Ime and the Drop Coverage

[pearljammer10]

The drop coverage has been absolutely maddening to watch. Especially because Curry is shooting 49% from 3 against it. Even if the bigs take just one more step closer, it would make a huge, huge difference because Curry is mainly taking wide open, uncontested shots. It's really frustrating.

I get the whole let Curry beat us thing and lock down the rest of the team, but there are only a couple players I struggle employing this strategy against. Durant is second and Curry is first.

That said, like others have mentioned our defense isn't the problem despite how maddening this strategy is. We've held the Warriors to 105.5 points a game. That's 5.5 points below their regular season average, and 7.2 points below their postseason average this year. Even if we play average on offense, we should be fine.

that's been the big IF that's helped GSW win 2 games so far

It's mind boggling when those stagnant stretches take place.

[pokeKingCurtis]

I know the narrative but we're not really playing drop coverage.  The bigs are TRYING to show but it's really hard to do.

That said, there really isn't an alternative when curry is playing this well.  You wanna switch?  Curry cooks the big like he's not even there.  You want to blitz?  You get a layup line going 4-3 and really get the role players with confidence.  You want to hedge?  I'm not sure we've hedged all year?

Believe it or not, the strategy we're trying to employ is about as good as it gets.  If curry continues to make impossible shot after impossible shot, you tip your hat to him.

Except a lot of them are hardly "impossible" shots. Sure, he's hit a few of those kinds of shots, but most of them are clear, wide open top of the key threes right off the screen.

It's not Giannis-level drop coverage, but it is absolutely drop coverage.

Almost every single 3 shot has been over a big with a guy trailing him and contesting from the side or from behind.  Obviously some have been more contested than others but these are high degree of difficulty shots.  Very few of them are wide open.

I stand by my statement that we aren’t playing drop coverage.  A lot of these screens are being set near the half court line.  You want the big all the way up there, he’s going to get killed. 

When you play drop coverage, you’re basically backing up daring a guy to shoot it.  That’s not what we’re doing.  We’re getting as close as we can to him without getting blown by and contesting as best as possible.  If the big isn’t right up on him it’s because we all know they can’t kee curry in front.

You have to pick your poison and I am still curious which poison you prefer?

Yea Zach Lowe mentiond this regarding one of the possessions with Al trying to guard Curry in game 3 I think. Curry was a couple feet behind the 3 point line...

[Vermont Green]

To drop cover or not to drop cover, that seems to be the question.  I don't know how to define drop coverage or not but what the Celtics are doing is trying not to switch and end up with Horford or Williams on Curry.  They are trying to have the big defend enough to allow the primary defender to get over the pick.  Switching ends up with such bad match ups that the Warriors were killing us.

I suppose we could go with a really small line up and go back to switching everything.  For example play Smart, Brown, Tatum, White, and Pritchard.  Then we could switch to Curry in any match up but we would be vulnerable to rebounding.

I don't think the approach is fundamentally flawed or anything like that.  We need to execute it a little better and maybe a couple of Curry's makes will become misses but he has been hitting some shots that it is just nearly impossible to defend. 

[ozgod]

Jared Weiss had a good article about the Celtics' drop coverage on Steph in the Athletic. It's behind a paywall and I'm not allowed to post all of it, including the videos, but here are a few snippets. It's very informative if you're into the x's and o's about defensive coverages and off-ball player positioning on the court.

Why is Boston in drop coverage?

It’s the question shouted from the rooftops after each game, just with more despair when the Warriors win.

The simple answer is that Celtics coach Ime Udoka’s approach throughout the playoffs has been to drop the screener’s man back on the opposing star’s pick-and-rolls, thereby limiting the need to execute backside defensive rotations as much as possible.

But there’s one problem Jaylen Brown astutely pointed out at practice Sunday.

“Steph Curry is really good, in case you guys haven’t noticed.”

But Udoka may still stick with drop for two reasons: It has (mostly) limited the rest of the Warriors, and because Boston’s defenders are getting better at executing the scheme. Marcus Smart and Derrick White, the two perimeter defenders spending most of the night guarding Curry, have figured out a few tricks to enhance Udoka’s strategy. Both have been great at spinning under the Warriors’ high ball screens at the right moments. They’ve also gotten away with grabbing Curry’s hip as he comes off the pick, keeping him off balance. Watch Smart’s arm in this play as Curry attacks Al Horford in a relatively high drop.

