Raptors 122, Grizzlies 114
Recap
- The Raptors picked up an impressive win on the road in Memphis, coming back from a 17 point second half deficit.
- The Grizzlies made life very difficult on the Raptors, specifically Kawhi Leonard. I will go into greater detail below, but the Grizzlies had a plan of making Kawhi uncomfortable every time he touched the ball, and dared him to be a passer instead of a scorer.
- The Grizzlies also helped more at the basket than most NBA teams do. Once the Raptors figured out that the Grizzlies were loading up and forcing kick-outs, they were able to find a lot of success getting paint touches and creating closeout situations for each other, especially out of ball screen situations.
- The Raptors struggled for the majority of the first 3 quarters with Marc Gasol popping on the ball screen. The Grizzlies often dove the closest perimeter guard to Gasol which caused the Raptors issues rotating to the pop, but eventually the Raptors adjusted well in the 4th quarter.
- The Grizzlies did their best to slow the game down as much as possible and were successful doing so in the first half. Of their 46 first half shots, 33 of them came from within 15 feet of the rim. As a result, there were less long rebounds and therefore less opportunity for the Raptors to get out in transition. Contrast that to the second half, where they took 39 shots, 20 of which were from within 15 feet, which allowed the Raptors to run much more often.
Grizzlies Game Plan
- Memphis had a very clear objective going into this game on the defensive end – Make Kawhi’s life miserable by never letting him play 1 on 1. The video below shows almost every time Kawhi attempted to attack on offense leading up to the 4 minute mark of the 4th quarter:
As you can see, Memphis never let Kawhi only have to deal with 1 defender as they constantly dug, bluffed, or double teamed him throughout the night. Essentially, what Memphis did was determine that if they were going to lose, it wasn’t going to be because Kawhi scored 30 points. The Grizzlies identified that Kawhi has been putting his head down and playing 1 on 1, so they dared Kawhi to beat them by being a passer, and for most of the game, they were successful.
- Staying on the defensive end, the Grizzlies loaded up the paint and brought more help at the basket than most NBA teams do. They dared the Raptors to throw kick-out on their penetrations and they loaded up heavily on the ball screen. This next clip portrays the Grizzlies defense well:
They brought help early and often, while constantly protecting the basket on the weak side. NBA teams don’t tend to be this aggressive because most teams want to stay out of rotations. The Grizzlies on the other hand rotate for an advantage. They help aggressively, make passing more difficult, and anticipate closeouts on the subsequent kick-outs. They want to be the ones dictating the game on the defensive end instead of being dictated by the offense.
This clip gives a cool angle of how the Grizzlies were loading up against the ball screen. They are trying to funnel the ball deep, and they bring the offside low defender over to pick up the roller at the rim. They are loading up on the ball and giving up the offside skip to the corner. Their goal here is to make the ball handler feel uncomfortable enough that he either doesn’t see, or can’t throw the corner skip on target and on time. In this clip, Kawhi eventually throws it, but only after the rim defender can begin his closeout. Here are a few more examples:
https://streamable.com/tjgtk
Notice in all of these clips that the extra defender clogging up the key is coming from the offside low corner, and that the offensive player is always open. Whether it was due to ball pressure or the size of his defenders, the Grizzlies made Lowry uncomfortable in the ball screen in the first half and successfully impaired his decision making.
- On the offensive end, the Grizzlies took advantage of the Raptors ball screen defence and down screen defence. Knowing that the Raptors base defence is to not switch actions with the 5, the Grizzlies set both ball screens and down screens with Gasol to get him open:
https://streamable.com/x6rui
Notice in these clips the way the Raptors were defending down screens and ball screens. This made it very difficult to get to Gasol on the pop because of how low the 5 needed to be to slow down either the ball handler or the offensive player curling. Gasol took advantage of that space and time.
- The Grizzlies also identified that they had an advantage inside and were constantly looking to post up Gasol, Green and Jackson Jr., which gave the Raptors problems:
https://streamable.com/bqo93
Raptors Adjustments
- The most significant offensive adjustment the Raptors made was having Kawhi adapt to what the Grizzlies were doing to him. As you saw in the video earlier in this breakdown, Kawhi was so focused on scoring that he either forced tough shots, or made poor passes. In the 4th quarter, he changed his approach and used the attention he was drawing to create great looks for his teammates:
https://streamable.com/h41ot
In the first 3 quarters, Kawhi had 1 assist, but in the 4th quarter, he had 4 – all for 3’s. You can see in these clips that as soon as the second defender came, Kawhi changed his focus to being a passer rather than being solely focused on scoring. The Grizzlies took their chance on the fact that Kawhi wouldn’t figure this out and that he would put his head down and try and get his points no matter what, but he eventually adjusted and Memphis had no answer.
- As well on offense, the Raptors softened up the Grizzlies loading up on the ball screen by attacking Gasol and hitting Ibaka on the short roll. They found success in this throughout the entire game:
https://streamable.com/32jef
The Grizzlies defense is much more suited to protect against the roll to the rim than it is to the mid-range roll as they bring help at the basket. With Ibaka on the floor, the Grizzlies really had no answer for this.
- As noted above, when JV was on the floor, the Grizzlies did a very good job of loading up on the rim and preventing the guard from seeing the offside corner. In the 4th quarter, at a critically important time with the Raptors down by 9, they hit back-to-back 3’s by adjusting to how Memphis was defending:
Watch the first clip here – You’ll recognize that it is identical to the clips of the first half from earlier, except Delon Wright has the size (and the separation from his defender) to see the offside low defender at the rim and can make the kick out. In the second play, VanVleet rejects the ball screen and gets middle, and Anunoby smartly pins his defender knowing that Anunoby’s defender is at the rim.
- Defensively, the Raptors changed the way they were defending the ball screen by hedging it with the big instead of dropping. This put more pressure on Gasol to roll and took away his aggressiveness when he popped due to less time and space to play on the catch.
- However, the most important defensive adjustment came from Fred VanVleet (Lowry and Wright too, but mainly FVV) who took over the game defensively by blowing up ball screen after ball screen in the fourth quarter. When I say “blowing up” the screen, I mean that he effectively bullied the ball handler away from the screener and wedged himself in between the two of them, never letting the ball handler get to the screeners shoulder. If you can do this defensively, you can nulify the ball screen completely. Watch the guards, but mainly FVV, in this set of clips:
https://streamable.com/wkcg4
The Grizzlies went from getting great looks in the ball screen to getting nothing out of it in the fourth quarter, and a massive part of that was the job done by FVV. Rarely do you see a small guard have such a crucial impact on a game on the defensive end, but that is what FVV did – he bullied the Grizzlies guards off of the ball screen the entire 4th quarter and left them without answers offensively.
Notes
- This is the most impressed I’ve been with the Raptors all year. In the first half they showed glimpses of being front-runners – they weren’t playing well, they seemed to be blaming not playing well on the officials (2 first half technicals), and they were getting picked on by a methodical Memphis squad who is very good at home. The second half didn’t start much better as they got down 17, but then everything changed. They made good technical adjustments, they increased their compete level, and they bullied the game from Memphis. I don’t think I can ever remember a Raptors team showing this much resolve in a spot like they were in against Memphis, who threw a very well executed game plan at them on their home court (in a clear trap game, nonetheless) and still come out with a decisive come back win . That was a game that championship caliber teams can gut out, and the Raptors did exactly that.
