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Ty Lawson

Speed Kills

by Jared Wade on January 26, 2011 at 4:24 pm · 3 comments

The Pacers have one of the fastest point guards in the league. Both of Darren Collison’s parents were world-class track and field sprinters, and the acorn didn’t fall far, so to speak. The kid has wheels.

Since joining the Pacers, however, Darren has not always been able to turn his best physical asset into points for himself and others. We know that early in the year Collison was struggling to bring the ball up-court properly in accordance with Jim O’Brien’s fast break strategy. Other times it has seemed that he has been unsure when to push it in transition and when to slow it down to set up the offense, leading to hesitant decision-making. And even within the half-court scheme, he hasn’t been able to use his quickness with the ball to blow by defenders and finish or kick out to shooters as much as I figured he would.

To his credit, he has looked mightily improved in all these areas over the past month — something that should be expected to continue as he becomes more comfortable on this team and within this system. Further, it is probably something that DC will improve even more noticeably as he ages.

That’s a philosophy Doc Rivers and Ty Lawson subscribe to anyway. Lawson recently sat down to talk about it with Rashad Mobley of the Wizards blog Truth About It, which is not only perhaps the best blog in the TrueHoop Network but one of the very best on the whole information superhighway.

Rashad Mobley: When the Celtics were in town on Saturday, Doc Rivers talked about how difficult it is for young point guards to know when to use their speed to their advantage. That’s something you’ve seemingly had no trouble with since you’ve been in the league, and you used to your advantage tonight too, how have you been so effective with that?

Ty Lawson: I just take the time to read the defenses, and then decided what speed to use from there. You can’t just go full speed all the time, that’s how you get hurt and that’s how you get charging fouls. You have to know when someone is behind, are the shooters in place in front of you, and then decide what gear to use.

Mobley: How has Chauncey helped you with that?

Lawson: Well he plays slow as hell, so he’s helped me understand the benefit of doing that every now and then. That’s not really my game, but I have an appreciation for it, and I know it’s necessary, especially in the playoffs when the game slows. But I do see how he comes off screens, how he bumps the guard, and then gets off, so I’d definitely say he’s smart about his speed, but he likes it slow.

Mobley: Do you think staying at North Carolina three years helped you perfect how you use speed in your game?

Lawson: Actually the way Roy [Williams] wanted it at Carolina was just straight up speed. No slowing it down, no jogging, just straight speed all the time. That’s no knock on Roy, but I just learned more from Chauncey.

Mobley: What did you think of John Wall’s ability to switch speeds tonight?

Lawson: You know, honestly, he’s all one speed right now, and that speed is blinding. I mean, literally, I had to sprint a couple times to get back, and I still was behind him, and he had the ball and I didn’t. It’ll probably take him his whole rookie year and the summer to truly learn, because he’s not that far removed from high school. Next year, he’ll be killing folks.

Hopefully that “next year, he’ll be killing folks” line will also apply to Darren Collison.

Fast don’t lie, as you may have heard — and that would be Chang that Pacers fans could get behind.

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Game #3 Preview: The One Where The Pacers Try Not to Get Smacked in the Mouth by Melo

by Jared Wade on November 3, 2009 at 6:10 pm · 0 comments

Denver Nuggets @ Indiana Pacers
Conseco Fieldhouse
7:00 PM EST

I’ve watched all three of Denver’s wins so far this year, and with the possible exceptions of Orlando and Boston, they have been the best team in the NBA through one week. Carmelo is leading the league in scoring (37.7 ppg), PER (36.4) and free throws made per game (12.0). Sample size, sure, but the Pacers are not particularly great at stopping people from (1) scoring, (2) being efficient, or (3) getting to the line. So fans are right to be a little concerned when the first-week MVP steps into the building.

And it’s not just Carmelo that Indy needs to worry about. As a team, the Nuggets lead the league in two of the offensive four factors (TO% and FT/FGA) and rank behind only Orlando in offensive rating. For those who don’t care about the numbers, they’ve just been absolute beasts on offense with Nene and Kenyon Martin both looking aggressive and healthy, Billups and Ty Lawson running the team, and well-nicknamed role players Birdman (Chris Anderson) and Spell Check (Arron Afflalo) fitting in well throughout their three victories (at home vs. Utah, @Portland then back home vs. Memphis). Their perimeter defenders aren’t anything to be overly concerned with despite Melo’s commitment to that side of the ball and Chauncey’s solid play, so Granger, Rush, Head and TJ should be able to score as long as they’re hitting shots. But other than Carmelo dropping 45+, the Pacers really need to be worried about stopping Nene, Martin and Birdman from getting easy hoops in the paint.

Given how good the Nuggets have looked and how bad the Pacers have looked, there’s not really a ton else to say. If Indy can pull it off, it would be a nice feather in their cap before they head off to play the Knicks in Madison Square Garden tomorrow. And if Indy can’t pull it off, that will be expected and they will then go look for their first win on the second night of a home/road back-to-back against a feisty-yet-not-overwhelmingly-talented New York team in what promises to be a high-octane shootout between Jim O’Brien’s three-point friendly system and D’Antoni’s Seven Seconds or Less army.

I would personally feel a whole lot better about the whole start of this season if they could find a way to pull off a W this evening. So, yeah, do that, please.

Not So Fun Fact of the Game: Tonight, it comes from the Yahoo game preview, which informs us that “Denver has won eight of 10 meetings dating back to Jan. 29, 2005, including four of five at Conseco Fieldhouse.” I mean, the rosters are pretty different so I’m not really sure why I should care. But I still don’t like it.

