The Rotation: Pacers flop against the Cavs and the Grizzlies rage against the universe
Welcome to The Rotation, our daily playoff wrap-up of our favorite stories, large and small, from last night’s NBA action.
Can it get any worse for the Pacers?
By Chris Manning (@cwmwrites)
If you were to go back and watch the Cavaliers’ Game 2 against the Pacers, you could pick out a number of moments that explain the current state of the Pacers.
You could pick the 10 straight points Kevin Love scored on Lance Stephenson in the middle of Cleveland’s third quarter beatdown. You could pick Kyrie Irving’s crossover of Stephenson or his step back 3-pointer against (you guessed it) Stephenson. You could pick either of LeBron’s first half dunks or his fourth quarter block that helped fend off Indiana’s comeback.
The best option, though, may be to pick the Cavs ATO play they totally botched defending:
It’s hard to just one thing that went wrong here and Cavs coach Tyronn Lue deserves a lot of credit for drawing this play up. You have Myles Turner declining to slide over into the paint. You have Paul George not even trying to block Irving’s shot as he moves freely to the rim. And you have Teague blocked out of the play via a pretty simple LeBron screen (scroll down a little for a more detailed breakdown of this play).
This play sums up the 2016-17 Pacers. The team is confused and disorganized. They come back from as many as 19 down — even surviving a Cavs run that was the best Cleveland has played since beating the Celtics a few weeks — only to blow any chance of a comeback without any real resistance.
Looking back at Game 1 — a game the Pacers could have very easily won had C.J. Miles made a makable shot — it’s clear now that the series opener is as good as it’ll get for Indiana. Right now, the only thing really keeping them in it is Paul George going off both nights. And even when he’s on the floor, we’ve now seen how big of a gap there is between Cleveland and Indiana.
From here, all the Pacers can do is keep LeBron from maybe sneaking in a day at Coachella and take a game at home. And even then, this series feels over. Game 1 was as good as it will get for the Pacers.
Third-time lucky
By Daniel Rowell (@danieljrowell)
With four and a half minutes remaining in the second quarter of Monday’s Cavaliers-Pacers game, Paul George took the ball at the top of the key on an isolation play, guarded by Channing Frye. He dribbled back through his legs, catching Frye off balance, and drove down the left lane, where Kevin Love had rotated just outside the restricted area. And well, Paul George almost YAM’d. He missed, instead drawing a blocking foul from Kevin Love, who had laid out on the floor like victim of a failed trust fall. It was the kind of play that can get even an opposing playoff crowd to their feet, releasing autonomous belly groans and at the sight of a 220-pound man with a 6-foot-11 wingspan stealing their beloved power forward’s chocolate milk money in mid-air.
And sure enough, Kevin was quickly helped to his feet by his teammates, dusted off, and then he pointed towards the ear of the nearest referee in order to remind him that he, Kevin Love, whose uncle was in the Beach Boys, had taken a textbook charge. This, as a chorus of booing Cleveland fans joined him in three-part harmony.
At the ten-minute mark of the third quarter, Love tried again, rotating to the right block (just outside the restricted area) to try and draw a charge from Jeff Teague on a driving layup. Teague missed the shot and fell to the floor, clutching his wrist. Again, Love was whistled for a blocking foul. This time, hugging his knees on the floor in disappointment. Perhaps Pet Sounds was a distant memory to this young, new generation of referees.
And really, why would Kevin Love — whose team was up by twelve at the time — opt to take a charge? Who gets half-YAM’d by Paul George and then thinks, yeah, okay I’m going to get body checked by Jeff Teague now?
A few minutes later, Love went off. He backed down Lance Stephenson in the post to draw a foul, making both free throws. He then hit a turnaround jumper off a feed from James. On the next possession, he again drew a foul from Stephenson in the post — two more free throws. And then put-back a missed 3-pointer from James. Eight straight points in four possessions.
