A nice quote-heavy piece from ESPN New York.
Dwane Casey:
“We knew exactly what Brooklyn was going to run,” Casey said. “Our defense was set. Kyle Lowry was on the ball because he had five fouls and we were going to take a foul if Brooklyn got it in and we didn’t want to waste him with that foul. Usually we have our big man on the ball and we have a special coverage that we have for that type of lineup. In a scramble situation we had numbers and Kyle Lowry had two or three options to throw the ball to and we made the right play at the end.”
Patrick Patterson:
“Pretty much coach drew up a couple plays that he thought they were going to run and they wanted me to be out by half court and whoever ran in that direction I would take. Luckily, I was in the right place at the right time and I was able to gather the ball which I then wanted to get to Kyle.”
Kyle Lowry:
“I was on the ball and we knew they did not have any timeouts. You know they have a million and one plays they could come up with but we guessed right and Patrick looked like Richard Sherman out there with that steal. I know we were just going to go when we go the steal because they were off balance. I had a couple guys but I just went with Pat and he made it.”
Got to say, the decision to not put pressure on the ball-handler paid off. The fact that the Nets chose to essentially make the sideline an extra defender helped, but that didn’t mean that the read from Patterson didn’t need to be perfect. I was yelling on Twitter about bringing a long-armed dude like Austin Daye in, and that goes to show you what I know.
The more I see of Dwane Casey lately, the more I can’t understand his pre-trade decisions. It’s like not only has the team turned a corner in terms of their play, but their coach has has found a new gear and is handling matters at a might higher level. Just some of the things he’s improved on:
- Out-of-timeout plays
- Early timeouts to kill runs
- Forcing teams to matchup to them rather than adapting
- Shorter, tighter rotations that work well
- Defensive individual matchups (Salmons has helped)
- Overall ball-movement, no more getting stuck
- Late-game clock management
- Finding roles for guys like Vasquez, Patterson, Salmons, and even Hayes – all returns in the Gay trade
- Figuring out Ross’s role on the team
What has stuck out for you?
