Hoops Beyond the Huddle Vol. 01

Welcome to the first Hoops Beyond the Huddle newsletter! If you are reading this, you have been selected as a “close personal basketball connection” of which your opinion and perspective I value greatly. I hope you enjoy this newsletter and I look forward to your feedback.

For the first volume, we’re going to take a look at a clip from Crvena Zvezda (Serbia), against LDLC Asvel (France) from week 1 action in Euroleague. Check out this week’s clip and we will break it down step by step below. While reading through the breakdown, I recommend referring back to the video to see the actions happening in real time.

Serbia is one of the worlds best basketball countries, and Crvena Zvezda commonly plays some of the most beautiful basketball around (hard not to when Milos Teodosic is running your point).

This halfcourt set is a full execution of the Iverson series.

The set starts with the 1 at the top, and 2 cutting from wing to wing with posts screens at elbows, out of a horns alignment. The 4 sets the first elbow screen and the 5 sets the second. The 3 cuts from wing to the corner.

The ball is swung to the cutter at the wing. The 5 sets a cross screen on the 4, who runs into an empty side pick n pop (PnP) with the 2. This is the primary action of the set. All reads out of this two-man game are live.

After the entry, the 1 relocates to the top. In this set, Crvena Zvezda creates no advantage out of the primary action. The ball handler reverses the ball back to the 1, and on the pass the 5 makes his way up for a step up screen. This is the secondary action out of this set, and all reads are live.

As the 1 is coming off the ball screen, the 3 in the strong side corner reads his defender being high up the lane (since Teodosic is so strong in the two-man game), and cuts back door. The 1 hits him on the cut and at this moment, the defense is completely broken down.

At this point of the offense, Crvena Zvezda has such a large advantage, they just have to maintain it until they get the best shot possible. The corner defender rotates over to prevent a wide open layup. The 3 kicks out to the corner, the wing defender scrambles and they make the extra pass from the corner to the 45 for a wide open 3 pointer.

Although the shot is a miss, the defense was scrambling so much they gave up the strong side for an offensive rebound.

Key Terms: Iverson, cross screen, empty side pnp, step up screen

That’s this week’s playbook breakdown! The Iverson Series is commonly run in Euroleague due to its high versatility and scenarios for various players to make reads.

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See you next week,

Keevan

Founder of Hoops Beyond the Huddle