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Pacers Up 3-1, But Knicks Still Dangerous

May 16, 2013  ·  11:08AM

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NEW YORK – The Miami Heat are waiting.

The Indiana Pacers know they have what it takes to challenge the defending champs. In Paul George, they have a guy to guard LeBron James. In Roy Hibbert, they have a guy to protect the rim. They have the size to take advantage of the Heat on the glass. They won the season series, 2-1.

But the Pacers have to take care of business against the New York Knicks first. Only eight teams in NBA history have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a series, but the Knicks might not be an easy opponent to keep down.

As bad as things have looked for New York over the last two games — and they’ve looked really bad — this is a dangerous team. The Knicks ranked third in offensive efficiency in the regular season and we saw a glimpse of their potency in Game 2.

At the same time, we saw how bad the Pacers can look offensively. Turnovers, bad spacing, missed shots. It was all there. Over the course of the four games thus far, the Knicks (who were a below-average defensive team) have held them under a point per possession.

The Pacers’ defense has been terrific in this series, particularly in Game 4, when the Knicks tried to throw the kitchen sink at them. But it’s been terrific because there’s been no let-up. It takes both effort and focus to defend on that level, and it would be easy to think a Game 6 at home allows Indy to not bring their best in Game 5 on Thursday (8 p.m. ET, TNT).

Written on the board in the Knicks’ locker room after Game 4 was, “Win one, change everything.” And that might be right. New York is desperately searching for answers right now, but if they can find them on Thursday, it could get the ball rolling.

All you have to do is look back to mid-March, when the Knicks had lost four straight and 10 of their last 16 games. Their offense was in a funk, having scored less than 90 points per 100 possessions during the four-game losing streak. Carmelo Anthony was out and J.R. Smith was struggling.

Then, in Utah, Mike Woodson made a lineup change. The Knicks broke out of their slump, won 13 straight games and pulled ahead of the Pacers in the standings.

Woodson is likely to go back to the lineup that sparked that run — with Pablo Prigioni in the backcourt — after going away from it in Game 4. Nothing will come easy against the Pacers’ defense, nothing looks good when the shots don’t go in and the Knicks must find a way to keep Indiana off the glass. But small-ball is how the Knicks won 54 games this season and how they got past the Boston Celtics in the first round.

If they’re going to send this series back to Indiana, the Knicks must remember how they got here.

If they’re going to finish it in five, the Pacers need to do the same.

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs, HT News / Comments (22) /

Woodson Searches For Answers, Comes Up Empty

May 15, 2013  ·  12:08AM

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INDIANAPOLIS – One of the most interesting things about playoff basketball is a team changing gears and abandoning something — a lineup or a style of play — that worked all season because it’s outmatched in a series.

The New York Knicks went there in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Tuesday. And it didn’t work.

With his team down 2-1 to the Indiana Pacers and shooting blanks offensively against the league’s best defense, Knicks coach Mike Woodson abandoned the starting lineup that had sparked the Knicks to 13 straight wins late in the season. It hadn’t performed poorly (plus-1 in 22 minutes) in the first two games of the series, but did struggle (minus-7 in 13 minutes) in Game 3. The new starting lineup, meanwhile, had never played together.

Woodson abandoned more than a lineup. He abandoned his team’s whole small-ball, two-point-guard, Melo-and-shooters mantra that was so critical to the Knicks’ success. Out was point guard Pablo Prigioni and in was big man Kenyon Martin, sliding Carmelo Anthony to small forward, where he had played just six minutes through the first three games.

It was a sign of desperation, and the hope was that an extra big on the floor would keep the Knicks from getting crushed on the boards like they did in Games 1 and 3. It would also allow them to run secondary pick-and-rolls (instead of isolations) on the weak side of the floor after the Pacers stopped the primary one.

The Knicks did run more pick-and-rolls, they ran more of them with Anthony as the ball handler, and they got the ball up the floor and into their offense more quickly. But the result — a 93-82 Indiana victory — was basically the same as Game 3 three nights earlier. New York got off to a slow start, trailed by 14 at halftime, shot 36 percent, scored less than a point per possession and got crushed on the glass again.

“I thought our offensive flow wasn’t bad tonight,” Woodson said. “I thought the ball movement was a little bit better, but we couldn’t make shots.”

