Hollinger - Coaching questions
Alson Wong
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Questions, questions, questions
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By John Hollinger
ESPN.com
Questions. After a thrilling Boston-New York game, a puzzling Orlando-
Atlanta game and a "lopsided" Dallas-Portland game -- only the second
of the 13 in these thrilling playoffs to be decided by more than 10
points -- I'm flabbergasted. Between coaching brain cramps and outlier
performances, plus more unusually competitive first-round play, I'm
left with lots and lots of questions.
Questions such as:
Why was Jared Jeffries on the floor?
New York missed out on a chance to beat Boston in the final seconds
when Jeffries' pass was deflected by Kevin Garnett, who went to the
floor to retrieve the ball and quickly called timeout. Even if his
pass got through, it was unlikely to result in success -- his target
was Bill Walker, who was 0-for-11 from the floor but also was on the
court for the most crucial possession of New York's season.
New York was coming out of a timeout and had ample reason to put its
five best offensive players on the floor. For whatever reason, the
Knicks didn't do it. Jeffries averages fewer than five points per 40
minutes and had a 37.5 true shooting percentage this season, making
him one of the least effective offensive players in the league. Walker
joined him on the court while Landry Fields and Shawne Williams
watched.
Jeffries had 10 points and was the Knicks' third-leading scorer, but
he scored so much in part because of the all-out double-teams Boston
started sending at Carmelo Anthony once he went into blowtorch mode in
the fourth quarter. Glen Davis was abandoning Jeffries and launching a
full-out sprint toward Anthony the second he touched the ball, leaving
Jeffries as the open man. By the end of the fourth quarter, the Knicks
should have known this was coming, making it even more unusual that
they didn't have a more offensively capable player positioned to
receive Melo's pass.
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What happened to Boston's offense?
While the Celtics can breathe a sigh of relief, the fact remains that
they could easily be down 2-0 to a team that (a) isn't much better
than average even at full strength, and (b) was missing two of its
three best players in the second half Tuesday night.
Boston's numbers were so bad even though New York guard Toney Douglas
conceded at least four layups to Rajon Rondo in an effort to stay out
of foul trouble. In two games, the Celtics are scoring just 100.6
points per 100 possessions against New York -- the league's 21st-
ranked defense in the regular season and one that became dramatically
worse after the Anthony trade.
This is despite playing both games at home with pretty much a full
roster; only Shaquille O'Neal is missing among Boston's rotation
players, and while his absence has loomed large over the second half
of the Celtics' season, it doesn't fully explain away their struggles.
The bench continues to struggle despite what appears to be solid
individual talent; for some reason Jeff Green, Delonte West and Nenad
Krstic haven't clicked with their roles.
In particular, Boston needs to get more from the frontcourt. Garnett
made the game-winner Tuesday night, but he was just 6-of-16 with three
turnovers and didn't earn a single free throw. Jermaine O'Neal had two
points in 20 minutes; Davis had four points in 27 minutes. That won't
get it done, especially against a small lineup like New York's that
should be vulnerable to Boston's size.
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What's up with Al Horford sitting for most of the first half?
I've ripped coaches for extreme conservatism with foul trouble before,
but what Larry Drew did Tuesday night in Orlando takes the cake. It
may very well cost the Hawks the series.
For those who didn't see, Horford -- Atlanta's best player -- picked
up two fouls in the first 2:11 of the game, and Drew's response was to
sit him out for the ENTIRE FIRST HALF. This is straight out of the
Larry Brown-Mike Woodson playbook, and Drew comes from that coaching
tree, but I can't emphasize enough what an irrational and
counterproductive strategy this is.
The cost of having a player foul out is that he's taken off the court.
So sitting him for 22 minutes to eliminate the "penalty" of a third
foul out is inherently counterintuitive -- the Hawks basically chose a
cure that was dramatically worse than the disease.
Yes, studies have shown there may be some benefit to sitting a player
in more dire foul trouble -- with more fouls than the quarter of the
game, basically (i.e., two fouls in the first quarter, three in the
second, four in the third) -- because such players will slack off on
defense if they stay on the court.
Even by this logic, however, Horford should have been back on the
court to begin the second quarter. Or, at worst, come back in with
8:44 left in the quarter after Jason Collins picked up his second
foul.
Oh, did I leave that part out? Yes, the Hawks did the same thing with
Collins, too -- their most valuable player this series because of his
defense on Dwight Howard. Wanting to preserve Collins for the fourth
quarter -- one he ended up not playing a minute in, because the Hawks
were behind and Collins can't score -- Drew also sat Collins for the
final 8:44 of the half with two fouls.
