Analysis ｜ Evolution of ＂Death Five Small＂ Tactics？ ＂Space Basketball＂ defeated the Sun and Bucks.

(The original text was published on May 16th by John Hollinger, a senior writer of The Athletic. The content of the article does not represent the translator’s point of view. )

Okay, so … What now?

Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns met in the finals last year, and both sides are eager to replicate this achievement in June this year. Unfortunately, contrary to expectations, in Sunday’s tiebreak, they lost to their respective opponents, and entered the offseason with some lingering team structure problems.

In a way, this is perfectly normal. The reality of NBA is that almost every team will end a season with more or less disappointment, and at the same time expose their weaknesses in a striking way. For various reasons, four teams have ended their strong performance this season in the past few days; The other 20 teams are eager to find their own problems.

Unfortunately, "Let’s make a comeback and be eliminated in the second round of the playoffs again" is not a slogan that can really unite the team to fight. The better the state of a team, the higher the bet people will give it; Once it wins the championship (just like the bucks), the goal will immediately become to win a few more times. Under this expectation, if it only wins 50 games in the regular season and then loses to the championship-seeking opponent after a difficult series, it will feel like a complete failure.

So, let’s not overreact to the game that just ended. Bucks still have the alphabet brother, and the Sun still has Booker, Paul and Ayton (we think so). They’ll rally.

However, both teams have a common shortcoming in the playoffs that may become a hidden danger in the future: they can’t cope with the lineups that have fully opened up the space. This is not so much a "small ball" as a "space ball".

In space basketball, what matters is not the size of the players on the court, but the position where they stand. The lone ranger arranged five pitchers with three-point ability on the outside line, which made the inside line guarded by Gaubert and Ayton empty, which is the embodiment of space basketball; On the other hand, Bucks pursued the defensive concept of giving priority to protecting the basket, but were finally defeated by Grant Williams’ three-point rain, which is also the embodiment of space basketball.

The tactics of the playoffs have been evolving rapidly, and its latest version is like this: five players are discharged from the perimeter, and the defense is changed when the defense is covered. If the opponent can’t easily cooperate with the defense, he will play alone, relying on a large number of open three-pointers and shots at the basket to score. Forget the pick-and-roll tactics, it’s more like the "pick-and-run" tactics. The team playing space basketball may create an opponent’s change of defense through cover, but the way they decide to play is to let the cover run away quickly after cover and fall back along the three-point line, while the bearer plays singles.

Other coaches may have tried this tactic occasionally, but the real turning point for space basketball was the Clippers-Jazz series a year ago. At that time, the Clippers didn’t have the super giant forward leonard, but their talent overflowed on the guard line, and their coach Tyrone Lu used this trick to weaken Gaubert’s defensive ability. His strategy worked wonders. The Clippers fought back and defeated the Jazz when they were 25 points behind in Game 6.

Space basketball is a step further on the basis of the Warrior’s well-known "five small deaths" tactics, because it relies on five such players: they can block the opponent’s three-pointers by changing their defenses frequently, and create a lot of shooting opportunities for themselves by passing the ball quickly. The reason why the Warriors’ small lineup works is that they have the best three-point shooter in history; In contrast, the reason why space basketball works is that every point in the lineup has a three-point threat.

Let’s see how different the three-point data are between different teams in the first two rounds. Dallas and Boston ranked first and second in the playoff three-point shooting frequency list, and second and third in limiting opponents’ three-point shooting. Throughout the playoffs, Dallas averaged 12.9 more 3-pointers per 100 rounds, while Boston averaged 11.0 more.

Let’s take a look at the data of the single-round series, which is incredible. Utah Jazz led the league in three-point shooting frequency in the regular season, but in the six-game series against Dallas, they shot 72 three-points less than the lone ranger and hit 44 less. In the series against Phoenix, the lone ranger shot 83 more three-pointers and hit 33 more than the Suns in seven games. At the same time, the Celtics hit almost twice as many three-pointers as the Bucks (110 to 57) in seven games in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Suns, Bucks and Jazz all want to use the traditional No.5 player to deal with space basketball. In contrast, the Nets sent three small guards to Boston in the first round. It seems strange that their efforts were swept away instead of being rewarded. However, the core problem of Brooklyn’s eccentric lineup is their lack of big strikers who can match Boston’s space strikers.

Bucks tried to limit the Celtics with a large lineup, which worked well in the first five games-Bucks protected the basket impenetrably, and yannis took the heavy responsibility on the offensive end. The Sun’s strategy is the same. They once took a 3-2 lead and saw the hope that Dancsics was exhausted. However, Phoenix lost 60 points in the last two games. The deeper the series goes, the greater the advantages of space basketball in Boston and Dallas.

The data of a single player can better reveal this trend. In the series against Boston, when Brooke Lopez was present, the Bucks lost 19.2 points to the Celtics on average every 100 rounds, and even let their opponents shoot 47.1 three points on average every 100 rounds. At the same time, when Maxi Kleber was present, Dallas averaged 46.9 three-point shots per 100 rounds, but limited the opponent’s data to 28.1.