Credit the Indiana defense. It was phenomenal for the second straight game. While the Knicks looked somewhat crisper offensively, they still couldn’t get to the basket. When they looked to attack off the dribble, Roy Hibbert and the Pacers simply shut off the paint, where New York shot a miserable 13-for-34.

“Our effort was just off the charts,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said afterward. “I couldn’t be more proud of our defensive effort, our rebounding effort, and our willingness to share the ball offensively.”

The Knicks got some decent looks at the basket and shot decently (10-for-25) from mid-range, but you can’t win with mid-range shots. They got more 3-point attempts off then they did in Game 3, but many of them were rushed or contested.

Truly, the Knicks are in a funk, having lost five of their last seven games. Anthony and J.R. Smith have combined to shoot 33 percent in that stretch. Jason Kidd has missed his last 17 shots, his last basket coming three weeks ago. And Tyson Chandler looks nothing like the inside force that won Defensive Player of the Year last season.

It’s a bad time to be playing so poorly. And you can’t blame Woodson for trying something different. But he didn’t quite reach all the way down into his bag of tricks.

Kidd still played 16 minutes off the bench, even though his two misses looked awful and took place in the first 7:20 he was on the floor. Meanwhile, two guys who could have provided an offensive spark, Chris Copeland and Steve Novak, rode the pine until late in the third quarter and the final minute, respectively. The Knicks outscored the Pacers by 12 points in Copeland’s 12 minutes, and he and Novak combined to shoot 3-for-4 from 3-point range.

There was also the curious case of Prigioni’s playing time. The numbers have shown that the Knicks are better both offensively and defensively with the 35-year-old rookie on the floor, a phenomenon that Woodson has acknowledged often and as recently as Game 2 of this series. But Prigioni played less than 3 1/2 minutes on Tuesday, and Woodson didn’t have much of an explanation.

“Right now,” Woodson said, “I’m reaching, trying to find combinations that will work.”

Nothing has. And the bottom line is that the Pacers are the better team. The best player in the series hasn’t been Anthony, but rather Paul George. And while Woodson can’t find anyone who can make a shot, the Pacers have someone new step up every night. On Tuesday, it was George Hill, who led all scorers with 26 points on 9-for-14 shooting.

The Pacers can now close the series out in New York on Thursday (8 p.m. ET, TNT). Woodson will still be searching for answers.

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (71) /

Knicks Await Word On Shumpert’s Knee

May 14, 2013  ·  1:07PM

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INDIANAPOLIS – The New York Knicks got good and bad news out of shootaround on Tuesday morning.

The good news was that J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin were both back in the gym after missing practice with illnesses the last two days. Smith had been sick since before Game 3, in which he shot 4-for-12 and played just 25 minutes, the fewest of any playoff game in which he wasn’t ejected.

Expect both Martin and Smith, two of the Knicks’ three top subs, to play in Game 4 on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET, TNT). But one of them might need to start, because it sounds doubtful that Iman Shumpert will be able to play.

Shumpert injured his left knee — the same knee he had ACL surgery on last year — in Game 3 and was held out of practice on Monday, but both he and Knicks coach sounded optimistic that he would be able to play in Game 4.

That optimism wasn’t there Tuesday morning though. In fact, Shumpert wasn’t there Tuesday morning. He was back at the team hotel, awaiting the arrival of the Knicks’ orthopedist, who was flying in from New York.

“They’ll evaluate him and give us an assessment this evening,” Woodson said. “He’s had some swelling the last two days, so they’re going to take a closer look at it and make sure everything’s OK.”

If Shumpert can’t play, it will be the ultimate test of Woodson’s Smith-is-not-allowed-to-start policy. New York has had a multitude of injuries this season and no Knick has played more games than Smith, but he hasn’t started a single one.

Ronnie Brewer, who was eventually traded for a second-round pick, started 34 games. James White, whose offensive skills leave a lot to be desired, started 16 games. And Chris Copeland, who Woodson doesn’t fully trust defensively, started 13. Smith? Zero.

But now, the Knicks’ season is on the line. Would Woodson start Copeland, who has played just 19 minutes in the series thus far? Would he dare start Smith? Or would he maybe go big, with Martin up front and Carmelo Anthony sliding to small forward?

“I haven’t even given that a thought,” Woodson said about who would replace Shumpert if he can’t play, “because I thought he would be here this morning.”

A lineup of Smith and the Knicks other four starters — Raymond Felton, Pablo Prigioni, Anthony and Tyson Chandler — has played just 16 minutes together (seven of those in the playoffs) this season. Martin and Chandler, meanwhile, have played just 12 minutes together in this series, and Anthony has been on the floor (at the three) for just six of those 12 minutes.

Woodson has a very interesting decision to make, but more important than who starts is what the Knicks would be losing without Shumpert. He’s their best perimeter defender and he’s the one role player that hasn’t been afraid to shoot in this series. Anthony leads the Knicks with 18 field goals from outside the paint over the three games, but Shumpert is second on the list with eight.

Whether or not Shumpert plays, we may see Steve Novak, who has played just seven minutes over the first three games, make an appearance on Tuesday. Jason Kidd has missed his last 15 shots and Prigioni doesn’t shoot quickly off the catch, so if Woodson wants to use Anthony as the pick-and-roll ball handler more, he’ll need another shooter out there. Pacers coach Frank Vogel said Tuesday morning that Novak makes you “play four-on-four ,” because he’s so dangerous of a shooter.

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs, HT News / Comments (13) /

Game 4 Huge For Knicks, Pacers

May 14, 2013  ·  10:25AM

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INDIANAPOLIS – Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals is a clear referendum on Carmelo Anthony and the 2012-13 New York Knicks.

The Knicks are the No. 2 seed, a team that envisions itself as the one that can knock off the defending champion Miami Heat. But they probably won’t get that chance if they don’t win Game 4 on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET, TNT), because coming back from a 3-1 hole against a team as good as the Indiana Pacers is a near impossible task. So this game could very well make or break the Knicks’ season.

“This is a gut-check game for us,” Anthony said Monday. “Tomorrow will tell us a lot about our team.”

Are the Knicks a contender or pretender? Can you win in the playoffs with what was a below-average defense in the regular season? Can a top-three offense outplay the league’s best defense? Has Anthony really matured this season, or is he the same player as before?

These are all questions that can be answered on Tuesday. And the Knicks must remember how they got here: by using an aggressive and efficient offensive attack in which Anthony trusts his teammates and they knock down shots when they’re open, even if for a brief moment. The Pacers’ stay-home defense has made everything much more difficult, but the Knicks’ have also put some of this on themselves, at times looking hesitant.

“It’s just a matter of us putting a full game together offensively,” Anthony said.

Yes, it’s the biggest game the Knicks have played in 13 seasons. But Game 4 is as much about the Pacers as it is about the Knicks.

Indiana also believes it’s got the goods to beat the Heat. The Pacers are seemingly in control of this series, having taken home-court advantage from the Knicks in Game 1. And they’ve won each of their four home playoff games by double figures.

But New York is obviously a dangerous team. If the Knicks win tonight, they’ll be back in control, with two of the final three games at Madison Square Garden. The Pacers arguably need this game as much as their opponent.

They can’t let up defensively. Game 2 proved that the Knicks can take a mile if you give them an inch. And they must continue to take care of the ball and move it to their open shooters.

“It’s about us,” David West said Monday. “It’s about how we come out, what kind of focus we have. We can’t exhale, feeling like we’ve accomplished anything. Our mission is to protect home court. And we haven’t done that yet. We’ve got to win one more game to protect home court.”

The Pacers were in this same spot a year go. As the No. 3 seed, they held a 2-1 lead on the Miami Heat in the conference semifinals with Game 4 at home. They were up 10 early in the third quarter before it all fell apart. A 17-2 Heat run turned the series around and the Pacers were eliminated in six games.

These Knicks aren’t as good as last year’s Heat. And if these Pacers are better than last season’s, Game 4 is when they prove it.

“Our next step in growth of our franchise is our ability to maintain an edge after a playoff win,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. “We can’t get comfortable at all. This is a pivotal game. And we got to come out hungrier than they are.”

These teams have been on a collision course all season. They’re a complete contrast in styles, and at various times during the past six months, each has looked like the second-best team in the East.

Game 4 might finally prove which team is truly better.

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs, HT News / Comments (12) /

Film Study: To Help Or Not To Help Is The Question For Knicks And Pacers

May 13, 2013  ·  12:24PM

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INDIANAPOLIS – Knicks-Pacers isn’t just a series between a great offensive team (New York) and a great defensive team (Indiana). It’s also a contrast in two different defensive styles, and that contrast is a big reason the Pacers have a 2-1 series lead heading into Game 4 on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET, TNT).

