This blog was mostly designed as an area for me to rant about Warriors mistakes, but given that those Warriors mistakes have led to Golden State no longer being in the playoffs, I'll have to settle for ranting about other teams. Luckily, the two games today gave me plenty of opportunities.
OKC-LAC:
1) Darren Collison plays too many minutes:
Collison is horrible in general but especially in this series given that he’s forced to match up with Westbrook or Jackson, who are just too big and athletic for him. He should be playing as little as possible, but here are his minutes total from Game 1 to Game 4: 24, 22, 11, 23. I can understand wanting him in when Paul sits so Crawford doesn't have to run the offense (because a Crawford-led offense would likely average one pass per possession), but there's really no reason for him to be playing with Paul given that there's no need for his ball handling. He's a horrible defensive liability against Westbrook and Jackson (especially since he dies on every single screen), and he offers no floor spacing on offense and instead routinely takes 20-footers with 15 seconds on the shot clock, which is especially egregious in a high-offense series given that the opportunity cost of his inefficient shots is even higher. Not only does Rivers not understand the trickle-down effects his nonexistent defense and poor shot selection has on the rest of the team, especially in this series, he (and Collison) fails to understand that because of just how steep the dropoff is from Paul to Collison, the Clippers should be trying to limit the number of possessions Paul sits by playing as slowly as possible, meaning Collison’s pullup 20-footers are even worse decisions;. Doc Rivers' pet lineup of Paul-Collison-Crawford really should be Paul-Redick-Crawford instead, given that Redick can fail to defend Westbrook/Jackson just as well as Collison (except without the same mental gaffes) while offering much better floor spacing and shot selection.
On the surface, this would not appear to be the best game for my argument, because the narrative will say that in this game, Darren Collison was the "hero" for the Clippers. This was in fact probably his best game of the series, but even then, he was largely negative. He'll get credit for the 8 points he scored late in the game, but really he was the beneficiary of good fortune. Here are those 8 points:
-2 points on a layup leaking out off a steal (by Crawford I think) => right place at right time
-2 points on 2 fts from a 2-on-4 fast break => good aggression but also horrible defense stopping the ball
-2 points on a layup after a Paul-Griffin PNR forced OKC to scramble and a nice pump fake by Collison led him to the rim => mostly created by Paul and Griffin but still a good decision to not take the pullup 20-footer (which he usually does and what makes him so bad)
-2 points on a layup leaking out after a rebound => horrible communication/hustle from Sefolosha/Durant allowing Collison to get behind the last line of defense
On the other side, he one-man pressed Westbrook and got beat for easy uncontested layups 3 separate times. There is some argument that these baskets weren’t entirely his fault (there was literally no help defense on any of the plays), but at the same time, both teams were playing small (meaning both no rim protection and the need to stick to shooters) and Griffin had 5 fouls. You really shouldn't be trying to pressure someone significantly faster than you, but especially in these conditions. Furthermore, his issues defending the Westbrook post-up persisted. Westbrook consistently backed him down for layups earlier in the series, so the Clippers doubled early a lot more. They ultimately didn't get burned much from this, but that results-oriented approach overlooks the good looks that the mismatch created for the Thunder, as Butler inexplicably twice refused to shoot the corner three and instead dribbled one step in for a two (one resulted in an on-the-floor foul and another resulted in an offensive 3-second violation).
2) Caron Butler plays too many minutes:
Speaking of Caron Butler, Caron Butler is similarly horrible. He's never been a good defensive player in his career (despite a reputation that associates his "toughness" with good on-ball defense), but he's especially horrible now, which has been evident given how easily Jamal Crawford has gotten past him in isolations. He's an acceptable 3-point shooter in terms of accuracy, especially from the corners, but his propensity for not shooting open threes in favor of the pull-up 20-footer actually makes him a floor spacing liability. I can understand playing him in some situations, given that he's the only big wing OKC has, but this isn't the case in this series. It goes without saying that Reggie Jackson's minutes should be maximized relative to Butler's, but so should Fisher's. Fisher can fail to guard Crawford just as well as Butler, while offering much better floor spacing and much better defensive rotations. Of course, Jackson should be the one guarding Crawford with Fisher defending Collison.
3) Clippers waste too many possessions on Griffin post-ups:
This is a horrible matchup for Griffin’s post-ups, given how little success he's had in both the regular season and in this series. That's actually predictable against Perkins, given his primary NBA skill is post defense and Griffin often struggles against bigger defenders. It's somewhat surprising against Ibaka (except for the part where Griffin struggled in the regular season as well), given that Ibaka isn't actually a very good post defender, especially against stronger players, but that's easily explained by Griffin's lack of post moves, which allows Ibaka to simply time Griffin righty hook and block it. However, Griffin has had success facing up Ibaka, which allows him to attack Ibaka's body and prevents him from blocking the shot.
However, Doc Rivers continues to waste possessions on Griffin post-ups despite the fact that the Clippers have two of the best PNR players in the game and the Thunder have had no success defending the play. I understand wanting to rest Paul some, and one way to rest him without taking him off the court is to have him spot up for a few possessions, but this idea of resting him on offense so that he can play defense is ridiculous given that while his defense is certainly good, Chris Paul is Chris Paul because of his offense, not because of his defense.