Getting back on defense, perhaps with a some momentum and the rule of threes on his side, he squared up one more time, this last try against a rolling Kevin Seraphin. Two feet firmly planted outside the restricted area, another failed trust fall, a whistle, and finally — he was rewarded with an offensive foul.
And look, we could sit here and celebrate a 33-20 point quarter that helped the Cavs hold onto this game and the ten straight points from Love that sparked it. But that’s boring Cavs takes. What matters here is one thing. A player wanted to hurt himself so bad he participated in a poster photoshoot with Paul George’s’ lower half, then banged wrist bones with a high-flying Jeff Teague, and with his team out to the largest lead of the game, thought: “Well, third time’s a charm!” And took a hit from Seraphin.
But maybe that should be the rule. Charges are boring and ruin great offensive plays like George’s missed dunk. But if you are stubborn enough to try it three times, you can have one offensive possession.
Play of the Day: Tyronn Lue’s winning BLOB play
By Jeff Siegel (@jgsiegel)
Leading by five with just over thirty seconds to go in the game, the Indiana Pacers knocked the ball out of bounds underneath their own basket forcing the Cleveland Cavaliers to inbound the ball along the baseline. Very often in this situation, teams will run some decoy cuts and then lob the ball over the top toward the half-court line in an attempt to reset their offense, especially if a guard is inbounding the ball. With just six seconds on the shot clock, Cleveland had no such luxury.
The Cavaliers still had a timeout remaining and nobody would have blamed them if they had used it on such an important possession. A lot of coaches would have liked to draw up a special play for that moment, since a basket would all but secure the win for Cleveland. Tyronn Lue, who perhaps gets a little too much credit for his man management but doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his creative plays in circumstances like this, had no qualms about calling something from the sideline, letting his players do the work on a beautiful BLOB (baseline out-of-bounds) play to seal the game and a 2-0 lead for his Cavaliers.
Deron Williams was dispatched under the Pacers’ basket to inbound the ball, leaving Kyrie Irving, Kyle Korver, LeBron James, and Kevin Love on the floor to all set screens for one another and fool the Indiana defense into over-helping toward one guy. They line up in a stack formation, with James closest to the ball, followed by Love, Irving, and Korver, the play’s first option, at the top of the key. As Williams triggers the play, James moves to clear out to the weak side as Love and Irving turn around to set up screens for Korver to move toward the baseline.
James, who had previously removed himself from the play, reengages and sprints to the free-throw line to complete the screen-the-screener action for Irving, whose defender, Jeff Teague, was otherwise preoccupied with the initial screen for Korver. James sets a hard screen on Teague, Paul George doesn’t move with Irving, and Williams finds him under the basket for the layup. On the one hand, George has to drop back with Irving to deter that pass to the rim. On the other hand, is he really going to leave LeBron James, the best player on the planet, open on the most pivotal possession of the game? It’s a question with no correct answer for George and the Pacers.
About those new, 3-point shooting Grizzlies…
By Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)
A lot was made this season about the modern evolution of the Memphis Grizzlies — moving Zach Randolph to the bench in favor of the springier, slightly stretchier JaMychal Green, encouraging Marc Gasol to hang out beyond the 3-point line and let it fly. Memphis did attempt more 3-pointers this season — an extra eight attempts per game — and they made more too, 35.4 percent compared 33.1 percent last season.
It’s bee fun to watch them try it out, like a kid sifting through a bin of old halloween costumes. Flitting through wild and absurd personas, separating from reality for a little bit. In the playoffs, not so much.
David Fizdale’s free throw rant will push the focus to the paint for the next few days but don’t let it distract you from the fact that Grizzlies were 7-of-27 (25.9 percent) on 3-pointers in Game 2, after hitting 7-of-20 in Game 1. If you’d be so kind as so let me do the math for you, that’s 14-of-47 (29.8 percent) through the first two games. Take a look at the team’s 3-point shot chart and it should look vaguely familiar.
