Posts Tagged ‘J.R. Smith’

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Game 6 Comes Down To Melo’s Mentality

May 3, 2013  ·  10:41AM

NEW YORK – More important than the color of the clothes the New York Knicks wore to Game 5 was the color of their shot chart. It was very red.

For the second straight game, the Knicks couldn’t buy a bucket. They’ve played well defensively in their first-round series against the Boston Celtics, but their offense has come to a screeching halt.

The Knicks ranked third in the league offensively in the regular season, scoring 108.6 points per 100 possessions. And when they were playing well, both in early in the season and late, their success was all about the points they were scoring.

Knicks efficiency

Timeframe W L OffRtg Rank DefRtg Rank NetRtg Rank
Oct. 30 – Dec. 16 18 5 111.1 2 102.3 16 +8.8 3
Dec. 17 – March 17 20 21 104.6 11 103.8 15 +0.8 11
March 18 – April 17 16 2 114.6 1 104.4 17 +10.2 3

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

Whether they were winning or losing, the Knicks’ defense was rather mediocre all season. So it’s nice that they’ve held the Celtics to the lowest postseason efficiency among the 14 teams that didn’t get swept. But Boston is a bad offensive team, and against most opponents, the Knicks need to score a lot of points to win. So it’s not nice that only the Lakers – who were missing the fourth leading scorer in NBA history – regressed more offensively from the regular season to the playoffs.

Most regressed offenses (OffRtg), regular season to playoffs

Team Reg. Season Rank Playoffs Rank Diff.
L.A. Lakers 105.6 8 90.6 16 -15.0
New York 108.6 3 96.3 13 -12.3
Milwaukee 100.9 21 91.5 15 -9.4
Boston 101.1 20 91.7 14 -9.4
Denver 107.6 5 102.4 9 -5.2

Not only has the Knicks’ offensive regression made this series a lot more interesting than it was five days ago, but it’s also a bad sign regarding their ability to get past the Indiana Pacers – the league’s best defensive team – should they meet them in the next round.

So, as they head back to Boston for Game 6 on Friday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN), the Knicks have some problems to fix. The issues are painfully obvious, and they start and end with a lack of ball movement.

The Knicks ranked dead last in assist rate in the regular season, assisting on just 52.7 percent of their field goals. That number is down to just 43.6 percent in the postseason. While isolation basketball was a big part of the Knicks’ offense most of the year, it has completely taken over in these last two games, in which the Knicks have assisted on just 23 assists of their 63 field goals (37 percent).

Knicks possessions mostly start off with the right intentions and they will run the first few actions of their offense, most of the time. But the Celtics’ defense is designed to take away those primary options. And far too often, New York’s possessions devolve into isolations once Carmelo Anthony or J.R. Smith get the ball.

Now, both Anthony and Smith are great one-on-one players, but they’re better players when they’re shooting off the pass or creating for others. The problem is that they’re stopping the ball, allowing the Celtics’ defense to load up, and turning their teammates into bystanders. With as much time as the ball has been in their hands in this series, Anthony (six) and Smith (six) have combined for just 12 assists.

The Knicks’ best offense has come from Raymond Felton in the pick-and-roll. But there just hasn’t been enough of those possessions. Now, sometimes a Felton pick-and-roll gets snuffed out, and the Celtics’ defense certainly deserves a lot of credit for how poorly the Knicks have played offensively. But it’s clear that Anthony and Smith are trying to do too much by themselves.

Smith obviously deserves scrutiny for his intentional elbow to Jason Terry‘s head that got him suspended for Game 4, and for how poorly he shot in Game 5. But Game 6 (and then maybe Game 7) is all about Melo.

This entire season has pretty much been a referendum on Anthony’s game and career. He has famously made it out of the first round only once and had a putrid 17-37 postseason record prior to these playoffs.

Things went so well in the regular season. Anthony led the league in scoring and, more important, led the Knicks to their best record in 18 years. With some veterans around him to show him the way, he learned to trust his teammates, make quicker decisions in the Knicks’ offense, and avoid being the ball-stopper that he was previously.

But things have changed in the playoffs, especially over the last couple of games. Anthony has seemingly regressed back to his old self, playing a style that’s not going to get it done against the best defenses in this league. He’s the second-leading scorer in these playoffs, but has been anything but efficient, shooting 39 percent from the field and 8-for-28 from 3-point range, where he has missed his last 15 attempts. As tempting as it is to go one-on-one with Brandon Bass 25 times a game and as impressive as those fadeaway, contested 20-footers look when they go in, the rate of success on those plays just isn’t good enough.

