The “Weird” Offensive Tactic That NBA Teams Are Copying

The “Weird” Offensive Tactic That NBA Teams Are Copying

from a basketball coaching perspective something really interesting happened this NBA season there was an offensive concept that quickly gained attention around the league and the concept was first introduced to the NBA by the Memphis Grizzlies last October the concept is incredibly simple on a drive everyone moved the direction of the drive now this concept is seen as unusual here’s what Draymond Green said about the Grizzlies offense earlier this season our coaching staff did a great job of preparing us for it they came right out the gate i was just telling CD they came right out the gate and was like “Yo what they’re doing is weird what was so weird about their offense?” Uh like if one guy drives right the whole thing moves right like and the thing is this movement concept produced positive results for Memphis and their six ranked offense and over the course of the season elements of the concept spread throughout the league so in this video I break down this movement concept in detail let’s get to it let’s first start with Memphis’s driving game so here Wells drives left and everyone is going to move the direction of the drive so everyone moves left pippen moves left to fill behind the drive bane and Aldama move left and Aldama moving left essentially pushes Edy to also move left and cut from the corner so around the drive everyone operates on a wheel that’s the idea and here Porter Jr is ball watching which allows Bane to get an open three as we watch the play again you can see the value of organized movement because if Bane moves left but Odama stands still Bane would just run into Odama but because everyone is connected Bane got an open shot while Odama got to the corner on this play as soon as Mor begins to drive left Jackson Jr moves left and this movement is called a slide away because on the drive Jackson is sliding away from the ball now here the defender one pass away is Jaylen Brown and this defender is often doing one of two things he is often ball watching or this defender will often help in the gap to defend the drive and that’s what Brown does here and so the slide away is a great counter to gap help and here Jackson gets an open three the Grizzlies got a ton of slideway threes this year and here Jackson hits another now very quickly teams caught on to what Memphis was doing and scouted them so on this drive right Bane is sliding away jackson Jr is moving right and by the way this is called a weak side corner cut and here the Rockets have it scouted so they take away the relocations thompson sticks with Bane and Een takes away the cut but Memphis is fine with this because now Canard has a big gap to drive through as the relocations are occupying the help defenders and Canard gets a layup the slide away and weak side corner cut combo makes a lot of sense because the player one pass away is moving away from the ball and staying spaced and the cutter is cutting behind the defense this pattern naturally creates space for the drive which is what happened here so we’ve talked about the slide away and the weak side corner cut now let’s get to a few other key movements the next one is the fill behind so here Pippen drives right and Jackson Jr is going to move right and fill behind the drive and this gives Pippen the option to use a controlled reverse pivot and find Jackson on the fill behind for the open three as we watch the play again it makes sense why Jackson was so open so first Sharp is guarding Jackson and on the drive if Pippen skips it to the corner it’d be Sharp’s job to rotate to the corner so on the drive Sharp rotates to the level of the ball this is a common defensive rotation and the fill behind counters it which is why Jackson was open i like how the fill behind gives the driver another option on this play wells drives left and he could force up a contested layup but he knows a teammate is going to fill behind so Wells uses a reverse pivot and plays off two feet by filling behind Bane is creating an easy passing angle for Wells and Bane is creating separation from his defender this was a good possession for Memphis as we watch the play again it’s also worth noting that as well as drives left Canard will move left to get all the way to the corner but he does not automatically cut the Grizzlies would weak side corner cut but Canard is on the strong side and one pass away so a corner cut isn’t triggered here the strong side corner cut doesn’t work as well because the cutter and the driver would be right on top of each other the next movement worth noting is the dunker baseline cut so here Jackson drives and if Edy simply stays where he’s at in the dunker he’d be getting in the way but Edy follows the rule everyone move the direction of the drive jackson is driving right so Edy moves right along the baseline to the other side of the rim this is the dunker baseline cut here washington loses Edy and it’s two points this cut is important because it creates space for the drive here pippen drives to the right side of the rim and Huff’s defender is in position to help but Huff cuts along the baseline and while Huff doesn’t score here Huff brings his defender away from the drive so now Pippen has space on the right side to operate okay let’s talk a bit about how Memphis attacks on baseline drives now on a baseline drive where there is five out spacing their approach was pretty standard here there are five guys spaced beyond the three-point line and as Bane drives baseline this is what they wanted the opposite corner is going to hold because on a baseline drive you want that corner filled they want the opposite wing to 45 cut and this is a common cut you see here the top stays on top and here Huff is on the right wing and he’s going to fill behind and get to the corner that’s the blueprint and the 45 cut is great because on a baseline drive