The Knicks, who set an NBA record with 2,371 3-point attempts (28.9 per game) this season, took just 11 threes in Game 3, their worst offensive game of the playoffs. Both coach Mike Woodson and center Tyson Chandler talked a lot on Sunday about the need to move the ball more, but the Pacers’ defense had a lot to do with the lack of ball movement and open shots.

The Pacers led the league in 3-point percentage defense and only one team (Chicago) allowed their opponents to take a lower percentage of their shots from beyond the arc. The Knicks have made five or fewer threes seven times this season. They’re 0-7 in those games and three of them were against Indiana.

The key to the Pacers’ 3-point defense is their ability to stay at home on shooters. The Knicks get 3-point attempts by drawing an extra defender to the guy with the ball, whether he’s in the post or running a pick-and-roll, and then moving the ball to the open shooter. The Pacers make that difficult by not sending the extra defender, either as a double-team in the post or as a helper on the pick-and-roll.

The two most important players in this scheme are Paul George and Roy Hibbert, the one-on-one defender and the rim-protector.

In this series, George has the Carmelo Anthony assignment, and he needs no help. Anthony will get his points, but George is a good enough defender to make it difficult (Anthony has shot 39.7 percent in six games against the Pacers this season) and, more important, he allows his teammates to stay with their man. That’s a huge part of the Pacers’ success and an argument for George as their most important player in this series, even though his box score numbers (17.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game, 36 percent shooting) haven’t been that impressive.

Here’s a post-up for Anthony from the first quarter of Game 3. George handles the assignment by himself and his teammates stay at home, giving Anthony little choice but to force a tough turnaround jumper …


Hibbert, of course, is the guy keeping the Knicks away from the basket. On pick-and-rolls, he has the length and smarts to both stay within reach of the roll man and challenge the ball handler if he gets too close to the rim. This is why 16 of Raymond Felton‘s 29 shots in the series have been low-efficiency attempts, coming from outside the restricted area and from inside the 3-point line.

So while the Knicks can talk about better ball movement, it’s easier said than done against the No. 1 defense. Here’s an example of a play where the ball moves quite a bit (four passes in about six seconds), it gets swung to the weak side, and the Knicks still aren’t able to get an open look. The Pacers all stay at home on their man, Hibbert hangs in the paint on the Jason Kidd/Kenyon Martin pick-and-roll, George denies Anthony in the post, and the ball eventually sticks in the hands of Iman Shumpert, who forces a tough shot over Hibbert in the lane…


The Knicks had their best offensive performance of the postseason in Game 2, and Woodson believes that they just need to get back to the way they played in their 105-79 victory.

“In a playoff series, when teams start locking in, you can’t play on one side of the floor,” the coach said Sunday. “That’s what, last night, we went back to that again. So I got to keep screaming and pushing and guys got to recognize that we got to get the ball moving from side to side. That’s the only way we can play and perhaps get out of this series. We can’t just play on one side of the floor with it.”

But the Pacers believe that those 105 points in Game 2 were more about the way they were defending than about what the Knicks were doing offensively. (more…)

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs, Film Study, HT News / Comments (15) /

Hibbert’s Offense The Difference In Pacers’ Game 3 Victory

May 12, 2013  ·  1:34AM

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Series hub | Game 3: Notebook | Box score

INDIANAPOLIS – For the second time in the conference semifinals series between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers, Indy center Roy Hibbert was the best player on the floor. And this time, he didn’t block a single shot. In fact, he barely contested any. And he had fewer defensive rebounds (four) than any of the Pacers’ other four starters.

Now, let’s get this straight. It’s not like Hibbert didn’t have a defensive impact in the Pacers’ 82-71, Game 3 victory. It was New York’s second-lowest scoring output of the season. The Knicks’ three 3-pointers and 11 3-point attempts were both season lows. And the 7-foot-2 center obviously had a lot to do with that.

But guess what? The Pacers are the best defensive team in the league. This is what they do. They don’t double team and they stay at home on New York’s shooters. The Knicks have now attempted 20 or fewer threes in seven games this season, and three of the seven were against Indiana.

So while Hibbert was as much of a rim protector as he’s been all year and Paul George deserves a ton of credit for his defense on Carmelo Anthony in Game 3, it was Hibbert’s work on the offensive end of the floor that made the difference in what was a very ugly 48 minutes of Eastern Conference playoff basketball. Emphasis on the word “work.”

