Saturday, October 27, 2012

CJ Foundation for SIDS

I have added links to the CJ Foundation for SIDS along the top banner and sides. Please consider donating to this cause. Also, please see the fundraising contest on reddit.com (link to announcement) that runs until November 25, 2012.

Friday, August 31, 2012

The End

Unfortunately, I will no longer continue this blog. It has been fun sharing what information I could provide on basketball strategy but it's time to move on to other things. What I added here is only a small part of who I am as a person and my other personal pursuits require more of my attention. As Magic Johnson said, "Magic is who I am on the basketball court. Earvin is who I am."

Thank you for reading.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 5 - Read and React Systems

Introduction

Last time we looked at two categories of offensive systems - set and patterned. Those systems relied upon heavy instruction of its players on where, when, and how to move to create offensive opportunities. Today we'll look at another category of offensive systems called read and react. Read and react systems stress spacing and letting the defense inform the offense on how to move within the space. The first of these systems we're going to look at is the Dribble Drive Motion Offense. Second, we'll look at the Princeton Offense. Finally, we're going to try to apply everything we've learned so far and spend considerable time looking at the Triangle Offense.

Let's get started.


Friday, August 10, 2012

Dwight Howard's Role in the Princeton Offense



Introduction

For those of you that visit the subreddit /r/nba, you may remember about a week ago I put together some plays out of the Princeton Offense designed primarily for the PG called the Chin Series. In light of the Dwight Howard trade, I thought there would be some interest in plays in the Princeton Offense designed primarily for the C - the Princeton Low Series.


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 4 - Set and Patterned Offensive Systems

Introduction


Today we're going to start looking at different offensive systems. Due to the wide variety of systems out there I'm going to have to limit this section to the systems most commonly found in the NBA. Even then, there are so many systems that I've decided to break this discussion into three categories - set, patterned, and read and react systems. Set systems run their offense through a specific formation of the offense called a set. Patterned systems carry a signature pattern of movement or cuts to them. Read and react systems typically stress a particular spacing and decision making.

In this post, we're going to look at two set offenses, Horns and UCLA, and two patterned offenses, Flex and Shuffle. Next time, we'll look at three read and react systems, the Triangle, Princeton, and Dribble Drive.

Let's get started.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 3 - Play Development and Analysis

Introduction


In part 1, we examined how offensive players move on the court and how that movement impacts other players on the court. In part 2, we looked at the options defenses have available to make scoring difficult and the consequences of the choices it makes. Now we're going to try to put the fundamentals we've learned into a more complex system that takes into account both elements - the full basketball play.

A successful basketball play contains three elements: (1) appropriate and realistic identification of the rosters strengths and weaknesses, (2) efficient application of those strengths while minimizing the weaknesses in our play, and (3) proper execution by the players on the court of the play.

We're going to begin by discussing those three elements then we'll take a look at some sample plays and critique them.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 2 - Defense and Its Consequences



Introduction


Last time we took a detailed look at the type of movement offensive players make on the court to increase their chances at scoring. This time, we're going to look at the other side of the court - defense. Just as we described the offense's main goal as scoring points, we can just as simply characterize defense's main goal as preventing the other side from scoring points.

We'll start by looking at the different types of defensive schemes, then we'll see how screens affect how the offense and defense interact with each other, and we'll finish by comparing our systems.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 1 - Movement and Mechanics

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 1 - Movement

Introduction


In its most simplest terms offense has only one goal - put the ball in the basket. Achieving that goal is a much more complex matter. Since the game involves five players on each team on the floor at the same time, it's not a matter of simply breaking down a defender one on one and scoring. There's a team element that adds many layers of complexity to such a simple goal. For that reason, it's very important to understand how all the players interact each other and can influence each other on the court. We're going to begin this series by understanding this relationship between the movement of one player to another and what tools each player has available to them to become an active part of the offense. Likewise, we'll gain an understanding of how the defense can neutralize or minimize the movement of the offense.

Let's start by looking at some basic movement and how our movement can affect the game's mechanics.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Analysis by Request pt. 1: The 1995 NBA Finals - Magic vs. Rockets

Background Info


This post is in response to a solicitation for requests I made on reddit. I considered doing this post in the past but I knew it would take a lot of time and I would have to find the right footage to make decent clips. Thankfully, I was able to find decent quality video of Game 4 from the series and I think this game is representative of the entirety of the series. With that said, for this post we're going to take a look at one of my all-time favorite series - the Orlando Magic led by Shaquille O'Neal against the Houston Rockets led by Hakeem Olajuwon in the 1995 NBA Finals.

