Film room: Maxi Kleber, who elevates Kristaps Porzingis & Mavs offense at large由Mavs.Ben 发表在Big D https://bbs.hupu.com/688
Maxi Kleber was 25 years old when made his Mavericks, and NBA, debut three years ago – older than both Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis are today. He played in 72 games his rookie season on a talent-deprived basketball team, the final year before the Mavericks added Doncic to the mix, and scored just over five points per game, averaging 17 minutes per contest. In other words, he was just a guy. A sparkplug at times? Fresh dose of energy? Sure, but rarely the guy you pointed to in correlation to team success or failure.
Kleber has improved across the board in his three NBA seasons, now averaging over nine points per game in 26 minutes per contest as a primary reserve big man. In the NBA’s Orlando restart, circumstances have him in a position where the Mavericks will rely on him for their success. Starting center Dwight Powell tore his Achilles on Jan. 21st, and the man the Mavericks traded for as his replacement, Willie Cauley-Stein, was unable to make the trip inside the NBA bubble due to family situations.
“With Dwight out and Willie being unavailable, we’re going to be a little small and we’re going to have to adjust that way,” head coach Rick Carlisle said. “We don’t mind adjustments and challenges. In my 12 years here so far, a lot of it has been trying to take adversities and turn them into positives, so we’re looking forward to it.”
From a roster standpoint, that leaves the Mavericks light on true big men. Carlisle has done things like play relatively big small forwards (Dorian Finney-Smith is one) at power forward. But it really comes down to Porzingis, Kleber and Boban Marjanovic. While Marjanovic is a beloved presence and quality depth piece, he’s more of the traditional center than the new-age big man of the NBA. Porzingis is great, but he can’t play 48 minutes.
That means Kleber is expected to shoulder the most responsibility he’s had since entering the NBA. What can be expected of him based on his usage and play in the last few weeks before the NBA hiatus on March 11th? Let’s take a look.
Season stats: 66 games (per game): 9.2 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, 1.2 assists, 45.9 FG percent, 37.4 3-point percent, 86.3 FT percent
In breaking down Kleber’s game, I looked specifically for playing time trends after Powell went down to see how things may have changed. The discovery was that there wasn’t really a ton of consistency in how Carlisle used Kleber, particularly alongside Porzingis. In some games, Carlisle completely staggered the lineups to where Kleber and Porzingis both played a lot of minutes while rarely sharing the floor together. Other times, such as Feb. 3rd in Indiana, they played 30 minutes alongside one another.
That’s actually not terribly surprising, given Carlisle is the one pushing the buttons. He’s one of the most matchup-driven coaches in the NBA, and examples of that are littered throughout his resume. You can go all the way back to the 2011 NBA Finals, when he suddenly inserted J.J. Barea into the starting lineup and never lost another game in that series, or as recently as the last NBA game he coached, March 11th against the Nuggets, when he played Marjanovic 31 minutes as the big man scored a career-high 31 points in a big win.
That’s why his usage of Kleber in Orlando is going to be very interesting to monitor. Kleber is strikingly similar to Porzingis in a number of ways purely from a skillset standpoint (not to be confused by talent standpoint, in which Porzingis is obviously at a different level). They’re both big men who can space the floor on offense, play inside and out, and then guard the rim on defense. If you look at their efficiency per 36 minutes, here’s how it measures up: Kleber is shooting 45.9 percent from the field to Porzingis’ 42 percent (for context, though, field goal attempts are 9.9 for Kleber compared to 18.2 for Porzingis), and Kleber is shooting 37.4 percent from 3-point range to Porzingis’ 34.9 percent (6.1 attempts for Kleber and 8.1 for Porzingis) as well as 7.5 rebounds for Kleber to 10.9 for Porzingis.
The Mavericks currently boast the highest-rated offense in NBA history. Schematically, that has a lot to do with the spacing, and while Porzingis’ importance is a given as the second superstar on the team, Kleber’s ability to help him or carry it on without him on the court is vital as well.
Kleber without PorzingisAfter going through quite a few games, I’ve settled on a three-minute span of one game that I believe illustrates a lot of what Kleber’s game looks like offensively without Porzingis. I’ll save you the constant reminders throughout this section, but as you watch some of these plays or read some of the explanations, you may have flashbacks to a few weeks ago when I broke down Porzingis’ tape. This all comes from Feb. 21st against the Orlando Magic. Porzingis checked out of the game with 3:37 left in the first quarter, leaving a lineup of Doncic, Delon Wright, Finney-Smith, Kleber and Jalen Brunson on the floor. This is almost an exact lineup you can expect to see when the season resumes, the exception being another guard such as Trey Burke swapped in for the injured Brunson.
This first play might be my favorite because of everything that’s packed into six seconds. Doncic brings the ball up the floor, and Kleber meets him far behind the 3-point line for a high pick-and-roll. Kleber is being guarded by Nikola Vučević, one of the better big men in the NBA. Once Kleber sets the pick, Doncic takes the ball to the left wing. His defender circles around Kleber to stay with him, but the key is Vučević, who completely commits to the double team on Doncic. Another running theme you’ll notice in this section and beyond: It’s nice to play basketball with Luka Doncic.
Kleber slowly peels off and calls for the ball at the 3-point line, but Doncic hasn’t turned in his direction yet, not to mention two defenders right in his face. However, in other scenarios, we’ve seen times when Doncic won’t dribble so hard to one direction and quickly slip the ball around defenders to execute the pick-and-pop.
As a 37.4 percent 3-point shooter, that’s a good shot for Kleber. But the key here is movement because two things happen:
1. Once Kleber sets up outside, the only remaining Magic defender in the paint is guarding Brunson because Vučević has gone to Doncic. The defender recognizes Kleber is open, so he cheats his way up the court ever so slightly. That’s when Kleber leaves his post at the 3-point line and cuts hard to the basket, going the opposite way of the only defender in the picture that has decent position on him. That allows Kleber to get behind him.
2. Vučević, who had committed to double-teaming Doncic into a corner, backs off to go find his man. Only problem is, Vučević is a few feet behind the 3-point line while his man, Kleber, is close enough to kiss the rim. That leaves Vučević in no man’s land, flailing his arms while in a dead sprint towards Kleber.
From there, Doncic makes a vintage play and launches a perfect pass past Vučević to Kleber, who gets himself an easy dunk
In this one play we see Kleber’s ability to both pick-and-pop and pick-and-roll. It could have worked either way. When a player of Doncic’s caliber is orchestrating the show, the best thing you can do is give him options, and here Kleber gave him multiple.
About 20 seconds later, we again see Kleber and Doncic working the pick game in the exact same area. The difference this time is Vučević, who has seemingly learned his lesson from the previous possession. Instead of double-teaming Doncic hard and allowing Kleber to slip past traffic to the hoop, watch Vučević peel back into the paint this time:
With Vučević so concerned about giving up the easy dunk, Kleber is once again left alone at the top of the key. This time, Doncic doesn’t have two defenders in his face. Kleber wide open and Doncic one-on-one are both favorable options for the Mavericks. Doncic takes advantage of the single defender that’s out of position because of the pick and hits his patented step-back shot.
About a minute later, Doncic tries to drive baseline from the left side. Kleber sets up in the far right corner; his defender, Mo Bamba, cheats a little to provide help defense on Doncic and stay in between Kleber and Doncic. When Doncic can’t get home, he delivers another difficult pass right on target to Kleber, with Bamba sprinting towards him to close out on a potential shot. Instead, Kleber puts the ball on the deck, drives to the hoop like a guard and finishes with the basket and a foul.
There’s a lot to Kleber’s offensive game, and those final three minutes of the first quarter against the Magic provide a pretty solid demo reel. He even took a 3-pointer in the waning seconds that rimmed out, but as seen above, he’s able to play the pick-and-roll, pick-and-pop and handle the ball himself, as well.
