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founding
May 17Liked by Adam Taylor

Love the Chuck rebuttal, thanks Adam! The Pritchard action breakdowns are very helpful; I kept seeing Pritchard as the screener, but didn't quite understand all the reasonings/implications.

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Whenever you see a small screener (inverted screen) the primary aim is to switch the screen defender onto the screen reciever. So, if Pritchard screens for Tatum, you hope to switch the guard defender onto Tatum for the mismatch.

There's other ways to exploit this, too -- ghost screens being a prevelant option that removes the need for a switch or mismatch hunting

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May 17Liked by Adam Taylor

The issue is _when_ the Cs iso. I’d be interested if you have data on this, but from my perspective, the 1 in 4 possessions are not sprinkled randomly through the game. They are concentrated at the end of quarters and in the 4th. Their points per possession may be high in iso, but it’s not higher than movement, right? So they are running a less effective offense at the most important time. Or am I wrong?

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I wouldn't say their overall ISO offense is less effective, but I would agree that not all ISO possessions are made the same. The C's slow down their offense in the clutch. That's when the movement stops -- because mismatch hunting via screens can still be classified as movement offense, imo. So those individual, slow the tempo, pound the rock plays - yeah, they come at the most inopportune times, and I get the criticism there. Overall, though, the idea behind the majority of the iso play is logical...

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Great analysis, this is exactly what I want in basketball commentary. Chuck often seems to me to want it both ways with the Celtics--OTOH he wants JT to be a ball hog alpha scorer all the time, and OTOH he wants an everyone-touches-the-ball motion offense. Anyway, I enjoy his presence as on the panel show but those guys do tend to dip into the easy takes sometimes. Do you think the absence of Mitchell made the Cavs no switch defense better/more possible? I'm looking forward to if the Knicks advance and the Brunson situation wrt Knicks defense. I feel like the Pacers would be more able to try what the Cavs did?

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