Wednesday, September 02, 2009

The Best Basketball Post on the Internet

iveregima2 at Blazersedge has compiled an exhaustive study of the 2008-09 Portland offense (the league's most efficient). There are Xs and Os, video compilations, annotated videos, and cogent analysis aplenty.

I suspect the examination of good spacing and the use of Brandon Roy in isolation sets will be of particular interest to Hawks fans. I'm especially taken with this video which doesn't look especially unlike a Hawks' possession except that the Trailblazers begin running the set three seconds into the possession rather than six or seven seconds into the possession which allows them to work their way down to the third option and still get a good shot off with 12 seconds remaining on the shot clock. Too many of Atlanta's difficult halfcourt possessions are caused not by poor design or execution but by letting the opposing defense both set up and only have to play 15 rather than 20 seconds of defense.

I'm still working my through the volume of excellent work in the post and expect to return to it over the coming days but thought I'd share my excitement while it's fresh.

1 comment:

Bronnt said...

One thing that's truly transparent is that the Blazers have excellent floor spacing and the players to exploit it. You can almost always see in these examples a shooter in each corner with a man at the top of the key.

And between Roy, Blake, Outlaw, Fernandez, and Fernandez, they always have the good shooters to make that spacing worthwhile. Even Batum is effective from three, and LaMarcus Aldridge hits a higher % of his 2 point jumpers than Joe Johnson.

Without having an extensive library of Hawks' offensive plays handy, in my mind I can see the vast majority of offensive sets involving Joe at the left angle, with Bibby and Mo both stacked on the perimeter at the opposite side, with Josh Smith wandering around in the vicinity of the high post. Spacing is not an important element in the Hawks' offense.