Click here for others in the series.

Bulls Offense

Because spiderwebs operate on percentages of totals, and because Chicago hit a ridiculous 8-for-15 from three point range in Spot Ups, the visual on the chart above wasn’t as striking as I was hoping it would be.  Therefore, I’ll need to direct you to look past the big spike in Spot Ups, and once more at the PnR ballhandler.

Last night, the Chicago Bulls scored 116 points and posted an offensive efficiency of over 124.   They got 15 points out of 13 PnR Ball Handler plays, or about 1.15 PPP.  In the two games in Conseco, their offensive efficiency was less than 99 points per 100.  Take a look at the spiderweb for those games:

From the Game 4 Spiderwebs:

In two games at Conseco Fieldhouse, the Pacers’ defense has completely choked off Chicago’s use of the PnR Ball Handler.  The Bulls have only been able to finish this 22 times, and in those 22 times, only scored five (5) points, or 0.23 PPP.  Couple that with the reduced damage by the Bulls on their offensive glass (31% in Indy vs. 45% in Chicago), and the Pacers have been able to hold the Bulls Offense to less than a point per possession.

Clearly, the Pacers were unable to sustain their defensive success in Game 5.  It’s fair to question whether success against the PnR Ball Handler is a leading or trailing indicator, but future opponents of the Chicago Bulls may want to consider the two spiderwebs to follow.

In Games 1 and 5, Chicago got 13% of their plays out of the PnR Ball Handler and scored 1.18 PPP on them.  They won both games, posting offensive efficiencies of 122.6 and 124.4, respectively.

In Games 2, 3, & 4 of the series, Chicago again got 13% of their plays out of the PnR Ball Handler, but only managed 0.36 PPP.  Their offensive efficiency dropped to 102.0, 102.4, and 97.0, respectively.  They still won two of the three games, but easily could have lost all three.

It’s a small sample size, so it’s far from definitive.  Take it for what it’s worth.

For reference, here is the series-to-date spiderweb for the Chicago Offense.

Pacers Offense

Over the course of this series, the Pacers have managed only 101.4 points per 100.  However, if you take out Game 1 — which featured a fluky Pacer shooting performance — that drops to 97.8.

I lifted that last sentence almost verbatim from the Game 4 Spiderwebs, updating only the numbers to include Game 5.  Why?  Because it’s basically the offensive story of the series (and maybe overall) for the Pacers.  The Bulls have a great defense, the Pacers have – at best – a mediocre offense.  Put the two together, and…

Where the defense was encouraging in this series, the offense was thoroughly discouraging.  Danny Granger (21.6 ppg, .522 eFG%) picked up his game, and an argument could be made that Danny’s performance in a 1-4 losing series with these kind of offensive numbers only serves to underscore that he cannot carry a playoff team.  The big problems will need a more thorough and lengthy discussion, which we will have later, but we can touch on them now.

First, as I mentioned in the last spiderwebs (and ad nauseum elsewhere), the Pacers have no “offense.”  Which is to say that they do not have a system and playbook with a coherent flow of options.  With the exception of a few vestiges of the O’Brien’s thoroughly failed motion offense, almost everything is an incredibly simplistic one-option set.  You can do this if (a) you have execution of merciless precision or (b) you have talent that can overwhelm the defense.  The Pacers have neither, and Vogel or his replacement will have to find a happy medium between the overly complicated O’Brien offense and the crudely primitive offense run over the last three months.  One that will perform much better than either.

Second, the Pacers have no reliable post presence.  To be specific neither Roy Hibbert nor Tyler Hansbrough were capable of being the “hub of the wheel,” and honestly, I don’t think either ever will be.  Hansbrough came a long way this year, but he will always be undersized, and that will always be a detriment to his back-to-the-basket game.

Hibbert, well, we’ve talked about before.  In the Chicago series, the Pacers got 46 plays out of the post, scoring 39 points and turning the ball over seven times.  Twenty nine of those plays were to Roy, but only 17 points came out of those 29 plays.  In the 17 non-Hibbert post opportunities – mostly Danny and Tyler – the Pacers scored 22 points.  Roy was responsible for four of the seven turnovers.

Limiting the offensive issues to these two items is reductionist, but as we go into the summer, it’s an area of significant concern for the Pacers.  They’ll need a better plan of attack, more offensive firepower, or probably both if they want anything more than moral victories in future playoffs.

