New York's pick-and-rolls will be an issue all series.
BOSTON -- Disclaimer: Offense is Boston's biggest issue. The Celtics need to find a way to score points or they'll be wearing speedos in St. Thomas this time next week.
Yet during Boston's film session Wednesday – which could not have been enjoyable for two reasons: A) I imagine it included plenty of screams from head coach Doc Rivers, and B) they actually had to watch Game 2, quite a painful experience as many of us can testify – Rivers certainly spent a lot of time explaining the importance of pick-and-roll coverage.
According to Synergy Sports, the New York Knicks finished first in points-per-possession on pick-and-rolls throughout the regular season. That makes sense given their mix of potent scorers (Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith), heady pass-first veterans (Pablo Prigioni, Jason Kidd), dive men with capable finishing (Tyson Chandler, Kenyon Martin), shooters to space the floor (several of the aforementioned folks, plus Steve Novak and Chris Copeland), and formerly overweight point guards who can still cause major problems for a defense (Raymond Felton).
New York's pick-and-rolls will be an issue all series. What Boston can't allow is for the Knicks to convert them at a significantly better rate than they did during the regular season, which has happened through the first two games.
Example 1: Watch how easily Raymond Felton shredded the defense when Paul Pierce and Chris Wilcox (inexplicably) decided to switch while guarding one ball-screen during the first half of Tuesday's Game 2:
Three thoughts on that play:
1) New York's outside threats matter. Neither Brandon Bass or Avery Bradley wanted to provide much help on the driving Felton because any more steps away from the perimeter would have led to a wide open triple for Pablo Prigioni or J.R. Smith.
2) New York didn't even try to disguise its plain pick-and-roll; there was no other action during this play used as a decoy. I mean, Carmelo Anthony offered a weak attempt to post up, but otherwise Boston's defense had zero excuses to look so surprised by and ill-prepared for Felton coming around a screen. The whole laissez-faire attitude was weird.
3) Chris Wilcox defending a relatively speedy point guard without help normally does not work. The fewer switches Boston uses, the better it should fare.
Check out one more pick-and-roll fail, quite similar to the one above:
Note how vanilla this set was for New York. The Knicks aren't playing chess; they're trying to slam checkers pieces down Boston's throat, waving three guys out of the way while daring the Celtics to stop a regular pick-and-roll (or isolation, on a lot of other occasions).
The issues for Boston remained mostly the same here. Nobody wanted to help off the perimeter threats because New York possesses so many accurate shooters, giving Felton space. But another problem could be more harmful: Kevin Garnett doesn't seem to be operating at his peak levels. Normally one of the NBA's best pick-and-roll stoppers, Garnett oddly shaded the pick-and-roll toward the wing, when Felton was going the other way toward the middle. Garnett was then unable to recover, waving his arm in a weak block attempt. Pierce, meanwhile, (again) looked relatively unmotivated; slow-motion spin moves are not how coaches teach players to get over screens.
It wasn't the only time that the Pierce-Garnett tandem botched a pick-and-roll coverage. On Rivers' conference call, he mentioned a play during which Carmelo Anthony rejected a pick-and-roll (or declined to use it, instead driving in the other direction) when the Celtics weren't meaning to allow that. I believe Rivers was referring to a dunk near the end of the third quarter:
Notice on this play, like so many of the other pick-and-rolls, that the two men in coverage have basically zero assistance. I assume that isn't Boston's ultimate plan, but New York makes things difficult because it spreads the floor with so many capable shooters.
Pierce was supposed to force Anthony toward the screen, but instead showed him a lane to the baseline. Garnett, ready to help on a drive to the middle, wasn't quick enough to recover in time and Anthony waltzed in for two of the easiest points he'll score all postseason.
So how do the Celtics want to defend pick-and-rolls? Similar to this:
Garnett kept Felton in front of him, and stayed with the guard until Avery Bradley could recover. Jeff Green helped in the paint so Kenyon Martin wouldn't get a layup or dunk, but still recovered to the corner to keep Iman Shumpert from drilling a 3. By the time Boston had finished defending the pick-and-roll almost perfectly, New York only had time for a quick Kidd dump-off to a Martin jump shot. And the Celtics will consider any possession that ends with a Martin jumper -- make or miss -- a success.
Once the Celtics figure out how to replicate that pick-and-roll coverage on a consistent basis, they can work on fixing their offense. I imagine that might take even more tweaking.