Remember Hibbert’s brutal offense at the start of this season? Through Dec. 31, he was shooting 39 percent, with the free throw rate of a pass-first point guard. Though he was the most critical part of the Pacers’ No. 1 defense, he wasn’t exactly living up to the max contract extension he received last summer.

Hibbert will never be mistaken for Hakeem Olajuwon in the post. He’s neither quick nor smooth. But his offense is getting better. He averaged 16.7 points on 50 percent shooting in March and April. He scored at least 14 points in six of the Pacers’ first seven playoff games.

And in Game 3 of the conference semifinals, a game in which the league’s leading scorer played 37 minutes, Roy Hibbert had more points than anybody.

Hibbert looked comfortable in the low post, using his height to launch jump hooks with either hand over Tyson Chandler and Kenyon Martin. He made quick decisions and he even took Chandler off the dribble from the elbow a couple of times. He was a true post presence, creating his own offense, not really benefiting from his teammates’ penetration.

“He made some good moves down low,” Chandler said, “but we were supposed to trap him when he got the ball, and we didn’t do that.”

Still, the Knicks forced the Pacers to shoot just 35 percent and commit another 17 turnovers. Their primary defense was pretty good. But a defensive possession doesn’t end until the rebound is secured. And that was the difference on Saturday.

Both teams shot 35 percent. The Knicks had two fewer turnovers and two more free throw attempts. But their 3-point shooting was absent and they got beat up on the glass.

It helped that the Knicks were double-teaming (well, except when they weren’t, according to Chandler) and leaving themselves vulnerable underneath. But they were the fourth best defensive rebounding team in the league in the regular season, even though they rarely had two bigs on the floor at the same time.

The Pacers were the league’s fourth best offensive rebounding team, and that ranking has clearly held up better in this series. They’ve totaled 20 second-chance points in each of their two wins, and they already have more offensive rebounds in the three games (36) than Boston had in its six playoff games against New York (31).

Size matters. The Pacers are the bigger team and they’re showing it. Hibbert is leading the way with 16 of those 36 offensive boards, eight of them in Game 3.

“He got a lot of his stuff just out of pure effort on the offensive glass,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. “We know he’s going to dominate on the defensive end. When he has offensive production like he did tonight, then we’re pretty good.”

They’re pretty good and they’re now up 2-1.

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (21) /

Knicks’ Smith Questionable For Game 3

May 11, 2013  ·  1:32PM

INDIANAPOLIS – J.R. Smith hasn’t played well since he elbowed Jason Terry in Game 3 of the first round. In Game 3 of the conference semifinals, Smith might not play at all.

Under the weather with a 102-degree fever, the Sixth Man of the Year missed the Knicks’ shootaround Saturday morning and is questionable for Game 3 Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, ABC).

“I don’t know if he’s going to play tonight,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. “If he don’t, somebody else has got to step up and help us win.”

The Knicks will have Amar’e Stoudemire for the first time in two months, which gives them the ability to play big for more than the five minutes they have in each of the first two games. But they also have the backcourt depth to deal with Smith’s potential absence and stay small. Raymond Felton, Pablo Prigioni and Iman Shumpert have all been playing well, and Jason Kidd, though he’s missed his last 14 shots, is still a critical part of this team’s success.

“I feel really good now about how Iman’s moving, jumping, and all that,” Woodson said. “So he could pick up some extra minutes, along with Pablo. Raymond’s already playing big minutes and I’m not going to forget about Kidd, because you’ve got three days of rest.”

If Smith doesn’t play, or if he plays and is ineffective, it will be important that Carmelo Anthony doesn’t try too much. When Smith was suspended for Game 4 of the first round, Anthony may have thought he had to beat the Boston Celtics by himself. He shot 10-for-35 in what was the Knicks’ worst offensive game of the postseason.

“I don’t want to put that pressure on myself to say that I have to do more out there,” Anthony said of Smith’s possible absence. “We gotta figure it out. We’ll see how the game goes, see the course of the game, see where it takes us.”

Of course, Anthony seemed confident that Smith would play in Game 3, even though he didn’t know the details of Smith’s condition.

“J.R. gonna play tonight,” Anthony said. “We can get him right. That’s what we have team doctors for, as far as medicine and things like that. He’ll be all right … hopefully.”