And Zaza Pachulia, the backup to those two players? Yes, really. Him
too. He picked up his second foul with 11:22 left in the half and
immediately hit the pine for the rest of the period. Can't be having
players getting a third foul in the second quarter, after all, because
if they get three more, they'll be forced to sit out. And there's
nothing worse than having a player forced to sit out. Which is why
Drew sat them out. My brain hurts.
Up 'til that point the Hawks had the game under control, with a 10-
point lead. Soon things would change dramatically.
First, Josh Powell came in, after he mystifyingly was left activated
while Etan Thomas didn't dress. (True story: I was talking to two NBA
front-office types before a game this month and we were trying to come
up with the worst player in the league. Without any prodding from me,
both of them nominated Powell.)
Then came Hilton Armstrong, who managed to commit three fouls in his
5:20 stint but somehow stayed on the floor. Apparently the two-foul
rule is waived for fifth-string centers.
Nonetheless, the damage was done. Orlando outscored the Hawks 26-10
over the final 8:44 of the second quarter, with Howard erupting for 17
points against Atlanta's scrubs.
There is no way to sugarcoat it: This is the most indefensible
coaching decision I've seen this season. Horford played the entire
second half and finished the game with -- you guessed it -- two fouls.
This didn't come as a surprise to anyone who watched the Hawks this
season. Horford has one of the lowest foul rates in the league at his
position -- just 2.85 fouls per 40 minutes -- so even if he had stayed
in the game with the two fouls he was at virtually no risk of fouling
out.
Overall, when a real center was on the court the Hawks won Game 2 by
10 points. Unfortunately, Drew's personnel choices sabotaged them so
badly in the second quarter that they missed a golden opportunity to
grab this series by the throat.
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Should the Hawks sign Jarron Collins too?
The specific utility of Jason Collins against the Magic is really
quite amazing. Once again the Magic found it virtually impossible to
score when Collins was on the court and relatively easy once he
stepped off.
Check out this stat, courtesy of NBA.com's newly launched StatsCube --
in two playoff games, the Magic average 57.3 points per 48 minutes
with Collins on the court and 112.3 when he's off it, a whopping 55-
point differential. In the regular season the numbers weren't too much
different: In four games, the Magic scored 66.8 points per 48 minutes
with Collins playing and 93.5 with him sitting.
Obviously, his matchup against Howard is key. Howard has put up huge
numbers in this series, but nearly all of them have come against other
Hawks defenders -- with Tuesday night's second quarter fiasco being a
prime example.
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Wait, you mean the Peja Stojakovic that used to play for the Kings?
The most amazing thing about the Mavericks' first two games against
Portland is how much production they're getting from the Geritol
contingent. In its Game 2 win, Dallas got 78 points, 19 rebounds and
14 assists from players who appeared in the 2003 All-Star Game.
The big story was Stojakovic, who blistered the Blazers for 21 points
off the bench and seemingly was wide open in the corner on every
Dallas trip. This wasn't quite a season high -- he had 22 against
Houston -- and given how much run he had and how open he was for those
jumpers, it's hard to write off as a fluke. The bigger surprise,
however, was Portland's inability to take advantage of Stojakovic
defensively, a weakness that gets back to the Blazers' lack of
perimeter shooting and how easy it makes it for opponents to double-
team scoring threats.
Additionally, Jason Kidd has been unstoppable. In Tuesday night's Game
2 he was even hitting jumpers off the dribble, something he hasn't
done, well, ever. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Kidd's 42
points in the first two games are the most he's had in consecutive
playoff games since Games 5 and 6 of the 2003 NBA Finals. Kidd didn't
have consecutive games with 42 total points at any time in the regular
season; in fact, his previous season high was 31. The last time he had
consecutive games with at least 42 points was January 2007.
In other words, I'm not sure there's an "adjustment" for the Blazers
here. Kidd's performance is an extreme outlier, and they need to treat
is such. If it turns out not to be the case, they're going to lose,
but if they overreact to Kidd's two performances and leave other
players open they'll still lose.
Finally, we have to give big props to Dallas for its ball control. The
Mavs went the final 27 minutes of the game without a turnover, a real
accomplishment against a Portland team that forced miscues on 17.2
percent of opponent possessions -- ranking second only to Memphis.
Dallas' turnover avoidance also chokes off Portland's running game,
providing a double-whammy for the Mavs. If they continue to hang on to
the rock, they'll advance even if Kidd and Stojakovic cool off.