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PAGE 04 | 26 2007 | FIBA ASSIST MAGAZINE

FIBA EUROPECOACHES - FUNDAMENTALS AND YOUTH BASKETBALL

Ryan Krueger has been the assistantcoach of Virginia Commonwealth for ayear and of Maine Central Institute for

two seasons. For four years he hasworked with the New Jersey Nets, atfirst as a video coordinator and, begin-ning last season, as assistant coach. Hehas written two books, "Yellow BrickBasketball Drills", whose proceeds go

toward the social campaign "Coachesvs. Cancer". He has also been aninstructor at Five-Star Camp.

PICK-AND-ROLL PHILOSOPHY

Guard NotesThe guard must set up his defender. If hewants to use the screen and get to themiddle, then his setup is to fake to thebaseline, the opposite if he wants to go

to the baseline.With the dribble I like to teach theinside-out move to get the defenderleaning away from the screen. Now,with him off balance, I like teaching aquick crossover dribble to run thedefender right into the screener in thedirection he wants to attack. I want myplayers coming off "clean" in every pick-and-roll.If a player is coming off "dirty" (wherehis defender is able to stay attached tohim), the ball handler is now forced to

attack two defenders (his defender andthe screener's defender, since he wasnever screened), instead of one.

If the ball handler has not used his drib-ble, I teach two ways to set up hisdefender without a dribble. If thedefender is crowding him, taking awayhis airspace, I teach the "step across."This move backs the defender off him,so he has space to manoeuvre and alsoget him leaning away from the screen. Ifthe defender is giving him space, I teach

a quick "rip-thru" away from the screen,a violent ball and foot fake away fromthe screen.

The ball handler must always come offshoulder to shoulder with the screener,as not to allow his defender any room tofight over the top of the screen.

Waiting for the screener to be set isvital. If he does not, he will get thescreener called for an illegal screen.The ball handler should be setting hisdefender away from the screen (with anin-out dribble, a step across or rip-thru),exactly as the screener's feet are hittingthe ground to set the screen. Thisinsures that the big man is not movingwhen the guard comes off and that thebig man will be able to set the best pos-sible screen for the guard.

He must "turn the corner" like he is run-

ning downhill, picking up speed andcannot be stopped. He must run off thescreen in attack mode!!! All he is think-ing is attacking that big man, getting intothe paint by either splitting the pick-and-roll or getting around the screener'sdefender outside shoulder.

When he comes off the screen, the ballhandler must drive it at least two drib-bles. He "bails out" the defense, if hetakes one bounce and picks up his drib-ble. Even if the defense is "blitzing" him

(trapping), he must "stretch" the defenseby taking a minimum of two dribbles,and dragging the screener's defenderas far as possible, so the distance hemust recover is greater.

"Bingo" is a term I use to describe theball handler beating his defender awayfrom the screen.

I do not like backing his defender downto get into a pick-and-roll . Backing downa defender takes away the ball handler

ability to quickly "bingo" the pick. To doso, he must spin away from the screen,which, in my opinion, is too slow. To

"bingo" a pick I want a crossover (or thruthe legs) dribble, because it's the quick-est change of direction move.

The first look in the pick-and-roll isalways the ball handler. I want him toscoring or making a play 80% of thetime. In any pick-and-roll the ball han-dler's first thought is "attack the bigman". His options are always drive first,shoot second, and pass third. If you donot want the ball handler to shoot it, youshould not be running the pick-and-rollwith him. The ideal situation is to get theball handler penetrating to the rim out ofany pick-and-roll.

Pick-and-rolls "create offense". The ballhandler must come off the pick-and-roll

to score. He must go hard to the rim,with the chest facing the basket, asopposed to the sideline: he must gonorth-south, not east-west. If the ballhandler has confidence in his reads, hecan overcome a lack of quickness.

Big Men NotesThe key of a great pick-and-roll startswith how the big man sets his screen. Iam a huge believer in drilling "screeningangles" into the heads of our big men. Ifthe center or the big forward

"telegraphs" his route and saunters intoit as a snail's pace, it makes thedefense's coverage very easy. What ishard to guard is when the big mansprints into the screen and puts separa-tion between himself and his defender.It's hard to give an aggressive "show" atthe level of the screen, when you aretrailing the play and cannot get there intime!