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs, HT News / Comments (16) /

Lot On Pacers’ Plate In Game 3

May 11, 2013  ·  10:34AM

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers got the split they needed in New York. They took home-court advantage in the conference semifinals by winning Game 1 on Sunday. But things went much differently in Game 2, when the New York Knicks used a 36-4 run to turn a Pacers lead into a lopsided victory.

It will be difficult for New York to carry any momentum across a change in venue and a three-day layoff, but the Pacers obviously have some adjustments to make on both ends of the floor if they want to get back into the win column in Game 3 Saturday (8 p.m. ET, ABC).

During that 36-4 run, the Knicks finally got their offense running as efficiently as it was at the end of the regular season and the Pacers looked nothing like the league’s No 1 defense. But the seeds for that explosion had really been planted in the first half, when the Knicks came out with a lot more variety and movement in their offense and scored 47 points on their first 37 possessions to build a 13-point lead. Some of the different things they did…

  • They moved Carmelo Anthony around. He caught the ball off curls and flares, and he was used as both the screener and ball-handler in pick-and-rolls. The Knicks actually had some success with Anthony as the ball-handler in pick-and-rolls in the fourth quarter of Game 1, but it was too little, too late. In the final few minutes of the first quarter of Game 2, they ran five Anthony/Tyson Chandler pick-and-rolls on four possessions, producing a couple of open 3s for Jason Kidd (who missed) and J.R. Smith (who didn’t miss), as well as a couple of open foul-line jumpers for Anthony himself. Wisely, he didn’t try to challenge Roy Hibbert at the rim nearly as much as he did in Game 1.
  • They ran the flex offense (popularized by the Utah Jazz) on a couple of possessions, resulting in two post-ups for Smith. He traveled on one and passed to Kenyon Martin for an open jumper on another (this was actually the first possession of the second quarter). Neither of those were great results (Martin’s jumper went in, but a Kenyon Martin jumper isn’t a great shot), but you have to like the variety.
  • They attacked the defense from the baseline. On a couple of side pick-and-rolls, Raymond Felton and Iman Shumpert went away from the screen, toward the baseline and under the basket. Felton got Anthony an open elbow jumper, while Shumpert found Chandler under the basket for a dunk. If you get the ball on the baseline like that, you have defenders turning their heads and losing their man.
  • They moved without the ball and didn’t just stand around. Both Smith and Shumpert got layups in the second quarter by just cutting to the basket, something we really didn’t see from the Knicks over the previous four games.
  • From New York’s perspective, the best thing they did was keep running their offense after the Pacers cut off the first option or two. Rather than letting the ball stick in Anthony’s or Smith’s hands, they kept moving, kept setting screens, and made the Pacers defend them for the full possession.

That’s a lot of things for Indiana to worry about. They have the No. 1 defense in the league and they’ll surely be better in Game 3, but the more variety the Knicks throw at them, the more difficult it will be to get stops consistently. Nothing’s easier to defend than one guy with the ball and four teammates standing around.

“I thought we over-helped a little bit, overreacted to some of their penetration, and allowed them to get some easy, catch-and-shoot threes,” David West said at shootaround on Saturday. “We can’t overreact. We’re a help-defense team, but obviously guys guard their guy and we got to let the two guys in the pick-and-roll take care of their business in the pick-and-roll.”

Iso-ball isn’t a problem with the Pacers’ offense, but turnovers are. They ranked 29th in the regular season in turnover rate, committing 16.2 miscues per 100 possessions, they’ve committed more than that (17.4) in the playoffs, and they’ve committed more than that (20.5) in this series.

That 36-4 run got started with three Indiana turnovers in a four-possession stretch. And the Knicks clearly know now that pressure defense will force their opponent into mistakes. Indiana was lucky that only eight of their first 28 turnovers in this series were live balls, and that luck ran out in the second half of Game 2, when seven of their nine turnovers were of the live-ball variety.

There’s no real adjustment to make when you’re turning the ball over a lot. The Pacers will just have to make better decisions and be ready to move the ball quickly when the Knicks look to trap them in Game 3.

“We practiced against post double-teams and pick-and-roll traps as much as possible,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. “Other than that, a lot of has just got to be your ball-toughness. Ball-toughness and spacing is really the two best areas where we can eliminate turnovers.”

This may be the most important game of the series, not only because it’s tied at 1-1, but because the Knicks found things that work in Game 2, and the Pacers must find a way to stop them.

