I Caught Him. He Doesn't F***** Know It.

Eric, shoot the damn ball!

Just a quickie here. as blogging and watching 3 month-olds doesn't mix particularly well. I really enjoyed the great play Monty Williams drew up for the game winner on Monday night, but a play like that only works once. So when put in a similar situation last night against the Mavs, he was going to come up with something different.

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The great thing about a well-conceived play is that the defense has to defend multiple options. Much like an NFL team running a key breaker, you can use the defense's natural reactions to what you've put on tape to run a counter, and Monty did just this last night.  If recall from Monday, the Pellies were able to go from here:

to here for a layup:

because of the difficult decision Jo Noah had to make here:

Knowing this play was coming, the easiest way for Chicago to defend would have been for Noah and Hinrich to simply switch the screen. So when New Orleans set up in the same alignment last night, Jae Crowder and Shawn Marion were obviously prepared to do just that:

While this risks becomes like matching wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line, Monty knew that Carlisle knew, so Monty showed the Mavs what they thought they were going to see, and flipped it:

Part of the nature of the make or miss league is the fact that on one night it was a great play and on another it wasn't, even though the 'Cans got the exact look they needed (twice in this case!) on both occasions. In any event, this was another great job by Monty

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Putting the final touches on a few posts upcoming:

• Finishing up on the Suns defense with a look at Miles Plumlee, which will also be the first post in a series about keepers, young players who are developing into legit pieces or not;
  
• Continuing the Blake Griffin-DeMarcus Cousins comparison with a look at their pick-and-roll games; and
• Looking at Jeff Teague in the context of point guard play and offense creation

Rob and I also plan to do another podcast this weekend, which we'll hopefully publish before guys we talk about get traded this time.