What is also hard to guard is when adefender does not know on which side

of the pick to give his "show". The guardmust help the situation by keeping theball in the center of the floor. If he

by Ryan Kruger

THE PICK-AND-ROLL:

ALL OF THE

SOLUTIONS

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declares a side, it's to the benefit of thedefense, because now it is easy to knowwhich side to give a "show"."Telegraphing" the screen is wheneveryone in the building knows whichhand the defender is bringing the ballhandler to. I like the big man startingwith his head under the rim and comingup through the lane. Now no one knowswhich side the big man is going to setthe screen. We call this "changing theangle late". The big man must run intothe screen and set it with his back any-where between the "flat to the baseline"and, at the very worst, "back to the cor-ner". Setting the screen with his chest tothe sideline, just make to easy to gounder. I care less about "laying wood" onthe ball handler's defender, than I do

make sure he goes over the screen, Ifthe ball handler's defender has to goover the screen, he is no longer guard-ing our ball handler. That means that, fora short period of time, we have createda situation where our guard can playone-on-one with their screener'sdefender.

I want constantly put the defensive cen-ter or power forward in positions wherethey are unable to get a "show". It ismuch easier to attack a big man, who is"loose," than it is to turn the corner ver-sus a hard show.

It is unacceptable for teams to go underyour pick-and-roll. The job of yourscreener is to set the screen at such

angle as to force the ball handler'sdefender to go over the top. It is to thedefense's advantage to go under and letyou shoot a jump shot. They have keptyou out of lane, kept you from getting theshot at the rim, and kept you from "suck-ing in" their perimeter defenders (whichcreates wide open spot up of the smallforwards), all because we allowed themto go under. Pick-and-rolls should begreat "attack" situations for your aggres-sive/athletic ball handlers (hopefully youhave some!).

With flat angle high pick-and-rolls, wewant to set a screen outside of thethree-point l ine, because it gives the ballhandler more room to manoeuvre andmore space to get "a head of steam" and

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be in a dead sprint coming off the pick, asopposed to starting from a stationary posi-tion.

On traditional angle high pick-and-rolls, thebig man should set the screen with his foottouching the three-point line. It's theguard's job to run his defender off thescreen, not the big men's job to adjust to theguard. Whenever possible, I would prefer toset a flat angle pick-and-roll, as opposed toa traditional angle, because it causes agreat deal of confusion for the defense, andconsequently, much harder to defend.

A very tough situation to get a "show" on iswhen the big man starts on the right block,sprints up through the right elbow, andthen changes the angle of the pick at thelast minute, bringing the ball handler to hisleft hand. It makes very tough for yourscreener's defender to get a show,because they expect the pick to be setbringing the ball handler to his right hand. Icall this coming up "thru the elbow" andsetting a "banana screen."

On traditional side pick-and-rolls, I want mybig men to be somewhere between settingthe screen with their back to the corner andchest to the sideline (worst case scenario).This is easy when the big men start low(below the free-throw line), because of thepath they take to set a screen. Where theyrun into a problem is in transition setting"drag" screens and when they are on theperimeter outside of the three-point line.When they run into a side pick-and-roll fromthe top of the key, their path ends up beinga straight line to the ball, which means theirback is to where half court and the sidelinemeet (the exact opposite angle of what wewant!). In this situation, the angle the bigman takes invites the under, which cannothappen. When the big man setting the pick-and-roll starts high, he cannot take astraight line path to the ball. He must takehis path towards the rim and then veer outto set the screen at an acceptable angle.We tell our big men to "circle under the ball"in this situation. All this means is they mustget even or below the ball, before theybreak off their route and go set the sidepick-and-roll. Against the team that youknow they will go over, chest to the sidelineis ideal. When teams are going underagainst you, I teach setting the screen in thesame spot, but adjusting the angle such thatthe center's back is facing more towardsthe opposite corner, as opposed to the side-line, forcing them over the top.