Of course, my discussion of the problem is a little too focused on three points; Both Dallas and Boston have top talented players like Dancsics and Tatum as the offensive core. In Sunday’s game and even throughout the playoffs, the lone ranger and Celtic’s individual defense were excellent, which was also a key factor for their victory.

But it is important that most of these advantages should be attributed to their space basketball lineup. This allows the Celtics and the Lone Rangers to deploy a number of elite 3D flankers on the field, changing their defenses indefinitely on the defensive end, and none of them will be targeted by the opponent’s pick-and-roll tactics. Five years ago, I thought Kleber was a German small forward (coincidentally, he had a teammate named Devon Booker at that time). As a result, he has been playing as a center for most of this year’s playoffs, playing against 2018 No.1 scholar Ayton and giant Gaubert in two series.

For other teams, the loss of Suns and Bucks on Sunday also seems to provide some enlightenment on the idea of team building.

Do you think the center is out of date now? Wait and see. Gaubert is one of the most valuable players in the league’s regular season in the past few years, but his space basketball tactics, like those of the Clippers a year ago, make him useless. It’s not that Gaubert is dying; It’s just that he can no longer suppress today’s opponents’ offensive firepower on the outside. Even in the absence of Dancsics, the lone ranger defeated the Jazz twice with space basketball.

In the Western Conference semifinals, the situation of Ayton and his substitute Mackey is similar to that of Gaubert. Ironically, the Suns lost last year’s finals because they didn’t have enough high-quality big players, and lost this year’s series because they didn’t have enough outside players who could fight space basketball. Cameron Johnson is the only outstanding player in the Sun Array who is between 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 meters) and 6 feet 11 inches (2.11 meters). When they tried to play a small lineup without the traditional center, their players were too short. (For the second year in a row, it might be helpful for Dario saric to play. )

Similarly, Boston mercilessly exposed the limitations of bucks in the face of space basketball. This began with Horford’s performance of scoring 30 points in the fourth game of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Horford stood outside, waiting for Lopez to stay away from him; It was so effective that in Game 7 of the series, the Bucks turned to Lopez to guard Grant Williams. He and Derek White got countless open three-pointer opportunities in G7, and the Celtics team made 55 three-pointers and cooked the Bucks with a fiery touch.

It turns out that space basketball is not a bad defensive strategy, especially when you have the right striker. This is very difficult for its opponents. Grant Williams played as a center in college and has much better inside defense ability than his height of 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 meters). This is due to his developed upper body muscles and strong lower limb strength. Horford is big enough to fight yannis-he often defends well-even Lopez.

So what does this mean for Milwaukee and Phoenix? Do they dare to just stay the same and expect to play better next year? Or did this playoff show some flaws in their lineup?

In the playoffs, neither the Suns nor the Bucks can play space basketball, nor can they limit space basketball. The best way for Bucks to deal with it is to put yannis in the fifth position and send Bobby Potis and Lopez to play at the same time. However, there are not enough high-quality perimeter players in Bucks, so such a lineup is not a long-term solution. Obviously, if Middleton can return, things will get better. )

Compared with last year, we can find that: especially after the loss of striker PJ Tucker, the Bucks’ perimeter players are not suitable for implementing space basketball tactics. Now, Miami’s lineup is more suitable for the space basketball system, and Tucker, as one of them, is about to play Boston in the regional finals. When Bam Adebayor is not on the court, the Heat may let Tucker play the role of center.

Another problem with space basketball is that it requires you to have five excellent perimeter players instead of two or three, which requires your team to have a very deep lineup-which is often rare in the playoffs. Bucks finally paid the price because they had to rely on George Hill and Grayson Allen. The Sun tried to re-enable Tory Craig, and the result was disastrous in the G7 with the lone ranger.

This brings our eyes to the offseason. Ayrton is about to sign a new contract as a restricted free agent. And if Bucks want to get some players who are suitable for space basketball under the condition of limited salary space, Lopez is probably their most useful bargaining chip. Bucks and suns reached the finals last year, and they are also quite persistent in their current lineup. But now it seems that if they don’t make some changes, they will be at a tactical disadvantage in the future playoffs.

Space basketball may also influence the decisions of other teams. For example, if you are a grizzly bear and want to play space basketball in the playoffs, it will make you feel much better to send little Jia Lun Jackson at the fifth position instead of a traditional center. If you are the Nets, it seems absurd to rely on drummond and Aldridge to avenge last year. What the Nets need is their own Tucker, Kleber or Williams.

Finally, the whole league will participate in the draft draw in Chicago this week. People will wonder what this means to space basketball strikers. For example, from some angles, players like David Roddy of Colorado State University or EJ liddell of Ohio State University may be unpopular choices, but they may play an important role as forward players in space basketball.

Of course, according to the progress of the next two rounds of series, the trend described in this paper may still change. However, at present, it seems that the main reason why last year’s finals team lost this weekend is that they can’t compete with space basketball tactically. Space basketball is the most important thing in the 2022 playoffs, and it may also bring new stories to the offseason in 2022.

Original: John Hollinger

Compile: asteroid falling