In any case, I’ll once again leave you with the series-to-date spiderwebs for the Pacer Offense.

Please see Jared’s recap for a full discussion of Game 5.

Click here for others in the series.

Bulls Offense

I’d described the spiderwebs from Game 3 as “funky,” but maybe “revealing” would have been more accurate for Chicago’s offense — and what the Pacers defense has done to it.  In addition to the Game 4 spiderweb above, let’s take a look at some other visuals, focusing on the PnR Ball Handler in each.

First, the full year for Chicago’s offense:

Now, the first two games played in the United Center:

In those first two games in Chicago, the Bulls scored an average of almost 112 points per 100 possessions.  However, it can (and should) be parsed down even further.  In Game 1, the Bulls scored a ridiculous 123 per 100 – and the spiderweb looked like this:

Game 2 was a different story.  After experimenting with Paul George on Derrick Rose in the second half of Game 1, the Pacers committed to it fully.  The Bulls still won, but their offensive efficiency dropped to 102 per 100.  The spiderweb for Game 2:

You see that in Game 1, the Bulls were both effective and efficient in using the PnR Ball Handler, averaging 1.20 PPP.  In Game 2, they ran more plays (20 vs. 15), but were less efficient, scoring only 0.50 PPP.  Now look at what happened when the series move to Indy:

In two games at Conseco Fieldhouse, the Pacers’ defense has completely choked off Chicago’s use of the PnR Ball Handler.  The Bulls have only been able to finish this 22 times, and in those 22 times, only scored five (5) points, or 0.23 PPP.  Couple that with the reduced damage by the Bulls on their offensive glass (31% in Indy vs. 45% in Chicago), and the Pacers have been able to hold the Bulls Offense to less than a point per possession.

In the three games since the Paul George adjustment, the Bulls offense has been able to score only 100.5 points per 100 possessions.  And it’s in these three games resides several pieces of damning evidence against the Chicago Bulls, and that evidence makes it almost impossible for me to take the Bulls seriously as title contenders this year.

• Danny Granger was right …when he said, “Chicago, they go as Derrick Rose goes.” If you make a concerted effort to stop Derrick Rose, you have a better chance to beat them.”  With Derrick Rose on the floor in this series, the Bulls post an offensive efficiency of 106.  With Derrick Rose on the bench, it’s less than 84.  In a series where the total point differential is only 10 points, the Bulls are +20 with Rose on the floor.

• Danny Granger was right … when he said, “Boston’s a different monster. They don’t have the best record in the East, but they won championships; they know how to do it. They have four, five guys you have to worry about.”  It has become readily apparent that this Chicago Bulls team is just not ready to enforce their claim on being the best team in either the East or the Association.  They have been caught up in silly things (specifically, Jeff Foster), and they seemingly keep waiting for the easy series that everyone (including me) expected.  The point where this became obvious was in the third quarter of Game 2.  After Darren Collison went down with an ankle sprain late in the second quarter, the Bulls had gone on a 23-7 run and led the Pacers 59-52.  It’s at this point that a team like the Celtics would have broken a team like the Pacers.  It’s when Chicago could have – and should have – broken Indiana.  Instead, they let up, and Chicago hasn’t led by as many as seven points since.  And by doing that, the Bulls have shown the rest of the East how to shut them down.

• Carlos Boozer is a major source of concern. Boozer needs to be a reliable and dangerous second option for Chicago, and he’s been anything but.  In his 136 minutes, he’s posted a miserable .375 eFG% and a TS% of only .433 on his way to a meager 12 points per game.  His turnover percentage is over 20, and it’s impossible to class his performance as anything kinder than disappointing.

• Tom Thibodeau has not adjusted well … or possibly, at all.  When Thibodeau was hired last summer, I had made a tweet asking if anyone besides me thought that Thibs might fail spectacularly.  At the time, I was caught up in watching another high-functioning assistant (Mike Brown) fail, and I wondered if Thibodeau was at risk because he was so singularly associated with his defensive specialty.  I was largely proven wrong over the course of the season, but the playoffs have not been his finest hour.  After Vogel made his adjustment to defend Rose, Thibodeau responded with…nothing.  Chicago’s offense – outside of Derrick Rose carving up the defense – consists largely of players like Deng, Korver, and Bogans hitting open threes or high degree of difficulty long twos.  Not exactly a time-tested recipe for success in the playoffs.

