Hardwood Houdini link

Here is a link to my page at hardwoodhoudini.com a new site I just started writing for. It's a fansided.com blog which is affliated with Sports Illustrated hardwoodhoudini.com/author/tadell. Also here's the link to my latest post there http://hardwoodhoudini.com/2013/03/30/the-celtics-may-have-found-a-new-clutch-scorer/

Miami's Biggest Threat in the East: The Indiana Pacers

     Unbeknownst to some the biggest road to block to Miami's quest to a repeat doesn't not reside in San Antonio or Oklahoma City for the biggest hurdle Miami will have to climb resides in Indianapolis. A defensive juggernaut with a budding superstar seems to have enough to give Miami  a run for their money.
   
    First off I want to start this by saying I don't think Indiana could beat Miami in a 7 game series. There's a huge difference between giving the Heat a challenge than actually saying they could beat them in a series.That being said Indiana is the only team in the East who actually poses a serious threat to dethroning King James and his Heat.
 
   Indiana's success begins and ends with their stifling defense, a defense that ranks #1 overall according to Synergy Sports. This is a defense that has allowed Indiana to stay solidly in the 2/3 seed range all season despite missing Danny Granger for most of the season. The Pacers league leading defensive rating(points allowed per 100 possesions) stands at 95.3, a full 2 points lower than the next team.The key to their defensive success has been the stand out play of Roy Hibbert.
 
    While having an awful offensive season(shooting a porous 42% from the field, which is pretty bad for 7'2 big man who doesn't stray to far from the rim), Roy Hibbert has been able to back up the max contract with DPOY worthy defense. Using NBA.com/stats I found out Roy possess the league's 5th best defensive rating(Of players who've played at least 40 games playing at least 20 minutes a game to filter out some anomalies). Serving as an elite rim protector Hibbert has helped propel Indiana from 10th in overall defense (Last year) all the way up to #1.
 
      Their biggest strengths on defense lie within defending the pick & roll, defending spot up jumpers and defending Isolation. According to Synergy Sports, Indiana ranks 2nd in the league in defending the pick & roll where the roll man ends the posession(Play ends in FGA, TO or FTs).They rank 5th in defending Isolations and they rank 1st in defending spot up jumpers.

   Here we'll take a video look at how Indiana's bigs defend the pick and roll. Indiana's bigs are exceptional at defending the pick roll. They have a very solid rotation of bigs which inlcude Hibbert,West, and Hansborough each bringing their own flavor to the pick and roll. In the videos below you'll se the different philosophies each big uses in defending the pick and roll.

 Hibbert has a tendency to stick around the foul line, hedging to give his teammate time to catch then rotating back over to his man(the roll man) to contest his shot. In this video he defends two P&Rs between Marcus Thorton and Demarcus Cousins. On the first pick he lightly hedges the screen along the FT line area and is able to rotate back to Cousins and make him hesitate about taking the 20 footer. The 2nd screen is basically the same thing except this time Cousins decides to take it all the way to the rim only to have it blocked by Hibbert. Opponents only score 0.86 PPP (Points Per Possession) on pick & rolls Hibbert defends.

David West is less consverative than Hibbert when it comes to defending pick and rolls. West tends to come out a little further and give a hard but short hedge to the ball handler and is usually able to track his man back down as shown in the video below

In this clip West quickly hedges the ball handler(Pierce) then quickly rotates back over to his man, the roll man(Garnett) to contest a long jumper. Opponents score 0.95 PPP on pick and rolls that West defends.

Backup Power Forward Tyler Hansbrough also has his own method in defending the pick & roll. Hansborugh has kind of the same method of defening the pick & roll as west but his hedges usually last longer so it appears as a semi trap as shown in the video below.

    In this clip Hansbrough initates a semi trap on the ball handler(Calderon) and is able to quickly get back to his man(Maxiell). It should be noted that Synergy Sports has Hansbrough rated as the 3rd best P&R defender when the roll man finishes the play.Opponents only score 0.53 PPP.

     The Pick & Roll being one of the most vital plays in an NBA team's offense makes it important for teams to throw different defensive looks at it and it's why Indiana is so great at defending it.

    On the other side of ball Indiana while not a prolific scoring team they have stayed average thanks to the brilliant season Paul George has put together. Since Danny Granger has been out George has helped keep this offense from completely bottoming out and right now they sit at 18th in the league with an offensive rating of 101.4. George has taken a huge responsibility as his usage rating has spiked by 4 and his defense rating also improving by 4 which led to his 1st all star appearance.

Helping George on offense is the always underrated David West. The bruising big man always goes unnoticed in the national eye but is definitely a huge reason Indiana has had so much success this year. He poses a huge matchup problem to Miami when they play small ball. When Miami plays their usual small ball lineups of Chalmers-Wade-Battier-James-Bosh, West can be an absolute nightmare because Spoelstra doesn't like play James on West and has to resort to having Battier try to guard him. West's size and strength usually proves to be too much on Battier and Indiana is usually able to take advantage of this matchup.

   Regular season meetings aside, Indiana remains the lone threat in the East to dethroning the reigning champs. Their defensive strengths on the court perfectly matches up with Miami's strengths on offense. Indiana is the #5 Isolation defense and #1 Spot Up defense while Miami is the #1 Isolation offense and #1 Spot Up offense. Not a lot of teams in the league really give Miami a scare(only 3 others by my count SA,OKC and MEM) and Indiana just happens to be the only team in the East who seems capable of slaying this juggernaut.

