Low Post Mismatch: Double Team

It's a situation every team work to stop. When a big guy ends up playing near the basket against a smaller defender you need a team effort and a good defensive organization to fix the mismatch.

The double team is one of the solutions teams use more often. We will see today how Panathinaikos manages to get a stop against that situation through a good team effort, organization, and last but not least, the players' knowledge and awareness. There's no need to say that F.C. Barcelona is one of the best organized teams and they are always ready to react against the double team.

The mismatch happens after a switch in a hand off pass. Abrines finds Doellman in low post. Let's notice how Dimitris Diamantidis, who is on help side, sees the problem even before the ball goes inside and gets ready to trap (there is a reason he's been named Euroleague's best defender so many times). 

At the same time, the communication is good between DD and Mavrokefalidis. Help side activity is good, the trap works well (they attack the ball, hands up, avoiding an easy way out…) and they break the timing of the offense. PAO collapse the paint, creating a lot of traffic through help side activity, and they force Doellman to give a bad pass which Mavrokefalidis steals… starting a fastbreak situation.

Let's take a look:

Real Quick: Two For One

Strategic decisions can change the outcome of a game. There are teams, and players, who are ready to get small advantages that end up being really important. One more time, the small details can be the difference between winning and losing. 

A very good example are the "two for one" situations in the end of quarter (for more info check this interesting article) A team will have two scoring opportunities while the other team will only have one. It's no surprise that the example I'm using today comes from the San Antonio Spurs:

With 34 seconds left in the first quarter, San Antonio gets the ball. They play a quick offense, which Golden State don't appear to expect. Ginobili and Baynes run a ball screen situation, with the argentinian driving hard to the basket, and Baynes following and finishing off the offensive rebound (mismatch situation = offensive rebound opportunity!) 

The Warriors have 29 seconds for their offense, and they (patiently) run one of their ball screen sets. The Spurs get the stop and they have what they were looking for, an "extra" possession which they are close to finish running the fastbreak… Finally they have a baseline out of bounds situation, which they use to create another scoring opportunity for Ginobili, who does his job and scores. 

In the last three plays of the quarter, San Antonio outscores Golden State 4-0, which is a very important advantage! Great preparation and execution.

Let's watch it:

Ball Screen Defense: Switch And Rotation

Last night we watched a great game between EFES and Real Madrid. A tough one that ended up being decided in the last minutes. 

Let's take a look at some of the last plays of the game. Real looking for options off a middle screen and EFES defending it:

Real played this middle screen three times in the last two minutes of the game (in their last three set offenses) Sergio Rodríguez and Gustavo Ayón running the ball screen and Real's power forward, Nocioni, filling the corner on the left side, with the other two smalls, Carroll and Llull placed one on each side.

EFES defensive rule was clear: they switched between Ayon and Rodriguez's defenders (Lasme and Draper) and made a rotation with one of the weak side defenders when Ayon rolled to the basket. With that rotation, the mismatch after the pick and roll is not so big (it wasn't Draper, but Perperoglou or Osman taking care of Real's big) Perperoglou and Osman, both of them big enough to avoid a big disadvantage in that mismatch, were aggressive and managed to deny the pass to the big man.

Real played three different options after the pick and roll: pass for Llull (and another ball screen), pass for Nocioni (one on one against Perperoglou), and Rodriguez's one on one against Lasme (which finished with a turnover). Only the second one ended up with the white team scoring. That gave them two points in three possessions, which was not enough to win a close game.

Let's watch it: