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Breaking Down The Granger Make

by Tommy Dee on March 16th, 2011 at 1:45 pm

The Pacers do a great job of isolating 4 players on the left side clearing the entire side out for Granger. Williams attempted to make Granger go left initially as he has his shoulders turned and positioned that way. He has to “push up” and force Granger left there. Once Granger knows he can go right he gets in his dribble rhythm. As he goes right, Hibbert tries to seal in the paint and does a great job of not staying in the lane. Jared Jeffries tries to run at Granger, which is the right play, but it’s too late as Granger is already shooting the shot he wants.

That’s poor communication. You can see Billups trying to signal to Fields that he should aggressively show. Fields gets himself in help position if Granger were to head his direction. But because Williams can’t force him towards help, Fields is negated in the play.

Someone has to tell Williams if he gets in an iso situation he has to force him to the weak side where his help is. Moreover, the way the Pacers were positioned, no one was in a position to catch and shoot, so the obvious second guess is that the Knicks should have run at him and forced him to give the ball up, instead of standing around watching a game-winning shot.
  • Anonymous

    enough tommy!! he made a good shot.. we saw it already. we dont need a post dedicated to this shot

    let the pacers blog marinate over this sh**

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Q5WEHNP3JSYWE3ZSFEKLPXLMS4 Nosmo King

    Knicks suck. San Antonio is the only true “team” in the entire NBA. Melo is too concerned about “getting his shots” than winning- he makes some absolutely awful shot decisions. Same for Stods – who wont play defense if it means picking up a foul or expending energy which could adversely affect his PPG. The Knicks fans are now idiots as well – chants of “MVP” for Stods when the team is a couple games over 500 is bizarre and idiotic. MSG used to have the smartest fans and the most overachieving players like Mason, Starks, Oakley and even Ewing – now we have the seats occupied by over paid under knowledged celebs and hedge fund traders with their 8 year old kids in Nate Robinson jerseys, while the floor is occupied by guys who still pay more attention to their stats than wins and losses. MSG is reflective of what has happened in NYC in general (and the entire financial industry) over the past decade+ – individual greed and glory trump team success.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Q5WEHNP3JSYWE3ZSFEKLPXLMS4 Nosmo King

    by the way, I’m a huge Knicks fan and have been for 3 decades – just calling it like I see it

  • Anonymous

    You’re right, Tommy. They HAVE to be screaming “force to help, force to help” as Williams SHOULD be shading hard right hand so they can pinch it, IMO.

    But to quote the coach: “You can’t double in the middle of the floor like that, so you just try to play man; man up and hope he misses.”

    Is it the players?

  • Anonymous

    A lot of people are getting caught up in the fact that Granger wasn’t forced left. But we complain all the time about our players giving up the lane. Also, doubling at the top of the key was not the way to go, the ball would have been kicked to the open man & we all would have been complaining.

    The problem was Shawne, after Granger goes right Shawne dips into the lane for no reason, not only was JJ there to stop a drive attempt, but there was not enough time for granger to get to the basket. Shawne should have been on Grangers hip the whole time ready to contest any shot attempt by Granger, instead he bit on the slightest of fakes & dipped into the lane.

    The coach should take A LOT of blame for this game, this team , but this play was on Shawne. Should’ve been on Grangers hip, in his face.

  • Anonymous

    “But we complain all the time about our players giving up the lane.”

    Not me. Ever. I b*tch about giving baseline. Instead of forcing to the tight side of the court, Granger was played straight up, and when you give a player of his caliber a choice, it’s trouble.

    Would Shawne have ever “dipped” had he forced short side?

    Of course it’s on Shawne, as he did the guarding. But that goes without saying. Is it JUST Shawne? I’m sure we’ll all have the same views that we’ve had prior.

    ETA: If “giving up the lane” means being beat one-on-one on the perimeter, then that’s irrelevant to the topic of end-of-game defensive strategy and should, in no way, be used to position ‘us’ as contrarians.

  • Guest

    Who cares about the last play of the game.47.53 minutes we did not defend.Your breakdown was explained on the post game show.Why no comments on D”antoni?

  • Anonymous

    How do you let him go to his strong hand? Melo was at least forced to his weak hand when he tied the game. Also I don’t know about you but that is where you need a Corey Brewer to defend a perimeter scorer like Granger. I rather have Melo than Shawne Williams guarding Granger on that play, but Mike D had Jeffries guarding star PG’s at the end of games anyway.

  • Anonymous

    4 reasons why D’Antoni should be given a large part of the blame for last night:

    1) Not using our timeouts to break momentum and design a better defense that last minute plus.

    2) Having his worst perimeter defender (williams) guard the only player on the court who was taking their last shot (Granger)

    3) Not demanding the officials replay the Granger basket to get the time correct, I mean who blames him since this hasn’t happened before to this team.