Yeah, that looks a lot like the old Grizzlies, the spacing-starved interior grinders. Here’s the thing, of those eight extra 3-pointers Memphis attempted per game this season, 5.8 of them came from Gasol and Mike Conley increasing their own attempts. Those two players lead the team in frontcourt touches and, combined, have the ball in their hands for nearly 50 percent of the time the Grizzlies have the ball on offense. Having Gasol and Conley shoot more 3-pointers doesn’t necessarily stretch the defense that much more. The rest of the team, those guys that are supposed to space the floor around Gasol and Conley, they shot 33.2 percent on 3-pointers this year.
Evolution doesn’t happen all at once. It’s an uneven process, full of stops and starts and extinction-level events. I love the new Grizzlies, but it looks like there’s a quiet, cornrowed meteor headed their way.
Vince Carter rages vainly against the dying of the light
By David Ramil (@dramil13)
The Memphis Grizzlies have long embodied a rugged determination, slowing games down to a manageable pace to give them their best chance a victory. It’s been mostly successful, if not always aesthetically pleasing, and victories count all the same, even in sluggish, low-scoring affairs. The style of play ultimately falls short in every postseason but the effort remains as consistent as it is futile.
In a similar vein, it’s easy to appreciate what Vince Carter does. At age 40, he continues to redefine a long career, and not just by merely hanging on but by thriving, now as a starter with the Grizzlies. He gives us all hope, lets us dream the impossible dream that we’ll remain vital with each bounding step across the hardwood floor.
Carter is no longer the high-flyer he once was but he stays competitive, and so has fit in perfectly in Memphis. He defies the odds in vain and there’s something to be admired in that stubborn refusal to simply give up.
But dreams give way to harsh realities, and Carter’s wake-up call came Monday night, courtesy of an elbow thrown almost imperceptibly by San Antonio’s Kyle Anderson.
The Grizzlies were beaten badly in Saturday’s Game 1 matchup and, nearly midway through the second quarter of Monday’s Game 2, were already facing a 21-point deficit. As Carter ran around teammate Marc Gasol, he stumbled awkwardly. Depending on your allegiances, you might even claim he was pushed. Carter never quite fell but he rose up angrily all the same. He jostled with the younger Anderson, and then watched as a Gasol jumper rimmed out. As the action moved down the court, Anderson, caring little for the impact of illustrious 19-year careers, delivered the elbow perfectly out of view.
Carter would retaliate by butting heads with Anderson, surely letting the latter know that kind of chicanery wouldn’t be tolerated. Sadly, Anderson seemed bored by the display. A technical foul was assessed on Carter, and the subsequent free throw — a truly honest ball, indeed — would be missed.
It’s hard to know if Carter was really angry. More than likely, he was just frustrated. With stumbling gracelessly. Or being elbowed. Or in being demolished for a second-straight game. Still, the reaction felt forced, an attempt to rally the troops by showing there’s some fight left in the old, veteran soldier. Worse yet, was Anderson’s indifferent smirk, a wry smile set in sharp contrast to Carter’s scowl that seemed to say, “Get angry all you want, you’re still going to lose.”
Things have not gone as planned for Memphis this season and an attempt to re-tool the team didn’t quite work. That familiar stubbornness has led to a seventh-straight playoff appearance but there’s a sense that this series with the Spurs is merely a formality and the outcome is all but assured. Carter’s plucky response was just as empty, neither elevating the play of his teammates nor deterring San Antonio from notching the win.
Next: Is Damian Lillard just Kyrie Irving without LeBron James?
As Anderson’s teammate, LaMarcus Aldridge, shot the technical free throw, cameras panned to a now-placid Carter. The frustration dispelled, it was back to the cold realization that the game was already out of reach and the season’s end is already etched like the markings on a grave, reading like it often has for Memphis over the years: At least they tried.