The Official X's and O's thread

Agreed. Also, no coincidence we see less Princeton and score 48 points in the 2nd half...

 

Motion Weak

The Lakers actually ran Motion Weak on a possession in summer league.

(Against Mavs)

You have the initial wing pass, the pass back to the trailing big, and the cut to the weak side for the guard. This followed by a screen the screener action inside which frees up Jabari Brown for an open 3 on the down screen. If he didn't shoot, he could then gone straight into a high pick and roll with decent spacing.

Is it a sign that they are finally joining the rest of the league in adopting sets from the Spurs? Hopefully, but I never saw it again from them after that. I would have liked to see the team run it several times to work through the different options. It's a heck of a lot better than the Princeton sets that they were trying in the previous games, and would fit the Lakers' regular season personnel pretty well.

Spurs Motion Weak:

From Fiendishoc at LG.

 

^ I remembered there was some screen the screener (STS) action in the first game, so I fast forwarded through to see if any of it was Motion Weak. Turns out they ran it one time, and on several other possessions, ran a slower developing version of it.

Here it is against the Wolves:



I see a couple things here that temper my excitement a bit. The Lakers don't even look for the first two options, even though Upshaw was open on the cross screen. And then when the shot off the down screen isn't there, instead of setting a high pick, Nance just clears out like it's an isolation, and the play resets when Mitchell calls for the screen.

This tells me that the coaching staff may have turned this into another one of their read and react motion sets that he took the read and react part out of, running it as a play to get a top of the key jumper- sort of like their Triangle sets. It's like diagramming a complicated football play with a lot of motion, and then telling your quarterback beforehand which receiver to throw it to, and when. I hope I'm wrong about this though.

Again from Fiendshoc; I still don't know how to media tag this stuff so the video can be imported...

 

Good catch whether it was you or the dude from LG. That set looked beautiful compared to what I perceive to be our usual offense. I counted 4 or 5 screens set on that play, and 4/5 guys were moving throughout the play. The screens actually freed people up on different spots on the floor. The defense kept moving and wasn't able to stay stagnant. I agree with your points.

 

I didn't do it. It was all Fiendshoc

 

Wow that's a great post. Very informative.

Watching the Spurs run it is so nice. They know what to do and where to be in case their initial option is taken away. The lakers just ISO when their first option is taken away.

 

Ok. Thank you. I added the first video. The second video didn't make it, unfortunately. There was a problem with the link. Nonetheless, I know now for future reference.

 

Play 3

Here we have Russell bringing it up the floor and passing to the wing, who passes to Randle up top, who passes it to the other wing who passes it back to Randle in the same place, as Russell makes the baseline cut to the weak side. Russell comes up to the wing and tells Jabari Brown to clear out to the other side so that he has room to run a side pick and roll.



So again, they don't threaten anything with all of that motion, so the defense is set anyway. They also have to wait for their player to get in position so that they have better spacing, when they could have set that exact same side PnR up as soon as they got down the floor with plenty of time to spare. At this point there are only 9 seconds left on the clock. Russell rejects the screen and passes back to Randle, who hands off back to him going middle, at which point he turns it over with five seconds left.

Play 4

Later on in the 1st half, the Lakers ran one of their more common sets, which starts with a Princeton formation but goes directly in a high pick and roll (I'll call it Chin PnR). Russell makes his guard to guard pass to Clarkson and makes his Chin cut. Clarkson then uses the screen from Black to sink the 20 footer.



This is perhaps better than the previous sets because they don't waste so much time before going into the PnR, but if you look closely, the spacing is wrong. They are still partially in the 1-4 Princeton formation with two on the wings. Moreover, one of the guys on wing, Nance, isn't a shooter, so his guy is free to help out on the roll. The optimal spacing for a high pick and roll is a shooter on a wing, the non-shooter in the short corner on the same side, and another shooter in the weak side corner. If you have 3 shooters then you put two in the corners and one on the wing. You can see how much more room there was on the Laker's first bucket of the game, which was a high PnR play call:

Here are the Rockets running their version of it with much better spacing.



