We’re back! Rough week, but we go on. 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. For this week, games from December 10th to December 17th are considered. The C’s went 0-2 this week, with losses to the Bucks and Pistons.
5. Walsh’s quick trigger
Jordan Walsh looks like a different player this year, and his improved shooting confidence is perhaps the most significant reason why. He’s shooting 1.9 threes per game this season—up from 1.1 per game last season—and his percentage has rocketed up from 27.3% to 48.8%. His increased willingness to take slightly contested threes at a higher clip, like he does in the play above, is a big help to the Celtics’ spacing. He’s forcing his defender to guard him closer, thus opening up driving opportunities for his teammates. Shooting more shots can actually be unselfish in this way, and that’s something Walsh clearly understands better than he has in the past. Whether this change came from seeing more shots go in or from the coaching staff telling him to shoot more threes, it has been an awesome development to see.
4. Zoom Action (with Walshy’s shooting)!
The zoom action—essentially a down screen into a dribble handoff—is a common NBA action that’s tough to defend. It often forces the defense to switch, therefore setting up height, strength, and/or quickness mismatches for both bigs and smalls. And on this specific zoom action, it’s Walshy’s improved shooting stroke that forces the defense to make an impossible decision between guarding his three-ball and guarding Queta at the rim. If Jordan couldn’t shoot the ball (or, more importantly, wasn’t WILLING to shoot the ball), Cole Anthony would’ve simply sprinted to Neemy at the rim. This is GRAVITY!
Mazzulla is cooking this year! The zone he pulled out against the Pistons in the second quarter—the alignment or rules of which I can’t quite figure out—totally stymied Detroit’s offensive movement and pace. Joe and the coaching staff noticed the lack of shooting on the floor for the Pistons and knew that they had an opportunity to force them into low-percentage, long-range shots as well as forced passes into the middle. On this play, because nobody has to worry about any of the shooters on the perimeter and can collapse in the paint, the pass to Stewart is made difficult and literally nobody is cutting or moving offensively because they can’t even figure out where to cut or who to screen. Nice work, Joe.
Queta is really starting to get it! Here, he knows Kyle Kuzma is calling Myles Turner for a screen because he wants to get the switch onto him—sliding his feet on the perimeter isn’t necessarily his strong suit, though he continues to improve in that area. So, Queta immediately tells Pritchard to scram switch onto Turner, thus forcing Kuzma to dribble against pesky PP (did I just come up with something?) at the top of the key, which results in a turnover. Good quick thinking, Neemy.
The blind pig is one of my favorite actions in basketball, and Pritchard, White and Queta execute it to perfection in the play above. Because Ausar Thompson is staring at PP and is in between him and the ball, DWhite knows that he can quickly pass the ball to Queta (whose defender is playing off of him because of his lack of shooting ability), who can then quickly run a pitch action with Pritchard for the open three. The perfect implementation of this play requires good timing and quick decisions, each of which are employed by all three players involved in this play. Chemistry and IQ at its best.
