The Raptors are heading to the playoffs, but there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm from Toronto fans. This despite the Leafs being out of the NHL playoffs yet again. The Raptors in my opinion have one of the best offenses in the league, they rank in the top 10 in almost all the major offensive categories, 7th in FG%, 2nd in 3pt FG%, 1st in FT%, 5th in apg and a respectable 12th in ppg. Against the Bucks tonight, they showed all of their offensive abilities en route to an easy win.

What I really like about the Raptors offense is the many ways they get Chris Bosh the ball. They run alot of nice early offense sets for Bosh and because they change it up quite frequently. The effect is that opposing teams get caught off guard and have a real hard time trying to figure the Raptors out. In a span of just 3 possessions in the first quarter, you'll see them run an early post-up, then a PNR, then a drive and dump,



I just realized that I didn't include the flex screen in the clip above which is what I really wanted to show. With all the different early offense, this is my favorite. Obviously the Bucks were not prepared for it, otherwise they would've switched to cover.

Baseline Flex Screen:

You can see that it's a set play to start. Bosh is the trailer, Nesterovic is already setup on the ball-side low block,


Nesterovic comes pivots towards Bosh and comes to the weak-side block to set a flex screen for Bosh who curls around baseline side and gets a crisp pass from Calderon for the finish,


Summary:

So with such a great offense, that can beat you inside, outside, off the dribble, over the top, why are the Raptors just 38-39 and 7th in the weaker Eastern conference? Well, it's all about the defense. Case in point, they let Charlie Villanueva (granted he was on a vendetta) to go off for 38 points. The Raptors cannot stop 1v1 penetration and they don't closeout shooters. The Raptors won't get by the Pistons unless they can pick up defensively. It can be done, but their attitude towards defense must change. I can see why Toronto fans are apprehensive.

A brand new early offense video worth checking out is Joe Mihalich's DVD on Practice Drills for the Fast Break. Joe Mihalich is the head coach at Niagara University. Be sure to head over to the X's and O's Basketball Forum to discuss this and more of your favorite basketball topics.

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Still have kind of a hangover from the great NCAA Championship game last night. I watched a couple of NBA games tonight but I admit that didn't have a chance to really do much capture and analysis. I watched the first half of the the Celtics game against the Bucks and it looked to be over early. Until I found out later on Sportscenter that Rivers kept the subs in thru the 4th quarter (and lost the lead) and had the subs tough it out to win it in OT.

I caught this clip in the second quarter mainly to show why we teach big forwards out there to keep that ball up at the chin or higher. Andrew Bogut receives the inbounds but drops the ball to his waist where Glen 'Big Baby' Davis pokes it out of his hands and the eventual fast break score by Tony Allen,



The concept we as coaches refer to is, "chin the ball". We tell our players that they should catch the ball with 2 hands, then chin the ball. Keep it squeezed between your 2 hands, close to the chest underneath the chin. From this screenshot, Bogut drops the ball to his waist where it's poked away,


I was browsing pictures and I found this picture from the same game with ironically Glen Davis "chinning the ball" with Bogut guarding him (well sort of, it's not textbook but it's better than Bogut),


I thought it was a bold move by Doc Rivers to stay with the subs late in the game. That's how they learn how to win, by being in those situations. There's no better way to learn than to be actually playing rather than sitting on the bench watching. For the Bucks, there are no moral victories knowing they got beat by the Celtics subs.

If you have a big man you're looking to work with this off-season, then you might want to look at Ganon Baker's new DVD on Skill Development for Post Players. Talk big man skills at the X's and O's Basketball Forum with other great coaches from around the world.

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Is it just me or is everyone else still stunned at the outcome of the NCAA Championship game tonight. I still can't believe that Memphis was unable to win the game with a 9-point lead and 2 minutes to go. It's one of those things where just about everything bad that could happen, happened to Memphis. While, just about everything good that could possibly happen, happened to Kansas.

There were the missed FTs, and I feel extremely bad for Coach Calipari who will never hear the end of it, especially after he kept saying "we'll make the ones that count at the end of the game" to anybody who would hear him. But to me, the strategy to not foul with a 3-point lead was the one that I take away as the one simple thing Memphis could have done to secure the win.