This series is one of my favorites for a couple of different reasons. First, the '95 Rockets are the lowest seeded team (6th in the Western Conference) to ever win a championship. Second, the path to the championship was probably one of the most difficult. The Rockets are one of three teams to face 50+ win teams in every round of the playoffs (the '01 and '10 Lakers being the other two teams). Even more impressive, the teams they faced - the Magic, Spurs, Suns, and Jazz - had the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best record in the league respectively. Lastly, the two teams played a very similar offensive game so the series was mostly decided by execution.

We'll start by taking a look at the offense common to both teams then we'll take a look at their differences.


Thursday, February 9, 2012

Small Market Series pt. 4 - The Charlotte Bobcats' UCLA Offense

Small Market Series pt. 4 - The Charlotte Bobcats' UCLA Offense
Background Info


Last time we discussed the most successful small market team, the Spurs. This time we're going to focus on a team that so far has struggled to match that success, the Charlotte Bobcats. The Bobcats have the dubious distinction of ranking last in points-per-possession and have so far shot 41.3% from the field.

When we look at the Bobcats, let's see if we can identify the difference between their execution and the Spurs. In doing so, perhaps we will learn something about what separates successful and unsuccessful teams.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012


Small Market Series pt. 3 - The San Antonio Spurs' Motion Offense

Background Info

Up until this point most offensive systems we've looked at can be categorized into a narrow subset of the motion offense. The San Antonio Spurs' offense, however, is a combination of designed plays and read-and-react plays. While it's true that nearly every team runs a combination of designed and read-and-react plays, the Spurs run much more designed plays than most teams. For this reason I'll refer to their offense under the more general term "motion offense" - a very broad term but as we go through their offense I think it will become apparent why I decided to do so.

Also, we're going to discuss a topic that has only been mentioned briefly in the past - execution. Execution is the ability of a team to run their plays effectively. An effective play maximizes the potential of its primary scoring option while also providing plenty of auxiliary options if the primary option isn't available.

Let's take a look.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Small Market Series pt. 2 - The Minnesota Timberwolves' Princeton Offense


Small Market Series pt. 2 - The Minnesota Timberwolves' Princeton Offense

Background Info

The Minnesota Timberwolves hired Coach Rick Adelman during the off season to replace Kurt Rambis; the change closed the books on the Triangle Offense for the Timberwolves but opened up another notorious offensive system - the Princeton Offense. Adding to the exciting changes for Timberwolves fans was the addition of international sensation Ricky Rubio and lauded draft pick Derrick Williams.
Combining the new additions with the existing roster of Kevin Love and Michael Beasley may have created the most appropriate match in the league.
To further discover what I mean by that let's take a look at Adelman's Princeton Offense.

Small Market Series pt. 1 - The Atlanta Hawks' Flex Offense


Small Market Series pt. 1 - The Atlanta Hawks' Flex Offense

Background Info

Recently, the redditor HumanAfterAll posted a thank you to those contributing material about small market teams. I noticed that lately I have neglected small markets with posts about the LakersHeatClippers, and Knicks so I thought I should do my part to give some small market teams some attention. The first installment will take a look at HumanAfterAll's team, the Atlanta Hawks.
The Hawks run a mixture of isolation plays and flex offense. The Flex Offense was popularized by Jerry Sloan's Utah Jazz. Like any effective offensive system, the Hawks run their version of the Flex Offense mindful of the strengths and weaknesses of their roster. Let's take a look at the Hawks' Flex Offense.

The New York Knicks' Seven Seconds or Less Offense


The New York Knicks' Seven Seconds or Less Offense

Background Info

Those who are familiar with Mike D'Antoni are also probably familiar with his Seven Seconds or Less Offense. He was very successful with his offense with the Phoenix Suns and many Knicks fans might have been excited to see his system run with two very capable offensive talents - Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire. Unfortunately, the Knicks' record has been rather disappointing so far. While much of the blame can be placed on defense, I want to take a look at their offense to see why this system is performing below expectations.

The Clippers' High Screen-the-Screener Series


The Clippers' High Screen-the-Screener Series

Last night the Clippers and Mavericks faced off at Staples Center resulting in a last second victory for the Clippers. Much of the focus will no doubt be the amazing shot Billups made to win the game shown here.