Chicago’s defense is still very strong, and both Boston (offense) and Miami (inside game) are flawed teams, so it’s still possible that they could  get out of the East.  And, as always, match ups can make a world of difference – it’s unclear as to whether anyone else can use the Pacers’ blueprint.

But…right now…the 2010-2011 Chicago Bulls look far too one-dimensional and flawed to my eyes for me to think of them as contenders for a title.

For reference, here is the series-to-date spiderweb for the Chicago Offense.

Pacers Offense

While the Bulls’ spiderwebs show a distinct pattern over the course of the series, the ones for the Pacers show almost none, and that fits pretty well with the fact that they don’t really have an “offense” installed.

Over the course of this series, the Pacers have managed only 103.6 points per 100.  However, if you take out Game 1 — which featured a fluky Pacer shooting performance — that drops to 98.7.

Their half-court offense has been largely ineffective.  The Pacers have scored 62 points on 50 plays in transition, or 1.24 PPP.  In their 383 plays in the half court, they’ve managed on 0.84 PPP.  If you remove the seldom-used Cuts and Screens that are the last remnants of their old motion offense, it drops to 0.77 PPP.

The Pacers have been competitive in this series — and remain alive — because of success at the defensive end.  They are down 3-1, because they cannot consistently generate offense.  Truth be told, if not for the relatively impressive job Danny Granger has done of stepping up his performance (22 ppg, 52.0% eFG%, 24.1 PER vs. regular season figures of 20.5, 48.7%, and 17.8), this series would have been comfortably won by Chicago, in spite of the Pacer defensive performance.

In any case, I’ll once again leave you with the series-to-date spiderwebs for the Pacer Offense.

Please see Jared’s recap for a full discussion of Game 4.

Click here for others in the series.

Bulls Offense

Today’s spiderwebs are funky – for both teams.  For Chicago, three things must be pointed out.

First, you see that the Bulls had a lot of success in Spot Ups andOff Screen plays, where they scored 36 of their 88 points.  This is where you see the damage done by Luol Deng, Kyle Korver, and Keith Bogans.  The three combined for 42 points on .672 eFG%, and the vast majority came out of these sets.

Second, through the first two games, the Bulls had gotten about 12% of their offensive plays out of Offensive Rebounds, but that dropped to only 6% Thursday night.  Defensive rebounding was a focus for the Pacers, and they were able to hold Chicago to 27% ORB after allowing almost 46% in the first two games.  Rookie Paul George’s 12 boards led the way here.

Finally, it is impossible to look at this spiderweb and not comment on how breathtakingly effective Indiana was at defending the ball handler in the PnR.  They had been solid in the first two games, allowing only 0.80 PPP on 36 plays, but last night — wow.  The Bulls scored 2 points in 11 plays, going 0-for-6 from the floor and turning the ball over four times.   Derrick Rose had five of the six misses and three of the four turnovers.

Much of the credit in these sets goes to the overall approach designed by Pacer interim coach Frank Vogel.  The Pacer bigs showed aggressively on all screens, while Paul George went under screens and used his length and athleticism to recover effectively.  The most impressive play came in the first half when Rose seemingly broke free and attacked the rim, only to have George slide through the middle of the defense and emerge at the rim to reject Rose’s shot.  It was eerily reminiscent of watching a German U-Boat stalk – and  sink – a transport ship.

In Game 1, the Pacers scored about as well as they can.  In Game 3, the Pacers defended about as well as they’re capable, and probably better than you could expect from anyone not hailing from Boston or Chicago.  It’s depressing that both came up losses.

For reference, here is the series-to-date spiderweb for the Chicago Offense.

Pacers Offense

As I said above, the spiderwebs for both teams are funky.  In Indiana’s case, it underscores both how valuable transition opportunities are to them, and just how inept their half court game is.

The Pacers scored 20 of their 84 points on 14 plays in transition, or 1.43 PPP.  In their other 92 offensive plays, they average 0.70 PPP (64 points), posted an eFG% of .313, and coughed up the ball 11 times.  Take out the success in Off Screens and Cuts, and it just plain ugly.

