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<\/a><\/p>\nA lot of the damage can be squashed by simply eliminating paint touches. If the Bulls can cut down on the number of times opposing offenses get to the rim, they inherently won\u2019t have to go into rotation \u2014 effectively nipping the problem in the bud. <\/p>\n
The first 76ers bucket of the game is a simple pick-and-roll between James Harden and Joel Embiid. Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2014\u00a0this is one of the most difficult actions to defend in the entire league. But it shouldn\u2019t be this easy for them: <\/p>\n
From there, a cascade of breakdowns occurs, and it becomes harder and harder to defend as the offense moves the ball around the perimeter.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, when the ball is coming down hill at the basket, right, generally, you\u2019re going to be put into some rotations,\u201d Billy Donovan said prior to the game on Saturday night. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got to be a big help team. And we\u2019ve got to protect the paint. Because when we don\u2019t protect the paint, you\u2019re giving up rim drives, you\u2019re giving up fouls and you\u2019re giving up corner threes.\u201d <\/p>\n
It\u2019s going to be impossible to keep Embiid out of the post, especially when you have to stay home on James Harden so he doesn\u2019t kill you on step-back threes. <\/p>\n
So when you bring the big, in this case Nikola Vucevic to the level of the screen to cut off the drive, you have a tradeoff. Embiid gets a nice pocket pass here, and instead of letting him get downhill, both Alex Caruso and DeMar DeRozan step over to help. <\/p>\n
The 76ers see this coming and clear out the corner with a well-timed hammer screen action that gives Tyrese Maxey an open corner three. <\/p>\n
Hammer action<\/p>\n
Plays like these are tough to defend \u2014\u00a0you\u2019re basically asking your defense to be two steps ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re dealing with a team that\u2019s staying stationary, it\u2019s a lot easier to close out,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cBut if you have people moving and cutting at the same point, you have to recognize and realize what\u2019s getting ready to happen kind of before it happens, where help is coming from and where you have to rotate. <\/p>\n
Again, the Bulls won\u2019t be perfect, but they do need to be better at executing more manageable rotations, such as double teams out of the post. Most teams don\u2019t have a low block scoring machine. But against a team that does, like the 76ers, you don\u2019t have a choice. <\/p>\n
When the help comes, usually from either the baseline, or in this case, from the top, the rest of the group has to sink into the paint and be ready to defend three-on-four. <\/p>\n
Double the post<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what ultimately happens is we\u2019re having to close back out,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got to have a better awareness when we are helping, where is our man, what is going on and then how do we move from there. And there\u2019s been times where we get caught in some two-way stunts. We get caught not seeing where our guy\u2019s going, we lose vision sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulls won\u2019t be perfect every time, no one is. But they have it in them. And when they finally did start executing, it got them back into the game.<\/p>\n
Good executions<\/p>\n
The Bulls held the 76ers to 4-for-9 in the second half from beyond the arc, which got them back into the game. The percentage allowed is still too high, but limiting attempts is a much better indicator of team defense. <\/p>\n
And it can come down to good offense beating good defense. That\u2019s what happened at the end of the game, when Embiid knocked down the go ahead three on a pick-and-pop with Harden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did everything we wanted to do,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cThe hard part is if you leave the coverage too early, you\u2019ve got Harden coming straight down hill. Vooch did a good job, we tried to get back to him. He knocked down the three so give him credit. But there wasn\u2019t anything that our guys, no blown assignment or missed assignment on that, no.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chasing perfection on defense may seem futile, but you have to try. And while some of these opponent shooting numbers will come down to Earth because math, they do need to be a lot better in their execution or they will continue to fall into these vicious holes early on in games.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Ayo Dosunmu (neck) and Andre Drummond (shoulder) out for the game, it wasn\u2019t a stretch to think…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-789260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}