While that was a great play, I want to focus on how the Clippers put themselves in a position to win in the 4th quarter.
The play-by-play shows the Clippers started the quarter with 2 made field goals by Mo Williams, the second coming at 10:51 left in the quarter. For the next 5 minutes of play the Clippers went 1 for 9, the sole basket coming off a well-defended Billups 3pt shot. The Clippers' stretch of misses was due to poor execution and rushed shots. After the Mavericks tied the game at 78 a piece with 5:35 left on the clock, Vinny Del Negro called a timeout.
After the timeout the Clippers slowed the game down and Billups began to run their offense. Let's take a look at what they ran.

The Lakers' Strong Corner Offense

The Lakers' Strong Corner Offense

Background Info

This season brought a lot of new changes to the Lakers. One of the more interesting changes this season is the replacement of Phil Jackson by Mike Brown. Under Phil Jackson the Lakers ran the Triangle Offense, a system that brought Jackson's teams multiple championships. This year Mike Brown introduced the Strong Corner Offense to the Lakers. Brown's Strong Corner Offense utilizes some of the same concepts as the Triangle Offense and adds some new elements that are intended to add more low post scoring opportunities.
Let's take a look at how the Lakers run the Strong Corner Offense.

The Miami Heat Pace and Space Motion Offense


The Miami Heat Pace and Space Motion Offense

Background Info
Last season I discussed the Heat's double high post offense and this off-season it seems Erik Spoelstra has been busy tinkering with their playbook. The offense has been heavily modified and is now dominated by a "pace and space" motion offense. This offense emphasizes transition baskets, quick plays, and is a read-and-react system.
As I mentioned last season, the old system lacked low post scoring opportunities and suffered from poor rebounding positioning. Another disadvantage was the old system lacked read-and-react opportunities for its players because of the rigidity of the set. This season Spoelstra has addressed these concerns fairly well with a system that takes advantage of his players' high speed, great conditioning, and high basketball IQ.
Let's take a look.

Building the New Lakers Offense - An Exercise in Creating a Playbook


Introduction

Anyone that has followed the NBA in the last 20 years knows who Phil Jackson is and the significant impact he's had to the game. Since 1991, he has won 11 Championships with the Bulls and Lakers and reached the NBA Finals 13 times. He also earned a championship twice with the Knicks as a player. Unfortunately, this season was his last as a coach which ended the Phil Jackson era in Lakerland. In its place we are introduced with the Mike Brown era. This has left many to wonder what the future holds for the Lakers' triangle offense. While I don't know the answer to that, it gives us an opportunity to speculate by examining the options in front of him.

The Making of a Champion - NBA Finals Game 6 Deconstructed


Introduction

Now that the NBA Finals are over, I want to review the last game of the series in order to point out what made the Mavericks so successful. The final score was 105-95 favoring the Mavericks. The full box score can be found here along with the play-by-play and shot chart.
Since past postings have already discussed the offense of both teams I'm going to focus mainly on categorizing some of the plays to give an idea what kind of plays each team was running.

Reddit Q&A #1 - Examining the End of Game 2


A member of reddit's /r/nba posed a few questions and I felt the questions deserved a thorough response. Below is the question by gatorphan84:

I have a request, or question at least. It looked to me like in both games 2 and 3 [of the 2011 NBA Finals], the Heat stopped attacking the basket towards the end of the game when Dallas started to make their comeback.
To me it just looks like they start playing crappy offense, but I'm guessing that perhaps the Mavs defense might have something to do with it? What do you think is the case? If it is the Mavs defense: 1.) Why don't they play like that more often, and 2.) why can't the Heat seem to adjust, and 3.) what could they do to adjust to it? If it is the Heat's offense, why do they start taking jumpshots and stop attacking the rim when it is clearly their best strategy?
To answer your underlying question, I believe the late game difficulties the Heat face are a combination of ineffective defense and stagnant, simplistic offense. I'm going to focus on game 2 since I believe it better demonstrates the issues.

Defense pt. 1 - A Defensive Primer


Defense pt. 1 - A Defensive Primer

Background Info

Up until now we've focused entirely on the offensive end but today I want to take a change of direction and look at the other end of the court. You have likely heard the phrase, "the best defense is a good offense", today we take the opposite stance and the reasoning behind that sentiment is probably pretty clear. First, solid defense relieves the pressure on your offense to score more points. Second, the more your defense makes the other side work for its points, the more tired and frustrated they will become. Lastly, solid defense can break up the other team's offensive options and plans.
How does the defense try to achieve these goals? Defense operates in both sets and types. A set, much like our discussion on offense, is a description of the formation created by the players on the court. A type is a description of the way the defense interacts to the movement by the offense. The defense will pair a set with a type of and we'll see how these pairs can affect how the defense operates on the court.
This first part is in no way intended to be comprehensive but instead is intended to introduce you to the basic defensive concepts. In the future, we will apply these concepts more thoroughly and recognize the differing defensive philosophies.
Let's start with the sets.