It starts with the handoff because then you can get a forward to make the cut toward the basket and have the small guard spot up- the forward has the size to catch and finish inside if necessary. More importantly the shooters should push all the way down to the corner, next to the baseline, unless the forward cuts to their side, in which case they move to the wing. Imagine Russell instead handing off to Nance who passes to Clarkson and then makes a cut to the basket for a potential alley oop, while Russell sets up for the corner three in anticipation of the PnR.

The devil is really in the details. You can say that maybe the Lakers can get better at running these sets with more practice, but still, they're putting their personnel in the wrong places and giving them not enough room to work. It's not as if they're running these plays incorrectly. And it's not clear either that better execution of these sets would do much, if anything, to compromise the opponent's defense.

Having said all this, the Princeton isn't going to be the main problem this year. I think we'll find that like last year, they'll run fewer and fewer of these sets as the season goes on, and we'll continue to have one-option stagnant sets with minimal ball movement, before going PnR heavy. It's time for some fresh ideas.

Again credit goes to Fiendish OC from LG.

 

Running an offense isn't about "fresh ideas" it's about execution. The video of us in the summer league is meaningless. Let's see them run that offense after 3 months and evaluate their execution.

The Princeton as well as most motion offenses have many variations and those are typically installed after the base set is understood. Looking at how a group of individuals is using an offense they've walked through as a group maybe 20 times isn't a reasonable analysis.

Everyone wants to see Russell in the CP3 or Curry role immediately. I think that would be a long term bad decision for both Russell and the team's long range plans. That type of offense has little success in long series. GS shot their way to a title, CP3 and many others using it have all sputtered and failed. It relies too much of the play of one person and it can be defended to take others completely out of the flow. Motion offenses distribute play initiation responsibility over a broader group and thus if executed properly they are harder to defend. San Antonio has a motion based offense that has taken some less that dominant athletes to a few titles. It also resurrects a lot of players careers. I think the added discipline taught when installing a very disciplined offense is very good for younger players.

Of all the motion variants I've used with my teams over the years I prefer the 4 out-1 in Motion offense. It's the best of both worlds in that it has several options that create variable pick and roll opportunities within the framework of a motion offense.

 

Can they hold a week long seminar that Byron can attend?

 

The discussion regarding Russell vs Clarkson as lead guard keeps popping up, and while I do believe that they should switch off depending on who is in the position to initiate earlier, I believe that Russell will be the better choice to run the PnR so long as he has the proper spacing to do so.

I wanted to break down the following back to back identical plays run by Russell and Clarkson sequentially vs the Mavs in Summer league. High PnR defended by blitzing, with the weak side help in early position to bump the roll man.
https://youtu.be/SDzy0gsQQoI?t=160

They even make the same read, passing to the weak side wing. However, in the first play, Russell recognizes it and makes the play a second earlier, which makes all the difference. The ball is delivered to the wing right when the bumping defender is trying to make contact with the roll man, which means he has to abandon his bump and scramble back to the shooter. That forces a rotation off the corner to stop the unimpeded roll man under the basket or else the it's an easy inside pass for the dunk, and an easy swing pass nets Jabari a WIDE open corner three. Russell has a hockey assist that won't show up in the traditional box score.

https://youtu.be/SDzy0gsQQoI?t=170

On the second play, Clarkson's first instinct is to attack, but gets trapped. He makes the same pass over to Russell, but it's a bit later, and Russell's defender has time to both bump the roll man and then close out. Russell does create off the pump fake and then makes an assist again to Brown, giving Clarkson a hockey assist as well, but that's besides the point. This was much less efficient sequence from a degree of difficulty standpoint. It's not even a bad play from Clarkson, who did what he's supposed to do. But it's an example of Russell being able to create something even better.

