We Interrupt This Eulogy for the NBA Post-Up Game to Bring You Its Rebirth

Discussion in 'Chicago Bulls' started by Denny Crane, May 26, 2015.

  1. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    http://grantland.com/the-triangle/w...he-nba-post-up-game-to-bring-you-its-rebirth/

    There is no debate that post-ups make up a shrinking portion of the scoring pie, though there is some debate about why that is. Only eight teams this season finished even 10 percent of their possessions2 with a post-up, per Synergy Sports. A decade ago, 22 teams hit that mark, and every team ended at least 7.5 percent of its trips with some kind of post-up. One-third of teams finished with a lower post-up share than that this season.


    Just about everyone agrees that fewer players are entering the league with any clue of how to operate with their back to the basket. “There are maybe two handfuls of guys who can post up anymore,” Kidd says. Players who don’t learn post skills at a lower level won’t get the leeway or practice time to develop them in the NBA, coaches say. “It’s probably the hardest part of offense to get good at,” says Steve Clifford, the Hornets coach.

    “You need to work on your post game against Vanderbilt, not against the Spurs,” Steve Kerr says. “If you come into this league, try to post up, and some 10-year vet swats your shot into the fifth row — that’s hard to deal with.”

    ...

    Draymond Green remembers Indiana trying to defend him with Victor Oladipo, a guard, during one college game. “I mean, come on,” Green says with a laugh. “You’re not gonna guard me with Victor Oladipo. I took him right to the block and scored like eight straight.”

    Green hasn’t used those skills much in the NBA, but he hasn’t let them atrophy, either, and they came in handy during the first four games of the conference finals. Stephen Curry is a basketball panic attack — a one-man game-plan eraser. With time to scout, postseason opponents break out nutty strategies to contain him, and the Rockets have spent much of the conference finals switching every Curry pick-and-roll. It’s a simple adjustment, easy to digest on the fly, that keeps a body in front of Curry — even if that body is a lumbering big man who can’t track Curry’s twitchy drives.

    ...

    Multiple front-office gurus have whispered that post passing might become the NBA’s next great undervalued skill, even as the league appears to veer away from post-ups. “The thing I am sold on completely,” Karl says, “is that today, you need as much passing on the court as possible.” If Tom Thibodeau–style defenses can strangle one side of the floor, offenses have to swing the ball until they find something good.

    ...

    For you @such sweet thunder :

    There’s a flip side to this that also bodes well for a post-up comeback: Coaches are getting smarter about exploiting bigs who can’t post up, especially in the playoffs. More coaches go small and send an extra shooter onto the floor, the second they see an opposing big who can’t hurt smaller defenders on the block. A few coaches dipped into small ball against Rudy Gobert late in the season, yanking the French Rejection out of his lair near the rim. The Heat in both Finals series against San Antonio dared Tiago Splitter to post up smaller players.

    And in this season’s playoffs, Kidd invited a hobbled Joakim Noah to post up any of his wing players. “We tried to get them to go to that mismatch,” Kidd says. “We’d live with that over Pau Gasol, Jimmy Butler, or Derrick Rose getting the ball.”

    Going small-against-big risks murder on the glass, but there are ways to minimize that risk, and coaches are getting aggressive at turning an enemy’s lack of post-up skill into more of a liability. The adaptation has been cruelest for stretch power forwards who can’t really do anything but shoot. Coaches have basically played the Matt Bonner/Steve Novak/Mike Scott types off the floor by going small and sticking speedier wings on them — guys who can close fast on 3-pointers and dribble by them on the other end.

    “If you’re a stretch 4 today, you’d better have a lightning-quick release,” says Daryl Morey, the Rockets GM.

    Guys like Ryan Anderson, Ersan Ilyasova, and Channing Frye are more multidimensional, but they aren’t as lethal as they were two or three years ago, and they can only thrive in specific environments. If they had better post games, they could beat up smaller defenders and force opponents into uncomfortable readjustments. But they can’t — at least not consistently.

    A few executives have dumped the term “stretch 4” altogether and replaced it with “playmaking 4” — a term I’m officially stealing right now. Shooting is nice, but it’s not enough anymore as defenses get smarter, faster, and more flexible working within the loosened rules. Spot-up guys have to be able to catch the ball, pump-fake a defender rushing out at them, drive into the lane, and make some sort of play. If they can’t manage that, a possession dies with them.
     
  2. kukoc4ever

    kukoc4ever Let's win a ring! Staff Member Moderator

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    Well, that's a better definition for Mirotic. If his rookie year is any indication, he can't really shoot that well.
     
  3. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Well, I think the Bucks series was a good indication of how good Thibs is as an offensive coach.

    We had the series in hand. Then the Bucks' trapping zone gave us fits. Then Thibs adjusted the offense and we came out and kicked ass the rest of the way.

    What exactly did he do?

    The way you beat a zone is drive/penetrate and kick to the outside. The drive causes the zone to collapse allowing a less contested outside shot. Shoot over it.

    Or.

    Pass the ball from side to side very fast. The zone will overplay the first side leaving the second side quite open.

    Thibs' adjustment was the latter. DunVP had a field day early and we ended up with a massive blowout.

    Look at the jump shots in Q1. And DunVP scored 8 points in 5 minutes. The zone was destroyed.

    upload_2015-5-26_13-13-51.png
     
  4. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    As for the Cleveland series...

    Mirotic got his shot blocked several times when he tried to post up. He was effective inside rolling to the basket and getting a pass that way.

    What killed us in the Cavs series is that their guys made shots at a ridiculous rate compared to their norm. Even free throws. It's not necessarily an issue of the defense, which seemed pretty good to me overall. We held them to .428 FG% and .358% 3pt, even though it may have seemed like more.

    We shot worse and I don't think it was an issue of Thibs' offense, but rather our guys just missed shots. Rose shot .385, Butler shot .407, DunVP shot .479, Gasol shot .487 (but missed two games and played hurt when he did play), Taj shot .500, Niko .306, Noah .333, Brooks .290, Snell .333.

    Can we credit the Cavs' defense? They held us to 91.2 points and .401 FG%. What I saw was that any of our players who got hot was immediately guarded by LeBron and was no longer hot. We never got two guys going at the same time.
     

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