Originally Published by Rabbit
A two-win streak brought the Celtics a 3-2 lead in the series. Beside their strong-as-always defence, another difference maker in these two games might be the 34-year-old Ray Allen, who made 6 three-pointers from altogether 9 attempts in Game 5 despite the 1-8 percentage in Game 4. Though his three-pointer hits in Game 4 was rather poor, it is still worthwhile to take a brief view on these attempts, since this famous 3-point shooter had got as many as 17 chances from downtown in two games, especially when most of them resulted from some offense specifically called for him.
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Game 4: assisted at the wing-side during the transition offense
Shown are two made shots in Game 4, including one counted as a 2-pointer. They are obviously similar to each other as both were made i) in a transition offense and ii) at the right wing-spot. Concerning i), they are representing the fact that the Celtics clearly led with 23-7 in the fast-breaks, which might be mainly due to their outstanding defence (e.g. through steals or def. rebounds) - especially in the 2nd and 4th quarters when the Celtics had extended the lead. Most of the fast breaks were driven by Rajon Rondo who had collected totally 13 assists in this game.
For "transition offense" (transition offense is often referred to as "early offense" or sometimes even "fast breaks", which is a slight bit of misnomer - "Early offense" or "fast break" are means of transition offense), there are two key factors: the first-pass (i.e. the launching of the offense) and the receiving (i.e. how the players spread themselves and try to get the basketball). For the offensive side they mainly take the "fixed catching", which can be classified into three categories: a) with a fixed player at the fixed spot, b) with a fixed spot for unfixed players, and c) with a fixed player at the unfixed spots.
Let's come back to ii). It might not be by accident that Ray Allen "always" appeared at the right wing-spot at the right time. We can classify Rondo as b) since he was acting as the playmaker, while the Celtic inside-men as the c). Definitely, Ray Allen can be regarded as a). - This offense-designation is in good accordance to his hot zones as following (the first for season and the second for playoffs).
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Game 5: the powerful power offense
In a power offense, the perimeter player runs along the baseline through the screens set by his two bigger teammates at the left and the right boxes in order to create space from the defence. A very important variant is the V-cut of the perimeter player, who can either finish the offense by a catch-and-shoot or continue with some options. Power offense is mainly designed for the perimeter players, it is never-the-less an effective way to feed the ball into the paint, for example, it contains a post-up option for an inside-man.
Case 1: starting with a 1-4 low stack, Ray Allen ran through several screens and scored by a catch-and-shoot. One can see that the space for "catch" had been successfully created by the base cross through the screens. Two key factors are both important for a power offense: the screeners and the cutting perimeter player.
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Case 2: Ray Allen ran with a V-cut in order to create the space. During the cut, the defender (Anderson Varejão) on the screener (Kevin Garnett) must "show" in order to delay Ray Allen's catch-and-shoot option since the defender (Maurice Williams) for Ray Allen was completely screened. As a result, Kevin Garnett received the roll from Ray Allen at the low post with his defender (Anderson Varejão) drawn far away from him by Ray Allen's catch-and-shot threat.
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Case 3: similar to Case 2. During the baseline screen for Ray Allen, two Cavaliers had at-one-moment focused on Ray Allen thus Kevin Garnett was left alone near the basket.
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Summary: not only in Game 5 of this series, the Celtics have widely employed Ray Allen's cuts in order to create different offenses. From the cases listed in this post, it is seen that those runs and cuts not only lead to his catch-and-shoots, which are one of his well known offensive weapons, but also leave numerous chances for the inside-men in the paint. That is, when you get the helps from your teammates, you can help them at the same time.
One of the most mysterious essences of basketball is the well-designed and precise runs and cuts under different screens to the end of creating good scoring chances in a half court-offense.
Topic: Playoff Analysis: Celtics vs Cavaliers (R2 G4 and R2 G5) (Read 928 times)