NBA – Oppressed Watch – Great Clashes, Key Adjustments and Huge Game 2

1 related

By going earlier, we would inject some of the necessary actions from one side to the other. Orlando is not going to give a lot of offensive rebounds, free throws or decisive points. Toronto must run with more zip.

• Jonathan Isaac is long and fast enough to get away from Siakam without leaving him open for too long or getting out of balance. He presents himself as an interesting witness. Isaac played 40 minutes in the first game, most of the Orlando players. It's amazing, considering the best alignment of Orlando – his frequent closing group – does not include: Augustin, Fournier, Terrence Ross, Gordon and Nikola Vucevic. This group scored only two minutes in the first match. (Orlando won those 9-0 minutes.)

Isaac scored enough to pay for it. If the magic turns to this smaller group in the second game, they may unlock Siakam's post-match. They want Gordon to keep Leonard; If Isaac is on the bench, it leaves a smaller player on Siakam.

• Nick Nurse must pay close attention to both Lowry, Leonard and Gasol. They rested together for five minutes in the first match.

• I am still uncomfortable when Steve Clifford is running out of heavy units in benches in which Ross and Gordon are the only offensive strengths. He recently went further and relied on a training from Carter-Williams, Ross, Iwundu, Isaac and Khem Birch. This group recorded a minus-5 score over three minutes in the first match. (The version with Gordon instead of Isaac lasted only a minute.) These are queues for "buying time". They are "closing their eyes and hoping that some random jumpers go in" the queues.

Clifford has already reduced these groups to a total of four minutes in the first game and he returned to Fournier much earlier in the second half. It's the playoff practice.

• The Raptors will activate the defense with everyone except their centers. Watch the trade missions of Leonard, Green and Siakam unfold quickly:

Toronto will fight to avoid changing centers. This makes Vucevic an even more important center for Orlando. Gasol can neutralize Vucevic later, but Vucevic poses a problem in open spaces. He can make an easy 3 and make the right pass when Toronto rotates an extra defender towards him.

Toronto did a good job with the two-player Fournier-Vucevic match on the left side of the ground, but when that action forces a change, the Magic must go to Vucevic. They lost some chances in the first match.

• Toronto could play blitz with Augustin in the second game. They trapped Ross with some Ross / Birch pick-and-roll, betting that Birch would not hurt them by playing away from the hoop. Vucevic can do it, which is why the Raptors should be wary of the correction of the burning game of Augustine 1. If they blitz, Vucevic can slip to the rim, make a pocket pass and do some damage:

Regardless of the type of strategy chosen by Vucevic, Vucevic's mix is ​​good for health He has a nice float and when he looks at the movie of Match 1 he will see some open kickout passes waiting to be made .

• The nurse with Green on Augustin in the second half – and Lowry on Fournier – seemed to be working.

• Toronto may have overreacted by having his flying men invade Ross over pindown screens. Ibaka doubled it a few times when the screen did not really hit; which triggered a bad chain of reactions:

Let the help come from Carter-Williams defender.

Nuggets-Spurs

• Two-thirds of San Antonio's attempts came from the mid-range of the first game, the highest share of any game, of any team, this season, said Ben Falk of Cleaning The Glass.

It should be impossible to win an NBA game in 2019 with this throwing distribution, although, as Falk reported on Friday, the Spurs have specialized in victory in the extreme midfielder games. Nor is it as if San Antonio feasted on Denver easy to shoot and shoot. They had, but their guards – mainly Derrick White and Bryn Forbes, with two late DeMar DeRozan resisters – warned a group of disputed runners and pull-ups.

San Antonio finished with an effective percentage of field goals of almost seven percentage points larger than expected, depending on the location of each shot and the closest defender, per second of spectrum – by far the highest differential of the first match. The Spurs are an excellent team of shooters, but Denver should behave well with the shots of San Antonio.

• This includes the firing that Denver yielded by doubling DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge to the post. But should Denver take the trouble to double? They played a strong individual defense against both.

The Nuggets were more aggressive in doubling Aldridge when Jakob Poeltl was also down. Such formations have fewer snipers than smaller groups with Rudy Gay instead of Poeltl, which means that Denver defenders have less distance to cover.