Celtics Look to End Miami's Historic Streak

Here is a link to a Celtics-Heat preview I did over at celtic-nation.com http://www.celtic-nation.com/blog/2013/03/18/celtics-look-to-end-miamis-historic-win-streak/#.UUejCRxnq1A

NCAA Hoops vs The NBA

A common myth surrounding sports is the supposed superiority of College Basketball to the NBA. People are enthralled by the scintillating buzzer beaters, the Cinderella Runs in the Tournament and overall excitement of college basketball. And why shouldn’t they be I mean everyone likes to be excited but excitement doesn’t always means something is necessarily better. Take cinema for example, every year some big budget blockbuster film like Transformers comes out and the general public(even me) is amazed by the beauty of the CGI and special effects. But does the CGI put that movie over a wonderfully acted movie like The Departed(My personal favorite)? The answer is no, while the excitement and explosiveness of College Basketball may seem attractive it does not beat the pure dominating fundamentals of the NBA and here are the reasons why.

Pace: One of the major drawbacks of College Hoops for me is the pace of the game. Too many times when I’m watching NCAAB do I find myself watching a game of pass and dribble around the defender. The 35 second shot clock in college really inhibits me from really enjoying a College Basketball game. It significantly lowers the potential possessions in game and while it’s not completely fair to compare the pace between the NBA and College Hoops(NCAAB games are 8 minutes shorter) the fastest paced College Basketball team(Central Arkansas 76.4) averaged 16 less possessions than the slowest paced NBA team.
Winner:NBA   Note: This argument is a little flawed because of the discrepancy in game length between the two. You could argue that on a  per 48 minute basis possessions in college basketball would be higher.
  
Quality: The quality of College Basketball is one thing that can’t be denied, it can be just god awful sometimes. One of the season’s most exciting games, Louisville and Notre Dames’ 5 OT Thriller was such an eye sore that I almost couldn’t bring myself to watch the finish. It all goes back to the excitement factor of College Basketball, at the end the fans don’t care that neither team shot over 41% for the game as long as they witnessed a thrilling finish. While most of College Basketball scores at a pretty efficient rate(90 schools shoot better than 45%) most of that has to do with the lack of possessions and field goal attempts compared to an NBA game.And sometimes it’s not even about the FG%, sometimes I just like seeing guys making the right decisions out there, and you don’t see that a lot in College Basketball understandably so as these kids are still learning the game so not everything is going to be perfect but it’s just not how I like Basketball. I love seeing perfectly executed man on man defensive schemes not teams playing zone all game(Looking at you Boeheim),I love seeing guys with refined offensive games not broken jumpers waiting to be fixed in the pros, I love seeing how a post player reacts to a double team and so on. The lack of fundamentals in the College ranks perturbs me from ever truly becoming a true College Basketball fan.
    Winner NBA

Talent Level: This really isn’t fair for College Basketball as the NBA has the best collection of players in the world. The majority of players in the NBA were stars on their respective College Teams while each year the NCAA produces maybe 15-20 prospects actually ready to make an impact right away. I don’t think I really need to go in depth to tell you about the superior talent that the NBA possesses.
Winner NBA


Competitive Balance: The NBA since it’s inception of Modern Free Agency has been maligned for it’s lack of Competitive Balance when it comes to championships after all only 9 different franchises have won the title since 1980. College Basketball, however, has seen 19 different schools win the big dance in that same time span. Of course both teams have powerhouse schools/teams that will most likely always attract the best recruits/free agents, the NCAA seems to have the advantage in the balance of competition
Winner: NCAA

Playoff System: For most sports fans whether they be casual or hardcore March Madness is the most exciting time of the year for them. The Bracket making is something anyone can participate without really possessing any significant knowledge about it.The inspiring Cinderella runs make the tournament even more exciting. Almost everything with March Madness works and it’s the catalyst for their balance in champions. A single elimination tournament is a huge deterrent to creating dynasties, which isn’t always a good thing.(In it’s history only 8 times have teams gone back to back, NBA has ten. Note:March Madness has been around since 1939 while the 1st NBA Finals occurred in 1950) Now while March Madness can be ultra fun I have to play the contrairian by saying that it isn’t perfect. I know it’s purposely structured so that anyone can win but I just feel like there is too little room for error in a game where anything can happen. The 7 game format for the NBA is perfect as it almost always guarantees that the “better” team advances as you don’t beat a team 4 times without being better than your opponent(injuries aside).Upsets are great all but sometimes can result in some ugly matchups(See 2011 NCAA Final).  

Advantage: Slight edge to NCAA


College Basketball has been one of the most successful entities in sports for decades. Some much of it appeals to the general public. I personally have no problem with it but I do have a problem with people saying it is somehow better than the NBA. The NCAA Tournament is the only thing that could conceivably be better than anything the NBA has to offer and even that is flawed to some degree. Anyone with a keen basketball eye can see that the fundamentals of the NBA game are miles ahead of the NCAA’s. Not saying College Basketball is horrible but that to me at least it’s entertainment value is not on the NBA’s level.

Celtics Podcast/Hangout

 Today I gathered with some very smart Celtics' Writers and fans and we took some time to chat about the Cs. Topics include Last night's win against Indiana, Who we don't want to play in the playoffs and a lot more! To be warned this was my first live podcast and I'm not as proficient as an orator as I am a writer so bear with me. Guests include Josh Zavadil of CelticsBlog.com, Jack Maloney of SavingTheSkyhook.com, Raj Prashad of Hawkshoop.com, Kim Sherayko and Tom Westerholm of CelticsTown.com.