Mavs-OKC, Game 6, Quarter 1

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Nice work here Drew!

So it appears that OKC blitzed the Luka high screens in an effort to get the ball out of his hands. It reminds me a bit of the Wolves defense against Memphis a couple years ago (the pre-Rudy PatBev year) where we'd guard up at the level and put two on the ball to get it out of Jah Morant's hands.

The problem with that strategy is that you get yourself into a 4 on 3 situation if Luka gets off the ball and makes a clean pass. That's what led to a ton of wide open corner 3s for the likes of PJ Washington and Derrick Jones Jr., usually because the low man had to come off one of them to help with a rolling Gafford or Lively.

I think we shouldn't be as aggressive on the hedge and trust that Ant, Kyle, and Jaden (whoever is guarding Doncic) can fight over that initial screen and recover. So I expect a brief show from Rudy or KAT and then quickly drop to protect against the lob dunk. Luka is a master at getting the trailing defender on his butt though, so we may just have to give up some Luka mid-range floaters as a tradeoff.

The other thing I expect is for Mike Conley to get targeted. I think whoever he is guarding will be used as a screener for Luka to bait the Wolves into switching. Conley needs to show and then get back quickly. We cannot allow him to get stuck on Luka one on one.

The bottom line is that it felt like OKC was a bit too aggressive in their Luka defense to the detriment of giving up a ton of wide open corner 3s. I think we need to be more disciplined.

Yeah, that seems like an accurate analysis.

• If you drop without good help on Luka at the nail, Luka will take the floater and he's great at that shot.

• If you show without good help on the roller, Luka will throw a lob for a dunk, which is an automatic 2 points.

• If you help, you leave the corner shooter open, and Luka will hit him and your defense needs to rotate.

In the stretch I watched, I actually thought OKC did a fairly good job defending it, but obviously in the series overall, they gave up a lot of 3 pointers.

Ideally, Luka's defender gets over the pick quickly enough to stop Luka's penetration in the first place. Jaden is good at that. So is NAW, and Ant's not bad either. If we can consistently get over picks and stay in front of Luka, we won't have to face all those tough decisions above.

If the pick does work, the worst case scenario is giving up open lob dunks, so a hard show from Rudy without good help D on the roll man is no good.

If the pick works and Rudy shows, it has to be just enough to stop Luka and let Jaden get back into defensive position, and then Rudy needs to get back on the big so the help defender can immediately get back off the rolling big onto the corner shooter. Jaden and Rudy should be really good at this, which makes me feel good. The help defenders will likely be Conley and KAT though, assuming they'll be on DJJ and PJ in the corners, respectively. That makes me feel less good. Conley is small and help D is not KAT's strength. (This might actually be a reason to consider putting Ant on DJJ and Conley on Kyrie when they're really going to that Luka pick and roll game, which often comes with Gafford on the floor. With Ant on DJJ, he'll be in better position to be the help defender on Gafford, and I like that a lot better than Conley, though obviously, if they see Conley on Kyrie, they'll likely try to run the offense through Kyrie, so that may not be so useful.)

If the pick works and Rudy drops, the help D needs to stop Luka at the nail until Jaden can get back into defensive position. The help defender will likely be Ant or whoever is guarding their corner shooter (Conley or KAT). That will leave Kyrie or the corner shooter open for a split second for Luka to find, so the other defenders need to be ready to rotate.

If we do end up switching, which I don't think we should plan on doing too much, I feel ok if it's Rudy and Jaden.

The good news is we're longer and better at defensive rotations than OKC, so we should be able to cause them more problems. And again, Jaden and Rudy are good at this.

In terms of hunting Conley, I'm sure they'll try to run picks to force a switch, but it could be weird for them. At least from what I saw, it was really only the bigs setting picks, and Green setting picks for Kyrie. DJJ may have set more picks in other quarters that I didn't see, so we should theoretically be ready for it.

On the flip side, if they are going to switch, then Ant should be hunting Luka, so assuming Luka's on Jaden, maybe some Jaden picks for Ant could set up that matchup. Alternately, just looking to get the ball to Jaden and continuing to challenge him to attack off the dribble a bit could be a good way to cause problems for them. Luka is better, but he's still not a great defender, he's somewhat gimpy right now, and he's not going to want to get into would trouble. I bet Jaden could get by Luka for one of those close-up pull-ups, or draw the big as the help defender and have an open pass to Rudy for the dunk. I'd honestly be looking to attack Luka with Jaden somewhat.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

One other point about their defense and our offense. It seemed like they were really trying to take away the paint from OKC and kind of trying to force them to hit outside shots.

Our guys need to be ready to kick it out to the shooting pockets of our shooters and our shooters need to be ready to catch it and let it fly in rhythm. I think those shots are going to be there for us, and we should be ready to take advantage, especially with KAT and Naz.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Gute Besserung, Tim!