Memphis Grizzlies Show That Hero Ball Isn't the Only Wrong Play in Crunch Time

Perceptive basketball fans, disenchanted with the inefficiencies of isolation basketball, have long wondered why crunch time often brings a grinding halt to the movement and coordination of a beautiful game.

Coaches and players too often dumb down their entire offense into its most rudimentary form in a game's final minutes; a system becomes an inbound pass either directly or indirectly to the team's best player, to a space on the floor where said player can attempt to manufacture a shot for their and their team's basketball salvation. It's a predictable formula, an unfortunate display and in a lot of cases, the wrong basketball decision.

Good servants of the game (like ESPN.com's Henry Abbott, for instance) are right to dispute the virtues of this kind of "hero ball." For every truly and consistently efficient isolation player, there are dozens of empowered gunners—hoisting up contested fadeaways with the game on the line despite any number of superior options.

Work a screen, cue a cutter, catch the ball in motion. Hell, even run an actual play if time permits. Good play action shouldn't be restricted to the game's first 45 minutes, and yet when teams are often most desperate for scoring, they turn away from the mechanisms that create quality shots.

Credit to Lionel Hollins and the Memphis Grizzlies for going against the grain on their final possession of Game 3 against the Los Angeles Clippers. Facing a one-point deficit and the potential for a live, post-free-throw rebound on the other end of the court, Hollins turned his team to a set designed to free up Rudy Gay on the right wing. Memphis had a legitimate plan of action, and the wherewithal to employ it in a tense situation. 

Unfortunately, that didn't make executing Hollins' play—or really, Mike Conley's decision to execute Hollins' play—the right call. We can get into dangerous territory if we advocate that players shrug off their coach's decisions on a hunch, but play-calling is an endeavor too specific to be dictated purely by a clipboard.

When Conley brought the ball up-court, he had a chance to get to the basket, or at worst, penetrate and force the defense to react to the threat of his presence. After passing on that opportunity, he then had the chance to run a high pick-and-roll with Marc Gasol, a sequence that could have sent the Clippers defense flailing in any number of directions.

But instead, Conley pulled back. He dribbled, passively, and waited for Gay to run his curl. Then Conley hit him with the ball, and saw his team's comeback efforts lost on an errant, contested jumper.

The isolation habit that plagues crunch-time situations is problematic, but even efforts to avoid it shouldn't preclude good players from being able to make sensible plays.

Conley had a chance to really create something for an offense that otherwise struggles to create for itself. Although it's tough to blame him for only doing what his coach instructed, Saturday saw an opportunity missed for crunch-time execution in its most simply elegant form: with a smart, unselfish player reading a defense and reacting, moving toward the rim while actually working in concert with his teammates.