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So last night John Wall scored 27 points on 55% shooting from the field. So I was curious, what did Washington do differently?nolafan33 said:John Wall has been such a wreck scoring wise in the playoffs. 31% shooting and 2.1 ast/to ratio.
And I think it's preventable, as Indiana is literally begging him to shoot mid range jumpers off the dribble. He's only a 36% shooter from midrange, which is average, but he's a 34% shooter off the bounce, which is below average. Play the odds. Below is the very first play of the series, a Wall midrange pull up off three bounces:
and here's early in Game 3:
Which is different from how they defended during the regular season, difference being they haven't hung back so far into the paint:
as well as the playoffs:
It's also different from how they're defending Beal, with Beal their bigs are actually coming out and contesting:
They're also doing a good job not letting him get to his strong hand in iso situations:
So the first thing that I saw is that for the first time in the series, he rejected a screen. Paul George is busy trying to fight around Gortat, and Hibbert is positioned for Wall to come around that screen. Hibbert is incredibly slow footed, so while it doesn't look like Hibbert is that far out of position he doesn't have what it takes to keep with Wall. Wall rejects the screen and has a free lane to the rim, but he turned it over after kicking it off his foot.
and now the biggest thing, is how they used ball screens for him. They staggered screens, using Gortat and Ariza.
The thing that staggered ball screens does for you is it gives you another option. You now have another player who could be rolling or popping, and the defense has to account for that. You can also run this play to post up your bigs, as it takes the hedger a little longer to recover. It also just confuses the defense ever so slightly, which gives you a split second of room. The fourth picture is another example of rejecting the screen.
