Kiwi Steve in the NBA #2: On The Big Screen
The first three games that Steven Adams played for Memphis were damn near perfect. He was putting him big numbers and looking agile and energised. The stuff since then... it’s been a bit more inconsistent. Foul trouble caught up with him in a hefty loss to Portland, he was benched for the entirety of the fourth quarter and overtime in a comeback win over Golden State as they sought to match the small-ball Dubs line-ups, the whole team got smashed in the Miami loss. That’s the way it goes sometimes – three straight games with three different reasons for logging a much lower minutes tally. Which in turn affected his production.
The two most recent games, against Washington (small team with nobody taller than 6’10) and Minnesota (bad rebounding team on a losing streak), seemed like great match-ups for him... but that didn’t prove to be the case either. The thing there being it’s not so much whether the Grizzlies want Steven Adams on the court against smaller teams, it’s about whether they want both Steven Adams and Jaren Jackson Jr on the court against smaller teams. And if the answer is no then usually it’s gonna be Adams who has to sit. Jackson is the more versatile dude, especially offensively. An impact player who the Grizzlies drafted themselves and believe could grow into an all-star level lad if he can put the injuries behind him.
Which is fair enough considering Jackson can do things like this...
(They ruled that play a goaltend on the floor but the call was dumb and it was overturned after a peek at the ol’ video replays... incredible defensive read and athleticism from the lad there)
Jackson also just signed a massive contract extension, don’t forget that. The Grizzlies are invested in him in more ways than one. Plus while it’s been an up and down season for the fella, shooting only 36.1% from the field through ten games, JJJ is maybe the team’s best barometer for success. In other words: when JJJ plays well, the Grizz win. When he doesn’t... less so. Jackson does have a tendency towards foul troubles which are also a factor but compare the on/off offensive ratings through ten games for Adams & Jackson...
These aren’t directly comparable numbers because JJJ plays a lot with the second unit, where things can get pretty volatile (blowing out teams with minimal depth, getting blown out by teams with strong benches) and Adams’ defensive rating looks awful there but it varies from game to game depending on the situation. Almost exactly half his minutes have come with the starting line-up where he’s the only new player in the group. He’s settling in and building combinations, especially defensively. Also the Grizzlies best defender, Dillon Brooks, has yet to play a game as he recovers from an offseason hand injury. But the number that matters most there is the offensive rating when Jackson is on versus when Jackson is off. That’s massive and that’s the whole point about his barometer status for this team.
Although even when JJJ fouled out in overtime of the Minnesota game, it was Brandon Clarke who subbed in ahead of Adams. Steve-o had struggled that night for whatever reason, he was a -17 plus/minus whereas Clarke had come in and brought some quality off the bench, including in that overtime period, as he finished with 20 points and 9 rebounds compared to 3pts/3reb for Adams. Gotta ride the hot hand in that situation. It’s a long season. Nobody’s entitled to their minutes. One more reason for lower minutes from game to game.
However in between all that there was a fascinating couple clashes against the Denver Nuggets – two in a row, both at home - where Adams was a crucial part of their game strategy and while the nature of that didn’t translate into the numbers we saw in those first three games... that’s the surface level yarn. We ain’t here for the surface level yarn. We’re here to talk about offensive screens.
Jokers Wild
Consecutive games against the Denver Nuggets meant, for Steven Adams, consecutive games against the reigning MVP. Ol’ mate Nikola Jokic. That graphic above is from the start of the second fixture so slap another one in the win column for Steve-o since then because the Grizzlies were able to grind out wins in both games.
Here’s a quickie graphic of the minutes that the two fellas operated with in the two games. A graphic which shows the first and most obvious strategy that Taylor Jenkins used: don’t let Jokic run rampant without Adams on the court to muscle up with him. Muscle up he certainly did, but first the minutes (via nbarotations.info)...
Each block is a quarter, each tab equals one minute of action, the darker the tab the more of that minute the dude played
Almost identical, right? Especially in game one where Adams pretty much handcuffed himself to Jokic the entire way... the only reason that they didn’t have the exact same mins was that Jokic subbed back in during the second quarter while Adams’ backup Xavier Tillman was shooting free throws, hence he couldn’t sub out and Adams then had to sit awkwardly waiting at the scorer’s table for more than two full minutes until the ball went out of play again (6:21 to 4:09, a long time to just kinda hang out at the midcourt sideline). Other than that the two checked in/out at the same time every time.