defenders tend to turn their heads and look at the ball and here Clark scores on the 45 cut what’s more unique is how they moved on baseline drives when they had four out spacing so here Huff is in the dunker spot so they have four out spacing and this Pippen drives right along the baseline huff is going to move to his right and get to the corner canard moves right to get to the wing and Aldama 45 cuts and here Huff gets an open three now as we watch the play again imagine this on the drive Huff stayed near the paint and Canard and Aldama just stayed where they were that’s fine but it lets Charlotte rotate and execute their shell defense drill they’ve practiced 100 times because when teams practice shell defense the offensive players don’t move so by moving the direction of the drive Memphis takes Charlotte out of their comfort zone and here Charlotte gets confused also on this play if Huff just stays put or maybe flashes middle there’d be no room for a 45 cut it would just be too crowded inside so Huff moving to the corner is important if you want the 45 cut here’s another odama drives baseline and you may be thinking well what if the player in the dunker is a big who can’t shoot well we’ll get to that soon but here Huff can shoot so he moves to the corner and Smart is near the wing so he takes the 45 cut now let’s talk about how Memphis integrated non-shooting centers into their driving game and in particular how they integrated Zack Edy and it’s pretty simple memphis typically wanted to keep Edy near the paint so here Wells drives baseline and usually the guy in the dunker would get to the corner but here that player is Edy and Edy is a non-shooter so that wouldn’t make much sense instead here Edy circles into the paint and with Edy inside you don’t need Pip into 45 cut the offense isn’t getting as much movement here but this time the defense blows an assignment and Edy gets a layup on this play there is a drive middle edy makes a dunker baseline cut and Smart will move left and weak corner cut now as the play continues typically the player in Ed’s spot would continue to the corner and Smart would take Ed’s spot in the dunker this is the idea of everyone moving on a wheel but here Edy will stay in the dunker and Smart is going to run by Edy and fill the corner now conceptually this is not ideal with two players crossing paths like this but to incorporate Edy this is what Memphis did smart can shoot so he gets to the corner now Smart hit a three on that last play but overall I think one of the better arguments against moving the direction of the drive is that this rule is not the cleanest fit for teams who play a traditional non-shooting center and once in a while things got a bit clunky for Memphis here for example Jackson drives left Edy moves left and Lorravia makes his weak corner cut and here you’ll see Jackson try to make a late pass to Lavia but notice Edy he’s still near the paint he didn’t continue to the corner so now there’s just not a lot of space inside for a pass to Lavia particularly since the pass is late edy is in the way and Lorravia doesn’t score here the weak corner cut did not pay off that being said plays like that didn’t happen too often and ultimately even with Edy the Grizzlies made their driving game work memphis finished with the sixth ranked offense and while that doesn’t necessarily prove their driving principles were amazing it is something next let’s talk about how the concept moving the direction of the drive spread throughout the NBA this season but first let’s look at this play from the Grizzlies so we haven’t talked about pick and roll yet but Memphis applied their movement principles to ball screens as well so here Bane and Edy are running a standard pick and roll and as Bane comes off the pick to his right the three players not involved in the pick are going to move right here there are two players on the side Bane is dribbling towards so you’re going to see the slide away and weak corner cut combo and here Vince Williams gets a corner three in the pick and roll the slideway and weak corner cut concept became very common in the NBA this past season teams like Memphis and Cleveland used it early in the season and then other teams started using it as well here the Heat used this concept so first off drop coverage is very common in the NBA and here Nerkish is in a drop and versus drop this concept frequently results in a slide away corner three as the defender one pass away would frequently look to help in the gap but what happens here is also common here the two defenders are occupied by the relocations and they don’t help at all this allows Robinson to turn the corner versus drop coverage so lots of teams started moving the direction of the drive and pick and roll this season in terms of moving on drives in general even when there was no pick Memphis and Cleveland both did it memphis was much more diligent about it than Cleveland but the Cavs did it some too here for instance there is no ball screen and Cleveland’s Evan Moy drives left that triggers everyone to move left as we begin to wrap up the backstory here is interesting 7 years ago at St joseph’s College of Maine someone named Noah Lar Roach installed the principal move the direction of the drive st joseph’s is a D3 school and they destroyed defenses that season by moving the direction of the drive this season Lar Roach was an assistant coach for Memphis he brought the principal to the Grizzlies and thus to the NBA and other teams took notice so I can’t help but wonder is this the future will it someday become common for teams at all levels of basketball to move the direction of the drive i guess we’ll find out

The Memphis Grizzlies introduced the NBA to an unusual offensive tactic on drives. In this video, I breakdown how the Grizzlies driving game worked, and how their principles it is spreading throughout the NBA.

Tags: Pick and roll. Cavaliers. Morant. Edey. NBA Finals.