re: Monty plans to update offensive sets

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Holiday, Evans and Gordon are all rim-attacking guards; when they are on the court together, who, other than Ryan Anderson, will receive the kickout passes once defenses collapse? When all three are out there with Anthony Davis (or Greg Steimsma or Jeff Withey . . . or Greg Oden), the paint will be too crowded for to have them drive into the paint! There is only one ball for three ball-handling guards! And on and on.

But it’s all a myth — for a multitude of reasons.

Before going any further I want you to get the notion that 3-point shooters are not the only way to spread out a defense. Sure it absolutely helps — we saw that in the finals — but there are other ways to achieve effective results. John Schuhmann has a great piece about how the Heat’s floor spacing is really effective because of how they position their bigs. After pointing out that the Heat’s deep shooters weren’t hurting the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, Schumann says,

...Andersen [Birdman] is no threat to shoot from out there. In 54 games with the Heat, he’s 5-for-15 from outside the paint. So Hibbert doesn’t have to venture out there to defend him. But Andersen’s positioning gives his teammates a passing lane when they penetrate and draw Hibbert’s attention.

If Andersen is closer to the basket (or if he’s the roll man in a pick-and-roll), Hibbert has the length and smarts to challenge the ball-handler and cut off the passing lane at the same time. But by pacing the floor so much, the Heat’s bigs force Hibbert to make a difficult choice.

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