There was a bit of a difference in the second game, however. Two days after the first meeting, Memphis burst out to an early lead and played from in front for a lot of it, thus Denver weren’t as keen to take Jokic out for any unnecessary stretch of time – especially in the fourth - whereas Memphis still gave Adams his rest. Dspite what it looks like on the graph, Adams only played 35 fewer seconds in the second meeting (and half of that was at the very end when they took him out to bring in their best free throw shooters). Jokic, meanwhile, went from 33:03 mins to 35:01 mins. Adams obviously didn’t get back those two missing minutes from the first game so s’pose you could say they eased him up a little. But keep in mind that Adams hadn’t played more than 21 mins in any of his previous three games and here he got 30+ in both.
Denver Nuggets head coach Mike Malone: “I told our guys just now, Nikola’s not a good player, (he’s) a great player. But every time he comes out, everything just falls apart. It’s every night. I went to him in the fourth quarter, I called his name, and he looked at me, kind of like, ‘Already?’ And I feel for him… Nikola’s gonna be worn down by Christmas at this rate.”
Jokic was good, too. He did Jokic things: he threw mind-bending passes and was able to score in a multitude of ways. 23 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 4 blocks in the first game shooting at 60% from the field (6 of those points coming in the two mins that he played without Adams on the court). 34 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals in the second shooting at 55% in the second of them. Absolutely nothing wrong with that from the Joker and if his buddies had been able to hit their damn threes, or if they’d gotten off to a better start in the rematch, then the results woulda flipped in the Nuggets favour instead.
Nikola Jokic dominates most teams most nights – that’s why he’s the MVP. But Adams made it tough for him. He ensured that the reigning MVP had to work for his points, had to fight for his rebounds... generally just ground him down throughout. Jokic shot 50% when guarded by Adams which was lower than his overall game averages and especially good from Adams’ POV considering plenty of those attempts woulda been from close range. Nothing you can do about Jokic drilling threes or pinging amazing passes but you at least have to try slow him down where you can and that’s what the Grizzlies did.
It didn’t happen via actions that showed up on the basic box scores but that’s Steven Adams to a tee. Doing the dirty work that the average viewer won’t notice. Things like boxing out, challenging shots, getting back in transition. And especially the screens, bro. A constant menace with Ja Morant around although he’s far from the only dude who benefited. Anything that can give you a regular source of offence against a very good defensive team, cannot take that for granted, and the best indication of how useful those screens were came after the game when Denver coach Mike Malone all of a sudden unprompted went into a little yarn about them (from 4:41)...
“Obviously part of it is Ja because he’s got the ball in his hands and he’s a special player but they keep stats on everything now and I’d have to imagine that Steven Adams is up there on screen assists. And if you watch the game and see what he does – and he did this when he was in Oklahoma City with Russell Westbrook – most times when you set a screen you’re screening the ball-handler’s defender. Well what Steven does, a lot of times, he screens his own defender. He seals him up the lane. So now Ja gets by his man and now Steven Adams is sealing his defender and now it’s just an open lane. So we need to find a way to move that mountain, get him out of the pain, not let him seal us, so we can have a body at the rim. He’s taking that help away.”
That’s legit fascinating stuff from a dude who knows what he’s talking about. Steve-o’s own coach notices the trend too, don’t worry...
In two games, Steven Adams had 19 screen assists leading to 46 points against the Nuggets. He had 20 in six games prior. Rudy Gobert leads the league right now with 6.4 screen assists per game so that gives you a wee indication of what’s up here (Gobert had 9 in his one game vs Denver). Little surprised that Adams’ rate was that much lower in the other games given how this is usually such a big part of his game but you can probably chalk that down to those three games with lessened minutes and the early-days chemistry he still has with his new team.
Though of course he doesn’t always seal his own man. Sometimes he just absolutely clatters the ball-handler’s man in ways that would make a young Sonny Bill Williams sit up and take notice...
Rib rattlers. These higher-than-high screens of his are an unparalleled menace, there was one a few seasons ago when he dropped Isaiah Thomas like this. Pretty sure Damian Lillard mighta copped one. Patrick Beverley certainly caught it and Steve-o will always be on Russell Westbrook’s Christmas card list for that alone even if they’d never played together like they did.