(FYI, these previews will improve from the standpoint of stats and the like going forward. Still figuring out how exactly we want to lay things out and what else to include. And, oh yeah, we’ll start getting them up earlier. Bear with me for the next week or so.)

carmelo slam

Lang Whitaker and company chose Carmelo for the cover of their November NBA season kick-off issue. Nice call, fellas.

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The Summer Losses: Rasho Nesterovic

by Jared Wade on October 26, 2009 at 8:49 pm · 0 comments

Rasho Nesterovic joined the Pacers for one primary purpose: his contract allowed the Pacers to trade of Jermaine O’Neal for TJ Ford and the draft pick that would become Roy Hibbert. Sure, Larry Bird had to be happy to convince Bryan Colangelo to insert a serviceable, professional veteran like Rasho as the financial piece needed to get the deal done under the CBA, but it’s hard to believe that the 7′ Slovenian was ever seen as anything but a one-year, fill-in center for rent.

And when he struggled with injury in the first week of the season, it started to look like even “serviceable” tag might be in jeopardy. But as he has done throughout his career, Rasho quickly bounced back. And on the court, he impressed.

In 27 games before the New Year, Rasho put up double-digit points 13 times and shot 53.4% from the field overall. There was no mistaking that he was 32-years-old and his days of being even a marginal rebounding presence were clearly behind him, but he surprised many fans who hadn’t seen him play since his Spurs days with his midrange shooting and his overall skill-set. Unfortunately, Rasho’s quick early start combined with a lack of other great options up front probably pushed coach Jim O’Brien to overuse the big fella.

By the time January rolled around, his productivity had dropped noticeably and rookie center Roy Hibbert proved unable to pick up the slack. And once Jeff Foster started struggling with injuries of his own, it became clear that the front court was going to be a problem all year.

Looking back, Rasho was a fine player. He always has been. But at 32, he just can’t bring much of what his younger self offered to the table, aside from his soft jumpers and the occasional nifty bucket in the post. Defensively, he has also regressed. It’s not that he has forgotten the fundamental principles he learned from Coach Popovich in San Antonio; it’s just that his mobility no longer allows him to do much besides serve as a physical barricade. At 7′-tall, sure, that was enough to be effective at times, but he was generally a liability next to any big man with any semblance of quickness. Although, on this team, it’s not like he was the only big man guilty of that charge.

That’s how I saw it anyway.

Still, much like the ball, numbers don’t lie. And the stats say that from an objective, numerical standpoint, Rasho will be more difficult to replace than it may seem. Here’s what Indiana lost when Rasho decided to head back up across the border to Toronto:

Rasho Nesterovic in 2008-09

Traditional
PPG – 9th (6.8)
RPG – 8th (3.4)
FG% – 2nd (.513)
BPG – 9th (0.5)

Advanced*
PER – 6th (14.1)
TS% – 8th (.524)
ORtg – 6th (108)
DRtg – 7th (109)
WS – 6th (2.2)
OWS – 7th (1.1)
DWS – 9th (1.1)

* PER – Player Efficiency Rating | TS% – True Shooting Percentage | ORtg – Offensive Rating | DRtg – Defensive Rating | WS – Win Shares | OWS – Offensive Win Shares | DWS – Defensive Win Shares

It says a lot about the talent and depth in this front court that a guy who struggled mightily throughout the second half of the year can rank so high on a team in the advanced stat categories. After the draft in June, I was disappointed that the Pacers opted to address the front court rather than picking an impact guard. Looking at these figures, however, it makes more sense that the interior would be a priority. The catch-22 is that the back court needs a ton of help as well, but if this team is ever going to improve defensively, it is going to need some guys who can man the paint.

Is Tyler Hansbrough such a guy? Until he puts his current shin problems behind him, it remains somewhat moot. But the front office has to be hoping that whatever a rookie like Tyler may lack in savvy and understanding of the NBA game, he will be able to make up for in effort. Roy, too, will need to prove capable of playing more minutes — with the two main factors against him doing such being his conditioning and his inability to stay out of foul trouble. I’m not one to care about preseason trends, but the fact that Hibbert led the entire league in blocks during fake hoops season without spending too, too much time in foul touble has to be somewhat encouraging.

At this point, I think we know what the team is going to get out of Troy Murphy and Jeff Foster. Aside from Danny Granger — who, as crazy as it sounds, still could improve even more — those two veteran big men are the closest thing this roster has to sure things. Sure, it’s certainly possible that Troy won’t quite match the numbers he put up last year, but we generally know what he will provide. And Jeff? Well, he’s Jeff.

So to replace what Rasho provided last year, Coach O’Brien is going to have to look to Tyler and Roy. One would think that a natural sophomore improvement from Hibbert and a youthful exuberance from Hansbrough would come close to doing exactly that. But people are generally too quick to mistake the solid-if-unremarkable contributions of a guy like Rasho with easily replaceable mediocrity.

If Roy is going to become a player that Indy can rely on as a starting center over the next half decade, and if Tyler is a guy who was worth taking over the likes of high-ceiling guards like Jeff Teague and Ty Lawson, then, yeah, what Rasho did last year shouldn’t be that hard to replace. But if either of those things doesn’t prove true, then the 09-10 Pacer front court might be even more of a problem than the one fans had to watch last season.

And if that’s the case, it might be time to just cross your fingers and hope Solomon Jones can translate some of that athleticism into basketball talent.