Jaylen Brown is also starting to use the spin-under move whenever he switches onto Curry, particularly when the screen is so high that even Curry can’t step straight into his shot before Horford comes up to deter it. Horford has recognized that if he drops diagonally, it gives Brown enough time to recover back to Curry. This, in effect, is a show and recover pick-and-roll coverage disguised as a drop.

Curry hit this shot, but Brown nearly got a finger on it.

Is that good coverage? Considering Udoka keeps harping on the number of 3s Curry is getting up, it’s probably not good enough. But watch Andrew Wiggins after the screen on that play. He’s not rolling, even though Boston has put two defenders on the ball. One of Horford or Smart would’ve had plenty of time to close out to Wiggins if Curry kicked the ball back to him for 3.

Horford and Robert Williams said they picked their starting point on their drops based on the level of the screen rather than any specific spot on the court. There were times it seemed they were looking to get to a spot on the elbow or the top of the arc to thwart a potential roll to the basket. But the Warriors’ screeners are so focused on clipping off Curry’s primary defender that they aren’t releasing on their rolls quickly, if at all. It’s hard to see how any deep drop in which the screener’s man isn’t “up to touch” on the screen is worthwhile.

“The whole thing is really just supporting the guy, the primary defender who’s guarding him,” Horford said. “Just be there to support them to make sure to give them enough time to be able to get them back squared. Easier said than done, but we’re just there to really load on them, and there’s not really a specific point.”

No matter what scheme the Celtics choose to deploy on Curry, they can aid their efforts by tasking a third player with roaming off their man in advance to stand in the midrange area of the floor. That means the screener’s man can pressure Curry higher — whether they’re in a “drop” or outright switching — and feed him into the help. Jayson Tatum did that on one play in Game 4, allowing Boston to get a crucial stop. Boston can find ways to mix up the player who helps and how the rest of the team rotates on the back end. Horford and Grant Williams are capable of shading Curry into this third helper, though Curry is more than capable of dancing his way around all three defenders if the Celtics bigs angle him too much toward the middle.

All this is hard to do, which is why many Warriors opponents eventually give in to blitzing Curry or deploying hard show-and-recovers on the ball. The Celtics haven’t done either much because Udoka doesn’t want to burn his players out. There are benefits to making the Warriors put the ball in Draymond Green’s hands more, even if they yield four-on-three situations to do so. It’s possible to stay at home on his passing outlets and force him to take floaters he hasn’t been able to hit.

But Udoka continues to be reticent to send two defenders to Curry over the screen and open up chances for the Warriors’ screeners to make plays with a numbers advantage.

“We can mix it up there, being more physical, make some unders on him when he’s that high. We have been good as far as that,” Udoka said. “But the fact that he’s such a willing and good playmaker I think makes it tougher to go after him, as opposed to other guys who don’t want to get off the ball. He finds the guys in the pocket. Obviously, that’s when Draymond is at his best, making plays for others.”

Ultimately, Udoka feels the Celtics’ defense on Curry is far from an existential crisis. To him, it’s not even the biggest reason the series is tied heading into Game 5. It’s Boston’s offensive stagnation, especially in crunchtime of Game 4, that has prevented them from winning the long game when their war of attrition against Curry does (barely) enough to put them in position to win.

“He’s having a successful series offensively,” Udoka said. “But if we are playing offense the right way, we’d be 3-1, at least, right now.”

https://theathletic.com/3361968/2022/06/13/stephen-curry-celtics-defense-drop-nba-finals/

[gouki88]

Not going to quote the substantial post above, but TP. It echoes some sentiments of mine - whilst the drop coverage is frustrating sometimes if there's a defensive miscue, giving Curry a good shot, it's not what I'm most concerned about. I'm much more interested to see how our offence adjusts.

[gouki88]

Well, we defended Curry well.

[ozgod]

Well, we defended Curry well.

Small steps 

[jpotter33]

Well, we defended Curry well.

Yes, we did, and it’s all about the scheme we employed.

I don’t think you can look at last night’s scheme and call it a failure because some of the others hit shots and we lost. I think that has more to do with how awful we started, which required a ton of energy to get back in the game leading us to pooter out in the fourth. And that’s not even considering the boneheaded unforced turnovers and missed free throws.

I’d still like to see something similar to this for game 6, especially. We’re good enough defenders 1-8 to trust everyone else to limit their man and give the primary/denial coverage to Curry.