Now for the pièce de résistance, a quick compilation of Steven Adams screens that led to shot attempts during those two Nuggets games. Because it’s more convincing to see the visual evidence. What you wanna look at here is the pockets of space that he creates with his picks, the areas of the court that he blocks whomever he’s up against from accessing, and the ways in which his teammates utilise those spaces. Ja Morant loves a lane to sprint through towards the rim. Kyle Anderson prefers a pocket in the mid-range to pull-up from. Desmond Bane just wants any room whatsoever to unleash a three pointer. Paint, mid-range, outside shooting. You can get to all three with a top tier screener... don’t have to be a stretch shooter to provide spacing on the court, kids.
Finally, since we’ve been talking about Adams & Jokic, here’s a throwback from the old days...
Free Throw Yarns
That stat’s a little out of date now as Adams did finally botch one in the loss to Washington. But ten games into the season he’s still sitting at a mean 17/18 from the line, 94.4% for those of you that prefer the averages. Just to remind you this dude is a career 55% shooter from the charity stripe. Last season was a career worst 44.4%. Steven Adams constantly been told to work on his free throw shooting as a way to expand his game and his playability - Sam Presti was once asked about Adams shooting threes and basically responded with: well, let’s just see him hit his one-pointers first.
There was that bit in the last Kiwi Steve write-up about how Grizz assistant coach Darko Rajaković has had success with him in that area before by using some... unorthodox coaching routines. They’ve been reunited in Memphis and immediately Adams is sinking these suckers so there’s gotta be something in that. Also we’re only talking 18 attempts and he has been a streaky FT shooter in the past with stretches where he’s found rhythm and then reverting back to type after a few weeks. Ten games into the 2016-17 season he was shooting 95.5% (21/22) and shot under 60% the rest of the way. That still could happen again.
This free throw thing is probably one for further investigation in a future piece but here’s something to ponder for now. This is Adams shooting a game-winning free throw for Oklahoma City back in 2019...
This is Adams hitting a couple random frees throw this season for Memphis...
Dunno, do you reckon he’s dropping that non-shooting hand a little more deliberately these days? That could be a comfort thing where he’s not rushing his shot, a few makes in a row sure takes the pressure off, but also it kinda looks like he’s trying to pop these things with more of the motion that he uses with his flip shot. That’s just a theory. Could be seeing things that aren’t there.
An Insult To Art & Culture
BOX SCORES
at PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS (L 116-96):
18 MIN | 4 PTS (2/8 FG) | 7 REB (5 OFF) | 4 PF
at GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS (W 104-101 OT):
21 MIN | 12 PTS (4/6 FG, 4/4 FT) | 7 REB (3 OFF) | 2 AST | 2 STL | 1 BLK | 3 TO
vs MIAMI HEAT (L 129-103):
19 MIN | 6 PTS (1/2 FG, 4/4 FT) | 5 REB (1 OFF) | 2 AST | 1 PF
vs DENVER NUGGETS (W 106-97):
31 MIN | 6 PTS (3/8 FG) | 7 REB (1 OFF) | 1 AST | 1 STL | 2 BLK | 1 TO | 1 PF
vs DENVER NUGGETS (W 108-106):
30 MIN | 8 PTS (3/5 FG, 2/2 FT) | 8 REB (1 OFF) | 4 AST | 1 STL | 1 TO | 2 PF
at WASHINGTON WIZARDS (L 115-87):
20 MIN | 5 PTS (2/5 FG, 1/2 FT) | 6 REB (3 OFF) | 2 AST | 1 PF
vs MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES (W 125-118 OT):
19 MIN | 3 PTS (1/4 FG, 1/1 FT) | 3 REB (2 OFF) | 1 AST | 1 BLK | 2 TO | 2 PF
THE SCHEDULE
vs CHARLOTTE HORNETS, Thursday at 2pm (NZT)
vs PHOENIX SUNS, Saturday at 2pm (NZT)
at NEW ORLEANS PELICANS, Sunday at 1pm (NZT)
vs HOUSTON ROCKETS, Tuesday at 2pm (NZT)
SLAM DUNKS
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