Why Anti-Small-Ball Teams Are Thriving in 2013 NBA Playoffs

May 25th, 2013 by Matthew Schmidt Leave a reply »

During a time when it looked like small ball was officially taking over the NBA, teams such as the Memphis Grizzlies, Indiana Pacers and, to a lesser extent, the San Antonio Spurs have bucked the trend.

And it's working for them.

All three of those ballclubs boast monster frontcourts—the Spurs with Tim Duncan and Tiago Splitter, the Grizzlies with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph and the Pacers with Roy Hibbert and David West—and are giving their opponents hell because of them.

We saw what Indiana did to the New York Knicks throughout their second-round series matchup, as Hibbert and West swallowed up any Knicks player who attempted to drive the lane and then turned around and dominated on the other end of the floor. Tyson Chandler has plenty of size at 7'1", but he alone wasn't enough to stop the Pacers' two-headed monster up front.



We also witnessed Memphis scoff when the Oklahoma City Thunder tried to stretch the floor with Serge Ibaka, making life miserable for Kevin Durant by clogging up the lane and forcing him to try to beat their outstanding wing defenders out on the perimeter.


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