When setting a "hat" pick (a side pick, butinstead of having the screener with his



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chest to the sideline, bringing the ballhandler to the middle, the screener hashis back to baseline, bringing the ballhandler to the baseline as well), we obvi-ously want the screener to have his backflat to the baseline, no exceptions. Thekey here is to make sure the "hat" picksare set slightly more towards the middleof the floor than a traditional side pick.Since you are bringing the ball handler tothe baseline, it simply gives him moreroom, if the screen is set more towardsthe middle of the floor. With this, we justtell our players we want them to "stay"off the sideline, when setting "hat" picks.

TEACHING THE PICK-AND-ROLL

I would estimate that 75% of the basket-ball played in the NBA involves somesort of pick-and-roll action.So, I like teaching it, drilling it, and rein-forcing what we want out of our ball han-dlers (and the big men) a lot in practice. Ifit's occurs, 75% of the time we have theball, we should spend a lot of our practicetime perfecting it! The most important

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"shoulders" (come off shoulder to shoul-der with the screener). I spend most of mytime reinforcing the reads, but I cannotallow the players to slack on these 3 "S's,"especially the setups. They more oftenthan anything else determine whether ornot our guards are coming off "clean" or"dirty.

I have found that a routine works bestwhen working on our pick-and rolls. Forexample, when working on side pick-and-roll reads, we go through the same reads

thing I want our guards to understand areour reads on how the defense is playingus. The pick-and-roll is very much a mentalexercise. Many players are able to getaway without having a great understand-ing of concepts, because of their amazingathletic ability.If you can combine that with a basicunderstanding of how you want to attack,as a result of how they are playing you, it

would be a scary combination.

What happens though when we concen-trate solely on our "reads" (how thedefense is playing us) is that we lose trackof the minor points of pick-and-roll. Iremind our players of the "3 S's." Stay"square" (staying square as opposed tobacking our defending down), "setups"(fake one way to come off another), and

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in the same order, with the same verbalcommands each day. Our first read is ver-sus "short show." When I say "short show",our players immediately understand thatthey must attack the big man, turn hard thecorner with two dribbles, and get to theelbow of the free-throw area for a pull upjumper. I do not take time to explain everyread. The first few weeks I do, because thatis our time to implement our entire pick-and-roll philosophy. But, once they knowwhat we want to get done, the commandsbecome shorter, so that we can get morework done with less talk. Because we dothe same reads in the same order everyday,it becomes a habit. I will reinforce having"good setups" or certain key points, but Ikeep the verbal commands to a minimumand I keep them consistent. Same reads,same order, same terminology every day.The simple commands I give to the playersare in quotes. All I say is what's in theparentheses and they know what to do. Ibelieve there must be defense in the drill. Itis not enough to come off a coach, who issetting a screen and just to know that adefender hard showed, or went under. Theyhave to see and feel it. We will have nor-mally one coach involved in the drill or twocoaches on the "red" situation on the highpick-and-roll. The following is the order ofthe reads we work.

READS ON THE HIGH PICK-AND-ROLL

1. "Soft Show." When the ball handlersees that the screener's defendermakes a soft show (when he makes ashort and not aggressive step out) andhis defender goes over the screen, thismeans that the screener's defendermust totally contain him with his show.He must attack his shoulder, like a"snowball rolling out a mountain," witha minimum of two dribbles (diagr. 1).

2. "Hard Show (and Over)." To contain theball handler, the big man's defendermust show hard and lose contact withthe screener. Any time the dribbler

sees a "daylight, he takes it," looking tosplit the screen. The ability to consis-tently split the pick-and-rolls separatesgood from great pick-and-roll players.The ball handler throws the ball out infront of him and through the openspace, and explodes through the tinyspace to get a shot in the lane (diagr. 2).

3. "Red-Quick Change." When the twodefenders show hard early, almosttrapping (we call "red") the ball han-dler, as he gets at the level of thescreen (the screener's defender is

showing out hard and the ball han-dler's defender is running over the topof the screen), can make a quick


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ball to the screener posting up a small-er defender down in a wrestling match.As the ball handler comes off thescreen and there is a switch, thescreener rolls into the post for creatingspace, while the ball handler takes histime, dribbles back outside the three-point line and then plays one-on-one

with the screener's defender to finishwith a lay-up, not with a jump shot(diagr. 12).

