Each day, we are going to preview the night’s NBA Playoffs action by looking at the adjustments that can be made by the losing team and showing what they can do to win.
Portland Trail Blazers’ Game 3 Adjustments: Less Isolation, No Switching On Dirk Nowitzki
In the Western Conference, the Dallas Mavericks vs. Portland Trail Blazers series was supposed to be the most highly contested, with many people picking Portland to pull off the upset. That hasn't happened so far, though the Blazers have been close. Here are a few adjustments they can make to try and get a win at home on Thursday and make this a series.
Offense: Less Isolation
In my opinion, without a healthy Brandon Roy, there is nobody on the Blazers who is good enough offensively to have isolation sets run for him. (Some would argue LaMarcus Aldridge, but I would rather get him the ball on the block, posting him up, instead of isolating him on the outside). However, that didn't stop the Blazers from running eight isolation sets in Game 2 (over the course of the series, the Blazers have been running slightly more isolation sets than during the regular season, scoring just 0.61 PPP on these sets).
My problem with isolation sets when you don't have an elite scorer is that you are taking possessions that could be used to run a set or put a player in a terrific position to score and you are wasting it by having someone try to take their man one-on-one. That's exactly what happens here. The Blazers are running one of their sets to try and free up Wesley Matthews for a spot-up jumper. However, that isn't open and the ball goes to Andre Miller in the corner. Instead of trying to get back into the offense (he has Gerald Wallace open in the post), Miller drives baseline into a few defenders and misses the shot attempt.
The Blazers are playing a team that right now is doing a very good job of taking advantage of their possessions and are scoring very well. They can’t be wasting possessions running isolation sets when they clearly are not effective (scoring just 0.61 PPP is isn’t good at all) if they want to keep up with Dallas.
Defense: No Switching
According to Synergy Sports Technology, the Dallas Mavericks ran a pick-and-roll with Dirk Nowitzki getting the basketball as the roll man three times last game, scoring five points out of this set (and the shot he missed, he was actually wide open). The reason Nowitzki has been able to get such good looks on these sets is because the Blazers have a tendency to switch screens. While this can work from time to time, it doesn't work with a player like Nowitzki because he can use that newfound height advantage to pull up over a smaller defender at a distance:
You can see that the Mavericks know that the Blazers like to switch and they are basically running screens to bait them into doing so. Eventually, the Blazers do switch in the above clip, and Nowitzki gets the basketball with Matthews covering him. Dirk takes one dribble and pulls up on him at the elbow and he makes the shot. To make matters worse, Matthews fouls Nowitzki on the shot attempt, turning it into a three point play.
So what needs to happen here? The Blazers’ bigs need to stick with Dirk on these screens. It means leaving the ball handler open and giving him more room to knock down jumpers coming off of screens. However, if I am the Blazers, I live with guys like Kidd and Terry pulling up for jumpers if the other option is guarding Nowitzki with a smaller defender.
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