We’re back! Welcome to the five highest-IQ plays of the week!
Sure, we love the high-flying dunks and the deep, off-the-dribble step-back threes, but this is a place for the under-the-radar plays that might
not get the credit they deserve. The plays that get the basketball sickos and nerds out of their chairs. The plays that even YOU could make in your weekly rec league game.
Each week, the plays will be ranked from five to one—one being the smartest—and will only be taken from games that occurred within the past week. In this week’s case, games from November 19th to November 26th, but not including the Detroit game, are considered. The C’s went 1-1 this week, with one very solid win and one frighteningly bad loss.
5. Minor movement = major improvement
These are a couple of SUPER simple movements from Luka Garza and Payton Pritchard (they both move ~3 feet), but they’re the types of off-ball decisions that turn an average offense into an elite one. As Hauser drives the ball, Garza notices the paint is clogged and relocates to the left block as opposed to the right—smart. This forces Pritchard’s defender to dig in and help, because Luka’s defender can no longer guard two people at once given where Garza moved. PP then aggressively improves the passing angle for Hauser by rising up above the crease instead of staying spaced in the corner. Simple but effective.
4. Deceleration Derrick
In week one, I discussed a Josh Minott slow step that totally fooled the defense and got the Celtics a wide open look. Here, Derrick White shows how effective the mistimed finish can be for one’s own offense. With Jett Howard on his hip, White knows he can get him to jump whenever he wants—he has all the leverage. He takes advantage of the basketball travel rule (nobody said HOW fast or slow the 2 steps have to be!) and massively slows down his drive before throwing the ball up. This doesn’t allow Howard to time up his jump effectively, which causes him to foul DWhite for the and-one.
3. Unique Spain action
The Celtics have run a decent amount of Spain action (screen the screener) this year, and it has been an effective way to get their bigs rolling to the rim while also getting shooters like Hauser and Pritchard some clean looks from the perimeter. Here, though, the C’s show a little wrinkle. Instead of a basic Spain, where Scheierman would just screen Queta’s man and then pop immediately to the top of the key in a straight line, he instead darts out to the left wing, thus pulling his defender over and making the Brooklyn defense cover twice as much space. Scheierman’s added movement confuses the Nets (are they switching or not?), which opens up an easy feed and finish to Neemias. Not sure if this is the play call or Baylor’s decision in the flow, but smart either way.
2. Stampede catch
The stampede catch—which essentially means running through the pass and starting your drive to the hoop on the flight of the ball instead of catching it with flat feet—is the future of driving closeouts. Just think about it: when a player is closing out, where is their momentum going? Towards the offensive player. So, counteracting the defender’s momentum by getting to a full speed attack as quickly as possible can be an incredibly effective offensive wrinkle. Here, Mann doesn’t have eyes on White, so when the ball is passed to Derrick on the wing, Mann is planning on closing out hard to a shooter. But White is already on his way to the rim (he’s no longer a shooter), and Mann is thus behind the play. High IQ stuff from DWhite.
1. Neemias “Draymond Green” Queta
The improvement of Neemias Queta’s short-roll passing has been arguably the biggest niche skill development piece of any single Celtics player this season. Neemy went from a raw, out-of-control physical beast to a balanced, high IQ passer in small spaces. On this play, Queta notices that Claxton is hard hedging, so he gets out of the screen early and finds open space for Simons to find him. Once he gets it, he whips the ball over to Pritchard without missing a beat, something only possible if he’d been mapping the court out before he even touched the ball (high level stuff that he wasn’t remotely doing in prior seasons, by the way). This is the sort of passing vision needed in order for a big man to be effective as a short roll dimer.