The Knicks are the better team here. But they’ve put themselves in a bad spot and will feel even more pressure if they can’t finish the series off on Friday. The path back to the win column begins with a change in Anthony’s mentality. These Celtics aren’t quite the Celtics of old, but you still don’t beat them by yourself.

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Celtics, Rockets Eye Long Odds, History

May 2, 2013  ·  3:43PM

HANG TIME SOUTHWEST – No team in NBA playoff history has ever lost a best-of-seven series after surging ahead 3-0. So the odds of one team choking it away are worse than a freak Midwest snow storm in the heart of spring.

Suddenly we have two teams trying to make it rain on their opponents’ parade.

The Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets return to their respective home arenas Friday night with the objective of extending their first-round series to the wire after losing the first three games. Trying to avoid postseason infamy and outright humiliation is the second-seeded New York Knicks, the clever characters who dressed in black on Wednesday for a Game 5 “funeral” at Madison Square Garden. However, as Knicks Sixth Man of the Year J.R. Smith dutifully pointed out afterward, they were the ones that got buried by the resilient Celtics.

Over in the Western Conference, the eighth-seeded Rockets in Game 5 dominated a discombobulated Oklahoma City team without their heart-and-soul point guard Russsell Westbrook. Former Thunder guard James Harden splashed seven 3s for Houston and scored 31 points.

So what are the odds that either the Celtics or Rockets can at least get their respective series to a Game 7? Cloudy, at best.

Only three teams down 3-0 have ever won the next three to go the distance: The Knicks did it against Rochester in the 1951 Finals; the Denver Nuggets against the Utah Jazz in the 1994 West semifinals; and the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2003 West first round. The latter two were double-digit victories for the home team.

“Mainly because the other team is a lot better,” Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni said when asked why teams down 3-0 typically bow out in Game 4 as his injury-depleted club did against the San Antonio Spurs.

And truth be told, if Westbrook doesn’t tear the meniscus in his right knee, the Thunder are likely sitting back waiting to see if the Memphis Grizzlies close out the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 6 or if those two are headed back to L.A. for one final bludgeoning.

But Westbrook’s absence has changed everything. The Rockets, the youngest team in the playoffs as the Thunder once were, are feeling confident. They have to believe that if they continue to run-and-gun and don’t allow anyone not named Kevin Durant to go crazy that they have a great chance to force a Game 7 back at Oklahoma City on Sunday.

The Celtics, logic insists, don’t have as good a chance as Houston because they don’t have a built-in opening like the Rockets with the catastrophic injury to the all-important Westbrook. The Knicks aren’t missing a star player. They possess the league’s scoring champion in Carmelo Anthony (18-for-59 from the field in Games 4 and 5), the Sixth Man in Smith (suspended for Game 4, 3-for-14 in Game 5), last season’s Defensive Player of the Year in Tyson Chandler, a more threatening offense and they’re deeper at just about every position, if not at every position.

But, as long as Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett are wearing green — and add cold-blooded Jason Terry, a champ himself in 2011 with Dallas — the Celtics just don’t die. A raucous TD Garden on Friday will put the Knicks’ veteran poise to the test.

The Knicks must dig down to avoid the No. 1 derogatory label in all of sports — chokers. And the Thunder must figure out how to pick themselves up without Westbrook.

The odds remain steep for the Celtics and Rockets. Then again, as Jason Collins proved this week, there’s always a first for everything.

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Celtic Pride Lives On

May 1, 2013  ·  11:52PM

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NEW YORK – These aren’t the same ‘ol Celtics.

No Rajon Rondo. No Ray Allen. No Perk, Posey or P.J. Brown.

They took another step backward this season, falling to seventh in the Eastern Conference. They were pretty awful on the road, their defense didn’t have quite the same bite, and their offense was pretty anemic. You never knew what you were going to get from them, maybe a win over a great team on one night and a loss to a terrible team the next.

And when they were down 0-3 to the New York Knicks in this first round series, it appeared to be time to finally count them out.

Well … uh … never mind. Maybe these are the same ‘ol Celtics.

Fueled by a defense that continues to hold it’s own against one of the most potent offensive attacks in the league, the Celtics staved off elimination for the second time on Wednesday. This time they did it in enemy territory, holding on for a 92-86 victory at Madison Square Garden that sends the series back to Boston for Game 6 on Friday.

So now, things get really interesting. No team in NBA history has ever come back from an 0-3 series deficit, but it’s starting to look like great defense can beat great offense. The Knicks have shot just 37 percent and scored just 94 points per 100 possessions over the last two games.

Coming up empty in Boston without J.R. Smith is one thing. But with Smith back and the opportunity to win a playoff series on their home floor for the first time since 1999, the Knicks laid another egg on Wednesday.

“Offensively, we were searching,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. “We’ve got to find some offense somewhere. We have been struggling to find points.”

In his return from a one-game suspension, Smith missed his first 10 shots and finished 3-for-14. Carmelo Anthony wasn’t much better, shooting 8-for-24, meaning that the Knicks basically got the same production out of the pair as they did in Game 4 (when Smith didn’t play).

The one thing the Knicks still have going offensively is Raymond Felton on the pick and roll. He continued to get to the rim in Game 5, rendering Avery Bradley useless and scoring 21 points on 10-for-19 shooting.

But too often, the Knicks became stagnant offensively, resorting to more isolations and contested jumpers. They’ve lived by the three all season, but have shot a brutal 12-for-52 (23 percent) from beyond the arc in the last two games. Anthony has missed his last 15 3-point attempts.

Of course, the Celtics wouldn’t have won Games 4 and 5 if they weren’t scoring themselves. And Wednesday was easily their best offensive performance of the series. Part of it was better execution. But mostly, they just shot better.

That was the one source of optimism when they were down 0-3. They’re a bad offensive team, but they’re not a bad shooting team, and they were missing a lot of decent shots in those first three games. The Knicks have played aggressively on the ball all series, leaving shooters open. And now the Celtics are finally making them pay. Their 3-point percentage has increased in every game of the series, peaking with an 11-for-22 performance in Game 5.

“We’re not a bad 3-point shooting team,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “I kept telling our guys, ‘When you get them, take them.’ I kept telling them to let it fly. Don’t hesitate.”

Really, these are both jump-shooting teams, and games will sometimes be determined by whether or not the shots go in. But it was clear on Wednesday which team was forcing more misses. That’s the team that had its season on the line, the team that never goes down without a fight.

The Knicks wore all black to this game, thinking they were attending a funeral. Instead, they got a free trip back to Boston, thanks to a prideful team that just won’t die.

“We’re out here scrappin’,” Kevin Garnett told Comcast Sportsnet in an epic on-court interview after the game. “We know what they’re running. They know what we’re running. It’s just this is all out. Who wants this? That’s what it is. That’s all we’ve been doing these last couple of games.”

Same ‘ol Celtics, apparently. Never count ‘em out.

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Smith Adds Fuel To Terry’s Fire For Game 5

May 1, 2013  ·  10:57AM

NEW YORK – Jason Terry never lacks for confidence. But it seems like he sometimes needs a little motivation.

Recall Game 2 of the 2011 Finals, when Dwyane Wade posed in front of the Dallas Mavericks’ bench after his 3-pointer gave the Miami Heat a 15-point lead with just over seven minutes to go in the game.

In the ensuing timeout, Terry turned to teammate Dirk Nowitzki and said, “There’s no way we’re going out like this.”

Fueled by Wade’s showboating (and by the prospect of going down 0-2), the Mavs finished the game on a 22-5 run to even the series. And without that comeback, the Heat are probably the two-time defending champs. Nowitzki capped that game off with a bunch of big shots, but who scored the first six points (and eight of the first 13) of that run? Jason Terry.

Fast forward to the fourth quarter of Friday’s Game 3 between the Knicks and Celtics, when, with the Knicks up 78-59, J.R. Smith‘s intentional elbow knocked Terry to the floor, getting Terry fired up and getting Smith ejected. Ironically, there were just over seven minutes to go in the game.

Unfortunately for the Celtics, they didn’t have Nowitzki on Friday and the league’s 20th-ranked offense wasn’t coming back from a 19-point deficit in seven minutes. But Terry’s fuel clearly carried over to Game 4, when he scored the Celtics’ final nine points of overtime to bring this series back to Madison Square Garden for Game 5 on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET, TNT).

Afterward, Celtics coach Doc Rivers mentioned the idea that Smith’s elbow “changed the events for all of us.”

“Definitely, Jason Terry was angry that it happened,” Rivers said. “He let his teammates know [Saturday] and [Sunday]. But he’s just a fighter.”

Elbow aside, this has been an ugly series, the slowest-paced and, by far, the least-efficient series of the first round. Both teams have been held under a point per possession over the four games, and both are desperate for whatever offense they can get.

In Game 4, the Knicks had a scorer (Smith) taken away from them, and the Celtics had a scorer (Terry) finally find his rhythm. The result was Boston’s first win of the series.

If the Celtics are going to stay alive again on Wednesday, they’ll need Terry to keep making shots, because the Celtics still lack a point guard to create offense and the Knicks are going to keep swarming Paul Pierce.

If Terry needs any more motivation to take this series back to Boston, Smith is happy to provide it.

As Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe writes, Smith added more fuel to the fire at practice on Tuesday:

J.R. Smith played dumb. The Knicks guard had just been asked about the performance of Jason Terry in Game 4, a performance that yielded Boston’s final 9 points of the game, in overtime.

That would be the same Jason Terry who goaded Smith into elbowing him in the face in Game 3, an offense for which Smith received a one-game suspension.

“Who?” Smith said. “I don’t even know who that is.”

It didn’t stop there.

Asked another question about Terry, Smith kept up the charade.

“Who?” he said again. “Who is that?”

And so, with the Knicks up, three games to one, in their first-round series against the Celtics, there has been another shot of adrenaline for Boston, courtesy of a player who seems completely confident in his own abilities and his own effect on the series.

Asked what would have happened had he been on the court in Game 4, Smith said, “Oh, yeah. It would’ve been over. I would’ve been playing golf today.”

Smith may be right and the Knicks may put this series to bed on Wednesday. But Sunday’s Game 4 was about as intense as a 3-0, close-out game gets. Now, Smith has ensured something similar in Game 5. It’s not like the Celtics weren’t the league’s most prideful team anyway.

The Knicks still have the luxury of home-court advantage, but given how both teams have struggled offensively, there’s not a larger margin for error in this series. Game 5 may come down to which sixth man can turn motivation into production.

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Melo’s Regression Helps Celts Stay Alive

April 28, 2013  ·  6:35PM

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BOSTON – In a season of improvement, this was a day of regression.

This was Carmelo Anthony‘s year. Though the numbers don’t really show it, he matured this season, learned to trust his teammates, and learned how to be a great scorer without stopping the ball so much. He made quicker, smarter decisions.

On Sunday though, with his New York Knicks trying to close out the Boston Celtics, Anthony seemingly turned back the clock and played like it was 2011 again. He tried to beat the Celtics by himself, and his regression helped Boston stave off elimination with a 97-90, overtime victory. The series now heads back to New York for Game 5 on Wednesday.

Anthony’s regression basically trumped Raymond Felton‘s podium game. The Knicks’ point guard continued to tear up Boston’s pick-and-roll defense, tying his season high with 27 points, 16 of them as the Knicks came back from a 20-point deficit in the third quarter. As great an on-ball defender as Avery Bradley is, he couldn’t stay in front of Felton, who gave the Knicks their only lead of the game with a pick-and-roll, pull-up jumper with just over a minute to go in regulation.

The Knicks even had success when Anthony ran the pick-and-roll. Their 5-0 run to tie the game in the final minutes of the fourth quarter came off two Anthony/Tyson Chandler pick-and-rolls, one that produced an open Iman Shumpert 3-pointer, and another that got Anthony an easy drive to the basket.

But too many times, Anthony preferred to play isolation basketball. And too many times, he forced bad shots. In fact, on the two Knicks possessions that sandwiched Felton’s go-ahead jumper, Anthony ran five different isolations (thanks to three offensive rebounds from his teammates). Those five isolations produced four missed shots, two missed free throws, and zero points.

This wasn’t the worst game of Anthony’s career. On an afternoon when his team was struggling to score, he was able to get to the free throw line 20 times. Eleven of those trips helped keep the Knicks within striking distance in the first half.

But Anthony finished the game 10-for-35 from the field and 0-for-7 from 3-point range, adding seven turnovers. Of his 35 shots, 19 came from mid-range, the least efficient area of the floor.

“He missed some shots,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said, “but as a team, we couldn’t make shots.”

But Anthony missed more shots than any three of his teammates combined. He had just two assists, and the Knicks had just 10 as a team.

It was a bad game, nothing more than that. The Knicks’ 3-0 series lead afforded him such, and he’ll have plenty of opportunities to redeem himself going forward. He’ll also have J.R. Smith back from his one-game suspension, though Anthony wouldn’t admit that Smith’s absence played a roll in his own tunnel-vision.

“I missed him out there,” Anthony said of Smith. “But J.R. being out there doesn’t change the way I shoot the basketball. Those are the shots I’ve been taking the whole series. They weren’t falling tonight. My mother always said, ‘There’ll be days like this.’ We’ll take it for what it’s worth, put this one behind us, and get ready for Wednesday.”

If Smith’s absence wasn’t a fact, the Celtics’ defense was. Boston had no intention of rolling over and seeing their season end any earlier than it had to. They dug in and made the Knicks work for their baskets.

Celtics coach Doc Rivers went back to his original starting lineup, believing it would be better defensively, and Brandon Bass proved him right. Before eventually fouling out, Bass took on the Anthony assignment and defended the league’s leading scorer about as well as you can.

“He was the star of the game, as far as I’m concerned,” Rivers said of Bass. “He just defended, and did it over and over and over again.”

“The more he does it, the fresher Paul [Pierce], the fresher Jeff [Green] can be offensively for us.”

Pierce and Green were indeed fresh offensively, combining for 55 of the Celtics’ 97 points. Kevin Garnett hit two big jumpers down the stretch and Jason Terry scored Boston’s final nine points in overtime. It was the definition of a team win for the prideful Celtics.

But none of that would have mattered if Anthony didn’t try to beat them all by himself.

“I was trying to win the basketball game,” he said. “It would have been a great feeling to close it out here in Boston, so I was trying to do whatever I could to win the basketball game. I was just trying to be aggressive. I missed a lot – a ton – of shots today.”

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J.R. Smith Suspended For Game 4

April 27, 2013  ·  9:06PM

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BOSTON – The NBA announced Saturday night that J.R. Smith is suspended for Sunday’s Game 4 (1 p.m. ET, ABC) of the Knicks-Celtics series, a result of Smith’s elbow to the head of Jason Terry in the fourth quarter of Game 3.

With Terry playing Smith tightly in the corner, the Sixth Man of the Year turned and intentionally swung his elbow, knocking Terry to the floor. After getting up, Terry tried to go after Smith, but he was held back by teammates and Celtics coach Doc Rivers as Smith retreated to the Knicks bench.

“I was trying to draw the foul,” Smith said after the game. “He reached in one time. I thought he was going to reach in a second time and I was going to try to get a quick shot off, but they made a call that the refs saw and there’s not really much I can do about it.”

Smith’s absence will make it more difficult for the Knicks to complete a series sweep. At 16.3 points per game, he’s New York’s second-leading scorer in the series, a key secondary option when the Celtics are loading up on Carmelo Anthony, and a guy that can make difficult shots when an offensive possession breaks down, a scenario which has played out quite a bit in the first three games. It’s been an ugly series and any offense is good offense.

The Knicks didn’t know Smith’s fate when they met with the media Saturday afternoon, but they knew that a suspension was a possibility.

“If it happens, we got other guys in uniform that’s got to step up and play,” coach Mike Woodson said. “It’s kind of been that way all year when we’ve had injuries. Guys have stepped up and helped us win basketball games. So if J.R.’s missing, we’ve got to be ready to put guys in and play. I don’t know who’s going to play the minutes, but we’ll figure it out as we go along.”

Smith was the only Knick to play the first 80 games of the season before sitting out the final two, and he led the team in minutes played. Despite all their injuries, Smith never started. But Woodson has consistently called on him early in the first quarter.

In Smith’s absence, we should see extended minutes for Jason Kidd (who has averaged only 28 in the first three games) and a bigger role for Steve Novak, who hit his first two threes of the series in Friday’s Game 3 victory.

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John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. Send him an e-mail or follow him on twitter.

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Knicks Taking It To The Celtics

April 27, 2013  ·  12:44AM

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BOSTON – This series might be more about the feebleness of the Boston Celtics, how they can barely run their offense against a team that ranked 16th defensively in the regular season, how they can’t hold onto the ball, and how they can’t make open shots when they get them.

When 6-foot-9 Jeff Green gets double-teamed by two point guards and can’t do anything but fall backwards and weakly flail the ball into the backcourt, you know the Celtics just can’t compete. And there were plenty of plays like that in the New York Knicks’ 90-76 victory in Game 3 on Friday.

But make no mistake about it. The Knicks have taken it to the Celtics in this series. They’ve earned their 3-0 lead and the opportunity to complete the sweep on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, ABC).

Game 3, the first one at home, is supposed to be the game the underdog wins when they’re not completely outmatched. The Celtics, even without Rajon Rondo, weren’t exactly chumps this season. They had a top-six defense, a strong record at the TD Garden, and played the Knicks even in the two regular season meetings in which Kevin Garnett played. This squad of vets always has its pride and effort, and on this night, it had a little more emotion, playing its first home game since the Boston Marathon tragedy.

But guess what? The Celtics are completely outmatched. The Knicks are just a much better team. They were always better offensively, and they’ve now proven that they’re better defensively when push comes to shove.

“I thought we were a team that matched up really well with the Knicks,” Paul Pierce said. “I though we played them pretty good throughout the season. We lost a couple of close ones, but I didn’t expect this coming in. I knew this would probably be a long series, being the way we matched up. So I am surprised we’re down 0-3 right now.”

The Celtics’ offense did have an opportunity early on Friday to break through. They got to the basket and got open looks on the perimeter in the opening minutes. But the shots just didn’t go in.

The Knicks took advantage and, on this night, didn’t wait until the second half to put their foot on the gas. With Boston still struggling to score, New York clearly saw the opportunity to (essentially) put the series away. A 21-6 run just before halftime put the Celtics in an 18-point hole that they could never come close to digging out of.

After the Celtics missed those easy shots early, the Knicks didn’t let them recover. They turned up the defensive pressure, and in this game, the turnovers (18 of them) were more about New York’s pressure than Boston’s execution.

“Our goal was to not even let them believe they have a shot,” J.R. Smith said. “And I think we did a great job at that, and the way we got to it, defense and moving the ball.”

This is what great teams do. They don’t just hold serve. They break. They go into one of the toughest buildings to play in, play hard-nosed, aggressive defense, and execute offensively in a hostile environment.

Friday morning, Knicks coach Mike Woodson said he was “anxious” to see how his team would react in its first road playoff game. He got his answer, loud and clear.

The Knicks had a handful of quality road wins in the regular season, but this was a breakthrough, a performance to really build on going forward, a game to build trust between teammates who want to know they can count on each other to come through in difficult situations.

“The beauty about our team is that somebody has always stepped up when we needed it,” Woodson said afterward. “To me, that’s the sign of a team that’s committed, that’s together, and that’s trying to do one thing, win a title.”

Nothing on the Knicks’ side of the Game 3 boxscore stands out. Carmelo Anthony (26 points on 12-for-25 shooting) and Smith (15 on 6-for-12) were the leading scorers and each played a big role in the second-quarter run. Raymond Felton (15 points and 10 assists) continued to break the Boston defense down with the pick-and-roll.

But contributions came from everywhere. And it was really Pablo Prigioni who set the tone, getting his hands on balls defensively and knocking down three 3-pointers in the first quarter to help his team start to build an offensive rhythm.

And with Steve Novak finally knocking down a couple of 3s, everyone in the Knicks’ rotation is playing well. The Celtics will surely put up a fight on Sunday, but the Knicks look ready to close this series out and move on.

We knew they had the talent in this series. And now it’s clear that they have the toughness too.

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J.R. Smith Makes Good From Bad

April 25, 2013  ·  10:03AM

 

NEW YORK – J.R. Smith takes the shots you’re not supposed to take, the shots good defenses are designed to force.

Mid-range, off-the-dribble, step-back, contested, fade-away jumpers*. They’re bad shots, but they often go in. And the Boston Celtics could really use a player like Smith right now. But Smith belongs to the Knicks, a big reason why New York holds a 2-0 series lead.

* Maybe these need a twitter hashtag: #JRSMROTDSBCFAJ

In none of his previous eight seasons had Smith taken a greater percentage of his shots from mid-range (between the paint and the 3-point line) than he did this season (35.5 percent). In none of his previous eight seasons has he been assisted on a lower percentage of his buckets than he was this season (36.1 percent).

So basically, Smith took the worst shots of his career this season. But in none of his previous eight seasons has Smith been so trusted by his coach. He led the second best team in the Eastern Conference in minutes and, oh yeah, won the Sixth Man of the Year award.

We’ve talked often about how improved ball movement has led to the Knicks’ efficient offense, but Smith still took 1,249 of their shots and they had the lowest assist rate in the league. Individual play was still a key ingredient and they wouldn’t be where they are without isolation basketball.

Carmelo Anthony was Game 2′s leading scorer, but Tuesday was totally Smith’s night. He was presented his trophy in front of the Madison Square Garden crowd. He drained a mid-range, off-the-dribble, step-back, contested, fade-away jumper the first time he touched the ball. And he capped off the first quarter with a sequence in which he drained another mid-range, off-the-dribble, step-back, contested, fade-away jumper, forced Paul Pierce into a turnover, and drained a 36-footer at the buzzer, before going full plumage for his adoring fans.

Smith hasn’t exactly been efficient this series: 34 point on 34 shots. The words “J.R. Smith” and “efficient” don’t belong in the same sentence, really. He’s 1-for-9 on 3-pointers from above the break, with the one being the 36-footer.

But this has been the ugliest series of the 2013 postseason (the two teams have combined to score just 93 points per 100 possessions), and that’s probably not going to change as the series heads to Boston for Games 3 (Friday, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN) and 4. Any offense is good offense in these games, especially when the opponent is doing its best to take away your primary options.

