Setting picks is a lost art in today's NBA.
Not to nit-pick, but they sure don't set picks like they used to in the NBA.
"The art of setting a pick is lost," said Hall of Famer Wayne Embry.
"They're trying," said Cavs broadcaster Jim Chones, who played for the Cavs and Lakers. "Now they call it a high-dribble screen.
"The officials have made their minds up that you can't set a crushing pick. If a guy runs into you hard, 90 percent of the time they call it against the person setting the pick."
Though the Cavaliers have been using the pick-and-roll effectively to win games lately, coach Byron Scott admits, "A lot of people, when we talk about the pick-and-roll game, they forget about the pick and they just do the roll."
Embry was nicknamed "The Wall" by famed Boston Celtics announcer Johnny Most because of the width and force of the picks he set. He made life difficult for opponents like Wilt Chamberlain and even teammates like Bill Russell. Russell often didn't practice because he blocked so many shots that his teammates couldn't get into a rhythm. He also needed to save himself physically, and running into picks from Embry during practice didn't help.
But those days are over.
"It's not taught any more," Embry said. "Kids come up through AAU or running a motion offense in high school or college."
Asked to name current players who set a mean pick, Embry can't come up with a single one. Neither can broadcaster Austin Carr, who is second on the Cavs all-time scoring list after a career of coming off picks.
"That's all I did," Carr said with his trademark cackle.
Scott names two of his players -- Anderson Varejao and Ryan Hollins -- but acknowledges, "You can count the guys on a couple of hands who set good screens every single time."
Chones agrees that Varejao sets "a beautiful pick, especially on the elbow," and also likes those set by the Lakers Pau Gasol and ex-Cav Shaquille O'Neal, now with the Celtics.
"By the time you get around Shaq, if you try to go over the pick, oh my goodness," Chones said. "You could eat a sandwich and take a drink of juice because he's so huge."
Scott actually considered himself a good screener back in his days with the Lakers. Those were the glory days of the pick-and-roll as employed by Cleveland's Brad Daugherty and Mark Price and Utah's Karl Malone and John Stockton.
Surprisingly, when asked who set the best screens during his playing days, Scott picked Stockton over Malone.
"When I played, there were a lot of guards," the coach said. "I was relied on in L.A. to set a lot of screens, which I enjoyed. It was easy for me to set screens on big guys. John Stockton was great at setting screens. Karl was good, but Stockton was great.
"Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] was great. Kurt Rambis was great. James Donaldson, who was 7-2, 260. Artis Gilmore. Lonnie Shelton. Buck Williams. Brad Daugherty. Jeff Ruland. Rick Mahorn. Bill Laimbeer. All those guys were great at setting screens because they had bad intentions in mind when they set screens -- that was to make sure they knocked your head off."
Cavs fans don't have to be reminded of the elbow thrown by Mahorn that nearly decapitated Price who was fighting his way around a pick during a game in 1989.
The whole purpose of a legitimate pick in the pick-and-roll is to separate a defender from his man to create an open shot or to create a mismatch if the defenders switch assignments. The key is to hold still long enough to actually make contact with the defender -- which many players shy away from -- and to prevent getting called for a moving screen.
"The perfect pick is getting your chest right into that guy's shoulder or into his chest or whatever part of his body is open," Scott said. "We've got two guys who do it extremely well -- Ryan Hollins and Andy. They make sure they get a piece of you. That's why they call it pick-and-roll. You've got to set the screen first, and then you get to the basket. You've got to open it up a little bit for that guard to have an opportunity to turn the corner against a big."
Carr said that as a result of players not knowing how to set picks any more, players don't know how to come off of them, either.
"If the guy using the pick doesn't know how to use it, I don't care how good a pick you set, it's not going to work," he said. "I was always taught, before I used the pick, to count, 'one thousand one.' You give him a chance to set."
Embry said Oscar Robertson was the one who taught him how to set a pick correctly. Hollins, who is trying to pick up tips from Varejao, said he learned how to set a pick from Don Grant, his high school coach at John Muir High School in Pasadena, Calif., but his college coach, Ben Howland at UCLA, perfected it.
"Ben Howland would go without rest if his bigs weren't setting picks," Hollins said. "He's just a fanatic on hitting a guy and getting your body on him and rolling quick. I've got to give all praise to Ben Howland. He just loves the pick almost more than the shot."
Given the paucity of good, hard picks these days, it's not surprising everybody remembers one certain pick. Embry remembers sending Philadelphia's Gerry Ward flying -- and Ward cussing out his teammates for not calling out the pick. Chones remembers Foots Walker getting similar results setting one against Nate Thurmond before Thurmond joined the Cavs. Varejao thinks Boston's Kendrick Perkins sets a good one. Hollins remembers setting one against Washington State that allowed teammate Cedric Bozeman to get to the rim.
Not surprisingly for a former Laker, Scott remembers a pick he set against the Celtics.
"I remember playing against Boston and setting a screen on Robert Parish and Kareem came across the lane and got a dunk," Scott said, smiling at the memory. "Magic wanted to run the same play. So I went across and set a screen, and you could see Parish loading up. He just tried to run me over. As soon as he hit me, they called a foul on him and I just looked at him and smiled, because I knew I'd gotten to him."
Chones misses those days -- although he doesn't miss running into the picks set by Alvan Adams or Bob Rule.
"If you find me a center who can set a good pick, that is the most beautiful play in basketball," he said. "When a pick-and-roll is performed the right way, where you can roll and get a layup or step back and get a jumper, there's something poetic about it."
THE TIPOFF
An NBA season is 82 games long. It lasts from October to April.
So why is everybody climbing the walls after eight or nine games?
We are not one-eighth of the way through, and everybody wants to jump to conclusions.
Is Chris Paul the MVP? What's wrong with Miami? Should the Cavs trade a) Mo Williams b) Anderson Varejao or c) Antawn Jamison?
Frankly, it's impossible to tell anything at this point. Paul has looked great, but there are more than 70 games to go. Miami has not looked great -- no doubt delighting Cavs fans _ but that doesn't mean the Heat won't be a factor later this season and in the playoffs.
Cavs fans don't know what to make of their team, and I can't blame them. Injuries have made a mess of coach Byron Scott's planned starting lineup and rotations. Just when it looks like they've turned a corner and have all their pieces in place, someone else gets hurt _ like Williams on Wednesday.
That drives all the chatter about making moves to get younger or older, bigger or smaller, stronger or quicker, but that's exactly why the team is unlikely to do so. General Manager Chris Grant can't be sure exactly what kind of team he has yet, so how can he make changes or even know if he should?
The fact of the matter is that there's a long way to go. Usually 20 games is more of a benchmark. For the Cavs, that would be Dec. 5 at Detroit, which is three weeks away.
Let's see how Paul, Miami and Cleveland are doing then.
ROOKIE WATCH
The Cavaliers got their first look at New Jersey rookie Derrick Favors this week. Favors, a 6-10, 246-pound forward who turned 19 in July, is the youngest player in the league, and New Jersey coach Avery Johnson is bringing him along slowly after his one season at Georgia Tech.
Johnson would like him to play 20 or 24 minutes a game, with very specific assignments.
"Rebound and defend and every now and then coach will run a play for you. ... Then maybe he'll get two," Johnson said before the Cavs played the Nets in New Jersey last Tuesday. "But he knows what we need him to do. We're trying to keep it simple for him. We all know where he is. We're not trying to overwhelm him at all. We just want this early NBA season to be a positive for him."
Asked whether coming off the bench was part of keeping it simple for Favors, Johnson said: "Yeah. So now you don't have to ask me that again for the next three weeks or 60 days. Now if something changes I'll tell you. But right now, that's kind of where we like it.
"When you're looking at a guy who's 19 years old -- he's not even 19 going on 20, he doesn't turn 20 until next year -- we just want to keep him confident. His spirit is good. He's really confident in everything he's doing on the floor, for the most part. When he gets the ball, he makes pretty decisive moves for a kid his age. Somewhere around the halfway point of the season, or maybe if it's sooner if something really good comes along faster, then we'll take a look at maybe starting him or growing his minutes. But right now we really like his minutes."
Through eight games, Favors was averaging 21.4 minutes, 8.8 points and 7.3 rebounds while shooting 59.3 percent (27 of 51.) In two games against the Cavs last week, he had 13 points, 14 rebounds, 3 blocked shots, 6 fouls and 3 turnovers. In Wednesday's game at Cleveland, he made just 2 of 10 field goals.
COAST TO COAST
Timing is everything: TNT's announcers have taken Carmelo Anthony to task for the on-going controversy about whether _ and where _ he'll be traded. Anthony declined to sign the extension the Nuggets offered over the summer.
Said Chris Webber of Anthony continuing to talk about wanting to be traded, "It is singling him out in a team sport. I think right now he should just be quiet about it. There is nothing that anyone can do. The best thing to do right now is just to be quiet and hopefully his team wins"
Added Kevin McHale, "All this talk about Carmelo and all that stuff takes a toll on a team. It's very hard to concentrate when you have every city you go to wondering if Carmelo will be here next week. They can implode with what is going on."
Of course, Charles Barkley weighed in.
"I bet you Carmelo Anthony is packing up his stuff as we speak," Barkley said. "He's not there. He's a terrific player. He's going to get his points. It takes its toll on the locker room at some point.... You are either all the way in or you're out. Clearly he is not going to re-sign there....He's going to get a lot of points because he is a terrific player, but he is not putting his imprint on the game."
Of course, all that was before Anthony's 32 points and 13 rebounds helped Denver hand the Los Angeles Lakers their first loss of the season, 118-112, on Thursday.
The hard way
The Utah Jazz beat the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic last week, but they had to come back from 22 down at Miami and 18 down at Orlando to do so. Coming on the heels of a double-overtime win against the Clippers in which the Jazz rallied from an 18-point deficit, Utah became the first team in the shot-clock era to win three consecutive games after trailing by double digits at halftime.
"It says we have a lot of fight in us, but we can't keep relying on getting down and coming back, especially on the road," point guard Deron Williams told reporters after the wins in Florida. "It happened for us two nights in a row, but consider us lucky."
THE LAST WORD
"It's been a pleasure to bring my talents to South Beach now on to Memphis."
From Paul Pierce, in a Tweet after the Boston Celtics won at Miami on Thursday.