In the 2024 Olympics team USA captured gold behind ridiculous performances from KD, Steph & LeBron. It wasn’t easy and when it hit crunch time or the USA needed a score they went to a simple set that was unstoppable with Steph Curry & LeBron James.
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I first noticed the playcall here from LeBron in the exhibition game against Serbia where we can see him give the hand signals and call out “Angle Small” meaning the angle is the type of ballscreen and the small signals Steph is setting the ballscreen.
Here is an example of LeBron calling out “Angle” to signal the basic ballscreen for the Lakers in the bubble:
When USA ran this play it setup with Steph starting out around the 3 point line looking to screen for LeBron.
Depending on how each team was defending this, Steph will either hold the ballscreen to force a switch or slip out like this example and ghost the screen into space.
You know this play is devastating when the better option is to leave Steph Curry open on the pick and pop.
Full Play Video:
Steph has been great over the past few seasons adding these Ghost screens to his offensive game and has always been a great screener since his time at Davidson.
His ability to screen for players like KD/Draymond and even Kuminga lately adds another element to the offense that the defense has to account for and is one of the hardest actions to guard.
Breakdown on Milwaukee Bucks Ghost Action:
Full video of USA “Angle Small”
Download this video here.
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Coach Pyper