Small Ball (Almost) Saves OKC

Everyone will talk about the final 0.1 second of OT, but the most important storyline of the Thunder's Game 5 loss to the Grizzlies came early in the third quarter. Down 20 and with their season slipping away, Scott Brooks went small and took his worst offensive players off the floor, going with Ibaka-Durant-Butler-Jackson-Westbrook. That unit, along with one where Collison replaced Ibaka, then went on a 21-2 run.

Memphis had complete control of the game when OKC was playing with two post players, which they did for the majority of the first half. The Thunder couldn't turn them over, so the game was played station-to-station in the half-court, with the Grizzlies pounding the ball inside and controlling the clock. On the other side of the floor, Memphis clogged the paint and jammed up the OKC offense.

When they went 4-out, the floor opened up and the game started getting up and down. All of a sudden, there was room for Westbrook, Durant and Jackson to attack the lane and the Memphis defenders had to defend all 5 Thunder players all over the court. OKC was basically playing in semi-transition for the entire second half, where their advantage in athleticism and 1-on-1 play could take over.

The match-up that made that substitution possible was Durant guarding Marc Gasol. That's the thing about Gasol - even though he's 300+ pounds, he's more of a dancing bear who likes to beat you with finesse and pin-point passing. He's not a guy whose totally comfortable bludgeoning smaller defenders in the paint and looking for his own shot. KD couldn't stop him, but he made him work, the same as Ibaka and Collison.

Going into Game 6, there's going to be a lot of pressure on Scott Brooks. There are a couple personnel issues that have become apparent:

1) Thabo Sefolosha is killing OKC. He's not shooting 3's and Mike Conley has figured out how to get around his length on defense. How much rope is he getting from Brooks on Thursday?

2) That goes double for Derek Fisher, who garbaged into his way into a few spot-up shots but was otherwise totally useless. He takes bad shots, he doesn't play defense and he dramatically worsens their overall team speed and length. If he's in the game, it should only be because Westbrook and Jackson are too tired to play.

3) Most importantly, how much small-ball is Brooks going to be comfortable with? Memphis can't guard OKC when they are 4-out with KD and Ibaka/Collison upfront - that was clear from Game 5.

We'll see if Dave Joerger can make an adjustment, but if the Grizzlies get out to a huge lead because Brooks stuck with his starters, that should be about all she wrote for his tenure in OKC.

Playoff games are won and lost on a razor's edge, especially in a series where there have been 4 straight OT games. You need coach to be able to read the match-ups and make adjustments quickly - at the very least, if Brooks isn't going to be pro-active about altering his line-ups, he needs to be much more reactive than he has shown himself to be over the last few playoff runs.

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Exposing Tyler Hansbrough

Game 3 started going the wrong way for the Toronto Raptors in the last few minutes of the first quarter, when they brought in Tyler "Psycho T" Hansbrough off the bench. Dwane Casey went with his starting frontcourt of Jonas Valanciunas and Amir Johnson for most of the first quarter, then stayed big by bringing in Hansbrough and Patrick Patterson behind them.

Hansbrough, at 6'9 250 with alligator arms, is too small to be a backup 5. He's not a great shooter, so he has to play close to the basket, but he's not big or athletic enough to finish over the top of Mason Plumlee and Andray Blatche, the Nets backup centers. He doesn't protect the rim either, so he's bleeding points on both sides of the ball.

In short, Hansbrough is a second-line player. He's a decent enough 4rth big man, but when the games start to get serious, it's hard to have him on the floor. That's what happened to him in Indiana - even though they had a lottery pick invested in him, they just couldn't keep him on the floor in the playoffs, so they let him go in the off-season.

Hansbrough's numbers weren't terrible in Game 3 - 3 points and 2 rebounds on 1-3 shooting in 9 minutes - but he wasn't improving the offense or the defense. He was just eating minutes. The second quarter, where he played a lot in place of Jonas Valanciunas, was where the Nets pulled away. Jonas getting his 3rd foul with 4:40 left in the second absolutely killed Toronto.

The obvious solution for Casey is to stagger the minutes of his top three big men as much as possible, which is what most two-post teams end up doing in the playoffs. Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph have played nearly as much apart as they have together against the Thunder - the Grizzlies need to have at least one of them on the floor at all times.

Having Patrick Patterson play as a stretch 4 next to either Jonas or Amir is just a much more effective two-man tandem than any of the three guys with Hansbrough. Casey has to make sure he gets the most out of his big men - he can't afford to have Jonas play only 30 minutes in a playoff game and think Toronto is going to win.

When you are a playoff team, you have to start thinking about how guys can fill 3-4 minute increments against quality teams. There's a place for a guy like Tyler Hansbrough in the NBA, but it's not on a contending team. If the Raptors are going to be better next season, part of it will come by improving the back end of their rotation.

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Free Jordan Hamilton

After losing Game 1 and Game 2 at home, it's adjustment time for Kevin McHale and the Rockets, who are this close to seeing their season slip away. The most obvious move is in their perimeter rotation - Jordan Hamilton, whom they acquired from the Nuggets at the deadline, went from 15 minutes a game in the regular season to not getting off the bench in the first two games.

McHale went with experience in Francisco Garcia, but he's pretty much at the end of his rope. He's 32 years old and he was never that athletic to begin with. He's not hitting his shots and he doesn't add much value in the time he's on the floor. The 22 total minutes he got in the first two games are really easy places to upgrade your rotation.

Hamilton, a 6'7 215 shooter who can put the ball on the floor, is the perfect fit in the Rockets system. He stretches the defense all the way out to the three-point line, shooting 37% from 3 in his time with Houston. At 6'7, it's hard to close-out on him and affect his shot. If you do, he has the ball-handling ability to create an easier shot.

That's the adjustment Portland made in Game 2, when they gave Dorrell Wright 18 minutes at the backup 3 and 4 spots. Instead of having Thomas Robinson playing next to Robin Lopez when LaMarcus Aldridge was out, Wright played as a stretch 4, opening up the floor for the Blazers guards to attack. He scored 15 points on 4-5 shooting - that extra offense from their bench was huge.

Houston hasn't shown much of an ability to stop Portland in this series, so they need to get as much offense as they can on the floor. Here's the rule for adding offense - if you are playing on the perimeter and you aren't creating shots, you have to shoot 3's. If you can't do either, you aren't helping the team.

That's why the Rockets should look at cutting Jeremy Lin's minutes too. Lin isn't a great outside shooter and the Blazers don't really have to respect his shot. When he's playing off the ball with James Harden and Chandler Parsons, the defense is sagging off him. And while Lin is a decent scorer and playmaker, you don't want him taking possessions away from Harden and Parsons either.

If you put in Hamilton for Lin, you are adding extra space for Parsons and Harden to operate. You are also adding a lot more length and athleticism to your perimeter D - you are going 6'5, 6'7, 6'10. You can have Patrick Beverley at 1 and slide those guys to the 2-4 positions or you can have Terrence Jones at the 4 and have them at 1-3. Hamilton's perimeter D might be an issue with that second line-up, but it's not like Lin is locking guys down either.

The odds are against the Rockets, but there are several cards left for McHale to play. The only thing he can't do is not play any - if you go down 2-0 in a series, especially at home, you have to make a few adjustments. You don't want to go down without using every bullet in your gun - if you do, you become Scott Brooks.

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The Evan Turner Problem

When you look at the big picture, it's not really a surprise that someone on the Pacers got in a fight with Evan Turner on the eve of the playoffs. Turner is a guy who never lived up to the expectations of being a No. 2 overall pick in Philadelphia and when he came to Indiana at the deadline, the Pacers almost immediately started losing. They are 15-14 since acquiring Turner for Danny Granger.

Of course, not all of the problems in Indiana are Turner's fault, but my guess is a lot more of them are than you might think. He has plenty of talent, but his skill-set - a ball-dominant wing who can't score efficiently, can't stretch the floor and can't play D - is not conducive to winning basketball. In the Pacers Game 2 victory over the Hawks, he played 11 minutes and took 1 shot.

What value is Turner bringing to the floor? When he's in the game, he's taking the ball out of the hands of Paul George and Lance Stephenson and operating as a sieve on defense. The defense doesn't have to respect his three-point shot - he's taken only 24 in Indiana - so the ball naturally winds up on his hands. He can't do enough with the ball to justify how often he stops it.

Before he came, Lance was the player who ran the second unit, scoring and setting up the Pacers reserves. It was the only chance he got to dominate the ball in the Indiana offense, since he had to play as a secondary role to George and David West on the first unit. If you let Lance play with a spread floor, which he rarely got to do as a starter, it's very hard to stop him.

The conflict between Lance and Turner was almost inevitable. They are both young wing players trying to make their way in the NBA and playing for a contract next season. They both need the ball in their hands and there isn't enough shots or touches to go around for both in Indiana. As a small-market team that has already given max contracts to George and Roy Hibbert, the Pacers can't afford both this off-season.

When they acquired Turner, my immediate thought was they were getting insurance for Lance. Because he was the No. 2 overall pick in 2010 and Lance was No. 40, Turner is an RFA instead of a UFA. When you look at his career in total, it's hard to see there being too many suitors for Turner this off-season, which would allow the Pacers to sign him to a cost-effective deal to be a third or fourth option.

This is almost certainly something that has gone through the head of Lance and his agents and it's exactly the kind of dynamic that can ruin a team. More importantly, though, just playing Turner 20-25 minutes a night is killing the Pacers, since he is holding the ball, not spreading the floor and not playing D. If they want to make a run in the playoffs, they are going need to bench him for guys who can shoot 3's and play defense.