Over the course of my many previews and other posts for this series, I have continually come back to the need for some kind of post game.  After Game 2, I wrote the following:

However, the post is still a big problem.   Again, the Pacers were able to only get seven (7)  of their 105 plays out of the post, and those were largely a disaster.  They generated only four points and two turnovers.  In Roy Hibbert’s five post plays, he was 1-for-4 with a turnover.  That’s simply not enough.

Well, after getting only 14 plays finishing in the post in the first two games, the Pacers got 12 in Game 3.  Regrettably, they were mostly disasters.  They scored 8 points on 4 of 11 shooting with a turnover.  In the series so far, the Pacers post play has generated only 21 of Indiana’s 273 points on 9 of 21 shooting with three turnovers.

The Pacers’ main post option — Roy Hibbert — has scored 14 of those points.  He’s hit only five of his 13 post shots, while turning it over twice.  He played all 12 first quarter minutes in Game 1, scoring eight points and pulling down five rebounds.  In the next 11 quarters of the series, he’s scored 17 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, and the Pacers have been outscored by 25 points  in the 65 minutes he’s been on the floor.  (Conversely, the Pacers have outscored the Bulls by 6 points in the 67 minutes he’s been on the bench over the same 11 quarters.)

So, I was somewhat taken aback when I read Mike Well’s Insider piece this morning:

“I’m not getting (the ball) where I want it,” he said. “I don’t want to shoot jump shots. I want to get it in the paint, get it on the block. We’re running other stuff.”

Wells added:

There were a couple times Thursday where you could tell he was frustrated because he wasn’t getting touches.

Amazing.  Here’s Hibbert’s shot chart from last night’s game.

Look, Hibbert did not get frozen out by his teammates, and the game plan didn’t go away from him.  His usage rate was just under 30%, which is extremely high.  He had opportunities, and he failed to convert them.  Alex Yovanovich highlighted the concerns that Roy’s play has raised more completely than I can here, but at this point, Hibbert does not appear to be built for the playoffs.

In a series full of Pacer surprises — mostly pleasant — Roy’s play has probably been the only thing besides Derrick Rose’s ability to get to the line that has gone according to what I expected.  Physically, he is just not strong enough to get and hold position.  As a result, he does a very poor job of “presenting himself” for the entry pass.

Mentally…well, I have opinions that I’m grossly unqualified to state, but we’ll leave those out.  One thing that I think most will agree from watching him is that he’s incredibly indecisive.  Almost every time he gets the ball in the post, it’s as if he’s funneling requests for decisions through a bloated and overworked bureaucracy.  On more than one occasion last night, he received the ball on the block —unguarded — after getting a baseline screen, then waited for the defense to come to him before he made any kind of move.

If you cannot make a decision, one will be made for you — and you will rarely like it.

Youth is an easy excuse here, but it’s one I reject out of hand.  I have a hard time giving Hibbert a pass on his performance when three players – Paul George, Darren Collison, and Tyler Hansbrough — who combined entered this season with fewer minutes played than Roy had by himself are finding ways to overcome their personal struggles and still contribute meaningfully to the Pacers’ Playoff effort.  He needs to tell this story walkin’.

However, the Pacers have one more guaranteed crack at knocking off the Bulls on Saturday afternoon at Conseco.  Go back and look through these spiderwebs, and you’ll find that Frank Vogel and his squad have practically thrown the kitchen sink at Chicago, and still can’t get a win.  Maybe in Game 4, we’ll see if there’s anything left to hurl.

In any case, I’ll once again leave you with the series-to-date spiderwebs for the Pacer Offense.

Please see Jared’s recap for a full discussion of Game 3.

Click here for others in the series.

Bulls Offense

The complexion of Monday night’s game was considerably different than Saturday’s.  In the series opener, the two teams combined for a .500 eFG% and 239 points per 100 possessions.  Monday night, these numbers dropped to .434 eFG% and 198 points per 100.   In 18 more possessions, the two teams scored 17 fewer points.

The Bulls’ offense was largely a train wreck.  A good portion of that was due to the Pacer strategy to try to force the ball out of Derrick Rose’s hands — primarily by using rookie Paul George to bother him with his length, coupled with aggressive trapping using McRoberts and Hansbrough.  However, some of Chicago’s wounds were self-inflicted.

There are times where — either by design or defect — Rose gives the ball up too early and too easily, and is not heard from again during the possession.  It also seemed that their first half offensive game plan was more a of fluffing exercise for Carlos Boozer.