READS FOR THE SIDE PICK-AND-ROLL

1. "Soft Show." When the ball handlersees that the screener's defendermakes a soft exit and his defendergoes over the top of the screen, hemust attack the outside shoulder of thescreener's defender, like a "snowballrolling down a mountain" with a mini-mum of two hard dribbles (diagr. 13).

2. "Hard Show." To contain the ball han-dler the screener's defender shows outhard and loses contact with the screen-er. Anytime the dribbler "sees daylight,he takes it." He throws the ball out infront of him and through the open spaceand explodes through the tiny space toget a shot in the lane (diagr. 14).

3. "Bingo." Many times, when the drib-bler's defender sees that the screen iscoming, he tries to get into the ball han-dler and forces him into the pick. Whenit does this, he becomes himself vulner-

able to the "Bingo." The ball handlersets up his defender as if he was goingto use the screen and get to the middle,and then he beats him to the baseline.The one caveat with this solution is thatthe ball handler must be able to get hisown good shot, because there are veryfew other options as a result of hisspacing (diagr. 15).

4. "Under-Footrace." Whether the screen-er's defender shows or not, if the ballhandler's defender goes under thescreen, he will be unable to gather andcontain the ball handler on the otherside of the screen. So, if the ball han-dler attacks hard the rim, there is noth-ing his defender can do to stop him. Hecan try to contain him on the other sideof the screen, but he will not be able toget back in front of him and control hispenetration. It is a footrace to the rim.The ball handler must attack the rimwith the maximum intensity, with nomore than two dribbles. A stop and shotbehind the screen is always an optionin this type of action, but we only men-tion this option to our players, withoutusing it in the drills, because we wantthem to attack the rim (diagr. 16).

5. "Under-Change Direction." Once the


ball handler reads the "show andunder", he uses the screen, but, as hecomes off, he quickly changes direc-tion and attacks his defender, who iseither loose or on his heels.

6. "Blue-Crossover & Split." If thescreener sets a "hat" pick, a pick withhis back to the baseline, the ball han-

dler will attack the screener'sdefender, creating a one-on-one sit-uation. He will attack his outsideshoulder, getting him leaning or slid-ing to the baseline, and then he willcrossover/quick spin back to themiddle and get to the rim, becausethe screener's defender cannot slidewith him. (diagr. 17).

7. "Blue- In & Out to the Outside." Same"hat" pick. The ball handler will attackthe screener's defender outsideshoulder, with an in-and-out dribble,

drives to the baseline and shots inthe lane (diagr. 18).8. "Blue-Pocket Jumper." Same "hat"

pick. The ball handler takes one/twohard dribbles right at the screener'sdefender, and finds that pocket ofspace, where he can get a jump shot(diagr. 19).

9. "Blue-Still Get Middle." Even if thedefense tries to force the ball handlerto the baseline, it doesn't mean that hecannot try to drive to middle. Often thedefender will allow a penetration in

the middle. The ball handler dribblesto the baseline, and then spins back tothe middle, attacking his defender onthe outside shoulder (diagr. 20).

10. "Blue, Pop, Backdoor." On this optionthe ball handler can pass to thescreener, who, after bringing thescreen, has rolled out. When the ballhandler sees that his defendercomes out to guard him, but in a hardno middle stance, as soon as hepasses the ball to the screener, hewill make a quick back-door cut toreceive the ball for a lay-up. Hisdefender will be out of position tocover his cut (diagr. 21).

11. "Blue, Pass & Follow Get." The ballhandler passes the ball to the screen-er who, after the screen, has rolledout. As the screener receives the ball,he will dribble at the guard to set adribble screen on the ball handler'sdefender. The ball handler will driveand turn the corner. There will be nohelp by the screener's defender,because he is down too far to giveany help on the drive (diagr. 22).

12. "Switch, Drive the Big." Anytimethe defenders switch, we want theball handler attacks the screener's

defender and we don't want him topass the ball to the screener inlow-post. As the dribbler comes offthe screen and the defense hasswitched, the screener must roll tothe post for spacing (not for receiv-ing the ball. The ball handler shouldtake his time and back his dribbleoutside the three-point line, thengo one-on-one against the screen-er's defender, going to the rim, notmaking a jump shot (diagr. 23).

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