Detroit Pistons replay center: Blake Griffin post ups

Unpredictability

Jackson and Drummond have created a mismatch with their distraction but they’re not really taking advantage of it. Instead, Jackson still tries to feed the ball to Griffin despite the fact that P.J. Tucker has recovered.

The only reason Tucker could get back into position was that Ennis tagged Griffin long enough for that to happen. As mentioned earlier, that kept him out of position to defend Bullock coming off Drummond’s pin down. Jackson should’ve paid more attention to the defensive coverage and focus on Bullock. The Rockets would’ve switched that action too, leaving Ennis guarding Drummond as he rolled to the rim.

Same thing happens here

This play is late in the game and the Pistons know how the Rockets will respond. Nonetheless, Ish Smith is preoccupied with feeding the ball to Griffin that he misses the real advantage the set creates.

Again, Bullock, free of his man comes off a pin down but Smith is in no position to make that pass even if he wanted to. Smith has positioned himself on the floor with the sole intention of passing the ball to Griffin. That makes the offense predictable and easier to handle.

Of course, in this particular game, Griffin was on fire. He scored 19 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter. But that attitude is evident in almost every game.

This point is even clearer here. When the screen happens, both defenders stay with Griffin, as often happens.

Bullock is wide open for a while. Still, Jackson rushes the ball to Griffin, who is met with the double team near the baseline, almost travels and has to be the one to pass it to Bullock through a crowd.

It works because it’s the Hawks defending it but against good NBA defenses you have to have a higher level of recognition. Griffin is the deadliest weapon in the Pistons offense and sometimes he feels like the only one who can get a bucket. I get that.

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But that’s mentality more than reality. If you rely too much on him to generate offense then when things get tough, nobody else will have the confidence to even get the ball. If the coaching staff wants to build a winning culture in Detroit, then they have to break some mental barriers.

Players have to be mentally ready in any situation to “read and react” instead of “just give the ball to Blake.” That’s tough to do but it’s how you win games.

Every coach on the planet knows the Pistons want to give the ball to Griffin.

So why not take advantage of that? Why not use that gravity to get easy baskets for other players. In this play, you can tell it’s a concentrated effort to get Bullock that shot. Brown doesn’t pass the ball to Jackson, as the main option of the set mandates, but waits for Bullock to pop out for a three.

And in watching the tape I noticed that almost every time we went for the secondary option of the set it was either at the start of the game or after a time out. Times when, likely, the coach explicitly gave that suggestion. Doing that in real-time is a much taller task.

Exploring different options and variations of the same set is how you keep it alive. Do too much of the same stuff and the offense becomes StanVanGundian. The NBA figures you out. Keep them guessing and you can get easy buckets just because the defenders have too many variables to calculate.

Here, Marcus Morris goes under the screen and Griffin gets a normal post up out of it. Not bad.

But posting up Morris is definitely not a great option. A floating hook shot, out of the restricted area, fading left with his right hand is not a great shot. Not a bad one but not a great one either. Instead, Griffin could have used the Drummond pin down screen to pop out for an open three. That is a very good shot for him.

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And if he had done that, Morris would hesitate to go under the screen the next time, which would have opened up Griffin’s post-ups later in the game. Maybe they switch now because Morris can’t get there quickly enough. Solely the fact that they have to change coverage creates confusion which results in more easy buckets.

But here’s the problem. Players have certain tendencies like Griffin has a tendency to post people up and it’s not easy to escape those. It takes continuity and a good coach. Casey definitely has provided multiple options in every set but it takes time before the players familiarize themselves.

It’s difficult to navigate these decisions in-game but as long as the players have that freedom, which Casey often talks about, and the chemistry is there, things will get better and better.

This is the median outcome of the set. More often than not Griffin will get the ball with good post position and he’ll have an advantage over his defender. There aren’t many players out there that can handle Griffin in the post.

Having said that, there are some teams that can. Boston, for example, had Marcus Smart guarding him despite the fact that Griffin has six inches and 20 pounds on him. But they had a team strategy and it actually worked.

And it’s fine. The Pistons can run this exact set in this exact way for eternity and they’ll score out of it. Bad teams won’t know how to deal with it, good teams will hold their own and elite teams will suffocate it. I got one word, mediocre. That’s what the Pistons offense was last year.

But if they want to elevate themselves into a higher status, all of the concepts that Casey has been talking about have to become reality at some point. The habits have to change and the offense has to become richer. More diverse.

I just scraped the tip of the iceberg with this piece and there’s a lot more to talk about. I’ll certainly do another with Griffin’s post-ups. It was a huge part of the offense. So, let me know what you think in the comments.

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