For Memphis and dribble drive motion fans, this isn't easy to watch. For Kansas and Bill Self fans, you'll probably replay it over and over,



I watched the post-game interview between Sam Ryan and John Calipari outside the locker room after the game. Despite Coach Cal saying they had intended to foul and that the refs just didn't call the foul, I think it's clear from looking at the video that there was no strategy to foul. In fact, Rose has his hands in the air trying to avoid Collins who is already falling down by his own mis-steps,


After Collins hands the ball off to Chalmers (barely), both #5 Anderson and #23 Rose do not make any attempt to foul Chalmers either right away or anytime after. This despite 5.1 seconds still on the clock,


Before the season started, I wrote about this exact situation. Do you foul if you have a 3-point lead? Last year, Xavier had a 3-point lead with 9 seconds to go and Ohio St. hit the game-tying 3-pointer. It seems every year it comes up again and again, I would've thought it would be standard operating procedure by now to foul. In my coaching experience, I've always believed in fouling with anything 10 seconds or less full-court, you foul the ball-handler as soon as the ball reaches half, which should take 3-4 seconds off the clock. Anything under 5 seconds anywhere on the court with a 3-point lead should be an automatic foul on inbounds.

Summary:

Kansas is well-deserving of the National Championship. But you get the sense that Memphis lost it much more so than Kansas won it. I've won games like that before coming from behind and I had an almost embarrassed feeling. Memphis played so well in the second half breaking down all the different defensive looks Self threw at them. Until the dreaded FTs... Well, it was a game for the ages and I'm sure we'll be discussing it for many many months and years to come.

Free throws got you singing the blues? Take a look at Ed Palubinskas's DVD on Becoming a Great Shooter. Coach Palubinskas has worked with professionals such as Lisa Leslie, Shaquille O'Neal and recently Lauren Jackson. To discuss this and many more of your favorite basketball topics, head over to the X's and O's of Basketball Forum to talk with other coaches from around the world.

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Following the NCAA tournament, my next favorite time of year immediately follows, the NBA playoffs. With only a week or so left in the regular season, the NBA playoffs are starting to take shape. The one game on the schedule tonight that really had the feel of a playoff game was the Mavs against the Suns in Phoenix.

I was ready to write off the Mavs after Dirk went down with that horrific looking knee injury last month, but Dirk showed a lot of grit to come back and play injured, beating the Warriors, a close loss to the Lakers and a real gutsy effort to beat the Suns today.

One of the great coaching adjustments that Coach Avery Johnson did today was to have Dirk run the PNR up top. It works better than J Kidd because Kidd isn't really a threat to score so you can play him soft. With Dirk running the PNR up top, the defense must respect his ability to shoot and put it on the floor, thus creating a bunch of problems. Here are a couple of sequences from that terrific comeback of the second half,



The PNR works especially well when the player running it up top is a versatile scorer. When the Suns tried to play it straight up, Dirk just took it hard to the rim (and I agree w/ Van Gundy that Shaq fouls Dirk here),


When the Suns decided to double Dirk off the PNR, Dirk finds a rolling Dampier. The Suns rotation comes late allowing Dampier to lay it in,


Summary:

It would be great to see the Mavs get in and do well in the playoffs. Unfortunately, with a gimpy ankle, I just don't think Dirk can last 4 full rounds, especially in the loaded western conference. As for the Suns, I think they'll be fine. One thing that Mike D'Antoni should keep a note of is that Shaq has proven himself a liability in 4th quarters. There is no point to play Shaq late in close games because of his inability to shoot free-throws and because he gets tired. I'm surprised that Shaq was in the game so deep into the 4th quarter.

It was great to watch/listen to Jeff Van Gundy today doing the color commentary. He does such a great job on the broadcast, but I know that as a coach, he's just itching to get back to the grind. Anyways, if you're looking for some more details on running the pick and roll you should take a look at Jeff Van Gundy's DVD on the pick and roll. Van Gundy goes through all the different reads of the pick and roll. Discuss this and many more of your favorite basketball topics at the X's and O's Basketball Forum.

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Wow, what a game. At the beginning of the basketball season, I made a post about the Memphis Tigers, calling their dribble drive motion the "small ball revolution". The Tigers beat UCLA tonight in their final four matchup and have a chance to become National Champions on Monday against Kansas catapulting this small ball revolution to new heights.

I wondered what UCLA would do defensively tonight. Ben Howland prides himself in tough M2M defense, and I was curious to see if he would be tempted to go with a triangle and 2 like USC did earlier or a sagging M2M like Tennessee ran earlier in the season against Memphis. In the end, UCLA played Memphis straight up. And we all got to see why Memphis is so good in that dribble drive motion offense. Here are a few sequences throughout the game of the DDM in action,



1v1 ISO:

For probably the first time in a long time, we got to see Memphis run their dribble drive motion as many teams prior resorted to some sort of zone. One of the plays they went to time and time again today was the wing ISO with either Rose or CDR. They start off with the pass and clearout,


Now it's just 1v1. They had a size mismatch all game as Memphis was just bigger and could jump over the smaller guards of UCLA. The help was late because Love was afraid of leaving his man underneath the basket,


Against the Double-team:

I was very surprised that UCLA tried doubling-down and even doubling the perimeter on occasion. This allowed Memphis to reverse and attack the wide open gaps,


In the traditional dribble drive motion, they would always attack off the face-up dribble. But with the size mismatch, on more than a few occasions, both Rose and CDR posted up their smaller defenders and backed them down.

