We’re going to start a new weekly feature called The Coach’s Box as the season kicks off and try to bring some knowledge your way. A friend of mine, Coach Ryan Mattocks, will impart the wisdom he has learned over years of instructing and teaching basketball players in the Southeast. His first installment covers the sideline out of bounds play (SLOB) and uses an example from a 2005 game in Cameron versus St. John’s.
Utilizing and Defending the Backscreen
Part One
By: Ryan Mattocks
The backscreen (when an offensive player sets a screen with his back to the basket – freeing up a cutter going towards the basket) is an underappreciated aspect of halfcourt offensive play that accounts for many of the spectacular dunks the casual fan tends to take for granted. For this initial installment, I’ll break down two situations (one offensive, one defensive) involving backscreens and how Duke’s respective teams either executed or defended them.
Watch 0:50-1:03
“Why don’t we run that alley-oop play more often?”
Ever heard this sentiment echoed by a friend or a random fan at the local watering hole? Well, the answer is simple: that “alley-oop play” is not open whenever you (or the coach) would like it to be. That said, deft X’s and O’s guys have a knack for knowing exactly when and where certain set plays will be effective. Coach K is certainly no exception and this first clip illustrates his well timed use of the backscreen in a set play.
Starting at 0:50 of the clip, Coach Krzyzewski makes a quick substitution during a dead ball delay in which the Blue Devils have possession in a sideline-out-of-bounds (SLOB) situation. This is in the second half of an early season non-conference matchup with St. John’s in December of ‘05. Josh McRoberts, who the play is designed for, immediately gets into position when inserted into the game and the play is called.
Schematically, proper spacing is critical to the success of any play involving a backscreen, especially one designed to find a cutter going towards the hoop. Notice Duke’s initial alignment. They are in an extended box set with Shelden Williams on the ball side block, JJ Redick in the weak side post, Josh McRoberts on the ball side wing and Sean Dockery flanking him on the opposite wing. Greg Paulus is the inbounder. The most important aspect of the actual design of this set is the spacing allotted to the 6’10” McRoberts in order to finish the play. Coach Krzyzewski accomplishes this by pulling both Dockery and McRoberts up from the elbows (a common starting point for players in box sets) to just beyond the arc. Instead of being 15’ away from the rim, they are now approximately 20’ out. Small details like this can spell the difference between an open path for a cutter and a clogged lane. Also notice they are both slightly wider than the guys on the blocks – this is also by design and, as you’ll see, a seemingly innocuous piece of X and O minutiae that ultimately allows the play to work.
As the play begins, Redick comes from the weak side post to set a backscreen for McRoberts. Norm Roberts, St. John’s HC at the time, knew full well how deadly Redick was from deep (457 career 3PM) and had a defender shadowing him before the ref handed Paulus the ball. That meant the Red Storm needed outstanding communication defensively to negotiate how to effectively defend Redick’s subsequent backscreen. As you see in the clip, that didn’t happen. As Redick sets his feet (notice the 45 degree angle his feet form to the sideline instead of a “flat” screen [screener’s back parallel with the backboard], which is easier for a defender to go underneath from the wing), his defender hugs him closely the entire way. In turn, once Redick got McRoberts’ defender hung up on the screen, he was occupying two St. John’s defenders by himself. He’d done his job.
The play is still not a shoe-in to work at this point. You’ll notice the spacing Dockery has established on the weak side wing (as mentioned earlier) and how his defender has crept up the lane to about 13’ away from the basket to maintain ball-you-man principles while staying on a peripheral sight line with the both the ball and the man he’s checking. This little nuance, the difference between Dock’s man being 13’ up the lane as opposed to, say, 10’ up the lane, could arguably be the key to the play working or not. As McRoberts darts towards the rim on the opposite side, Dockery’s defender (who’s still in decent helpside position with one foot in the paint) has already given up his inside hip to the 6’10” gazelle and is, for all intents and purposes, done for.
If Dockery’s defender was positioned either 3 feet closer to the basket on the lane line OR in the middle of the lane (which some coaches adhere to once ball side is established), he could have conceivably “bumped the cutter” (McRoberts) enough to thwart the lob. Yes, St. John’s would have been stuck in a precarious position with an extreme mismatch on the weak side block until McRoberts’ man could recover, but they would at least have given themselves a chance to get a defensive stop. Instead, as you see, Duke increased its lead to 12 and in the process got the Crazies crazy with an emphatic alley-oop.
You may be asking yourself, “What could St. John’s have done differently to defend the backscreen?” I see a couple things. Firstly, it’s obvious that St. John’s COMMUNICATION on the play could’ve been a lot better. Redick’s defender could have hedged out and bumped the cutter enough to throw the play off until McRoberts’ defender recovered. Also, they could have switched everything, which would have certainly produced two mismatches with a guard on McRoberts and a big on Redick, but nonetheless would have given them a chance on the possession. If anything, you’d expect a senior Redick to put the ball on the floor and take a post player to the bucket in that situation, still only yielding 2 points on a layup.
To me, the weak side guard of St. John’s needed to do a better job of sinking and bumping McRoberts, even if a skip pass over the top to Dockery became available in the process. Dockery (.365 career from distance) was certainly a capable outside shooter, but with the offensive weapons that Duke team had on the roster, Sean Dockery beating you by lighting it up from beyond the arc was a poison that most opposing coaches would have probably picked if it came down to it (don’t tell Seth Greenberg that). Containing first team All-Americans Redick and Shelden Williams and neutralizing the potentially catastrophic effects of McRoberts’ athleticism (i.e., catching an alley-oop off of SLOB set after just having shed his shooting shirt) would probably sound appealing when compared the the prospect of a marginal jumpshooter catching a skip pass from the deep corner and burying a contested 3.
Another thing the Red Storm could have done to shut the play down is ratchet up their ball pressure on the inbounder (Paulus). With a three feet cushion to work with, all the frosh PG had to worry about was putting it somewhere where the streaking McRoberts could go get it. And that he did.
St. John’s may or may not have had this play scouted as it was only Duke’s 10th game of the season. As any coach will tell you, though, having a play scouted and actually stopping it are two different animals. Coach Roberts could have gone over this set 5x in their walk-through (again, not sure if Duke had even shown this set in its first 9 games of the ’05-’06 season) and the result could have been the same. Defensive communication, especially for teams playing on the road in venues like Cameron Indoor, is as important as having your shoes tied.
Ultimately, the intricacy of Duke’s initial alignment coupled with Coach K’s lightning quick substitution/play call in the dead ball situation were the keys to this well designed set producing a bucket. Many people remember the game-deciding plays on SLOB/BLOB sets (’90 East Regional Final and the James Johnson slip screen at Wake a couple years ago come to mind), but the momentum swings accompanying plays like the one above that spark game-deciding runs or put the nail in their proverbial coffins on any given night are appreciated by very few. As you can see, knowing how to utilize the backscreen at the perfect time helped Duke springboard to a double-digit win over a quality foe.
Next I’ll break down the Duke/North Carolina State game from last year and detail how the Pack was able to victimize the Devils in the halfcourt with backscreens and cutters out of a 5-high alignment.
