Hoops Beyond the Huddle Vol. 16

Welcome to the 16th issue of Hoops Beyond the Huddle!

This week we’re taking a look at the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers opener: Spain vs Latvia. In Ricky Rubio’s return to the Spanish National team, Latvia had all the answers against the 2022 champs and held on to win 79-75.

Watch the clip and we will break it down below.

The action we’re looking at this week is Latvia’s Hard Hedge Counter.

Hard Hedge Counter Clip 01

Spain started the game off defending Latvia's top pick n roll with a hard hedge coverage. Hard hedging the ball screen essentially means the defender of the screener, comes out to defend the ball aggressively. As seen in the clip above, watch how the defender hedges out past the line of the screen.

Latvia exploited this defense so well, that Spain had to make an adjustment at half to change out of their coverage. The ball handler comes off the screen and immediately retreats. Recognizing the coverage, he pulls back and swings the ball to the man on the swing. They defeated this tactic by playing through the weak side.

This player (the 2) is the decision maker. He has to read the defense and make the appropriate pass. In this set, he swings one more to the man in the corner who knocks down the wide open three pointer.

Options/Reads:

• pass to corner: if defender of the man in the corner is still waiting on the big to recover, the quick extra pass to corner is open (clip above)

• pass to roller: if the defender of the screen is trailing and there is no help, the roller will be wide open (you can see the offender fake to the roller to create more time for corner shooter in clip above)

• skip to opposite corner: if the defender of the opposite corner tags the roller, the skip pass to opposite is open (most challenging pass)

Hard Hedge Counter Clip 02

In this clip, Latvia also exploited the coverage. The ball handler comes off the screen set by the 4 very aggressively. This drags the defender of the 4 well out of position. When the 1 reverses to the 4 who popped, the defender of the 1 is forced to switch out.

The 4 receives the pass and swings to the 3. If there was no switch on the top pick n roll, then the 4 would set an empty side ball screen of the 3. However, since the switch was forced, he slips the screen and goes to the low post where he has the mismatch.

As the 1 stands no chance defending the 4 down low, the 5 rotates over to take him. While this is happening, the 5 lifts to make space for the 4 to work on the post. When he sees his defender go take the ball, he dives and gets an easy dunk.

Although this wasn’t a set, it emphasizes a principle that’s much more important: create an advantage, maintain the advantage. Boiled down, that is why teams run offenses in the first place. Latia forced a switch (created an advantage) by being aggressive against Spain’s aggressive defense, then moved the ball and not let them recover (maintain the advantage).

That’s this week’s playbook breakdown! If you are interested in breakdowns like this one, reach out and let me know!

Cheers,

Keevan

Founder of Hoops Beyond the Huddle