Summary:

I was a little surprised that Ben Howland did not try another defensive strategy. But then again, Michigan St. tried a matchup zone (and it looked like it was the first time they ran one all season) and that was a disaster. But ultimately, what sealed the Bruins' fate were the 12 total turnovers, which probably turned into at least 12 fast break points for Memphis.

Another key factor was the superb free-throw shooting of the Tigers, going 20-for-23. After all the hoopla over their poor free-throw shooting, it was one of the reasons why they won.

The one glaring problem that Memphis still has though from what I can see is 3-point shooting. They shot 4-for-12 today. At this point, I'd say Memphis is better than Kansas, but if Kansas can keep everything in front and stop penetration maybe they can beat Memphis. Bill Self went with a box and 1 last weekend against Davidson, so you never know...

If you're looking to develop wing players for the dribble drive motion, take a look at a new video from Ganon Baker on Drills for Developing the Wing Player. Talk more about the dribble drive motion offense at the X's and O's Basketball Forum with other great coaches from around the world.

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From the opening tip, you could tell that the Pistons were going to rout the Nets tonight in Detroit. With the playoffs on the horizon, the Pistons are firing on all cylinders (pardon the pun) and look ready to make it back to the finals.

Defensively tonight, the Pistons strategy was to trap all ball-screens on the perimeter, especially against Devon Harris. At first, it didn't work very well because the traps were too slow against a speedy Devon Harris. But they tightened it up and started setting solid traps and forced Harris to cough up the ball. Lawrence Frank of the Nets is no idiot though, he adjusted and had the Nets set fake picks to throw off the defense. Here are a couple of trap sequences plus the bonus Nets sequence with the fake and quick slip,



Trapping the Ball-screen:

I like the concept of trapping the ball-screen. Especially against teams that use the ball screen or PNR to start their offense. It forces the other team to run something else, something that they're probably not as comfortable running. Harris got a couple of gimmes on some bad traps early on, but then the Pistons started trapping hard. Also watch how the other 3 defenders collapse to protect the paint. Always, protect the paint first, if the pass goes to the perimeter, then you can closeout, but you must not allow easy baskets going to the rim,


Fake Screen beats Trap:

And this I love. Lawrence Frank is too smart a coach to get fooled by this trap. So after timeouts he adjusted and ran sets that didn't use the ball screen, or even better, they faked the screen and slipped to the basket. Against teams that are overly aggressive, remember, walk to the ball, then cut to the basket and go over the top,


Summary:

As always, defense and rebounding lead the way for the Pistons. They have plenty of depth this time around which makes them all the more dangerous heading into the playoffs. As for the Nets, it's been a bad year altogether. But I still like Lawrence Frank, I think he is a smart guy but I think he's missing some athletic forwards to run the kind of fast-break offense he desires.

If you like Lawrence Frank like me, then you should check out Lawrence Frank's DVD on early offense. Talk hoops strategy at the X's and O's Basketball Forum with other great coaches from around the world.

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With only 3 NBA games on the sked and no college (sorry NIT), I decided to review some Euroleague games this morning instead. Things are really heating up there in their ULEB cup, I think they're down to the quarters or semis. Some really intense basketball going on there.

I decided to take a closer look at the game between Partizan Igokea and Tau Ceramica. Both tended to play alot of zone defense at times, so the pace wasn't very good. But in the times they played M2M, Partizan ran what looked like a triangle-style offense. It really looked like a series of 3-man/2-man games. Here are a few sequences,



3-man Game:

Basketball can be such a simple game, especially when you break things down, which is why I like the way this works. It's just a series of 3-man games and 2-man games, and you play basketball. O2/O3/O5 are on the strong side, and they try to get the ball into O5. Either O5 scores, or kicks it back out. Here is what it looked like against a fronting defense,


2-man Game:

In the 2 man game, it's the same thing. The 2 players on the weak side also try to get the ball in the post. Again, either the ball is scored, or it's kicked back out. On the strong side, the corner and wing switch spots so that there is some motion and it's easier to get open for an open shot on the kick out,


Summary:
Probably what I enjoy most about watching the Euro game is from a reffing point of view. The game is called the way it is supposed to be called. Fouls are called consistently, traveling, palming, double-dribble, 3-seconds in the lane, all those things that most refs don't call in North America. It makes it much more of a skilled game, all players must have better fundamentals.

For some info on your players can improve their offensive fundamentals, check out new Indiana head coach, Tom Crean's DVD on dynamic skill development. Some great shooting and ball-handling drills. To discuss this and other basketball coaching topics, head over to the X's and O's of Basketball Forum.

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