    4) Having Jared Jeffries inbound the ball the final play when everyone on the floor at the time is probably a better decision maker and passer.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CNWZGJGLDEYT5T2LV33D7TYN4A Douglas

    The worst part about this shot is that it never should have come down to it.

  • Anonymous

    No Melo or Amare should have stopped him, Noone else is allowed to be held accountable.

  • Anonymous

    “2) Having his worst perimeter defender (williams) guard the only player on the court who was taking their last shot (Granger)”

    Shawne and Melo are equally bad defensively.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Q5WEHNP3JSYWE3ZSFEKLPXLMS4 Nosmo King

    Why are we wasting time on this shot? The Pacers are 3-7 in their last 10 and 1-7 if you take out the Knicks games. Why did we even give them a chance to be in a position to make a shot like this mean anything? The bottom line is that the Knicks just arent that good – a 500 team before the trade and a 500 team now. Their talent level is adequate, but their lack of defense and ball movement on offense will preclude them from being anything more than average. D’Antoni isnt the right coach – if we had 5 All-Stars, maybe he would be – but not with our current roster (and we’re never getting 5 All-Stars). We need a coach who will let Amare and Melo know that they aren’t playing AAU anymore and that guys like Tyler Hansbrough and JJ Hickson dont give a crap how good these guys were when they were 16. I like both Melo and Amare, and think they are great for NY, phenomenal talents and good guys off the court – but they need to sacrifice on the offensive end – they are tremendously gifted athletes and would be great defenders if they decided to focus on it. Defense wins championships in every sport and the back to the basket, high post, one on one game of Anthony maybe worked in AAU and college, and even a little in Denver when you had Nene and Camby backing you up on the defensive end, but it wont work for the Knicks. Carmelo could be the best player in the NBA if he worried less about putting the ball in the hole in a one on one half court game. Takes far too much energy and yields very inconsistent results.

  • Anonymous

    Melo is bad defensively in general, but I have already seen that if it is for a couple of important possessions, Melo can turn it up a notch.

  • Anonymous

    Melo isnt a bad one on one defended at all IMO. Just extremely lazy off ball. He always wants to play help defense which leads to wide open cuts or threes.

  • Anonymous

    My breakdown. Superior offensive move vs. average defensive stance. Shot was successful. If it wasn’t it was still a superior offensive move vs. average defensive stance that resulted in a missed shot.

  • Anonymous

    below average one on one but when motivated can play better man to man. He is a horrible help team defender. Which I think Karl has tried to clarify in his statements. Melo has to do more than just get up for Lebron. He needs to bring the same intensity on a night to night basis.

  • Anonymous

    Hey Tommy Cee, Why don’t you tell us more about the Celtics? Isn’t that what you’d rather be doing?

  • Agees_Catch

    Didn’t Melo want Granger?

  • Anonymous

    How about having our designated jack of all trades defender of every position guarding the player everyone in the arena knew would have the ball rather than a guy who had only played a season and a half worth of games before surviving the final cut in training camp here, would Jeffries know (how?) to force Granger left?

    Just a thought.

    Oh, and if anyone thinks we lost this game on the 2 point basket Granger hit with .3 seconds left I’d like to draw your attention to the final score… 117-119.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_K2GJP6JV6II7ERBYC6G7PVQJPA Witold Mucha

    Melo is an average defender.

    He’s a good (or at least pretty good) man to man defender – he can actually be very good against bigger guys when opposing teams try to exploit mismatches inside. His flaws in my opinion are: transition defense, help defense (at times – I think it’s a bit overstated), struggles see the ball and his man at the same time.

  • Anonymous

    everythign about this play was wrong and reeks of _’Antoni being over matched..

    “Just go out and d up adn hope he misses the shot” was _Antoni’s exact words on the defensive play.. beyond mind boggling.

  • Guest

    JJ sucks.No help at all,we should have double teamed the ball.

  • http://twitter.com/TwoSevenStreet Nelson Ortiz

    People on here complain all the time about lack of analyse and here Tommy provided some of the best analyse I have seen on this site breaking every aspect of the play down, so much so that a coach could probably learn a thing a two about defense by simply reading it and you complain!!!!!!!

    I for one thinks this is one of the best posts ever on TKB, Its not good for us to just be mad about lets at least fully understand why we are mad.

  • Anonymous

    You KNOW the deal. Good job.

    Too bad everyone else has just thrown up their hands and now just HOPES the knicks get better.

    As fans, we can get really far is we spoke with our money. Belive that.

  • http://www.youtube.com/tharealest62qb DaGawD

    indy did a great job but danni boy helped them more than any1 thinks

  • http://www.youtube.com/tharealest62qb DaGawD

    indy did a great job but danni boy helped them more than any1 thinks

  • Shpati Papraniku

    That was just a great shot. That was similar to Melo’s game winner. 2 great shots from 2 great players. When your in the moment playing defense you can always look back and say you “could of done that or this”. Granger is great player. It was not Shawn’s fault they lost. If the Knicks played a little better it would of never had to come to that final shot.