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BOB - Whitworth

The number 1 team in the nation at all college levels at baseline out-of-bounds efficiency was Whitworth per Synergy. Sometimes when you pull up the numbers - especially for baseline out of bounds - the film doesn’t correlate with efficency numbers as far as “direct” scoring chances on the inbound.

I was pleasantly surprised when I started looking at Whitworth film and really loved what they ran, but especially the core action - Double. It’s not even disguised or tweaked to start, it is simply a double screen on the ballside but with great spacing around the elbow and the second screen off the ballside block.

The options off this is to look for the shooter off the double screen, if the shooter curls or rejects then the first screener comes off looking for a shot, or if any of the screeners defenders jump or fall asleep then the slips open up.

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The biggest difference from game 1 with Bam was his ability to recognize when to attack and how often to attack but really play through the players off the ball more to put pressure on the Nuggets defense. He still went after Jokic at times on drives, but much less in Isolation and more of an attack off the rolls after a couple of actions.

For example, here he gets the ball ahead and starts to attack in his usual handling but instead of forcing any issues after the ballscreen from Vincent, he looks the other way and finds Butler.

Then at the same time he goes into a ball screen, Vincent cuts backdoor to clear space and then relocates to the opposite corner from the dunker’s spot. This tricks the help man KCP at the rim and allows Butler to find the open corner 3.

Another example here where Bam flows into an empty pick and roll for Butler out of 5-Out and watch MPJ low here, he overcommits outside the lane so when Butler snakes this he gets taken completely out of position and in no-mans land.

Normally, this “pre-load” is for a ISO look to overload one side of the floor and have help already committed to stop any easy drives. A good example of this from Brown here against the Suns:

Here Butler snakes and Jokic has it contained since Bam is not rolling hard, so when KCP drops down nobody is there to rotate to the open shooter allowing another Vincent made 3.

Delay Flare DHO

Out of “Delay” or 5-Out the Heat can run multiple flow actions with turning screens into backscreens, flare screens or pindowns depending on the defensive coverage.

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Gordon’s Size

It was pretty evident early on that the size of Gordon would pose problems for the Heat’s smaller guards in switching and cross-match situations. The reason the Heat ramped up their switching against the Celtics is that Horford & Rob Williams didn’t pose much of a threat outside of kick outs and offensive rebounding, but the Nuggets & Gordon approach it differently.

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Part 1: Miami Heat Offense

Part 2: Boston Celtics Defense

A full breakdown of the Celtics 5-Out offense from earlier in the season:

All stats from Cleaning The Glass unless otherwise noted.

Boston Celtics Offense

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Part 1: Miami Heat Offense

All stats from Cleaning The Glass unless otherwise noted.

Boston Celtics Defense

Taking away these actions and movements will be important for the Celtics defense which has the ability to switch everything off the ball and try to chase shooters off the hand offs and into the paint.

I personally believe that the Celtics could take a page out of the Lakers and top lock/deny all off ball stuff and have the bigs for the Celtics sag in the lane to take those away but the Celtics have seemed hesitant to change up any gameplans so far in the playoffs.

When they played ballscreen coverage so far they have been pretty conventional with Horford or Rob in drop coverage and trying to keep the other teams taking mid-range pullups and protecting the paint. The problem that I have with this is it is a conventional, normal defense that does not do anything specific for each individual on the other team and their ability to beat you. Letting Embiid walk into pullups and roll without any issues is a recipe for disaster the further along you get in the playoffs and if they let the Heat stay comfortable then you can bet their shooters and Butler are going to find it easy to score.

Switching Defense

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All stats from Cleaning The Glass unless otherwise noted.

The Miami Heat Offense is based around flow actions with Bam handling and players cutting, screening, and off-ball movement. Then when they need a bucket they get the ball to Jimmy Butler and use different players to get the matchup they like to attack and go after it over and over again.

