The Rotation: Spurs staying big and staying successful

Welcome to The Rotation, our daily playoff wrap-up of our favorite stories, large and small, from this weekend’s NBA action.

Spurs staying big, matching Memphis and excelling

By Brendon Kleen (@BrendonKleen14)

Going into their first round series, and these playoffs more broadly, many (including myself) believed that the Spurs’ greatest strength going up against bigger teams would be the versatility in their big man rotation. Once San Antonio’s first-round opponent officially became the Grizzlies, Dewayne Dedmon (and to a lesser extent, Davis Bertans) appeared ready for a national coming-out party. For so long, the key to beating Memphis has been to combat their traditionalism with athleticism and speed. A non-traditional series on both ends seemed like a given if the Spurs were to handle the Grizzlies.

Yet Dedmon has played only 40 minutes through the first five games of the series, as the Spurs have managed to stay successful by playing the Grizzlies at their own game. San Antonio won Tuesday’s game while leaving one of Pau Gasol or David Lee on the court at all times, still not breaking the glass on any Kawhi Leonard-at-the-four lineups that might catch fire offensively. But most importantly, LaMarcus Aldridge looked like a bona fide big man, a look San Antonio could certainly use more of as their trip through the Western Conference playoffs continues.

Aldridge was second on the team with a plus-20 in 38 minutes, and basically just turned from skirmish to skirmish throughout the second half. The physicality and competitiveness of the game left players on both sides visibly winded by the end of the action. Yet Aldridge was in the paint as always, grabbing offensive rebounds, contesting shots and flipping the ball back out for back-breaking 3s.

The Spurs will win most games in which Gasol and Lee combine to go 8-11, but super important in the long-term is how Aldridge might change the way we look at the Spurs if he can be this successful on defense against top-flight frontcourts. In a decisive Game Five last night, he pulled off the most successful bear-related mêlée we’ve seen since Leo DiCaprio almost died in The Revenant. Bully!

Let the Westbrook wash over you

By Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

I come not to praise Russell Westbrook, but to bury him. Actually, I don’t want to bury him either. I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks but I think the best course of action is for us to put his splendid 2016-17 under glass so we can preserve it for future study.

The Thunder’s season ended last night, about the way you would have expected. When life is one big heat check there’s no other way to go out than guns blazing. Westbrook was a fire ball and everything, his teammates included, finished the game covered in a fine layer of charcoal dust. Put fire near combustible material and things are bound to get out of hand eventually.

This Westbrook season will be remembered for the stats but it will also endure because of the way he so thoroughly inhabited all the fundamental points of tension in basketball fandom. Quantity vs. quality. Likability vs. dogged determination. Individual vs. team. Stats vs. aesthetics. Regionalism vs. transience. “You’re an idiot” vs. “No, you’re an idiot.” Westbrook made every NBA fan look in the mirror and figure out what they valued about basketball and to what degree. You either chose sides, or realized that some of these things just weren’t arguing about.

Hundred of thousands of words were devoted to Westbrook this season, and many, many, many more are coming as he likely accepts his MVP trophy and heads into an offseason of pushing forward these debates, prepping for another human trial of the Westbrook basketball experiment. But for now, for today, maybe abandon your positions. Put down your arms, come out from behind you battlements, and just let the Westbrook wash over you.

Play of the Day—The Jazz show us their flare screens

By Jeff Siegel (@jgsiegel)

Just a day after we said goodbye to the Portland Trail Blazers, Quin Snyder did his best Terry Stotts impression with this beauty, using a flare screen and the Clippers’ attention on Gordon Hayward to open up a pick-and-roll with George Hill and Rudy Gobert.

The play starts with a quick screen from Hayward for Hill toward the sideline. Hayward then pops out toward the top of the key, aided by Gobert’s flare screen. Hayward curls around the screen toward the basket, occupying Marreese Speights’ attention briefly. Gobert then immediately steps into the ball screen for Hill, which is opened up because of Speights positioning further back in the lane. He rushes out to run Hill off the 3-point line, but Hill crosses over past him to get into the lane. From there, the defense is collapsing; Hill hits Rodney Hood in the corner, Hood hits Hayward, and Hayward drives and gets it back to Hill for the open corner three.

Next: The lineup changes shaping the first round of the NBA Playoffs

Everything started with the simple flare screen for Hayward at the beginning. A small push for Speights in the wrong direction was the only opening Hill needed to get into the paint and the Clippers were never able to recover. Speights has to stick with Hayward for a step or two as Chris Paul recovers as it’s an easy layup otherwise, but it was his closeout on Hill that doubled down on the Clippers misfortune on this play. He would have been better off closing out lightly and letting Hill pull up on the move, but it’s hard to compute that in real-time, especially when the Clippers had been trapping the Jazz pick-and-rolls with some effectiveness throughout the series. Speights is doing his best to execute the Clippers’ scheme, but his defensive limitations were on full display; the Jazz were +10 in Speights’ 13 minutes on Tuesday night.