Kleber with PorzingisWhen Kleber and Porzingis are both on their game, Mavericks basketball is a lot of fun to watch. These are two big men that, when you’re looking at your television screen, you expect to see them banging down in the post, back to the hoop. Instead, they’re able to space the floor out and attack like guards while still maintaining the physical presence of forwards and centers. As the season went on, and especially after Powell’s injury, Kleber and Porzingis have really started to play well off of each other as well. To Kleber’s credit, he does a great job allowing Porzingis to maximize his versatile, unique skill set by letting Porzingis play a free-flowing game. Here are a few examples of this:
Few players in the NBA enjoy the pick-and-pop like Porzingis does and his athleticism and shooting ability allow him to be successful at it as well. However, when your biggest man is setting up shop out of the 3-point line, it can make cleaning up the glass and getting offensive rebounds more difficult. On the one hand, Porzingis is pulling the other team’s big man who is defending him out of the paint, but there’s no doubt getting offensive boards is easier for a team when their seven-footer is down low.
Kleber’s presence gives the Mavericks something to work with when Porzingis is playing his outside game. On this play, Porzingis runs the pick-and-pop and takes the 3-pointer but misses. Kleber crashes the board and gets the easy putback layup.
Notice that Kleber never steps outside of the arc throughout the entire play. Contrast that with what we showed above in the section of his game without Porzingis, where literally every play began with him behind the 3-point line. That versatility is not just important for the two points that he got on the board, but it helps Porzingis be the best version of himself.
That best version of Porzingis isn’t always just putting up 3-point shots. Porzingis is essentially the biggest guard in the world, and he’s skilled enough to put the ball on the floor and create, which can benefit Kleber. Watch here how Porzingis receives the ball up top and then drives the lane. Once he penetrates deep inside, Kleber moves out of the way and Porzingis dishes to him for a dunk.
One thing to say about these “easy” buckets Kleber gets, such as this play above or that first dunk in the opening section: These are easy finishes, but that doesn’t take away from the work Kleber does leading up to it to create those opportunities for himself. Those are great finishing plays by Doncic and Porzingis, respectively, but Kleber does a great job before the ball touches his hands.
The inside-out dynamic between Kleber and Porzingis works the other way around, too, even if not as often. This play is wildly entertaining because it plays like one of those videos with multiple frames playing. First, let’s talk about the spacing on the floor. With Porzingis and Kleber both outside, take a look at the paint.
Then, you have the first frame of this play, which is Kleber setting a pick and popping out to the right corner.
The play progresses to the left, where Porzingis now sets a pick and rolls instead of popping. Remember that empty lane literally five seconds ago? This is how clogged up it looks like now. Notice Kleber all alone on an island at the bottom.
From there, it’s a rather simple drive-and-dish to Kleber in the right corner, who knocks down the 3-pointer.
The last play that I’ll highlight here again plays off of the spacing factor shown above. Porzingis and Kleber once again set up outside of the paint, leaving that area completely vacant. Instead of both setting screens and the play going from right to left and back to the right, this plays off of patience and simplicity, with Kleber slipping underneath the defense to get the pass from Tim Hardaway Jr.
The opposite-side help defender is way out of position and has no chance against the size of Kleber anyways.
Side note: My absolute favorite thing about that play is watching Porzingis when Kleber gets the ball from Hardaway and is about to finish the layup. Porzingis is standing back there on the left wing, watching the help defense come from the other side and just naturally points his finger to a wide-open Finney-Smith in the left corner. It’s such an indicator of how lethal this Mavericks offense can be. On that play, Doncic, the heartbeat of the team, is not on the floor. It’s Hardaway, Brunson, Finney-Smith, Kleber and Porzingis. Kleber slips underneath and finishes with a layup, which Porzingis would be capable of as well in that position. Yet there is also the option of passing it out to Finney-Smith, who is a really good corner 3-point shooter. There’s a reason this is the highest-rated offense in league history.
