How bad was Danny Green? Play-by-play

[GSH]

A lot of people in the game thread were ing about how bad Danny Green played - especially in the fourth quarter. Rather than just argue, I took the time to watch the second half and isolate every play Green was involved in. (I watched a lot of the plays several times, and in slow motion, just to be sure. ) I challenge anyone who has the game recorded to watch it for yourself. The fact is, Green played pretty damned well in those closing minutes, and was responsible for . If you want to argue, at least argue the facts.

At the bottom, I listed all the plays Green was involved in, and the times. But first, how about that play where Lowry was wide open for the 3-pointer? Everyone was mad because Green "left Lowry totally uncovered". I tried to explain in the game thread. But now that I've watched it at least a dozen times, I'm even more certain. Here's the thing:

The Rockets ran the same play about a half dozen times in the closing minutes. It worked twice, but the Rockets only made one of the shots (the one by Lowry). The play looks like this:

Luis Scola comes out to the 3-P line to set a pick. But instead of setting up, he hooks around in front of the defender (between the defender and the guard) and then drives the defender two steps toward the basket. By ANY definition, it's a moving screen. But if it doesn't get called, it's really effective. It looks like no one is covering the shooter, when in fact the guy who WAS covering has just been shoved 5 feet away, and has Scola between him and the shooter.

These are the actual plays Green was involved in at the end. You'll see a number of stops, a blocked shot, a HUGE rebound. What you won't see is blown defensive assignments. Because they aren't there. I looked at every single play.

4:10 Scola tries the moving screen on Green, but fails. Lowry passes to Parsons on the other side, and Scola runs the same moving screen on Jefferson. Scola drives Jefferson all the way to the FT line, and Parsons is "un-guarded" for a 3P attempt. Jefferson didn't "leave" Parsons. Scola shoved him to the FT line like a football fullback. Exactly what happened to Green later.
3:29 Scola tries to screen Green at the 3P line, but Green gets around it, forcing Lowry to pass to Dragic in the corner. Good D by Green.
3:21 Scola tries the same moving screen play on Green at the 3P line. This time Tim (correctly) comes out to help - Lowry eventually passes to Scola. As Scola tries to drive to the rim, Green swats the ball away from behind. The Spurs wind up getting the defensive stop.
2:14 Green on defense, anticipates the shot and gets into perfect position for a rebound - fights a lot of contact to maintain position, and snatches the board. Then, stuck between Scola, Lowry, and the endline he fights, elbows, and dribbles his way out of trouble. Had Green not been there, Scola would have gotten his own rebound (again) right under the basket for an easy putback. Another defensive stop for the Spurs.
1:52 Green does a decent job of getting out in front of Dragic on a fast break. He gets contact without drawing a foul, and forced Dragic to change directions. Splitter, trailing, fouls Dragic - so we'll never know if he would have made the shot over Green.
1:19 Scola tries the same moving screen on Green at the 3-P line. Green shrugs it off. Lowry drives into the paint, and Green blocks his shot at the basket.
0:54 Scola tries the same moving screen at the 3-P line. This time he catches Green full body, and drives him back to the FT line. This is the play people were ing about, as if Green "left" Lowry. He didn't. Period, end of story. I ran it in super-slow and counted - Scola makes three steps while shoving Green to the FT line. Three. I have to believe that three steps is a moving screen in anybody's book. Yes, Lowry was open. No, Green didn't "leave him".
0:25 Scola sets a pick on Green, forcing Tim to switch, and leaving Green on Scola. Lowry wanted to get the ball to Scola, but Green did a fantastic job of fronting and wrestling with Scola to deny him the ball. So Scola backs out of the paint, leaving Lowry isolated with Tim. Green stays with Scola, and then at the perfect time he came over to help Tim at the basket. Tim got credit for the block, but it was Green who knocked the ball out of Lowry's hand. Then he made a great lunging save and knocked the ball back to Tim. Tim couldn't handle it, and that was the play that Scola wound up getting the timeout on the floor. It was still great defense by Green.

0:09 IF Tim was supposed to get the ball on that last play, he waited too late to make his move off of Jefferson's screen - which ALSO resulted in him not getting clear of Kevin Martin. If Green had attempted to dump that ball to Tim, it is very likely that Martin would have gotten a hand on it and/or Tim's shot would have been too late. Green got himself a good look in the paint. It just clanked the back iron. It wasn't a bad shot, and it wasn't his fault that the ball didn't go to Tim.

And did you notice that with 11.9 seconds left in overtime, the Rockets ran a play that took forever to develop? That's because Pop had Green in, and he smothered Lowry, and then switched to Scola and smothered him. (Actually, it was Green and Kawhi working on the two of them.) There's a reason Pop had him in the game. One thing I would recommend, before making up your mind that Green is playing bad defense. Look at how often his man scores. Tonight he did a much better job on Lowry than anyone else. I think Lowry scored on a couple of fast breaks that Green couldn't help, and that one 3-pointer. But when Green wasn't on him, he tore us up. There's something to be said for results. Yes he makes mistakes, like not boxing out on that one rebound. But when I look at the video, I don't see the terrible defense people are laying on him.