4) Thunder waste 15+ seconds every possession trying to post up Kevin Durant on Chris Paul at the elbow:
Teams too often resort to what they believe are low variance offensive plays when up big late, even though those plays are often counterproductive as they can lead to long shots and long rebounds (not to mention the lack of aggression still resorts to turnovers). In the Thunder's case, that means trying to have Westbrook enter the ball to Durant at the elbow, with little prior player/ball movement to make the pass easier, which is exacerbated because Durant is horrible at establishing position and Westbrook is horrible at entry passes. Furthermore, leaving Durant stationary at the elbow makes him extremely easy to double even when the entry pass gets through, especially since by the time Durant has the ball, there's usually fewer than 8 seconds left on the shot clock. There are a lot of better options than simply trying to force feed Durant at the elbow, for example, involving Collison's man in some action to force Collison to switch or running Durant off screens to get him the ball already with some separation.
5) Thunder inexplicably don’t foul down 2 with a 3-second differential and no timeouts; Clippers top that by shooting early:
Finally, and perhaps most obviously, the Clippers' last offensive possession was a matchup between Dumb and Dumber (Dumber ended up winning the game because Westbrook missed a good look at a 3). First off, to set up the scenario, the Clippers had the ball up 2 with a 3-second shot-clock differential. The Clippers had 3 timeouts and the Thunder had 0.
First, the Thunder's mistake: Even in the generic case, the team trailing should be fouling with a 3-second shot-clock differential, but this is especially true in this case, because the Thunder HAD NO TIMEOUTS. All the Clippers needed to do was shoot with 1 on the shot clock and hit the rim and the game would be over barring a clean rebound and a 75-foot shot. Even if the Clippers had committed a 24-second violation (either by not hitting the rim or not shooting), the Thunder still would have had only 3 seconds to go the length of the floor.
Now the Clippers' mistake: To OKC's credit, the Thunder didn't just play the possession out as a normal possession. They trapped Paul, forcing him to give the ball up to a wide open Collison in a perceived 4-on-3. This tricked Collison into attacking the numbers advantage, which led to a pass to Griffin and a missed Griffin layup. Even if you could get an automatic two points, I'm not sure it would necessarily be a positive-EV move to shoot, because the Thunder then would get the ball back and if they make their shot, they would know they have to foul on the ensuing possession. In this case, it's even worse, because the refs are less likely to call fouls at the end of the game, and Griffin is a relatively poor free-throw shooter anyways (at least compared to Paul, Crawford, and Collison). All Collison had to do was catch the ball in the left corner and keep holding/dribbling it. He can either do that by dribbling towards the center of the court (so he doesn't get trapped using the baseline and sideline), or just dribbling in place since the Clippers also have THREE TIMEOUTS in case he does get stuck. (On a side note, this is another negative against Collison's Game 4, because the combined Collison-Griffin mental mistake was worth maybe 10% of win probability). There really should be no way the Clippers aren't able to use the entire 24 seconds, and given the timeouts, they should also be able to get a shot up at the rim. That can be accomplished either by lobbing it to Jordan off a timeout with 1 second left, or simply by passing the ball off the rim in that situation (which I believe should be legal).
IND-WAS:
1) Wizards have Wall, Beal, Ariza, Harrington, and Nene on the floor down 3 with 6 seconds left and no timeouts (with Ariza inbounding the ball):
RAPM has already shown what many analytics people have suspected, that spacing is essential for offense and thus that big men (especially those who can't shoot 3's) are on average negative offensively. There are only 8 PF/C in the top 50 of ORPM and 6 of those 8 are elite 3-point threats (the other 2 are Griffin and Nick Collison). As a result, teams should already be downsizing as much as possible for offensive possessions, but this is especially true when teams need 3's. Given that Washington had no timeouts and there were only 6 seconds left, they definitely needed a 3. I would argue that there's no reason for any Washington big men to be on the court at all, since Indiana ideally should have only perimeter defenders in the game so that they can switch everything, but I'm also not totally against playing Harrington given he at least has the ability to hit a 3 (and other teams don't always behave optimally either so the defense might not know to switch picks set by big men). However, there's absolutely no reason for Nene to be in the game. The Pacers shouldn't mind leaving Nene totally wide open for a dunk, because as mentioned, there's no time for the Wizards to go the length of the floor for another basket, so that means any picks set by Nene should lead to the perimeter player getting doubled and are thus counterproductive. This is exacerbated by having Wall on the court as well (not actually a 3-point threat) and Ariza inbounding the ball (he shouldn't be getting the ball back, because Indiana should be fouling if the inbounds goes to Nene for the handoff back to Ariza). Without Webster on the floor, Washington clearly has only one option and they've shown what that option is (Beal). Predictably, the Wizards couldn't get Beal open. Wall cut to the corner while Nene tried to set a pick for Beal. Beal got momentarily double-teamed, leaving Nene open, but Nene knew that he couldn't get the ball, so he went back to try to set another pick. Ariza had to try to force an inbounds in to Beal, which was off target and got picked off.
2) Evan Turner plays too many minutes:
Keeping up with the theme of bench players who a. are horrible defenders (even though the public thinks they are good), b. are horrible three-point shooters (even though they’re good off-the-dribble 20-foot shooters), and c. make horrible decisions (many of them related to their shot selection), Evan Turner is Indiana’s version of Darren Collison and Caron Butler. To be fair to Vogel, the Pacers don't really have many viable alternatives, as their only viable bench players are Watson and Mahinmi. However, there are ways to manage with primarily a 7-man rotation, as there's no reason Watson should play only 10-15 minutes when Turner also plays 10-15. Compared with many other coaches, Vogel somewhat understands the merits of mixing up the starters and the bench players, as Stephenson often subs out earlier than the other starters so that he can play with the bench unit, but this can easily be extended by having Watson sub for Stephenson, who then subs for George, who then subs for Hill.
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