The Point-Fourward: No, Isaiah Thomas Is Not That Good

Four points I’m thinking about the NBA Playoffs…

“Nice job reverse-jinxing the Celtics in your column last week.” -my buddy, Kenny B.

1. That wasn’t exactly my intention when covering the Round One Chicago Bulls’ domination of the Boston Celtics pre-Rondo injury. At the time, an underwhelming Celtics squad trailed the more talented Chicago Bulls 2-0 in the series. There wasn’t a lot of hope in sight. The Bulls did a good job of corralling Isaiah Thomas on his off-ball screen and roll sets that so frequently give him the ball going toward the middle of the floor at speed. Rajon Rondo, Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade all are bright defenders who anticipate the secondary action that follows dummy movement.

With Rondo locked in on defense, Thomas wasn’t able to immediately get into many drive and kick situations. Playoff Rondo played angles beautifully, trailing with contact and anticipating when Thomas would turn the corner. The Chicago bigmen maintained arms length contact even in “Ice” situations. Offensively, Rondo calmly got to wherever he wanted to get, not settling for the mid-range jumper that Brad Stevens so desperately desired. Robin Lopez timed and spaced his “Pop” well(and nailed an absurd number of them), allowing the Bulls’ wingmen enough room to operate on their way to the paint. It was a clinic.

That all evaporated when Rondo went down. Thomas was able to catch on the move and the Chicago offense couldn’t take advantage of the mini-point guard’s defensive limitations. The Bulls were toast, but after watching how Rondo dismantled the Celtics through two games, it was easy to imagine John Wall dominating the second round.

2. Instead, John Wall, Scott Brooks, and poor Marcin Gortat have been a relative disaster. It’s easy to look at John Wall’s 40 point Game 2 and conclude that the Celtics overcame a great Wall performance. One could also look at Gortat’s 14 and 10, and plus 4 performance and assume he did his part. And hey, how could the most obvious culprit, the sad shooting Bradley Beal, not get the blame? Sure, had Beal hit on more than one of his nine attempts from distance, maybe the Celts never crawl back into the contest. But in watching this pathetic excuse for a playoff basketball game, I was most annoyed by the Wizards’ complete inability to guard a basic Pick and Roll.

Isaiah Thomas certainly is a crafty PnR player. He has fantastic feel for his start and stop game, baiting defenders into fouls if they get too close to his back. He shooting ability off the dribble from any place on the floor makes him a bear to contain. No one is saying it is easy to stop Thomas on the offensive end. However, it is possible to slow him down by performing basic defensive tasks.

It is very important to do your work early. Anticipating the PnR means that the on-ball defender sees the approaching Pick partner and gets on top of the action. If the gameplan is to “go over the pick”, it is imperative that the footwork and angle is balanced by the other defensive partner. Basically, you want the player to have to use the Pick, but not get an immediate dive to the cup. John Wall slept walked through countless second half possessions: standing straight up, not understanding if he was in a switch situation, and generally being slow to react.

I time-stamped my favorite example of his awful defense in the video below. In a huge situation, leading by six with under three minutes to play, Wall is too gassed, lazy, and/or dumb to stay attached during a basic Al Horford screen. At the 2:19 mark of the video, Wall is just chillin as a spectator. By the time he sees whats going on, Thomas is drilling a three. In the subsequent highlight, Wall is in a defensive position, but is positively statuesque. I half expect a bird to be perched on his head. No effort to find the pick is made at all. This cannot happen at any time during a playoff game, let alone in a crunch-time moment. They are not the only examples. Yes, Thomas was good, but Wall was worse than Thomas was good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-0itWnvlvo&t=2m18s

3. Scott Brooks was worse than Wall. Brooks was determined to stick with Marcin Gortat throughout the second half even though the big man was getting torched on a regular basis. More than anything, I felt for Gortat. His teammates and coach were leaving him out to dry, asking him to clean up mistakes that he doesn’t have the quickness to erase. Gortat doesn’t have the athleticism to “show and recover” like it seemed Brooks wanted him to do. But then, maybe that wasn’t even the plan. The defense was such a dumpster fire, it was hard to tell. The refs didn’t help out too much either, but that doesn’t justify Brooks’ use of the big fella.

The Wizards looked more like Brooks’ Thunder squads than they have all season. Wall and Beal were content to dance in the middle of the floor with moderate spacing around them. The Wizards’ three players not involved in PnR action were hilariously stationary, allowing the Celtics to load up the strong side of the floor without sacrificing too many open looks. The result was a barrage of mid-range jumpers from both players. Wall drilled many of them in the first half, giving false credence to the playing style, but Stevens gave an audible fist pump every time a Washington guard pulled up from 18 off the dribble.

4. So far, we’ve just seen bad basketball from the Wizards and Celtics. That’s the reason that the playoffs undefeated Cavaliers are in no way worried about the Eastern Conference. There is simply no other team left in the bracket with superstar talent and decent coaching. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Paul George are more talented than anyone else left playing in the East not named LeBron James. Brad Stevens does get the most out of his guys, but they still don’t have the top flight talent to hang with a team that doesn’t self-destruct like the Wizards are in the process of doing.

The Cavs would have been more worried to face a developing Bucks squad or a veteran laden Bulls team than Scott Brooks or the miniature Isaiah Thomas. I anticipate the Wizards/Celtics series will go at least six games. Beal will have a bounce back game and one would think that the Wiz could take care of business at home. Still, don’t expect to enjoy any of the basketball being played in that series. Well, unless you like to see regular season execution masquerading as postseason play.

At least the Western conference is fun to watch. The Jazz have given teams the business all postseason. Their attention to detail and their size on the perimeter will be interesting to monitor against a seemingly unbeatable Warriors team. The Jazz didn’t shoot well in Game 1, but I can see them taking a tough couple games if Joe Johnson and Gordon Hayward get it going.

In the other series, it was all chuckles and joy. Well, unless you are a Spurs fan. The Rockets weren’t even that hot from the field on their way to destroying Coach Pop’s squad. They were just relentless. You don’t need to be too accurate if you just keeping bombing away. I sometimes work out while watching basketball. I’ll do 10 push-ups for every made basket, 15 for every threeball, and 5 squats for every foul shot attempt. There are teams around the league that don’t leave me sore the next day. Doing that workout with a Rockets game can get dicey.