BTW - I only had the second half recorded, but I went back to the third quarter. There was one play where the entire Spurs unit was lost on defense, Green included. (Anderson, Bonner, Parker on the floor - go figure.) And there was the play where he didn't box out. But the rest of his play was solid. I didn't cherry-pick plays - the post was too long already.

[rmt]

I wasn't one of the ones complaining and don't know about your analysis (too late/early to read all that) but it seems to me that quite a few of the "great" defensive plays DG's been praised for are blocks from behind (meaning the player he's guarding has already gotten by him). It's good that he doesn't give up on the play but not impressed with his ability to defend players going around screens. I guess he's like Hill in that sense - good defending iso type players because of long arms/athleticism but terrible with screens.

[Yorae]

Green is a victim of his own stellar play against that team that he played well against, I don't remember sorry. But we should not set the bar too high for him. Not yet. And yeah the Scola screen is a moving screen. Green played decent enough (at least tonight).

[jermaine]

His high energy an confidence is also his worst enemy on some plays an it showed tonight. An Pop being Pop snatched him out every time for it.

[xmas1997]

The only bone I have to pick is if Pop is so quick to snatch Green, or JA or RJ, etc. out of there for their defensive lapses, then why is he leaving in the biggest perpetrator of defensive lapses, Bonner?????????????????????????????

[Dex]

I caught that same moving screen by Scola. Well disguised because it doesn't look like a screen, just like he is trying to drive to the basket. But still a moving screen nonetheless. You could tell Green was frustrated when he got caught by it, too.

[ChuckD]

The only bone I have to pick is if Pop is so quick to snatch Green, or JA or RJ, etc. out of there for their defensive lapses, then why is he leaving in the biggest perpetrator of defensive lapses, Bonner?????????????????????????????

He'll rarely snatches a vet like RJ immediately after a mistake, but he frequently does with the younguns like JA, Blair, Green, KL, CoJo, etc. He uses that as a teaching tool, letting them cool their heels for a couple of minutes on the bench, and then explain what they did wrong and put them back in. Bonner isn't a youngun, and he'll never be anything other than a hustle/energy defender. He's not going to improve his vertical or his arm length.

[wildbill2u]

Scola is so smart with his moves--with or without the ball--and his footwork with the ball to score reminds one of McHale. I don't doubt that McHale will each him even more tricks of that position and he'll be even more dangerous down low.

That's one reason why he was considered to be the best forward in Europe.

[timvp]

Good post, GSH, and I mostly agree. After Pop benched Green for the blown boxout and subsequent foul, Green responded well by playing a lot better defense when he got back into the game in the fourth quarter and overtime.

However, when re-watching it, that Kyle Lowry three-pointer was horrendous defense by Green. It was even worse than I thought when I saw it live.



Up by 5 with under a minute to go, the only thing that really hurts you is a quick three-pointer. Knowing that fact and knowing that Lowry was the only player on the Rockets to hit a three-pointer all game, Green's No. 1 job on defense was to not allow Lowry to get an open look from deep early in the shot clock.

As seen in the picture above, Green starts the play poorly by giving Lowry too much space. Lowry has been hitting threes this year a step or two beyond the line, which makes it even more imperative that Green gets closer. But inexplicably, Green gives Lowry about ten feet of daylight.

To make things worse, take a look at the help defenders. If Green is up on Lowry and fights over the top of that Scola pick, Lowry would be running into a wall of three defenders. At the very least, by fighting over the top of that screen, Green would have forced the Rockets to eat up valuable time and most likely not get a three-point attempt.




Not only is Green giving Lowry too much space, his plan is to go under the Scola pick -- as you can tell by how he tries to step back and around Scola. Even at this point, if Scola sets a perfectly legal pick, Lowry is already setting to fire the three-pointer and there's no way Green could have gotten around to challenge it in time.

What hurts even more is that Dragic and Parsons aren't even in position to receive a pass, so if Green had followed Lowry above the screen, the play would have been totally blown up and the game could have been over.




In the next frame, Dragic and Parsons still aren't ready to do anything. Scola is starting to move backwards but it's already way too late. Besides, that type of illegal screen rarely gets called and never gets called late in games. And I don't think it would ever get called in this scenario because it doesn't really impact the play ... Green is helpless either way.

If you watch the tape of the aftermath of this play, you can then see Coach Bud motioning that Green should have gone over the pick. While the Spurs weren't always going over the pick on Lowry, the time and score alone made it mandatory. The fact that the Spurs had a wall of defenders behind the pick on that side made it a bigger mistake. The fact that the Rockets shooters (who aren't even very good shooters to begin with) on that side of the court weren't even in position to shoot made it the biggest mistake of the game.



While I agree that Green was mostly good at defense in key moments, there's no way to sugarcoat this sequence. Thankfully the Spurs won and now Pop can show this replay a dozen times in film session to burn it into the young players' heads that you never try to go under the pick in that situation.

[ata]

I've seen Green played for Olimpia, where he played untill end of lockout.

As he never played in Europe as well as he did in previous games (as it looks like NBA suits him better), he still had ups and downs. He was able to carry team for few games and dissapear in next few. I hope he will develop some consistency.

[Man Mountain]

From those pictures it looks like DG is fouling Scola!