The pick-and-roll is one of basketball’s basic elements. Set a screen for the guy with the ball, then roll to the basket in hopes of receiving a pass that takes advantage of a defense scrambling to recover.
COMING UP
FRIDAY: Red Claws at Raptors 706, 11 a.m.
SATURDAY: Red Claws at Erie BayHawks, 7 p.m.
On Sunday night, point guard Andre Stringer repeatedly fed Celtics rookie Jordan Mickey on pick-and-roll plays that included three alley-oop dunks and seven of Mickey’s 10 field goals in a 110-97 victory for the Red Claws over the visiting Erie BayHawks.
The Portland Expo crowd, announced as 1,447, saw the Claws (5-4) sweep the two-game series from Erie (2-5), which never led in Saturday’s lopsided 111-92 Maine victory.
“Jordan is a hell of an athlete,” said Stringer, who finished with 13 assists and 10 points of his own. “So (a pass) anywhere near the rim, he’ll pretty much get it.”
Mickey wound up with 32 points to go along with 13 rebounds and two blocks. He entered the game with an average of 4.6 blocks per game, tops in the NBA D-League.
“One of the things (the Celtics) wanted me to work on was rolling hard to the basket,” Mickey said. “That’s something I’ve been working on to get better at.”
Fourteen of Mickey’s points came in the decisive third quarter, when the Claws scratched back from an eight-point deficit to take control of the game by holding Erie to five field goals and 12 points.
Not since 2009 had Maine held an opponent as low as 12 points in the third, a stretch that had not been particularly kind to the Claws in their first eight games this season. Opponents had a 44-point third-quarter advantage, outscoring Maine in six of eight games coming out of intermission.
“The third quarter, throughout the season, has been giving us trouble,” Stringer said. “The biggest thing that I’m proud of is we competed better in the third quarter. Guys took the film and took it upon themselves to do a better job.”
The difference, according to Mickey, was defense.
“We realized we had to come out and get some stops in order for us to win the game,” he said. “That’s what we were able to do in the third quarter.”
Led by quicksilver guard Keith Appling (25 points), the BayHawks closed out the first quarter with an 11-0 run to take a nine-point lead and later stretched that margin to 10 before the Claws began chipping away. Mickey tied the game twice late in the half before Devyn Marble, on assignment from the Orlando Magic, hit consecutive 3-pointers to give Erie a 62-56 halftime lead.
“We just talked at halftime about the ways they were scoring on us,” said Red Claws Coach Scott Morrison. “Basically, we felt they were mainly effort things: Getting back on defense faster, blocking out harder, and working harder to fight through screens. We thought they were outworking us in the first half.”
Not so in the third, when Stringer and Mickey worked their magic (they played together for one season at LSU), Malcolm Miller successfully drove the lane, and Coty Clarke converted a few shots down low.
Clarke wound up with 15 points and Miller 14.
“We know they’re a good team, and good teams are going to go on runs,” Miller said. “We just tried to stay solid on the defensive end.”
Omari Johnson added 15 points and Levi Randolph 14 for the Claws, who played without regular point guard Corey Walden because of an ankle injury suffered late in Saturday night’s victory over Erie.
Walden had been averaging 30 minutes a game.
“We had to tweak our rotation a little bit, but I thought the guys who took his minutes played real well,” said Morrison, mainly referring to Davion Berry and Coron Williams. “Everyone has room for improvement, but overall I thought we got the job done and made some adjustments throughout the game.”
Erie’s last run closed the gap to seven points with four minutes left, but after a timeout, Mickey fed Johnson for a layup, hit two free throws after grabbing a rebound and Randolph converted a steal into a fast break that effectively sealed the deal.
One more pick-and-roll from Stringer to Mickey boosted Maine’s lead to 15 with two minutes left.
“We found this week (in practice) that (Stringer) may be our best passer to the roller on pick-and-rolls,” Morrison said. “He showed it (Sunday). He got a couple of lob passes for dunks. He sees the floor really well when he has confidence and he’s not trying to force plays.”
NOTES: Ella Ellis, the West Point graduate who had been listed as inactive for each of the first eight games, made his professional basketball debut Sunday. He played the final 45 seconds and missed his lone shot, a 3-pointer from the right corner. “Everyone was rooting for him to hit that shot,” Morrison said. “It was a good opportunity to get him out there and maybe get some nerves out for him.” … Walden wore a plastic boot on his right foot and will be assessed Monday after seeing a doctor. … Things got a little testy in the second quarter between Johnson and a few Erie players, including Appling and Melvin Ejim. “It was just competition,” Johnson said later. “I like to talk trash. That’s just how I grew up, man. All the guys when I was younger used to talk trash to me and it kind of became part of my game.” … The Red Claws return to action at 11 a.m. Friday against Raptors 905 in Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, which seats 19,800.
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