Charlotte Hornets steal a Lakers go-to play.
A breakdown of the Hornets opening set vs the Nets and how they used a Lakers go-to set for an easy dunk.
There is always a lot going on the opening week of the season, checking in on new coaches and teams and the never-ending film breakdown of the newest concepts from both offense and defense in the NBA. The biggest things that have caught my eye early for breakdowns are the Bulls 5-Out offense, the Grizzlies use of the Elbow, and the Warriors motion is back! Here are the breakdowns in the early season I have created so far.
Weekly Breakdowns Recap
Milwaukee Bucks “Ghost” vs switching
New York Knicks Spain set to beat the Celtics
Golden State’s end of quarter play
Phoenix Suns “Sit” action vs switching
Portland Trail Blazers Baseline out of Bounds backscreen set
Starting this week I will be diving deeper into team and player-specific breakdowns that will be more in-depth for paid subscribers, as well as the final 5 posts of the 5-Out Offense study. Right now there are 2 days left for the early season sale of 20% off - check out the link below for that!
Note: if you are reading this in the e-mail only form some of the gifs and videos are not showing up correctly.
Charlotte Hornets Strong 2-Chase
James Borrego has always been one of my favorite coaches to watch when he took over the Hornets, using modern concepts, small ball, and creative ideas both offensively and defensively throughout his tenure. The best coaches steal however and that is exactly what happened on Sunday afternoon with the Hornets opening set.
Strong
The Strong action is a common action I have broken down multiple times, but it is essentially another name for a stagger or double screen for a player in the corner.
When you run actions against the switch-heavy Nets designing actions that take advantage of little mistakes is important, so watch here how Claxton switches up the line onto Hayward to start off the play.
2-Chase
This goes from a stagger screen into a double ballscreen, so I just call that 2-Chase for my naming purposes. A couple of things to note on these screens:
1) How high up they are to help pressure release option for LaMelo
2) No contact to create more confusion for the defense
The first screen really screws up Claxton on if he should switch or not, and we have talked about “No Contact = No Switch” before so he makes the right call not switching but does leave him in no man’s land for a few seconds.
Shake Read
Ending this play with a shake read and a no-contact screen essentially guarantees the Hornets will generate an open layup or dunk since the pressure from Carter and jump switch from Harden leaves both players out of the play regardless.
Claxton now has to make a decision: stay on Hayward or collapse on the roll man. He of course stays on the shooter and leaves Plumlee rolling for an easy dunk.
What About The Help?
One thing you might be thinking here is why the 2 Nets players did not help on the roll man and stayed attached to their players on the wing and the corner.
Well, the answer is pretty simple - the Nets switch everything scheme means that in theory, you should not have to overhelp in these situations so they were not even thinking to be ready to help from that position at that time.
Los Angeles Lakers Strong 2-Chase
I mentioned that this was “stolen” which really means in the scouting/film room the Hornets staff noticed the Lakers running this and Borrego and the staff liked it so much they added it to their specials section and ideas and ran this play.
The subtle difference between the 2 plays is that the Lakers use a baseline screen to make sure the help is occupied, where the Hornets did not. It is unknown if that is a result of the game prep knowing the Nets won’t help or lack of execution in that spot.
No screen:
Screen:
If you liked this breakdown feel free to share it & if you have any other scenarios, plays, or thoughts on any future breakdowns let me know in the comments below!
Enjoy!
Coach Pyper