On that note, it’s interesting that Smith is 0-for-6 with Anthony on the bench in this series thus far, and 14-for-28 with Anthony on the floor. It’s a very small sample size, but it’s still interesting. Smith was a slightly better shooter with Anthony on the bench in the regular season.

There will probably come a time in these playoffs when Smith shoots the Knicks out of a game, maybe this weekend in Boston, maybe down the road against the Pacers or Heat. New York is 11-13 this season when he misses more than 10 shots.

But that’s what you get with Smith. The good comes with the bad.

Maybe that’s why Knicks fans love the guy so much.

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Knicks, Celtics Seeking Better Execution

April 23, 2013  ·  10:34AM

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NEW YORK – The final score of Game 1 of the first round series between the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics was 85-78. So you’ll have to excuse these teams if they both feel like they can play better in Game 2 on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET, TNT).

Thoughts of improvement start with the Celtics, and with the 21 turnovers they committed on Saturday. Smarter execution, like not trying to make post entry passes from 25 feet away, will at least get them more shots at the basket.

Of course, they still have to make those shots. And the onus is on reserve guards Jordan Crawford, Courtney Lee and Jason Terry to give the Celtics something off the bench. The trio shot 0-for-7 in Game 1 and, more important, was an incredibly awful minus-15 in the six minutes all three were on the floor together.

“They missed wide-open shots,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said Monday, adding that he wouldn’t hesitate to go back to that three-guard unit again. “That group, when they’re on the floor, they have to produce offensively. They’re not going to ever be a great defensive group, and they didn’t do that. And it hurt us.”

Turnovers and missed shots were often a result of bad spacing. The same mismatches and double-teams that the Celtics took advantage of in the first half were there in the second, but poor spacing and execution made it more difficult to get good shots out of those situations.

The Celtics held their largest lead (seven points) late in the third quarter, but really set a bad precedent at the start of the half when Jeff Green – who was the star of the first half – took two contested mid-range shots early in the shot clock.

***

Though Game 1 was the lowest scoring game of the playoffs thus far, Carmelo Anthony‘s 36 points were the most any individual has scored this postseason. But Boston defended Anthony about as well as you can, making him take 29 shots to get those 36 points. In five games against the Celtics this season, Anthony has shot 37.1 percent and scored 137 points on 132 shots from the field.

Still, Doc Rivers believes there’s room for improvement in regard to Anthony’s scoring as well. And it’s more about his team limiting its own mistakes than defending Anthony differently.

The Celtics defended Anthony very well in the Knicks’ half-court offense, but got in trouble in transition and off loose balls…

Carmelo Anthony’s offense, Game 1

Situation FGM FGA 3PM 3PA EFG% FTM FTA AST TO PTS
Half-court 6 19 0 2 31.6% 4 4 1 3 16
Other 7 10 4 4 90.0% 2 2 0 0 20

EFG% = (FGM + (0.5 * 3PM)) / FGA

Anthony shot just 6-for-19 in half-court situations, and the Celtics even contested a few of those makes – including the 20-foot baseline dagger with 1:21 left in the fourth quarter. But Boston knows it can’t let Anthony loose when its defense isn’t set up.

Two of Anthony’s threes came when he brought the ball up on a secondary break, got an early high screen from Tyson Chandler, and walked into a open shot. A third came off a deflection that the Celtics couldn’t corral. And the fourth came as a trailer on a fast break. He had two other buckets (in the first quarter) when he brought the ball up himself and immediately looked for his shots.

The league’s leading scorer will probably shoot better in half-court situations on Tuesday, but the Celtics can prevent a major scoring barrage by just being more careful and aware.

“Every time we made a mistake, an offensive rebound, a turnover, he scored,” Rivers said. “And those were his easy baskets. We have to take those away.”

***

Like the Celtics, the Knicks know they can do better offensively. They ranked third in offensive efficiency this season and scored an incredible 115 points per 100 possessions over their final 18 games. But on Saturday, they were held to just 85 points on 88 possessions.

It’s easy to say that the ball needs to move better and that the Knicks should have more than 13 assists. Yes, there was too much iso-ball in Game 1, but most of it was a result of the Celtics’ defense taking away New York’s initial actions. And the Knicks are fortunate to have two players – Anthony and J.R. Smith – who can save a broken possession by getting a decent shot up in the final seconds of the shot clock.

Still, the Knicks can improve offensively by just getting up the floor quicker. The Celtics scored on just 35 of their 89 possessions on Saturday, but the Knicks had just seven fast break points. And as noted above, Anthony got his best looks in transition, not necessarily on fast breaks, but when he took advantage of a defense that wasn’t yet set.