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (2) /

Stoudemire’s Return Brings More Questions Than Answers For Knicks

May 10, 2013  ·  8:22AM

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NEW YORK – Amar’e Stoudemire is ready to play again. And that can either be a good or bad thing for the New York Knicks.

The timing couldn’t be much worse. The Knicks are heading to Indiana for Game 3 on Saturday (8 p.m. ET, ABC) with the conference semifinals tied 1-1. The margin for error is basically nil, because the Pacers are a very good team, the next two games are at Bankers Life Fieldhouse and the Knicks obviously don’t want to go down 3-1.

So, as coach Mike Woodson decides how and for how long to use Stoudemire going forward, he obviously has to be careful, knowing that there’s a decent chance that Stoudemire will hurt his team more than he helps it.

First of all, Stoudemire will be about 10 times rustier than the Heat were in Game 1 against the Bulls on Monday. He hasn’t played since March 7 and will have played minimal five-on-five in practice by the time Game 3 begins. He’s probably not going to be stroking those elbow jumpers of his or beating his defender in the low post right away, especially against the No. 1 defense in the league. He shot 5-for-16 in his two regular season appearances against Indiana.

Secondly, Stoudemire is a defensive liability. He’ll block the occasional shot, but even when he’s healthy, he doesn’t move very well defensively. The Knicks ranked 17th defensively this season, but allowed 105.1 points per 100 possessions with Stoudemire on the floor, a rate that would rank 22nd. If the Pacers are smart (and they are), they’ll run pick-and-rolls at Stoudemire at every opportunity.

Thirdly, coincidence or not, the Knicks had their best stretches this season when Stoudemire was out. They went 18-5 to start the season and 16-2 to end it. He was healthy from Jan. 1 and March 7, the middle of a three-month stretch in which they were basically treading water. They went 16-13 in the 29 games he played.

And of course, it’s been well documented that Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony are a bad mix. If you need a refresher course …

Knicks efficiency with Anthony and Stoudemire on the floor

Season GP MIN OffRtg DefRtg NetRtg +/-
2010-11 Reg. Season 24 672 110.7 110.9 -0.2 +3
2010-11 Playoffs 4 104 87.0 115.9 -28.8 -57
2011-12 Reg. Season 39 976 99.1 102.7 -3.6 -48
2011-12 Playoffs 4 128 100.3 110.0 -9.7 -21
2012-13 Reg. Season 26 432 107.0 110.6 -3.6 -29
Total 97 2,312 103.4 107.5 -4.1 -152

OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions
NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions

Terrible defense has been the theme in the 2,312 minutes Anthony and Stoudemire have been on the floor together, with the exception of last season. That season, Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler helped make up for the deficiencies of his frontcourt-mates and the offensive end of the floor was the real problem. (more…)

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (40) /

Going Small Key For OKC & Golden State?

May 9, 2013  ·  11:42AM

HANG TIME NEW JERSEY – With each of the four conference semifinals tied at 1-1 (for the first time since this round went to seven games in 1968), it’s a great time to mine the lineup data provided by NBA.com/Stats for trends, anomalies, and whatever information might be useful … or at least interesting.

The eight teams remaining have only played between six and nine games, so we’re not looking at very big sample sizes here. But small sample sizes are all you have to go on in the playoffs. Decisions have to be made on how players or player combinations have played in that series and against that opponent. Even if you include numbers against the opponent in the regular season, that’s at most four additional games of data.

We’ve already seen some of these teams change lineups mid-series. And sometimes, like when the Dallas Mavericks decided to start J.J. Barea in Game 4 of the 2011 Finals, a lineup change can make a big difference.

So, as we take our first day off of the playoffs, here are some notes from 53 games worth of postseason lineup data…

The drop-off in Indiana
The most-used lineup of the playoffs should be no surprise. The Pacers’ starting lineup of George Hill, Lance Stephenson, Paul George, David West and Roy Hibbert have been getting it done on both ends of the floor and were a terrific lineup in the regular season as well. Though Indy ranked 19th defensively overall, this lineup scored at a rate that would have ranked fourth, playing the second-most minutes of any lineup in the league.

It was a plus-48 in the first round and a plus-5 in both Games 1 and 2 of the conference semifinals. The problem, of course, is that the Indiana bench stinks. In 216 minutes, all other Pacers lineups have scored 93.1 points per 100 possessions and allowed 105.8, for a NetRtg of -12.7 in the postseason.

