The best story of today is by far Scott Cacciola's profile of Kawhi Leonard's hands. Sam Manchester's brilliant graphic will hopefully save Kawhi from any more of those encounters where people want to compare their hands with his. "Fans have been known to stop Leonard to take photographs--not necessarily of him but of his hands with their hands," Cacciola writes. Either that or it will only increase demand... I'll have more on Kawhi and Cacciola's article myself in a little while here, but for now perhaps this only adds to my case that "The Hand" is really his true nickname, however sweet "Sugar K. Leonard" may be.
Tom Ziller at SBNation has a very rich article on how essential Roy Hibbert was to the defense of Indiana last night in their victory over the Heat. It doubles too as an explanation as to why Hibbert was so inessential to the games against Atlanta and Washington, and how he got beat there. Essentially, he says, he had to contest or come out on so much shooting, that he couldn't establish himself in the paint and could get beat. Here's where that stat "feet traveled" or whatever it is will come in handy once they import it from D-League to the NBA: we really do underestimate just how much doing one or two things extra can tire a player out or effectively, not just through positioning but through effort, disable him for the rest of the play. News flash: players really do have a version of that "turbo meter" you always minded so vigilantly in video games. It also speculates on Hibbert's inability to "compartmentalize" the efforts of his game, as one of the origins of so many of his struggles. This is definitely right, and worth noting, because we don't bring enough attention to it as it applies to defense (just like we don't bring enough attention to defense in general, really): if what defines your game, if what makes you an All-Star, is your defensive capabilities, and they get shut down or taken away, it can become hard from an effort standpoint to find the motivation to contribute in other areas. If your chief talent isn't working, your whole game suffers. This, according to Ziller, definitely is what happened in the first two series of the playoffs. It is the type of drama that was entirely absent last night, since Miami is just built to involve Hibbert on defense and essentially give him a lot of opportunities to shut them down.
James Herbert over at CBS's Eye on Basketball has a good little piece on Lance Stephenson's importance in the last game, which was simply amazing. He in particular pays attention to the Heat's reaction to Lance's little joke that he wants to make Wade's knee ache in guarding him. "Reporters tried to see if the Heat would make it a war of words," Herbert says, "but they weren't having it." More interesting are the Pacers' reactions to Lance: "Instead of settling on offense... they asserted their will," Herbert paraphrases Paul George as saying. The impression one gets from all this is that this team is truly a bizarre entity: they need to continually slap themselves in the face, douse themselves in cold water, remind themselves they are playing a basketball game. It's as if they're little kids with ADHD running around on the court, and need to distract themselves out of their distractions. You can call this "asserting your will" if you like, but it sounds more desperate. It also seems to get at what Lance is all about though, and why he might be hugely valuable to this team. George Hill, insofar as he approximated Lance in this game, and kept pushing the ball at strange moments, definitely helped them out. Bill Simmons has been stressing how thoroughly Lance is a wildcard this year: maybe the opposite, Herbert speculates, is the case. "The Pacers offense looked as smooth as it has in a long while, with Stephenson's controlled chaos unleashed in bursts." That's a sentence full of, like, two or three self-contradictions and a couple oxymorons: we have controlled chaos, bursts unleashed, smoothness through disruption. But it's perhaps getting at the complicated, backwards nature of how the Pacers work: Lance is maybe the shot in the arm that makes their jerky system flow.
Finally, getting ready for Spurs vs. OKC tonight, we have Project Spurs' Jose Grijalva's great, great article on why Tiago Splitter will be the X-factor in this series. And it turns out this is not just because he has the best name-that-is-also-a-job-description in the NBA. Basically--what the Spurs still can't believe--Serge Ibaka won't be there, and this gives Splitter everything he needs to dominate in the paint. Ibaka's not just effective and dominant, Grijalva says, "he's also been their most intelligent player:" "his smarts to not give out unnecessary fouls and not get frustrated when guarding the rim has been an important and underrated part of his game. Now the Thunder put their hopes of three big men to protect the basket who really have no experience at it." And this is important, Grijalva says, because the Spurs are just too good now on the pick-and-roll. Ibaka could effectively show on Parker and not give up the quick shot, and get back in time to Splitter to give him a tough time of it going to the basket--and if he didn't, you could absolutely depend on him to get a hand up to try and block the shot from behind. Without Ibaka, Splitter can put up huge points, because the Thunder will have to work all the harder to contain Parker. Behind this story lies another major point: namely that Splitter is not only hugely better this year than he was last year, but also more coordinated, more physical, and more balanced. He uses his body on the pick-and-roll with much more effectiveness than anyone saw last year, indeed in a very Robin Lopez like fashion. That Lopez himself had such troubles defending him (though the Blazers were horrible at their pick-and-roll defense against the Spurs), speaks to this. "Whether they put Steve Adams or Nick Collison on him, [Splitter will] have the edge after playing against Robin Lopez and Samuel Dalembert taking care of the basket," Grijalva says. "This may be the most wide open the basket has been for him this playoffs."
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