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Superb Sub Crawford Driving Clippers’ Game-Changing Reserves

April 23, 2013  ·  10:15AM

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LOS ANGELES – Jamal Crawford spent the first few minutes after Monday morning’s shootaround being as affable as ever while answering questions about the physical nature of the series, adjustments to be made and the importance of protecting home court.

Then came the one topic that visibly soured his mood. His smile disappeared, his shoulders slumped, his voice lowered.

While the Clippers were reviewing Monday night’s Game 2 strategy against the Memphis Grizzlies, the league was announcing New York Knicks gunner J.R. Smith as the Kia Sixth Man of the Year. An award Crawford owned for the first half of the season was swiped by Smith’s late hot streak that corresponded with the Knicks’ late-season 13-game win streak.

“Congrats to J.R.,” Crawford said softly. “You can’t worry about stuff you can’t control.”

It’s uncertain if Crawford was already aware of his fate or was just learning of it. Clearly, though, when it hit his ears, his mind reeled back to late January when the All-Star reserves were announced. Crawford, the 2010 Sixth Man of the Year with Atlanta, had hoped he’d be selected for his first All-Star team in his 13th NBA season. He was not.

“Going back to the All-Star team, I guess twice in a season,” Crawford said of getting the snub. “But congrats to J.R.”

So when Crawford came out on fire in the Los Angeles Clippers’ 93-91 Game 2 win over the Memphis Grizzlies for a 2-0 first-round series lead, it sure seemed like he had come out with a Big Apple-sized chip on his shoulder.

He canned his first six shots and put together an 11-point second quarter that changed the flow of the game and a 13-point first half as the Clippers’ bench again caused all kinds of problems for the Grizzlies.

Crawford led L.A.’s bench with 15 points, plus three steals and a single turnover in 33:30. Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro, as expected, backed his first-year sixth man who averaged 16.5 points in the regular season, his high mark since taking the Sixth Man award three seasons ago, while shooting 37.6 percent from beyond the arc.

“He’s [third] in the league in fourth-quarter scoring, he’s had 29 20-point-plus games off the bench,” Del Negro said. “He set the franchise record for free throws (58 in a row), set the franchise record for 3-pointers made (149 in the regular season). He’s been a huge catalyst for us all season from Day 1, the whole season, so it’s hard for me to look at it and say that Jamal didn’t deserve that. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more deserving.”

With an All-Star snub in the rearview mirror and now the Sixth Man hardware in Smith’s hands, Crawford still has the biggest prize of all in his sights.

He’s the leader of easily the deepest (and arguably the most dangerous) bench in the league. During the regular season it was just one of four benches to average better than 40 ppg.

In the first two games of the first-round series against the Grizzlies, the Clippers’ bench has been superior and has forced the hand of Memphis coach Lionel Hollins.

In L.A.’s breathtaking 93-91 victory Monday in Game 2, the Clippers’ bench outscored their opponents’ reserves 30-11. In Game 1, Memphis got 19 points from Jerryd Bayless, who played 30 minutes because the Grizz were constantly playing catch-up, and that limited defensive-minded Tony Allen to  just 17 minutes. In that game, L.A.’s Eric Bledsoe went off for 13 points, four assists and six rebounds in the decisive fourth quarter.

Del Negro has pushed all the right buttons so far. In Game 1, he went to little-used power forward Ronny Turiaf instead of Ryan Hollins and it paid off. In Game 2, Crawford accounted for half the scoring, but the Clippers got five assists and 15 rebounds from the bench.

“I have confidence in all of our guys,” Del Negro said. “I have no hesitation putting them in if I feel they can help us.”

And that’s included Lamar Odom throughout the season. Although Odom’s 3-point and free throw shooting has been abysmal, he’s rewarded Del Negro in other ways. He had seven rebounds in Game 1, more than burly big men Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol combined. There was his fourth-quarter sequence in Game 2 that included a defensive rebound and long outlet to Matt Barnes, a leaping swat of Randolph and a terrific bounce pass to the slashing Bledsoe for a dunk.

An all-reserve second unit changed the momentum of Game 2 in the second quarter and opened the fourth quarter on an 8-0 to build a double-digit lead.

“With the depth of the Clippers’ bench, we have to match them offensively as well as do a decent job on them defensively,” Hollins said. “But we can’t go out there and not score and give up eight, 10 points in a row. Then they can’t be out there for long as a group.”

And they weren’t. Hollins got all five starters back out there early in the fourth quarter to battle, in a rare occurrence, the Clippers’ five subs.

It’s a predicament the Grizzlies must solve in a hurry.

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