I meant to post this earlier but today was a busy day for me with my younger sisters graduation. Here's my notes for Game 4 barely in time
Main Takeaways
The second best player on the Cavs to me was Tristan Thompson. I was consistently blown away by the little things he was doing. Jeff Green was abjectly terrible, even more than what you think watching him. His effort and IQ are befitting of a vet min player. He's probably gonna cost the Cavs the Finals.
Key Statistics: By my count I graded the Cavs to have 10 possessions I consider "extra effort" vs the Celtics 8. Bear in mind, my criteria for these are the occasional hustle plays (1 or 2 max for either team), but primarily the possessions a defensive breakdown occurred and the team collectively flew around to pick up the pieces. It didn't matter if the offense scored, though mostly they didn't. The second key statistic, the Cavs doubled the Celtics in early drag screens in transition 12 to 6, though I really felt like the Celtics were pushing the pace more and wasting opportunities. Next notes I'll track the PPP on these, but I'm fairly certain it was something absurd like 1.3-1.5 PPP, feels like on the higher side too. This is MDA's philosophy which I 100% agree with. The best possession is a pick and roll in the first 5 seconds of the shot clock. Keep it simple.
Now onto my game notes:
-TT is so strong, Horford has to buck him wildly just to get a post up shot that he misses
-Cavs were fairly stagnant to start the game, not screening much off the split action LeBron likes to read when he's in the post
-TT running the floor and beating Horford end to end is a major theme of this game imo
-Cavs still going with the Show and Recover on KLove PNRs involving smalls. First play of the game where Love is put in PnR he doesn't hustle back quickly enough and Morris waltzes down the lane for a jam. The encouraging part of this possession is that JR is still locked the **** in and stunts off Tatum from the weakside which froze Morris for a second and would've been enough time for Love to recover if he hustled. KLove takes this possession and the help he got from JR to heart and is fairly solid on this scheme for the rest of the game.
-Love has figured out how to pump fake and attack Horford on closeouts. Horford is one of the more agile bigs in the game when it comes to closing out so this is encouraging
-Brown complaining about a missed call allows Bron to get his first bucket in semi transition pulling up at the elbow easily over Horford. He can't let a guy like Bron get an easy look to start the game all just to complain. He simply can't afford it
-TT consistently flashes to the elbow whenever he recognizes Love is fronted in the post. It appears to be a point of emphasis for the coaching staff, which is great in my book. Unfortunately the Cavs kinda get mixed results from this, but I can see TT getting better at making plays in tight spaces
-George Hill with a very Lebron-esque skip pass to JR in the weakside corner when Jayson Tatum ventures too far off him to shade Love on the backside when Rozier again fronts him. Have I mentioned enough how he's slowly becoming the perfect PG for this team?
-Rozier shooting out of the PnR keeps pulling TT above Horford. Will be interesting to see how Stevens attacks this in Game 5 tonight
-JR pulling contested shots with no hesitation, no longer putting the ball on the floor much except one ugly stepback over Morris that clanks badly
-When the Celtics offense bogged down down early on, Morris frequently went hero ball vs Love. Tatum gets denied and face guarded vigorously. He needs to take a page out of Curry's book and set screens for others so he can get open
-Celtics run the ball up the floor and then deliberately grind their offense to a halt to get Horford a post touch. Maybe I should take this time to mention that the Celtics can just do this better by having him set an early drag screen as the ballhandler crosses half court and then rolling into post up position. How is Brad Stevens considered the best in the business when he keeps doing stuff like this?
-So Cavs have completely committed to taking Tatum out of the game. Love gets switched onto him and LeBron comes over pulling the famous gimmicky soft double they kept doing vs Oladipo. Credit to Tatum for blowing by Love on the baseline side away from LeBron, but Bron chasedown blocks him from behind
-Korver gives up a Baynes putback by not getting between him and the basket when Love switches out on the pindown to contest a Jaylen Brown 3. That's the type of lapse they can't give up vs the Rockets or the Warriors if they make it that far
-Jaylen Brown is seemingly their go-to "attack the mismatched white guy" scorer
-George Hill's pull up 3 when Tatum goes under a screen came off a, you guessed it, drag screen in transition. For as genius a coach Brad Stevens is I'll never consider him the best coach in the league until he recognizes this fatal flaw in his approach. Pop is the GOAT because the Spurs basically murdered Miami in 2014 feasting off of these drag screens and the chaos that ensued. You should be happy Celtics fans, Brad Stevens has another level he can reach. I for one, hope he never learns.
