks - he could have done a lot more damage.
But if Horford didn't post up much, Josh Smith did it, probably more than he ever did in his NBA career. The reason for that is that Skiles decided to guard him with the much smaller Carlos Delfino. Thanks to this match-up, the Hawks scored 34 points in the first quarter and run a majority of their possessions by putting the ball in Smith - then he'd take it to Delfino or kick it out when the help would come (generally from the top of the key).
This factor decided the first game: in the first half, the Bucks couldn't stop Smith in the post and that opened every kind of looks to the Hawks. Delfino was playing a soft side-denial, playing 3/4 when the ball was above the FT line extended, but he was never able to deny ball or position. He was outpowered and outworked by Smith in pretty much every possession. Then the Bucks were extremely passive as an unit denying the pass and reacting to it. The help was often late and when happened Smith was already so close to the baseline that nobody was able to rotate to the shooters on time. Awful execution all around. In the 2nd half, the Bucks executed well - and the Hawks reverted to their customary game plan of running clearouts for their guards. The Bucks are still forced to sink their helpers a little too bit in the paint but without Bogut they'll have to live with that.
Now, the Bucks would have an easy solution to shut down Smith's post play: guard him with LRMAM. But they didn't do that because he's their best defender on Joe Johnson and slowing down JJ is their biggest priority.
Unfortunately, LRMAM is also a bit of an offensive liability, which allowed Smith to roam around and make use of his shot-altering skills more than what the Bucks would like. This also allowed the Hawks to hide Bibby on Delfino - who was inept to take him to the post because Smith would provide early-help and defend Jennings with the bigger Joe Johnson. Oh, the 2nd game has already started. To sum it up, I'm very curious to see who's going to defend who in this game and how the Bucks will protect their post.
The Hawks offense relies heavily on Iso plays from their guards. Their main post option is Horford that generally doesn't get more than 12/13 touches there per night, shooting in half of them or so. His ability to play the face-up game allows the Hawks to use him differently depending on the kind of defender he's matched up with. Horford isn't a prolific scorer - and being a tertiary option probably suits him well - but is a quite versatile one.
Kurt Thomas shuts down Horford on the blocks. Thomas is one of the best post defenders in the league has he has formidable technique to push people out of their comfort zones + strong fundamentals. On the other hand, at this point of his career he's too slow to defend agile guys like the Dominican post when they play a face-up game - which was exactly how the Hawks did when he was matched up with Thomas. They used him on pick'n'pops and even went to the point of running him through some pindown weakside screens to free him for a jump-shot - a zipper, the kind of play teams run for guys like Ray Allen and Michael Redd. The Bucks also guarded Horford with Ilyasova... and when this happened, Horford tried to post up in every single play. Ilyasova is too small and inexperienced as a post defender to stop Horford there. With all this, the Bucks were lucky that Horford actually had a bad night finishing good lucks - he could have done a lot more damage.
But if Horford didn't post up much, Josh Smith did it, probably more than he ever did in his NBA career. The reason for that is that Skiles decided to guard him with the much smaller Carlos Delfino. Thanks to this match-up, the Hawks scored 34 points in the first quarter and run a majority of their possessions by putting the ball in Smith - then he'd take it to Delfino or kick it out when the help would come (generally from the top of the key).
This factor decided the first game: in the first half, the Bucks couldn't stop Smith in the post and that opened every kind of looks to the Hawks. Delfino was playing a soft side-denial, playing 3/4 when the ball was above the FT line extended, but he was never able to deny ball or position. He was outpowered and outworked by Smith in pretty much every possession. Then the Bucks were extremely passive as an unit denying the pass and reacting to it. The help was often late and when happened Smith was already so close to the baseline that nobody was able to rotate to the shooters on time. Awful execution all around. In the 2nd half, the Bucks executed well - and the Hawks reverted to their customary game plan of running clearouts for their guards. The Bucks are still forced to sink their helpers a little too bit in the paint but without Bogut they'll have to live with that.
Now, the Bucks would have an easy solution to shut down Smith's post play: guard him with LRMAM. But they didn't do that because he's their best defender on Joe Johnson and slowing down JJ is their biggest priority.
Unfortunately, LRMAM is also a bit of an offensive liability, which allowed Smith to roam around and make use of his shot-altering skills more than what the Bucks would like. This also allowed the Hawks to hide Bibby on Delfino - who was inept to take him to the post because Smith would provide early-help and defend Jennings with the bigger Joe Johnson. Oh, the 2nd game has already started. To sum it up, I'm very curious to see who's going to defend who in this game and how the Bucks will protect their post.