The Thunder


Analyzing the Offense pt. 5 - The Thunder

Background Info

The Thunder's offense is a mixture of many of the concepts we've already seen. They probably have the most diverse offense of the teams we've seen so far. They tend to rely mostly on the dribble drive motion offense but they do use some more standard offensive systems. Below we'll see examples of the Thunder using a 1-4 low set, 1-4 wide box, and double high post. Their offense seems to be a work in development and that leads to some confusion and frustration by the players. Since they use concepts we've already seen before we'll jump into some examples and see what we can learn about their offense from there.

The Bulls

Analyzing the Offense pt. 4 - The Bulls

Background Info

Let's quickly review what we've seen so far to put the Bulls offense in perspective. We've seen the triangle offense that emphasized read-and-react with a particular spacing; we've seen the rigid use of the double high post set by the Heat; and we've seen the motion offense that combines a particular set with a read-and-react system. Now we'll see a system that is probably most similar to the Mavericks system we saw last time but has some key differences.
The Bulls combine a few different systems to create their offense and can ultimately be described as a type of motion offense. I'll characterize their two main systems as a flex motion offense and a dribble drive motion offense. Like most NBA playbooks, the Bulls don't run a purely flex motion offense or a purely dribble drive motion offense but instead have created a variant of those systems to maximize the advantages in their roster. Let's first take a look at what a flex motion offense is.
Similar to the description of a motion offense we used last time, any motion offense is a description of a system - one that emphasizes off-ball motion to open up passing options.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Analyzing the Offense pt. 3 - The Mavericks Offense


Analyzing the Offense pt. 3 - The Mavericks Offense

Background Info

When we looked at the triangle offense we focused on the system's emphasis on a particular framework, one that emphasized spacing and reading and reacting to the defense. We then moved to a much more rigid offensive system that the Heat run in their double high post series. In this offensive analysis we're going to look at a system that combines the two elements to create a mixture of an offensive framework and set plays.
The Mavericks run a combination of motion offense with a variety of sets, some roster specific plays, and isolations in their offense.
Let's begin our discussion by defining the motion offense.

The Miami Heat


Sorry to those of you that wanted me to select a different team but I wanted to go with an Eastern Conference team that was still in the playoffs which left with me with the Heat and Bulls. Between the two teams the Heat was the easier team to analyze. Having said that, let's take a look.
Background Info
The Heat's offense can be described as a mixture of double high post offense, triangle offense, and a series of pick and rolls. The offense is still fairly raw and I think that shows in some of the clips we'll be analyzing.
The double high post offense is their main set play and can be diagrammed as follows:
Let's look at what unique characteristics this set gives us. First, you'll notice there is nobody at the low post. This has the obvious disadvantage of limiting low post plays and rebounding. The advantage, however, is there is a lot of space available for perimeter players to drive to the basket. The SG and SF have potential baseline drives and cuts through the lane to the basket.
Second, you'll notice there is nobody in the wing positions. This is also to facilitate as much space as possible for the SG and SF to make moves to the basket.
If this offense looks familiar, you may have seen it used by [2] UConn on their way to winning the NCAA Championship or the [3] Cavaliers in the past.
We'll see how this all works when we start to break down this set.

The Triangle


I thought there might be some interest in a discussion about different offensive sets so I decided to write a thread about the triangle. In the future I might discuss other offenses around the league if there's any interest.
Background Info
Let's start with some underlying premises of the triangle offense.
First, it emphasizes spacing and ball movement in order to penetrate the defense. This differs from typical offensive schemes because it values dribble penetration a lot less. Rather than rely upon a perimeter player to pierce the defense, it focuses on off-ball movement and post players to create passing lanes in the teeth of the defense.
Second, for the most part it's a read-and-react defense. Most modern versions of the offense (Lakers/Timberwolves) incorporate set plays within the triangle offense framework but the majority of the offense is based on reading the court and finding the best options available. For this reason, every player on the court is assumed to be a legitimate offensive threat.
Lastly, the triangle offense is a description of an offensive framework, not a type of play.