The biggest sign of offensive incoherence for the Bulls was the volume of plays classified by Synergy as “Other.”  I generally translate this as, “This play bears no resemblance to any basketball play we’ve seen or heard of.  There may have been drugs and/or alcohol involved.”  There were 14 of these last night for Chicago, or about 12% of their total offense — a little less than twice the normal percentage.  They generated 10 points, but they also generated seven turnovers, or about a third of their total miscues.

Beyond that, the script flipped from Game 1 regarding isolations and PnRs, with Chicago running more PnRs, but scoring more out of isos.  All in all, the more scrambling “Other” plays the Pacers defense can force, the better.  However, last night they “separated” Rose from the offense.

In effect, Indiana forced the Bulls into two offenses:  one where Rose scored, and one where they played without him.  The latter is extremely easy to defend and creates a lot of wasted possessions for Chicago.  The more the Pacers can do this, the less effective the Bulls Offense will be.

For reference, here is the series-to-date spiderweb for the Chicago Offense.

Pacers Offense

There was a dramatic change in the Pacer spiderweb from Game 1 to Game 2, but it’s difficult to tell how much was design, and how much was necessity.  When starting point guard Darren Collison went out with an ankle injury late in the first half, so did much of their iso and PnR-Ballhandler offense.

The offense migrated to the bottom of chart, where the motion-style cuts, off-screens, and spot ups reside.  You can particularly see the activity of Jeff Foster (Cuts) and Mike Dunleavy (Off Screen) here.

But while I agree with mellifluous’ sentiments from the other day (see comments on this post) that the Pacers relied too heavily on isos in the first game, the numbers show that this isn’t a recipe for awesome offense  I (and many others) had predicted a drop off in Pacer shooting, and it happened.  Their eFG% from beyond 15 feet returned to a more normal .442 (Source: Hoopdata), the TOV% almost doubled (.098 to .161), and their offensive efficiency dropped to 95.7.  However, the FT/FGA was back up to a respectable .260.

They’ll have to keep dialing this in.   This spiderweb looks more sustainable and is more similar to Vogel’s regular season offense than Game 1 did.

However, the post is still a big problem.   Again, the Pacers were able to only get seven (7)  of their 105 plays out of the post, and those were largely a disaster.  They generated only four points and two turnovers.  In Roy Hibbert’s five post plays, he was 1-for-4 with a turnover.  That’s simply not enough.

In any case, I’ll leave you with the series-to-date spiderwebs for the Pacer Offense.  I’m off to a sports bar.

Please see Jared’s recap for a full discussion of Game 2.

Click here for others in the series.

Bulls Offense

The Pacers did a better job at defending isolations than you’d expect the team ranked second-to-last in defending them.  Unfortunately, they were hurt badly by Derrick Rose in the PnR (1.20 PPP).

Chicago also was pretty effective in Spot Ups, Cuts, and Transition.  However, the other area that really hurt the Pacers’ defense was offensive rebounding.  The Bulls didn’t have a high conversion rate (0.67 PPP), but the sheer number of opportunities  is damaging.  Chicago grabbed as many offensive rebounds (21) as defensive rebounds collected by the Pacers.

As encouraging as today’s performance was for Indiana, failing to control their defensive glass, in concert with letting Chicago get to the line too often, will only lead to a sweep.

Pacers Offense

The Pacer spiderweb really manifests as a testament as to how well their point guards – especially Darren Collison – played today.  The 1.18 PPP out of  PnR’s was well above their 0.77 full year average.  Indy’s performance in transition was even more impressive, scoring on all nine their plays classified by Synergy in this category.

They were considerably less successful in isolations, and perhaps more disturbingly, only got seven plays out of post action.  The Pacers were outscored 16-1 in the final 3-1/2 minutes,  which is largely indicative of their lack of  a “go-to” play.

We’ve highlighted the post as necessary to any chance of success, and seven plays is simply not enough.  It’s even more concerning when you look at the distribution.  Four were in the first quarter and one in the second.  This patterns Roy Hibbert’s day.  At the end of the first period, Roy Hibbert had 8 points and 5 rebounds.  Over the final three quarters, he added only 3 points and 3 rebounds.

Please see Jared’s recap for a full discussion of Game 1.