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Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Basketball - Celtics "Snap" (Spain Actions)

Great offense creates edges. It creates individual mismatches, "draw 2 and pass," and impossible choices for defenses. 

Skilled players master screen options to create hard-to-defend actions.  Complex screens are among them:

Staggers - such as Iverson action

Sequential screening - e.g "Corner rip"

Double screening - such as "elevator" and "sandwich" screens

Screen-the-screener/pick-the-picker actions 

Screen-the-roller - such as Spain PnR which the Celtics call snap

  • Start with the NBA base filled corners
  • Have a high ball screen at the top 
  • Bring in another screener (e.g. from the 'dunker' but stacked bigs at the top is common)
Here's a great example from a recent Celtics game: 


Jaylen Brown is the ballhandler and Queta sets the high ball screen. The Nuggets, absence Jokic, are in 'drop coverage'. Holiday is lurking. As Brown comes off the screen, two Nugget defenders are trapped. Brown attacks the basket and as Queta's man is picked, Brown reads the play for a lob slam. 


Here's a different look. The Hornets bring in the help side defender and leave the opposite wing open. Malcolm Brogdon comes off the screen and reverses the ball to an open Brown who misses. 


Coach DeMarco uses the telestrator to illustrate another example. 

Lagniappe. Get accustomed to "Deep Work" free from distractions - no calls, no emails, no drop ins. I write most of these pieces in the 530-700 timeframe. 

Lagniappe 2. Attacking the body to neutralize the shot blocker.  

Lagniappe 3. "The power of three." Or I say, "stops make runs." Good teams get stops; bad teams allow runs. 

Kentucky finished with three separate 10-0 runs against Florida. In the last three seasons, teams who go on at least 3 "Kill Shots" in a game while not conceding any are 299-0. It's unbeatable.

— Evan Miyakawa (@evanmiya.bsky.social) January 4, 2025 at 1:21 PM

 

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