Blazers offense (part 3)
Dame, keepin' it movin' Having looked at the Blazers' ability to get into offensive continuity quickly in part one and LeMarcus Aldridge's importance to this flow in part two, in part three, I'm going to look at why this early continuity is a very good thing for their offense. First of all, what is meant by "continuity" and why is it important?
Continuity of offense, in short, is one offensive action flowing naturally from the last without the need to reset and reorganize the players on the floor. For example, Portland's handoff/lob play we looked at in part two flows naturally into a pick-and-roll or pick-and-pop for Lillard and Aldridge:
With no break in the flow of the offense, Lillard does not have to dribble to another spot or make a play call. One look and set of options comes as a natural response to the defense reacting to the previous motion. And while this is certainly aesthetically pleasing, it is also very useful to running a good offense. The real enemy here is the shot clock. With a 24 second shot clock, there simply isn't time to set up another well developed play. Meaning that for a substantial number of NBA offenses, if the first option is well defended, the possession breaks down into simple isolation ball as any shot (with some however small chance of going in, plus the possibilities of getting fouled or getting an offensive rebound), is better than a shot clock turnover.
When an offense, even a decent one, is often forced into bad possessions if the defense deals with the first set of options. For example, Indiana is a roughly league average offensive team (1.046 PPP vs. league average of 1.04.) Running up against the elite defense of the Bulls, this can happen:
When an offense, even a decent one, is often forced into bad possessions if the defense deals with the first set of options. For example, Indiana is a roughly league average offensive team (1.046 PPP vs. league average of 1.04.) Running up against the elite defense of the Bulls, this can happen:
Hibbert makes the shot, because NBA-level players are good enough that even against perfect defense, they are going to get decent looks from bad spots at times. And sometimes they will hit tough, contested shots. But, depending on what set of numbers you use, isolations are either the least or second least efficient scoring play in the league.
The Bulls are by any measure a great defensive team. sitting 3rd so far this year and either 6th or 8th last year in defensive PPP (per B-ref and Synergy respectively). Part of the reason is they have good-to-great individual defenders at 3 positions (Noah, Deng and Butler), with very capable defenders in their second unit with Taj Gibson and Kirk Hinrich. They are also extremely well coached, both in terms of knowing their own scheme as well as their scouting of the opposition. Watching a Bulls game, you can hear Coach Thibs yelling out offensive sets and actions are often clearly audible over the broadcast, as the players' (especially the bigs' coverage calls on pick-and-rolls.
This preparation and communication makes the Bulls extremely proficient at eliminating the first several looks from an offensive set, leading to break downs in continuity leading to isos (by the numbers the Bulls actually force a fairly low percentage of isos, but they also force an extremely high proportion of shots from the ball handler in a pick-and-roll, a shot with much in common with an isolation play, and defend these shots very well.) After forcing the offense into one-on-one play, the skill of the individual defenders takes over: the Bulls are presently the fourth best team in the league at defending isolation plays and 7th against pick-and-roll dribblers.
Therefore, against the bulls, the ability to run continuous action to avoid perimeter one-on-one looks is immensely helpful to an offense. Portland is one of the best teams in the league at avoiding possessions ending in isolation plays with only 4.9% of plays ending this way (the only other teams under 5% are the Spurs, the current gold standard for offensive execution, and the Jazz, though the Jazz also boast an extremely high rate of spot up jumpers taken, leading me to suspect that their possessions end in isolations, but their players are so bad off the dribble that they end up jacking a contested jumper rather than attempt a play off the dribble. Other low iso% teams are the Hawks with their son-of-Pop system, Dallas where Carlisle's offense is the blueprint for to Blazers and Memphis who pound the ball inside to Z-Bo and Marc Gasol.)
First a little bit of the theory: well-executed continuity not avoids isos, but also forces the defense to adjust to more threats. With more decisions and movements to make, the chance of an error, be it a bad rotation, missed assignment or simple lack of effort, increases. Even for the best defenses, these mistakes occur.
To look a little bit at how Portland flows from one look to the next, the following are several early plays from Saturday's Bulls/Blazers game, which might also sadly serve as the day Derrick Rose's career died.
The Bulls are by any measure a great defensive team. sitting 3rd so far this year and either 6th or 8th last year in defensive PPP (per B-ref and Synergy respectively). Part of the reason is they have good-to-great individual defenders at 3 positions (Noah, Deng and Butler), with very capable defenders in their second unit with Taj Gibson and Kirk Hinrich. They are also extremely well coached, both in terms of knowing their own scheme as well as their scouting of the opposition. Watching a Bulls game, you can hear Coach Thibs yelling out offensive sets and actions are often clearly audible over the broadcast, as the players' (especially the bigs' coverage calls on pick-and-rolls.
This preparation and communication makes the Bulls extremely proficient at eliminating the first several looks from an offensive set, leading to break downs in continuity leading to isos (by the numbers the Bulls actually force a fairly low percentage of isos, but they also force an extremely high proportion of shots from the ball handler in a pick-and-roll, a shot with much in common with an isolation play, and defend these shots very well.) After forcing the offense into one-on-one play, the skill of the individual defenders takes over: the Bulls are presently the fourth best team in the league at defending isolation plays and 7th against pick-and-roll dribblers.
Therefore, against the bulls, the ability to run continuous action to avoid perimeter one-on-one looks is immensely helpful to an offense. Portland is one of the best teams in the league at avoiding possessions ending in isolation plays with only 4.9% of plays ending this way (the only other teams under 5% are the Spurs, the current gold standard for offensive execution, and the Jazz, though the Jazz also boast an extremely high rate of spot up jumpers taken, leading me to suspect that their possessions end in isolations, but their players are so bad off the dribble that they end up jacking a contested jumper rather than attempt a play off the dribble. Other low iso% teams are the Hawks with their son-of-Pop system, Dallas where Carlisle's offense is the blueprint for to Blazers and Memphis who pound the ball inside to Z-Bo and Marc Gasol.)
First a little bit of the theory: well-executed continuity not avoids isos, but also forces the defense to adjust to more threats. With more decisions and movements to make, the chance of an error, be it a bad rotation, missed assignment or simple lack of effort, increases. Even for the best defenses, these mistakes occur.
To look a little bit at how Portland flows from one look to the next, the following are several early plays from Saturday's Bulls/Blazers game, which might also sadly serve as the day Derrick Rose's career died.
#1 Keep the Ball and Players Moving
As I mentioned above, listening to a Chicago defensive possession can be educational. On the following play, Thibs was almost as loud as the announcing booth, ticking off one Portland option after another in real time, instants before each occurred. Portland was forced to use the entire clock, but never got out of their set:
No real look at the hoop yet. However, unlike the Indiana play above, the floor is still perfectly balanced, and more importantly, Portland does not have to use valuable and fast dwindling shot clock seconds to get into the next phase of the play:
Chicago has now defended several options extremely well. However, there as already been one mistake made:
Even an all-defense caliber player has been fooled by the 10 seconds of continuous cutting and screening. Luckily for Deng, Batum has already moved on to the next bit of offensive flow himself:
Even though Chicago covered each option well, the series of cuts, screens and passes still allowed Portland to get a reasonable shot. Even against more or less perfect defense for a full 24 second clock, Portland still got a decent shot by one of the players most capable of making this type of shot int the NBA. And this is one of the lesser outcomes for well-run continuity. The only worse category would be turnovers, which Portland is also very good at avoiding (8th lowest turnover rate in the league.
#2 Be Ready to Take Advantage of Mistakes
In this next play Portland was able generate a good look in the flow of their offense by exploiting a series of small individual errors.
None of the errors were particularly egregious, resulting in the Blazers getting a good-but-nut great look.
#3 Run Everything Like It's Going To Work
Even the best defense gets fooled by the first option sometimes:
And even if the first option doesn't directly result in an easy shot, running the play full speed and with intent forces the defense to react quickly, creating the smaller errors which lead to shots later in the clock.
There is so much more to Portland's offense, be it the versatility of Batum, the subtle contributions of Lopez or the chaos that occurs when Thomas Robinson becomes involved (short version, I don't think he totally knows the playbook just yet), but I think I've laid out a good primer on how they are so good beyond simply being a collection of good players.
Unfortunately for myself, I think the next team offense series should probably be for a less eye-catching (at least in a good way) squad. My instincts say Cleveland, but who knows if Mike Brown lasts long enough to give me enough time to put even the first post together.
Unfortunately for myself, I think the next team offense series should probably be for a less eye-catching (at least in a good way) squad. My instincts say Cleveland, but who knows if Mike Brown lasts long enough to give me enough time to put even the first post together.
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