Indy coach Frank Vogel talks often about his emphasis on defending without fouling. That’s key to not only keep the Pacers’ opponents off the line, but also to keep their starters on the floor.

Over their eight playoff games, every Pacer starter has a positive plus-minus and every sub has a negative one. So maybe the Pacers can benefit as much from three days off as the banged up Knicks can, with an ability to use their rested starters for heavy minutes in Game 3 on Saturday (8 p.m. ET, ABC).

Time for OKC to go small?
Setting a minimum of 35 minutes played, the best lineup (offensively, *defensively and overall) of the postseason has been Oklahoma City’s small lineup of Reggie Jackson, Derek Fisher, Kevin Martin, Kevin Durant and Nick Collison. This unit of two point guards, two scoring wings, and a versatile big has outscored its opponents by 46.5 points per 100 possessions and had its best run in Game 6 in Houston, outscoring the Rockets 31-20 in 14 minutes. It was a plus-7 in seven minutes of Game 1 against the bigger Grizzlies, but Scott Brooks didn’t use it at all in Game 2 on Tuesday.

If you remove Nick Collison and just look at the four smalls together, they’ve been just as effective (OffRtg: 130.2, DefRtg: 80.9, NetRtg: +49.3) in a slightly larger sample of 51 minutes (43 against Houston and eight against Memphis).

With Thabo Sefolosha, the Thunder have other small-lineup options. And thus far against the Grizzlies, they’re a plus-13 in 14 minutes playing small. They’re a minus-17 in 82 minutes playing big and their starting lineup (Jackson, Sefolosha, Durant, Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins has shot a brutal 13-for-47 (28 percent) in its 28 minutes together.

That, of course, will be something to keep an eye on as the series heads to Memphis for Saturday’s Game 3 (5 p.m. ET, ESPN).

*The best defensive lineup with a minimum of 35 minutes played was actually the Thunder’s original starting lineup, which allowed the Rockets to score just 73.1 points per 100 possessions in the first two games of the first round. But Russell Westbrook‘s injury puts that lineup out of commission.

Small works in the other West series too
Both Gregg Popovich and Mark Jackson changed their starting lineups for Game 2 in San Antonio on Wednesday, moves that worked out better for the Warriors. Their (small) lineup of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut is a plus-17 in the series (plus-12 in Game 2), the second-best mark of the conference semifinals thus far.

It was a mini lineup of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard and Boris Diaw that pulled off the Spurs’ amazing comeback on Monday, racking up a plus-13 in 10 minutes over the fourth quarter and two overtimes. With Tim Duncan and Tiago Splitter healthy, Popovich didn’t use that lineup at all in Game 2.

Supersubs in Chicago
Obviously, Wednesday’s blowout in Miami makes for some funky lineup numbers in that series, but the Bulls do have a lineup – Nate Robinson, Marco Belinelli, Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson and Joakim Noah – that’s a plus-14 over the two games (plus-13 in 16 minutes in Game 1 and plus-1 in three minutes in Game 2). It was a plus-7 in 21 minutes in the first round and was a strong plus-20.3 points per 100 possessions in 129 minutes in the regular season. If Kirk Hinrich and/or Luol Deng return for Game 3 on Friday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN), it will be interesting to see how much time that lineup plays together going forward.

A change of fortune in Miami
The Heat had a killer lineup – Mario Chalmers, Ray Allen, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh – that Erik Spoelstra used rather sparingly (only 112 minutes), but outscored its opponents by 30.3 points per 100 possessions in the regular season. That lineup was a plus-12 in 10 minutes in the first round against Milwaukee, but is a minus-13 in six minutes in the conference semis, having allowed the Bulls to shoot 6-for-9 (3-for-3 from 3-point range) in the closing minutes of Game 1.

Offensive struggles in New York
The best offensive lineup in the regular season (minimum 200 minutes) was the Knicks’ lineup of Raymond Felton, Jason Kidd, J.R. Smith, Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler, which scored 119.3 points per 100 possessions in 269 minutes together. With Kidd, Smith and Anthony all struggling, that unit has scored just 86.6 points per 100 possessions in 18 playoff minutes, and has been even worse defensively.

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Posted in NBA.com/Stats, 2013 NBA Playoffs, 2013 Conference Semis: Spurs-Warriors, 2013 Conference Semis: Thunder-Grizzlies, 2013 Conference Semis: Knicks-Pacers, 2013 Conference Semis: Heat-Bulls / Comments (17) /

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