-Cavs (Jeff Green) are a little undisciplined in their help rotations. Jeff Green doesn't know how to stunt at an open shooter enough to freeze them up in time for the original defender to get back to them, and he's not good at "X-ing out" someone's emergency closeout to an open shooter by immediately running to the offensive player the emergency responder vacated. This is why he's still a journeyman vet min player. Also cuz he can't shoot
-The Cavs pet play to spring Korver for an open 3 is lifted straight out of the Bud era Hawks and Spurs playbook "Motion Weak" where the ballhandler brings the ball up the right side and hits the big that flashes to the middle of the floor who immediately turns into a DHO for Korver shooting up from the left wing. Nance appears to be the triggerman for this set as he and Korver headline the bench lineup. The difference between Al Horford and Tim Duncan running Motion Weak is that they'll be out at the 3 point line catching the ball, Nance is at the top of the key and gets Korver an 18 footer that he cans instead of a 3
-Jeff Green's lack of gravity is apparent in a play where Marcus Smart completely ignores him in the right corner to draw a charge on LeBron getting downhill off a nifty weave action
-Can I mention again how many transition opportunities the Celtics waste getting the ball down to Horford in the post?
-Cavs figured out last game to put a wing on Smart to switch the Smart-Horford PnR and they still screw it up this game. This is the kind of stuff that literally keeps Ty Lue up at night
-Tristan is really good at running up one side to set a screen and immediately flipping the angle to the other side once he gets there. I know people do praise him a lot but doing this film study really illuminates how important and intelligent his screens are. He's good at basically every aspect of them except finishing LOL
-Clarkson looks to be passing more recently, but the idea is so foreign to him he's still just as bad out there. I feel bad for him because he at least competes on defense, but this dude is just plain trash and should really be the Cavs waterboy.
-Seems like the Cavs should get Horford open running him off screens more because they really do get Tristan a few times this game
-The strategy of fronting LeBron in the post and sending Baynes over to load up DOES NOT WORK. TT will flare screen for a shooter basically every time. He's really incredible.
-Bron inexplicably shows on a Morris-Jaylen Brown PNR instead of switching which nets Brown a 3. Why? Are they that scared of Morris brutalizing Korver in the post? Stevens might exploit this
-Tristan has also been flashing to the elbow to essentially short the PnR when LeBron gets fronted and shaded on the backside. TT can make reads in the short roll, so this is basically the same thing from a different angle. I expect him to find the weakside corner shooters fairly well next game if the Celtics want to continue this strategy
-Marcus Smart makes a boneheaded play saving the ball under his own rim to George Hill. Just let it go man
-Semi Ojeleye kinda looks like 80s era Godzilla to me. Like Godzilla vs Destoroyah
-The difference between Jeff Green and JR Smith is highlighted in the PnP 3 Horford got to end the first half. JR would lunge at Horford (what I've been calling a "stunt") and make him hesitate enough for TT to recover. Jeff Green kinda half-heartedly shuffles his feet.
-The difference between Love who's a good passer for a big, and LeBron who's the best in the league is in the creases they find when they get the ball after being fronted and the backside help comes over. I think they'll need to use Love as a decoy and get TT to flash to the elbow and work a 4 on 3 from there
-Morris does a great job in the second half screening off TT and letting Horford go 1 on 1 against Love
-At the start of the second half, the threat of a TT drag screen causes Jaylen to overplay the screen by a step, which LeBron pounces on and gets to the free throw line
-Low key G Hill can kinda blow by Marcus Morris when he wants to
-One of the few early drags the Celtics run gets Morris to attack a Love closeout vs a show and recover and get to the line vs a non-set backline defense. I just don't understand why Stevens doesn't get his team to do this more when they're perfect for it
-Celtics run the same play twice but this time without proper spacing. Earlier Tatum was the only one on the left side and stationed deep in the corner so JR couldn't stunt far enough off him. The second time Tatum and Brown were both bunched up there. JR sells out on his stunt while Love recovers nicely, then he picks up Brown who's cutting. LeBron reads this and instantly X's JRs closeout and contests a Tatum 3 into a miss. This leads to a Cavs drag screen and roll in transition between Hill and TT that results in a foul
-Allow me to mention again how bad Jeff Green is. Gets a TO throwing the ball to LeBron in double coverage with 2 guys literally smothering him. In the meantime he misses George Hill wide open next to him because he set the backscreen for LeBron that caused the defensive breakdown and popped to the 3 point line
-On one play JR inbounds the ball off a FT make and runs up the floor and still beats Jeff Green up the floor who just trots up slowly and completely whiffs on a screen for Korver leading to a record scratch on offense when Korver shovels it back to Lebron having gained no advantage
-Tatum is smart getting to the basket by driving right at the massive double pick that occurs when Jeff Green is fronting Horford and fighting for position. Horford reads this and immediately pivots into boxing out the help defender Jeff Green. Cavs would do well to try this vs the Lebron and Love fronts by Rozier
-Lebron killing Rozier on the switch in the 1-3 PnR gets Hill a floater in the lane and then gets himself a 3 in consecutive possessions due to the Cs newfound aversion to switching.
Sorry for the late post but I was hella busy today
