Re: Easterbrook on NBA "Strategy"

[Joe Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

    Hi Andy:
    My take is that Easterbrook (who sounds like a Celtics fan BTW) is slightly
exaggerating for effect with regard to the lack of set play complexity in the
NBA. Even in a two-man game or clear out, there is in fact considerable "set"
movement away from the ball not to mention many potential options and outcomes
from the play.

    I have a book of NBA set plays (authors Bob Ociepka and Dale Ratermann) that
demonstrates several hundred set plays team-by-team (including something
commonly called the "Boston Slice" used by many teams). Needless to say, the
range of options off each set play are far more complicated than any high school
player would be asked to master versus the man-to-man. But if you never saw this
book, most of the plays would look on the TV screen like a basic "pass the ball
to the open guy for the jumper".

    For example, here is an excerpt from the annotation to the "Boston Slice" (a
relatively "simple" play which nevertheless runs three pages long with six
diagrams):

    "The slice can be formed in a number of different ways, but the object is to
establish a low double stack on one side of the floor with a good shooter in the
bottom position (1 or 2) and to align a slashing player (3) on the side of the
stack. The slice cuts the 3-man into the lane off a double screen instead of a
single screen as in the flex."

    Then it goes into the quite complicated options for another 7 or 8
paragraphs. In the end, the "Boston Slice" boils down to a "get your best
shooter (Bird) open and give him the ball" play. But it is a little more
complicated and requires a little more concentration on the part of the other
four bystander/players than it might seem from casual TV viewing.

    Similarly, the fact that a guy like Reggie Miller who poses a very small
dribbling and passing threat can consistently get open looks for his jumper
certainly requires more coordinated effort from his teammates than meets the
eye.

    "Go Larry!"

    "Beat LA!"


--------

Andy Shaw wrote:

> |   Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2000 10:32:15 +0200
> |   From: Joe Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>
> |
> |   Indiana endlessly runs "curls"—modified screens in which a man without
> |   the ball sprints past a teammate, hoping his defender will be "rubbed
> |   off" by the teammate's defender (ideally, they'll collide). Reggie
> |   Miller loves to curl along the baseline or at the top angle of the key.
> |   He loves to curl so much he does it on almost every possession—and he
> |   might as well, because the Pacers don't run any kind of offense that
> |   anyone has been able to detect. They just shuffle and curl, jog and
> |   weave, which is exactly what playground players do when they've just
> |   formed a team. And the Pacers are coached by Larry Bird, who carries the
> |   mantle of the Boston Celtics, the all-time fundamentals franchise
> |   winner, with an inches-thick playbook.
>                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Is this true?  Do the Celtics have an "inches-thick" playbook?
>
> My impression was that the Celtics (before Pitino) actually had
> relatively few set plays which they had been running for years -- I
> recall McHale joking about opposition teams "stealing" the play calls
> for plays they had been running for decades.
>
> In the end, if the two best teams in the NBA don't run plays, what
> does that say about the effectiveness of running plays?  You'd think
> that if running plays would give a team a big advantage, that the best
> teams would do it, right?  If Utah is so great, how come they never
> win the big one?
>
> -Andy