There’s plenty more to highlight when it comes to Kleber’s game. We haven’t even talked about his defense, which is underrated and fearless. But the Mavericks have won all season through offense, and though Carlisle has emphasized defense as an area of importance over the last couple of weeks, it’s likely the offense that must carry the load in Orlando. With the big man-depth being gutted, Kleber’s offense with and without Porzingis will become a significant factor.
https://theathletic.com/1927665/2020/07/14/film-room-maxi-kleber-who-elevates-kristaps-porzingis-mavs-offense-at-large/
Maxi Kleber was 25 years old when made his Mavericks, and NBA, debut three years ago – older than both Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis are today. He played in 72 games his rookie season on a talent-deprived basketball team, the final year before the Mavericks added Doncic to the mix, and scored just over five points per game, averaging 17 minutes per contest. In other words, he was just a guy. A sparkplug at times? Fresh dose of energy? Sure, but rarely the guy you pointed to in correlation to team success or failure.
Kleber has improved across the board in his three NBA seasons, now averaging over nine points per game in 26 minutes per contest as a primary reserve big man. In the NBA’s Orlando restart, circumstances have him in a position where the Mavericks will rely on him for their success. Starting center Dwight Powell tore his Achilles on Jan. 21st, and the man the Mavericks traded for as his replacement, Willie Cauley-Stein, was unable to make the trip inside the NBA bubble due to family situations.
“With Dwight out and Willie being unavailable, we’re going to be a little small and we’re going to have to adjust that way,” head coach Rick Carlisle said. “We don’t mind adjustments and challenges. In my 12 years here so far, a lot of it has been trying to take adversities and turn them into positives, so we’re looking forward to it.”
From a roster standpoint, that leaves the Mavericks light on true big men. Carlisle has done things like play relatively big small forwards (Dorian Finney-Smith is one) at power forward. But it really comes down to Porzingis, Kleber and Boban Marjanovic. While Marjanovic is a beloved presence and quality depth piece, he’s more of the traditional center than the new-age big man of the NBA. Porzingis is great, but he can’t play 48 minutes.
That means Kleber is expected to shoulder the most responsibility he’s had since entering the NBA. What can be expected of him based on his usage and play in the last few weeks before the NBA hiatus on March 11th? Let’s take a look.
Season stats: 66 games (per game): 9.2 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, 1.2 assists, 45.9 FG percent, 37.4 3-point percent, 86.3 FT percent
In breaking down Kleber’s game, I looked specifically for playing time trends after Powell went down to see how things may have changed. The discovery was that there wasn’t really a ton of consistency in how Carlisle used Kleber, particularly alongside Porzingis. In some games, Carlisle completely staggered the lineups to where Kleber and Porzingis both played a lot of minutes while rarely sharing the floor together. Other times, such as Feb. 3rd in Indiana, they played 30 minutes alongside one another.
That’s actually not terribly surprising, given Carlisle is the one pushing the buttons. He’s one of the most matchup-driven coaches in the NBA, and examples of that are littered throughout his resume. You can go all the way back to the 2011 NBA Finals, when he suddenly inserted J.J. Barea into the starting lineup and never lost another game in that series, or as recently as the last NBA game he coached, March 11th against the Nuggets, when he played Marjanovic 31 minutes as the big man scored a career-high 31 points in a big win.
That’s why his usage of Kleber in Orlando is going to be very interesting to monitor. Kleber is strikingly similar to Porzingis in a number of ways purely from a skillset standpoint (not to be confused by talent standpoint, in which Porzingis is obviously at a different level). They’re both big men who can space the floor on offense, play inside and out, and then guard the rim on defense. If you look at their efficiency per 36 minutes, here’s how it measures up: Kleber is shooting 45.9 percent from the field to Porzingis’ 42 percent (for context, though, field goal attempts are 9.9 for Kleber compared to 18.2 for Porzingis), and Kleber is shooting 37.4 percent from 3-point range to Porzingis’ 34.9 percent (6.1 attempts for Kleber and 8.1 for Porzingis) as well as 7.5 rebounds for Kleber to 10.9 for Porzingis.
The Mavericks currently boast the highest-rated offense in NBA history. Schematically, that has a lot to do with the spacing, and while Porzingis’ importance is a given as the second superstar on the team, Kleber’s ability to help him or carry it on without him on the court is vital as well.
Kleber without PorzingisAfter going through quite a few games, I’ve settled on a three-minute span of one game that I believe illustrates a lot of what Kleber’s game looks like offensively without Porzingis. I’ll save you the constant reminders throughout this section, but as you watch some of these plays or read some of the explanations, you may have flashbacks to a few weeks ago when I broke down Porzingis’ tape. This all comes from Feb. 21st against the Orlando Magic. Porzingis checked out of the game with 3:37 left in the first quarter, leaving a lineup of Doncic, Delon Wright, Finney-Smith, Kleber and Jalen Brunson on the floor. This is almost an exact lineup you can expect to see when the season resumes, the exception being another guard such as Trey Burke swapped in for the injured Brunson.
This first play might be my favorite because of everything that’s packed into six seconds. Doncic brings the ball up the floor, and Kleber meets him far behind the 3-point line for a high pick-and-roll. Kleber is being guarded by Nikola Vučević, one of the better big men in the NBA. Once Kleber sets the pick, Doncic takes the ball to the left wing. His defender circles around Kleber to stay with him, but the key is Vučević, who completely commits to the double team on Doncic. Another running theme you’ll notice in this section and beyond: It’s nice to play basketball with Luka Doncic.
Kleber slowly peels off and calls for the ball at the 3-point line, but Doncic hasn’t turned in his direction yet, not to mention two defenders right in his face. However, in other scenarios, we’ve seen times when Doncic won’t dribble so hard to one direction and quickly slip the ball around defenders to execute the pick-and-pop.
As a 37.4 percent 3-point shooter, that’s a good shot for Kleber. But the key here is movement because two things happen:
1. Once Kleber sets up outside, the only remaining Magic defender in the paint is guarding Brunson because Vučević has gone to Doncic. The defender recognizes Kleber is open, so he cheats his way up the court ever so slightly. That’s when Kleber leaves his post at the 3-point line and cuts hard to the basket, going the opposite way of the only defender in the picture that has decent position on him. That allows Kleber to get behind him.
2. Vučević, who had committed to double-teaming Doncic into a corner, backs off to go find his man. Only problem is, Vučević is a few feet behind the 3-point line while his man, Kleber, is close enough to kiss the rim. That leaves Vučević in no man’s land, flailing his arms while in a dead sprint towards Kleber.
From there, Doncic makes a vintage play and launches a perfect pass past Vučević to Kleber, who gets himself an easy dunk
In this one play we see Kleber’s ability to both pick-and-pop and pick-and-roll. It could have worked either way. When a player of Doncic’s caliber is orchestrating the show, the best thing you can do is give him options, and here Kleber gave him multiple.
About 20 seconds later, we again see Kleber and Doncic working the pick game in the exact same area. The difference this time is Vučević, who has seemingly learned his lesson from the previous possession. Instead of double-teaming Doncic hard and allowing Kleber to slip past traffic to the hoop, watch Vučević peel back into the paint this time:
With Vučević so concerned about giving up the easy dunk, Kleber is once again left alone at the top of the key. This time, Doncic doesn’t have two defenders in his face. Kleber wide open and Doncic one-on-one are both favorable options for the Mavericks. Doncic takes advantage of the single defender that’s out of position because of the pick and hits his patented step-back shot.
About a minute later, Doncic tries to drive baseline from the left side. Kleber sets up in the far right corner; his defender, Mo Bamba, cheats a little to provide help defense on Doncic and stay in between Kleber and Doncic. When Doncic can’t get home, he delivers another difficult pass right on target to Kleber, with Bamba sprinting towards him to close out on a potential shot. Instead, Kleber puts the ball on the deck, drives to the hoop like a guard and finishes with the basket and a foul.
There’s a lot to Kleber’s offensive game, and those final three minutes of the first quarter against the Magic provide a pretty solid demo reel. He even took a 3-pointer in the waning seconds that rimmed out, but as seen above, he’s able to play the pick-and-roll, pick-and-pop and handle the ball himself, as well.
Kleber with PorzingisWhen Kleber and Porzingis are both on their game, Mavericks basketball is a lot of fun to watch. These are two big men that, when you’re looking at your television screen, you expect to see them banging down in the post, back to the hoop. Instead, they’re able to space the floor out and attack like guards while still maintaining the physical presence of forwards and centers. As the season went on, and especially after Powell’s injury, Kleber and Porzingis have really started to play well off of each other as well. To Kleber’s credit, he does a great job allowing Porzingis to maximize his versatile, unique skill set by letting Porzingis play a free-flowing game. Here are a few examples of this:
Few players in the NBA enjoy the pick-and-pop like Porzingis does and his athleticism and shooting ability allow him to be successful at it as well. However, when your biggest man is setting up shop out of the 3-point line, it can make cleaning up the glass and getting offensive rebounds more difficult. On the one hand, Porzingis is pulling the other team’s big man who is defending him out of the paint, but there’s no doubt getting offensive boards is easier for a team when their seven-footer is down low.
Kleber’s presence gives the Mavericks something to work with when Porzingis is playing his outside game. On this play, Porzingis runs the pick-and-pop and takes the 3-pointer but misses. Kleber crashes the board and gets the easy putback layup.
Notice that Kleber never steps outside of the arc throughout the entire play. Contrast that with what we showed above in the section of his game without Porzingis, where literally every play began with him behind the 3-point line. That versatility is not just important for the two points that he got on the board, but it helps Porzingis be the best version of himself.
That best version of Porzingis isn’t always just putting up 3-point shots. Porzingis is essentially the biggest guard in the world, and he’s skilled enough to put the ball on the floor and create, which can benefit Kleber. Watch here how Porzingis receives the ball up top and then drives the lane. Once he penetrates deep inside, Kleber moves out of the way and Porzingis dishes to him for a dunk.
One thing to say about these “easy” buckets Kleber gets, such as this play above or that first dunk in the opening section: These are easy finishes, but that doesn’t take away from the work Kleber does leading up to it to create those opportunities for himself. Those are great finishing plays by Doncic and Porzingis, respectively, but Kleber does a great job before the ball touches his hands.
The inside-out dynamic between Kleber and Porzingis works the other way around, too, even if not as often. This play is wildly entertaining because it plays like one of those videos with multiple frames playing. First, let’s talk about the spacing on the floor. With Porzingis and Kleber both outside, take a look at the paint.
Then, you have the first frame of this play, which is Kleber setting a pick and popping out to the right corner.
The play progresses to the left, where Porzingis now sets a pick and rolls instead of popping. Remember that empty lane literally five seconds ago? This is how clogged up it looks like now. Notice Kleber all alone on an island at the bottom.
From there, it’s a rather simple drive-and-dish to Kleber in the right corner, who knocks down the 3-pointer.
The last play that I’ll highlight here again plays off of the spacing factor shown above. Porzingis and Kleber once again set up outside of the paint, leaving that area completely vacant. Instead of both setting screens and the play going from right to left and back to the right, this plays off of patience and simplicity, with Kleber slipping underneath the defense to get the pass from Tim Hardaway Jr.
The opposite-side help defender is way out of position and has no chance against the size of Kleber anyways.
Side note: My absolute favorite thing about that play is watching Porzingis when Kleber gets the ball from Hardaway and is about to finish the layup. Porzingis is standing back there on the left wing, watching the help defense come from the other side and just naturally points his finger to a wide-open Finney-Smith in the left corner. It’s such an indicator of how lethal this Mavericks offense can be. On that play, Doncic, the heartbeat of the team, is not on the floor. It’s Hardaway, Brunson, Finney-Smith, Kleber and Porzingis. Kleber slips underneath and finishes with a layup, which Porzingis would be capable of as well in that position. Yet there is also the option of passing it out to Finney-Smith, who is a really good corner 3-point shooter. There’s a reason this is the highest-rated offense in league history.
There’s plenty more to highlight when it comes to Kleber’s game. We haven’t even talked about his defense, which is underrated and fearless. But the Mavericks have won all season through offense, and though Carlisle has emphasized defense as an area of importance over the last couple of weeks, it’s likely the offense that must carry the load in Orlando. With the big man-depth being gutted, Kleber’s offense with and without Porzingis will become a significant factor.
https://theathletic.com/1927665/2020/07/14/film-room-maxi-kleber-who-elevates-kristaps-porzingis-mavs-offense-at-large/
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