What is the idea behind doubling Walker and Brown but not Tatum?

[keevsnick]

Blitzing is normally done against a team's best shot creators to get the ball out of their hands. They are betting that if they force Theis, Brown, Smart, Semi, or Williams to make a play going to the rim or create a shot for someone else, they would fair better than allowing Tatum and Walker to go at a set defense.

Except they are blitzing Brown as soon as he gets the ball but not doubling Tatum.

I think they are playing to Browns weak passing and ball handling by forcing him into bad decisions and poor ball movement to disrupt our offense

Except that Brown made some decent reads at the start of the game and got rewarded for it by getting frozen out of the offence.

Yes this, Brown in the first quarter had three excellent drive and kick passes two of which were converted for Marcus Smart threes and another drive in which he got all the way to the rim. The drive and kick game was working! Then he got called for an offensive foul on a drive and the rest of the game was weird.

He had two open looks under the basket where Smart opted instead to launch threes taher than make a simple pass, and didn't TAKE a shot in the third quarter and in the second half of the 4th basically never touched the ball again. Part of the problem was Smart's passing game COMPLETELY disappeared. He had one stretch where he took and missed three shots, with a bad pass turnover sandwiched between. I think Brown literally didn't under 3 minutes to go (besides his offensive rebound) in the fourth when only Tatum and Kemba did.

Bottom line is for some reason our offense devolved in this game in SLOWLY bringing the ball up, some lazy p/n roll and then an iso. It just doesn't work for the c's. Need drive and kicks, multiple penetrations on offense to get good looks.

Now look, you can certainly make an argument that Tatum/Kemba should take a majority of the shots or at least get the initial action late in games. But the problem is the play is consistent too slow to develop, which makes the shot clock an extra defender. Then guys including brown/Smart know they aren't seeing the ball, so they get stagnant.

[tstorey_97]

The Heat will do what they believe to be effective statistically. Their data says things and they set strategy based on it.

Ibaka gets left alone on offense to do whatever he wants:

FG 32/62 - 3PT 15/31 in the Raptor's series....

Siakam gets crushed.

Stevens makes a decision..."Ibaka has to beat us - we commit to stopping Siakam"

Ibaka didn't beat us.

Nurse decides to take Walker out of the series...."Walker won't beat us"

Walker didn't beat the Raptors, but the rest of the guys did.

Spo says trap Brown hear and there. One of those spots were corner threes where Brown is very high %.

"Brown isn't going to beat us from the corner."

Did Stevens focus on a Heat player? Would have been ok with me had he jumped Dragic at all opportunities. Dragic's 29 pts were his best for the bubble.

I'm pretty sure that Stevens didn't commit to a plan for Dragic, maybe you guys saw it.

Robinson had 4 fouls and 6 points in 17 minutes...maybe the plan was to "get Robinson out of the game" and it worked.

If you double/trap whatever, you are vacating a zone. Trapee gotta get the ball to his team mate.

Walker looks rough, but, he has to get the ball to one of the "other" all star scorers on the floor. The playoffs feature solid defensive teams night in and night out.

Celtics and LA used to beat the daylights out of each other on defense because they, more than anyone, knew best it was the path to the title.

Clips looked awful, I feel bad for Doc, but, they couldn't outdefend those Nugs. I guess Kawhi isn't a guaranteed title after all.

[ozgod]

The Heat will do what they believe to be effective statistically. Their data says things and they set strategy based on it.

Ibaka gets left alone on offense to do whatever he wants:

FG 32/62 - 3PT 15/31 in the Raptor's series....

Siakam gets crushed.

Stevens makes a decision..."Ibaka has to beat us - we commit to stopping Siakam"

Ibaka didn't beat us.

Nurse decides to take Walker out of the series...."Walker won't beat us"

Walker didn't beat the Raptors, but the rest of the guys did.

Spo says trap Brown hear and there. One of those spots were corner threes where Brown is very high %.

"Brown isn't going to beat us from the corner."

Did Stevens focus on a Heat player? Would have been ok with me had he jumped Dragic at all opportunities. Dragic's 29 pts were his best for the bubble.

I'm pretty sure that Stevens didn't commit to a plan for Dragic, maybe you guys saw it.

Robinson had 4 fouls and 6 points in 17 minutes...maybe the plan was to "get Robinson out of the game" and it worked.

If you double/trap whatever, you are vacating a zone. Trapee gotta get the ball to his team mate.

Walker looks rough, but, he has to get the ball to one of the "other" all star scorers on the floor. The playoffs feature solid defensive teams night in and night out.

Celtics and LA used to beat the daylights out of each other on defense because they, more than anyone, knew best it was the path to the title.

Clips looked awful, I feel bad for Doc, but, they couldn't outdefend those Nugs. I guess Kawhi isn't a guaranteed title after all.

TP this is exactly it. I noticed they only trapped Brown when he was in the corner and in the seams of the zone and he didn't really relocate and so he was "frozen" out of the offense. Not through choice but the players need more off ball movement. Force those guys in the zone to make decisions on whether to follow or not.

These teams have access to not just film but gigabytes of Second Spectrum data that track players movements all over the court. They know players' hot zones and how they like to score and have devised plans to counter it. That's why when Jordan, Bird and Magic used to go to the NBA championships they would come with a new weapon, something that they hadn't shown in the regular season, something that would force the opposing coach to have to change his gameplan to adapt to.