Shooters Defense: GSW Read And React

Photo: NBA.com

I watch as much NBA as I can. Which is half of what I’d like to watch, and that is probably half of what you need to watch to have a decent knowledge of the league… 

But I enjoy The League anyway, and I think there are many good things to see, analyze and pay attention to.

I won’t join the controversy about how many three point shots are too many. Everyone has an opinion. But it is a fact that the record of made threes during a seven games series was broken during the West Conference Finals, and this post is related to three point shooting. 

This classic situation is frequently used by the Golden State Warriors, staggered screens.

OKC tried to stop it switching in off ball screens to avoid easy catch and shoot options. Which is as good an idea as any other, if the defensive execution is good or if the offense is not ready to read it. Let’s take a look at some clips from games six and seven. In the first two plays, the Warriors run the staggered screen situation we are talking about, while in the third one we see the off ball screen right after an inside pass:

The Warriors reaction to the switch is to cut with the last screener to the basket. Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala are the cutters. As we can see, when the switch happens, the defender who is supposed to take the screener doesn’t protect the rim, and leaves the path open for the cut. In the first clip, there is still one more help, although the second cutter gets a perfect extra pass to score.

With the Finals starting tonight, we should be ready to take a look at how the Cavaliers defend this basic, but useful, situations. 

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: