Earlier in the season, Seth Curry’s points per possession stats had been impressive almost across the board, with the exception of one area: as a pick-and-roll ball-handler. Since the return of Dirk Nowitzki, however, Curry’s improved greatly in that aspect of the game.
For reference, Curry currently ranks in the 67th percentile league-wide in points per possession in the pick-and-roll, scoring 0.883 points per possession. One week ago today, he was only in the 59th percentile. Not long before that, he was in the bottom half of the league.
Much of his improvement can be attributed to turning the ball over less. Through November, he’d given it away 19 percent of the time as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll. At the time, Curry was just beginning to play the point guard spot with consistency; he’d been a shooting guard virtually his entire professional career.
Since his return from injury in early December, however, Curry has turned it over less than 12 percent of the time in the pick-and-roll, an indication that not only is he getting better and wiser as a playmaker, but that he’s also benefited from the return from injury of some of his veteran teammates, namely Dirk Nowitzki.
Nowitzki has more “gravity” than any jump-shooting big man in NBA history. Defenders simply refuse to leave him, which often creates driving and/or passing lanes all over the floor for guards who pair up with him in the pick-and-roll. Over the years, Jason Terry and Monta Ellis most notably partnered up with Dirk in the two-man game to create offense all night long. The thing both of those players have in common is they are fast and aggressive, and while Ellis preferred to finish at the rim while Terry enjoyed the pull-up shot, they both got to their spots quickly and easily. J.J. Barea has also been incredible in that role with the second unit for almost the entire time they’ve played together, and Deron Williams has been very effective, as well. Both of those players can score in those situations, but they prefer to move the ball more often than shoot.
That’s what it takes for a guard to succeed playing next to Nowitzki: He must be able to identify the area of weakness, and then attack that area as quickly as possible. Nowitzki opens up the floor, so it’s up to the ball-handler to take advantage.
Curry has fit into the role almost seamlessly since moving into the starting lineup on Jan. 12. In those nine games, he’s averaged 15.1 points per game on 51.0 percent shooting from the field and 50.0 percent from beyond the arc. The Mavs are 6-3 during that stretch, and are coming off perhaps their biggest win of the season, a road triumph at San Antonio. Curry scored a career-best 24 points in the victory.
He’s been good in general, but he’s been excellent while playing with Nowitzki. In the 261 minutes they’ve shared the floor together this season, Curry is scoring a blistering 1.28 points per possession, sporting a 53.8 field goal percentage and a 62.4 effective field goal percentage.
It’s been in part due to other players, but Curry has been plenty responsible for his own success, as well, by taking advantage of the space Nowitzki creates.
The Mavs scored their first bucket against the Spurs last night by going to the Curry/Nowitzki pick-and-roll.
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Most defenses make it their objective to limit dribble penetration into the middle of the paint. It appears the Spurs may have had a bit of a miscommunication on this play, as both Danny Green and LaMarcus Aldridge played Curry’s right hand as Nowitzki set the high screen. Recognizing their commitment, Curry crossed over quickly, got into the lane, and hit a nice floater. He’s 12 of 20 on those shots this season, per NBA Stats.
The Spurs are a well-coached team, of course, so you knew they’d correct their mistakes and make adjustments. Later in the game, the Mavericks ran the same high pick-and-roll and, this time, both Spurs defenders committed to keep Curry out of the middle.
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David Lee played with Dirk last season, so he knows what the German is capable of. You can see him clinging to Nowitzki, even as Curry drove right around the screen. He refused to offer any help because he didn’t want Dirk to have an open look at a 3. Curry ended up with 30 feet of open space and settled into an easy mid-range jumper.
An even more extreme example popped up extremely late in the game. Curry took a Nowitzki screen 35 feet from the rim on the Mavs’ final true offensive possession, and used a combination of quickness and change-of-pace dribbles to glide all the way into the paint, finishing it off a deadly hesitation move.
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Every Spur had a tough choice to make here. Patty Mills, Curry’s defender, fought hard through the screen and stayed stuck to Curry’s hip. He did well. Aldridge, though, couldn’t decide quickly enough if he wanted to help against Curry’s drive or step out to deny the ball from going to Nowitzki. You can see him begin to slide down to offer help, and then it’s as if he remembered who he was supposed to guard, so he had to step back out. That left three wings underneath to protect the rim, but the Mavs spaced the floor horizontally so there was nothing they could do.
Curry has a nice combination of speed and quickness, which allows him to get to his spots faster than most help defenders can react. That becomes an even bigger problem when Nowitzki is the center, because he pulls the only rim protector as far away from the basket as possible. This Pistol action against Miami is a good example.
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Why even run a pick-and-roll when you can run a quick give-and-go hand-off like that? The Mavs overloaded the weak side with three players, and Hassan Whiteside stayed glued to Nowitzki. That meant Goran Dragic was the only Heat defender who could slow down Curry, but he got stuck trying to traverse the screen — which, thanks to his own teammate, essentially became a double-screen — and he couldn’t outrun Curry to the rim.
That’s where Nowitzki’s gravity makes such a difference as a center. Even the best rim protectors struggle to contest shots on the move. They would rather watch the play develop and position themselves to block the shot.
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Curry was fast enough in the above example to sneak around Nowitzki’s screen, beating Gordon Hayward. Then, he turned on the burners to get Jazz center Rudy Gobert, maybe the best interior defender in all of basketball, moving to his right. Curry then went up with his right hand although he was still moving to his left, which forced Gobert into an awkward contest across his body.
The 26-year-old first-year Maverick has been excellent as a spot-up shooter, and is one of the best in the NBA at scoring coming off screens. But he’s taken his biggest strides this season on the ball in the pick-and-roll, and Nowitzki is partially responsible. Curry’s combination of speed, quickness, and change-of-pace make him a potentially very dangerous player in the pick-and-roll somewhere down the line. He’s been surging lately, and this might only be the beginning.
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