More on D'Antoni's 'unguardable' pick-and-roll

But with or without LeBron, Mike D'Antoni believes the pick-and-roll is "unguardable."

When I asked him how you do stop it, he replied, "You don't." His explanation was that, most of the time when a pick-and-roll fails, it is because of poor execution. "One guy will make a bad choice [with the pass] or you'll miss a shot," he said.

I got to spend a few moments with D'Antoni and a dry erase board recently and was blown away by the options he presented off of one simple play and how his offense works with the pick-and-roll as the axis. I wish I could explain it here, but I think I'd look more like Toney Douglas than Raymond Felton. I will say this, it helped me understand more what to look for when I'm watching the Knicks play. So use this link here and let the coach explain it as he did in a recent episode of the Mike D'Antoni Show on MSG Network.

We were fortunate to have some great input provided to us by Synergy Sports Technology, which has tracked and compiled data on many facets and trends of the NBA game since 2006. One of the most interesting discoveries was that as much as the pick-and-roll is part of the foundation of D'Antoni's offensive system, the Knicks are basically at the NBA median as far as usage of the play in their offense.

The Orlando Magic, who play a very similar system, lead the league with 16.6 percent of their possessions involving the pick-and-roll. The Knicks, after 28 games, ran the pick-and-roll 11.6 percent of the time per possession.

But the Knicks have had great success with it, scoring at a rate of .859 points per possession, which is sixth in the NBA. This, of course, can be attributed to Amar'e Stoudemire, who, as they story explains, is one of the most dominant pick-and-roll finishers the game has seen since Karl Malone.

And while the Stoudemire-Nash tandem might be up there with Stockton and Malone, statistically-speaking, Stoudemire has been more efficient and effective in the pick-and-roll with Raymond Felton and the Knicks this season than compared to with Nash and the Suns last season. According to Synergy's data (after 28 games), Stoudemire is scoring 0.187 points per possession more off the pick-and-roll than he did last season. His 1.364 points per possession off the pick-and-roll was in the 93rd percentile.

The big usually gets high-percentage shots off the pick-and-roll, especially with a competent guard who can make the right passes, but Stoudemire is shooting a blazing 70.8 percent from the field off the pick-and-roll. That's 12.5 percent higher than his shooting percentage last season off the pick-and-roll. And that's quite impressive, when you consider that every team the Knicks play schemes to stop Stoudemire and that pick-and-roll.

It's even more impressive when you consider that Stoudemire's offense has seen a 6.2 percent drop in pick-and-roll usage with the Knicks as compared to last season with Phoenix. Most of that could be attributed to the early season struggles with Felton, who needed a little time to develop chemistry with Stoudemire.

And Synergy had those numbers, too. In his first 12 games, Felton's passes in the pick-and-roll resulted in 0.93 points per possession. But in the following 16 games, that number jumped to 1.064 points per possession.

For Felton, there was a slight increase in frequency of running the pick-and-roll in comparison to last season with the Bobcats under Larry Brown. Felton ran it 27.9 percent of the time for Charlotte, compared to 35.7 percent this season with the Knicks.

What I enjoyed most about D'Antoni's chalk talk was something he revealed to me about how they attack teams with their offense. For one, they switch up their players from one side of the court to the other so that they don't show you the same look all game.

"We don't always keep our players in the same position because coaches will go through the scouting report and say, 'OK, when this happens, you're going to rotate over'," D'Antoni explained. "Well, we don't want that same [defender] rotating every time. We switch our guys so now Player B has to rotate and then Player C. So they have to make sure everybody's listening to the scouting report. And not everybody listens. 

"So we try to move it around and find the one [opposing player] who has in the back of the [film] room sleeping."

And late in games, D'Antoni doesn't always feel the need to call a timeout. Not when he trusts his point guard to the point he trusted Nash and is quickly starting to trust Felton.

"You don't have to call a timeout at the end of the game because THAT'S what we're doing," D'Antoni said of the pick-and-roll. "So we don't have to worry about getting the ball in and let them set up a special defense. Instead of them getting to talk about how they want to stop it -- at that point they're going to make the right rotation, but if they haven't had time to talk about it, we still have a chance that they may not remember what the scouting report said."

D'Antoni raved about Felton and his quick adaptation to the offense, not just in figuring out the seams in the pick-and-roll, but in running the entire offense.

"He's been very good about calling plays," D'Antoni said. "He loves to call plays. I'll look up and see if he needs a play and he calls it. So I go with his instincts. He's asserted himself. That surprised me, that he can call a play and he calls them good. He'll try everything we have, which is good. He remembers everything. he'll call plays that we haven't tried in a few games. And he's very good at it."

As for those of you who have emailed me over the last two seasons confused about why David Lee (and now Stoudemire) doesn't always make contact on the pick before diving to the basket, D'Antoni explained it:

"Most of the time you don't even need contact," he said. "That has to change during the game and how [opposing] coaches and players read it, but a lot of times you don't need to make contact. There's no reason for it. It only slows you down."

Isn't the idea of the pick to slow the defender down?

"No, because it doesn't matter," D'Antoni said. "Most of our ideas come form how do you want to defend it. Most of the time, the defender pushes the point guard over, so why go up after him and hit. Once that pick comes and I'm gone, he's already on [the point guard's] backside. So instead of setting it there, it's like, I'm out."

And with that, so am I.