A big shift in the series for the Celtics against the 76ers was adding Rob Williams back into the lineup and ignoring PJ Tucker and other non-threats on the floor. I actually think this series is a 1 big system series against the starters of the Heat since if you put Al Horford on Bam, then Rob would have to roam against Kevin Love, Gabe Vincent or Max Strus. You could make the argument that Kevin Love (33% on 3s) is not a 3-point threat and his numbers are down from previous seasons but I am not sure he is enough of a weak spot for the Celtics to ignore like PJ Tucker (35% on 3s). While Tucker took literally all of his shots from the corner, Love takes a majority of his shots and an overwhelming amount of above-the-break 3s and shoots 35% on those.

Either way, it will be interesting to see the lineup pieces against the starters or when the bench units for the Heat come in since they will include players like Martin who the Celtics will likely make them beat them shooting 3’s.

They will let Bam handle the ball in the half-court to make reads, another benefit if the defense is sagging off him is allowing him to be comfortable passing, and if they don’t then it pulls the rim protector out.

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Part 1: Los Angeles Lakers Offense

Part 2: Los Angeles Lakers Defense

Note: I preferred this all in one post, but Substack was not able to properly upload everything in one place. I will have a separate solution moving forward.

All stats from Cleaning The Glass unless otherwise noted.

Nuggets Offense

The Denver Nuggets offense all centers around Nikola Jokic and his incredible ability to control a basketball game from every spot on the floor. Jokic can pick and pop for 3’s, attack closeouts, post up mismatches and make you pay for cheating against him.

Early Bust Outs & Seals

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Part 1: Los Angeles Lakers Offense

Note: I preferred this all in one post, but Substack was not able to properly upload everything in one place. I will have a separate solution moving forward.

All stats from Cleaning The Glass unless otherwise noted.

Lakers Defense

Defending the Warriors is similar to defending the Nuggets with one simple tweak that might ruin everything - Jokic can shoot 3’s at the 5. This year he is 48% from 3 in the playoffs and that is a dangerous threat to the Lakers’ defensive scheme - with that in mind here are 3 main thoughts on it.

1 - How often and how will AD guard Jokic?

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Note: I preferred this all in one post, but Substack was not able to properly upload everything in one place. I will have a separate solution moving forward.

For the 2023 NBA Playoffs I will be doing game & series breakdowns throughout - the best way to support is to become a paid subscriber with the NBA Playoffs Sale!

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All stats from Cleaning The Glass unless otherwise noted.

Since we don’t have any regular season film as these teams matched up 4 times before February, most of the matchups is just guesswork and assumptions right now. It is unclear what the Lakers are going to do with their starting lineup since inserting Schroeder for Vanderbilt was a big positive to their offensive spacing and matched up well with the Warriors lineup. The Nuggets have a similar lineup to the Warriors in roster construction but having a player like Vanderbilt against a lengthy shooter like MPJ would help, but then again also give MPJ or Jokic a potential place to hide on defense.

Besides that one tweak the lineups are pretty standard for both teams and I think it will likely matchup like this to start. With all of the cross matches and potential switching off the ball, these are not super important but the main one that I am watching closely is who Jokic & AD are matching up with and if there will be any curveballs from the staffs on how they guard the other team - more on that below.

Nuggets likely on Lakers

Murray - DLO

Gordon - LeBron

Jokic - AD

KCP - Reaves

MPJ - Vanderbilt

Lakers likely on Nuggets

DLO - Murray

LeBron - Gordon

AD - Jokic

Reaves - KCP

Vanderbilt - MPJ

Lakers Offense

While the Lakers’ offense does still revolve around AD & LeBron, it has become a more ballscreen-centric offense with both AD & LeBron setting ballscreens for their guards like Austin Reaves, Schroeder, and DLO. 36% of their possessions end in a pick-and-roll possession and is clearly one of their core focuses as an offense, but not the same level of threat as a Steph Curry or Devin Booker attacking off it. They use pick and rolls in their offense to create chances for their guards to score but also put pressure on the rim by finding little spaces for AD and LeBron to attack off of catches.

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Going over regular season film can be weird, especially when teams don’t turn on “Playoff Intensity” until the playoffs actually start but you can learn a few things from their matchups. In the case of the 76ers and Celtics, there was really only one matchup that could serve as a direct comparison to what playoff rotations even look like from their game on February 25th. The 76ers had their normal lineups in basically every matchup, but the Celtics definitely did not. In the first matchup, Rob Williams was not healthy and they played Noah Vonleh as the primary backup big. The second matchup Blake Griffin and Grant Williams were starting, with the final matchup of the season missing Jaylen Brown & Rob Williams. Even with missing all of those pieces the Celtics finished the season series 3-1 against the 76ers - although every game was highly contested.