Denver was wiser to double when the Spurs placed four fencers around Aldridge. It's smart. The Spurs scored only 0.7 points per possession when traveling with a post-up for Aldridge, let alone when these post-ups led directly to a shot, per second. Their defense against him (and DeRozan) worked.

Always: They might be able to call the double team even more in the second game.

• Something to watch for: San Antonio scored less 4 in 10 minutes with Poeltl and Aldridge together. It's a tiny sample of a match, and it's safe to start big against the Paul Millsap-Nikola Jokic duet. All things being equal, Gregg Popovich always chooses big rather than small. But the Spurs fought all season with Poeltl and Aldridge together.

• The Spurs outperformed their opponents by four points for every 100 possessions in the regular season when Aldridge and DeRozan both hit the bench. It was better than their margin when both were on the floor, or when one or the other played without the other. Their bench has earned them a lot of games. But the reserves can not fight against bad bench units in the playoffs. Popovich adjusted preemptively by retaining one of DeRozan's and Aldridge's matches throughout Match 1.

• By the way, the degree to which DeRozan has stopped firing 3s is amazing. It has a record of 0-on-5 since January 1st. Total. From 2013-14 to 2016-17, DeRozan shot between 38 and 44% on corner 3 each season. Now he is not even behind the line when the teams leave him open:

San Antonio managed a very good attack with an old – fashioned shooting profile. Even in this case, there are possessions when an open corner DeRozan 3 is preferable to an attack at dusk.

• The Nuggets kept Jokic closer to the paint than usual to defend the pick-and-roll. It makes sense. The San Antonio ball controllers are not going to start shooting like Stephen Curry. Keep everyone in front of you, stay home with the shooters and make the Spurs work for a tough 2.

About this game "stay home on the shooters": Jamal Murray was awful, stalking both the ball and his man on the perimeter, and the Spurs seemed to target him.

They put Murray in a backup position on the weak side. His man – often white – walked on tiptoe when Murray peeked inside, and sprinted in the passes before Murray could find his bearings.

Ninety seconds after the start of the match, Murray was turned to watch the ball, spaced out, and lost Forbes for a mere score at 3. (Denver's defense outside of the deadlines was bad; conceded several easy jumpers, including two other Forbes jumpers.)

• Murray's work gets even harder and Spurs more ruthless when Mason Plumlee replaces Jokic in the center. Plumlee is going even further against the pick-and-roll, forcing the Denver Perimeter Defenders to make longer and more urgent help rotations:

The Spurs could start these rotations when Plumlee is in the game and make their way to an open 3.

• Plumlee seemed to be moving to DeRozan. It was interesting.

• Instead of posting as often, the Spurs could look to use Aldridge in more pick-and-pop. If Jokic needs to hang near the edge, Aldridge can slip into wide open looks from his happy place:

Note Millsap's approach to Gay to signal to Aldridge and Davis Bertans opens behind Gay. Aldridge will see him and be ready.

Denver could of course counter by pushing Jokic higher up on the floor – this has been their ploy all season – but the Spurs might well get around it, and in some 3 open.

• The Spurs are giving up Will Barton and Gary Harris for help, even in mundane training sessions. These guys are going to have to hit.

• Oh, yes, that: Denver went from 6 points out of 28, including 5 out of 26 on "open" or "wide open" looks, according to NBA.com. The Spurs know that they can not stop Jokic at the station. They therefore double it almost every touch, turning him into a smuggler. It's a strategy based on weakness, but it's still a strategy – and it worked.

Denver should stay the course. Continue posting Jokic. More of these 3 will fall. They could vary their methods of reviving Jokic in position – more ducks, more pick-and-rolls that turn into post-ups – but the basic machinery is solid. Denver will have beautiful looks during the offensive thanks to Jokic in the pole and elbows, the knives whirring around him.

• They had no Jokic-Murray pick-and-roll in the opening game. Zippo. It was the league's most effective pick-and-roll combination by season in the regular season. Use it! (We've seen Jokic-Gary Harris plays, but Harris is not as dynamic with the ball.)

• The fact that Murray makes a pindown for Jokic is always good: