Phoenix Suns "Sit" action that prevents switching.
A breakdown of an action the Suns run that makes switching difficult that has worked for Monty Williams the last few years.
Designing plays in today’s NBA it is becoming increasingly difficult to get new actions or concepts that haven’t existed before. These coaches are some of the brightest minds in the world and with scouting and game preparation there is not many new things that occur on a basketball court. One of the new concepts that Monty Williams and the Suns came up with that I had not seen previously is the “Sit” concept.
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Chicago Action
I use the term Chicago when referring to a pindown into a dribble hand-off, this is one of the more common actions in today’s NBA especially in 5-Out.
Switching Chicago Action
How NBA teams have started to defend this action is to switch “Up The Line” or switch the initial pindown screen and then try and either blow up the hand-off or switch it.
Zipper 5
The play starts out with a Zipper screen for the 5 man, Ayton to catch the ball at the elbow and be the trigger man for the hand-off.
Sit
This is the specific part of the play that makes this play difficult to defend, watch specifically what Bridges does at the opposite elbow. He sits down toward the ball like he is going to catch a pass or be available for a ball reversal.
When he does this Westbrook goes into a deny and focuses on not allowing the ball to be reversed but actually, this sets up the play perfectly. Now Westbrook cannot switch the screen and actually turns this “Sit” single screen into almost a double screen using Westbrook as an additional screener and this forces Devin Booker’s defender has to trail him on the dribble handoff.
Chicago
This becomes Chicago action because it is a screen into a dribble hand-off, which turns into a shake read where it puts the defense in a bind to either stay on a shooter or help on the roll man. In this play since Bazemore has to trail that means that AD has to honor Booker in the pullup game and that little amount of time allows Ayton to be open on the roll.
The Phoenix Suns have used this sit action out of multiple looks - here are more examples below:
Another clever setup out of Horns:
This is basically the same set as tonight, but the ball and entry is in the middle of the floor.
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Enjoy!
Coach Pyper