Defending Embiid

The Nets blitzed Embiid basically any chance they could, whether or not it made sense for their actual rotations or locations so it was hard to get a feel for what the 76ers’ playoff offensive strategy might be. We can assume it is all going to based off Embiid at the Elbows and Block and then default into a Harden/Embiid ballscreen after that. Of course there is probably a debate about whether that is actually the 76ers best offensive action with Maxey’s scoring ability but whether or not we believe that might be the best action for the 76ers, not sure that Harden would default to that.

In the regular season matchup that the Celtics had their main lineup they put Al Horford starting on Embiid and then Rob Williams on PJ Tucker.

The starting lineup the Celtics have been using is their 4-guard lineup around Horford had him matched up with Embiid and then the other 4 players had the versatility to switch around him with Tatum starting on PJ.

I think the other player that gets minutes on Embiid is Grant Williams, then the Celtics can put other players like Horford and Rob Williams on PJ and let them be the helper/blitzer/roamer around the basket and ignore PJ.

The Celtics will change up the matchup and scheme on Embiid throughout the course of a game to make sure he doesn’t become comfortable, employing single coverage and letting Horford defend him 1 on 1 while shrinking the floor making Embiid feel the help.

One key thing to notice is that the Celtics do not clog the floor like the Nets had to or used by getting over there early and try to stop Embiid before he can drive. The Celtics will clog the lane once Embiid starts his attacking move.

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Knicks Don’t Care About Rolling Mobley

One thing was clear when the Knicks were facing the high ballscreens set for Mitchell & Garland - they were going to take it out of their hands and force Mobley to beat them in the short roll, and he has struggled in that area in both games.

Empty ballscreens seem to be tougher rolls where instead of rolling out into space and hitting a pick-and-pop jumper or 3, he rolls into space and has his back to the basket when he catches it. So by the time he turns and sees the floor his decision making is now sped up.

Here empty the Knicks put two players on the ball with Obi hedging out and Mobley gets the ball with his back to the basket. He then looks to find a cutter baseline but makes a high pass that is easily deflected.

These next two examples are identical clips where Mobley gets it on the short roll and has to finish over Mitchell Robinson who meets him on the catch just outside the charge circle. In both these examples we see Mobley struggling to score off a right hand power move

Early in game 2 the Cavs tried to get Mobley on the roll again and we can see here the struggles with decision-making. Caught in between either throwing a lob pass to Allen or going in for a finish Mobley shoots a half hearted floater off balance and off target.

The first 2 possesions for this in the 2nd quarter was all it took for the Cavs to pivot away from this, as Mobley attempted a straight floater against Robinson on the first attempt.

Next Mobley tried to power through again with no success and just seems to be an action the Cavs will try to avoid as the Knicks were very happy to have the Cavs continue to attack this way.

If you want to see what short roll playmaking and finishing should look like, this edit of Draymond Green is a perfect example of it.

One reason this was a much harder read was the next portion of the breakdown - the Knicks ignoring Okoro and causing spacing issues.

Okoro Hurting

Isaac Okoro in the starting lineup was really hurting the Cavs from not only a shooting standpoint but it gave a place for the Knicks to hide Brunson.

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Denver Nuggets

Everything revolves around Jokic and his ability to not only create for others directly but draw the attention of the defense around the entire floor.

Throughout the game Jokic will navigate to the left block, right block, flash to the elbows, and nail as well as pick and pop to the 3 point line. While he prefers to post up on the right block (48% of time), he will continuously look for advantages all over the court and after kickouts become a threat off ball to cut the basket when the defense falls asleep.

Their go-to play when the game is on the line is going to be 2-man game between Jamal Murray & Jokic to look to keep it in their hands of their 2 best players.

When they need a bucket in ATO situations, they like to run a couple of looks for Murray, starting off with some decoy action like a stagger screen.

Here Green keeps it and has the option to hit Murray off a face cut, or go into a dribble hand off.

Another action they use out of Horns is to pass to Jokic at the elbow and then have Murray set a backscren and then come off a dribble hand off looking for a shot.

The best part about Jokic and his versatility? They will even run some of these actions for him in scenarios that guards are normally - so much you can do with a player like Jokic.

Minnesota Timberwolves

It’s hard to know much about the Minnesota Timberwolves with their early struggles in the season with both bigs and then KAT missing most of the season with an injury. They are caught between two different styles and what seems to be the preferred style of Finch with 5-Out cutting and screening actions.

We could see from the play in game without Gobert their offense looked alot more comfortable and natural until it grinded to a halt with nobody being able to make plays - although I doubt Gobert would alleviate that.

When they do need a bucket for KAT they go to a couple of different looks, with their main option setting a flare screen for him out of Delay. Tough action to guard by having normal looking action before it and then using a guard to set the flare screen.

Finch is creative and runs really good ATO’s as we can see with the blind pig set to start the game against the Lakers.

Another way they get the ball to KAT in ATO situations is to have Ant cut off the elbow out of Horns and then post up KAT after.

The times they do involve Gobert it is mostly combined with Conley and their ballscreen chemistry, Finch even mentioned how they stole the empty corner pick and roll action from Utah.

A concept they use will be a quick reversal and then kickback into a step-up ballscreen like they ran tonight against OKC:

Memphis Grizzlies

The Grizzlies playbook has a lot of fun and creative actions - especially ATO’s and special situations, but their biggest flaw has always been half court offense. Running in transition and offensive boards can be mitigated and with the loss of Adams and Clarke this will put a focus even more on half-court execution. In their flow offense a lot of what they look for is split action, especially out of the basic 5-Out “Wide” action and hitting the elbow.

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Milwaukee Bucks

Everything revolves around Giannis and then Jrue/Middleton taking advantage of their matchups in Budenholzer’s free-flowing offense. Bud talks a lot about “Flow” offense and playing fast and free and allowing the players to play without thinking.

The Bucks system does play well into playoff offense, since it is based off reads and chemistry that the Bucks have continued to have with Giannis/Jrue/Middleton, and a lot of it starts with a quick hand off on the wing or flip up top.

Another way they will attack early is with ballscreens and using multiple players in multiple positions - especially guards in the dunkers spot with a high ballscreen up top.

They will also screen for Giannis with lots of reads and options for flipping the angle of the screen, ghosting the screen, and putting the other team’s worst defender in ballscreen defense.

When they do look to run plays the main one they run is “Stack” for Middleton to come off and get a ballscreen - a go-to look for him and Giannis setting it.

Budenholzer loves his counters and they run several off this stack action with an elbow touch - their favorites being a backscreen into a dribble hand off and then a screen away into a dribble hand off.

But when it matters most, they give the ball to Giannis and let him decide how it goes and where he wants it - typically an ISO in the middle of the floor or if they do look to post him up it’s on the left block.

Full Breakdown on the Bucks defense and a change that has me excited for their playoff run:

Miami Heat

Everything is going to revolve around Jimmy Butler & Bam, but we saw how when it matters most that Jimmy Butler will take over and use his incredible footwork and physicality to find the other team’s weak spot. Since we have film from the play-in games we are going to look at the crunch-time offense since that is the most replicable for the upcoming playoffs.

Butler prefers to get to his spots from the mid-post and uses his footwork to find creative angles to finish.

Avoiding the preswitch is something that NBA teams in the playoffs are going to do as we see Caruso switch off here with Lavine and then Butler controlling space after.

Butler decides to avoid all of this and tells Herro to continue to put Vucevic in ballscreen defense.

The Heat will look to put the other teams weak spot in ballscreen defense, against the Bulls they looked to find Lavine. The Bulls did a great job pre-switching him out with Beverly here but the Heat continuously look to get him involved.

Although the Bulls did a great job pre-switching him out with Beverly here but the Heat continuously look to get him involved and the weakside exchange opens up the drive and kick 3.

Boston Celtics

The Celtics offense has been 5-Out based this season since Rob Williams missed time and under Mazzulla they have been much better about their pace and space actions.

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