The Lakers were dead last in hockey assists last year, as well as open shots (not to mention severely lacking in creating corner threes). A lot of this was because of the offensive scheme, but it's something that can be offset with passing ability that can catch defenses off balance. Once Russell gets through his early rookie adjustment period to the NBA, he should have the ball in his hands to make things easier for everyone.

^This was posted by fiendshoc earlier from LG earlier...

 

A lot of it was because the players were barely NBA level as well.

 

Liking these breakdowns man.

 

he Los Angeles Lakers' projected starting lineup of D'Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, Kobe Bryant, Julius Randle and Roy Hibbert played just under 10 minutes together in their first preseason game. What we saw was a breath of fresh air, looking completely unlike the team that's dragged on over the last two seasons.

This Lakers season is ultimately more about that development than the result at the end of the day -- even moreso in preseason -- and their first test as a group came in the shape of the Utah Jazz. It was a competitive game until the fourth quarter once things got out of hand while Byron Scott evaluated the deeper bench players.

How the new starting lineup plays together, though, is far and away the most interesting aspect of this Lakers season. Those 10 minutes were our first window into what may be in store for this group, and here are just a few observations on what played out in preseason Game 1.

Roy's presence will patch up leaks in the defense
Hibbert's made it clear his top priority is cleaning up the Lakers' defense, and the idea to protect a young team with a defensive anchor makes sense. It's not hard to imagine many of the elite guards in the league attack Russell like Trey Burke does here:

<img alt="1" src="https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_R...orus_asset/file/4127834/hibbert_cleanup.0.gif">


These kinds of small things are where Roy's presence is going to be felt immediately. Hibbert's a mountain to score around even with space to work with, and his specialty is protecting the rim. It'll be put to use often.

Kobe's passing to Russell
Don't look now, but I spy Kobe pushing the ball in transition, pulling defenders in, and kicking out to Russell:

<img alt="1" src="https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CW...ads/chorus_asset/file/4127870/koberuss1.0.gif">


And on that same note, it doesn't hurt to have a passer as talented as Kobe hitting Russell when he's moving off-ball:

<img alt="1" src="https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/U-...chorus_asset/file/4127878/dangelocutter.0.gif">


That's a Hibbert-finish away from being an amazing sequence. It's easy to see how these two can mesh, especially since ...

Russell's passing to Kobe, too
Kobe's made it clear he's completely in with playing off the ball and allowing Russell a chance to run the offense. This opens up simple and effective actions, like this pick-and-pop they seem to be working on:

<img alt="1" src="https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8s...ds/chorus_asset/file/4127970/kobe_pnp_1.0.gif">


If Kobe can extend out to the corner-three in these situations, it'd make for a deadly action the Lakers can incorporate into their offense:

<img alt="1" src="https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xN...ds/chorus_asset/file/4127988/kobe_pnp_2.0.gif">


Expect plenty of off-ball action for D'Angelo
D'Angelo's decision-making and passing ability are what set him apart, which means putting him in action to manipulate the defense is a great use of his talents. The Lakers ran plenty of off-ball looks for Russell, and he looked crisp and comfortable in that role.

What the team can create out of Russell's next move once he gets the ball in his hands -- whether that's him looking to score or picking apart the defense -- is where things will be a work in progress. Here are a few looks of him playing off-ball with the starters:



This deserves its own bullet point, but Randle's effectiveness from the elbow in half-court sets looks like a major factor in how smoothly things run. That means creating, passing, driving and shooting once the ball is swung to him. That last point didn't go well for him in his first game back:

It's very early in the process, and the anticipation to see this group get more time together is high. These are just a few initial impressions of watching them play for the first time, so it's worth keeping things in perspective. What we saw were promising signs, which already makes this team infinitely more enjoyable to watch as they feel things out.

I didn't know how to embed the images, but if you click on the link, it will show the clips.

 

Nice article from Drew Garrison of SS&R about the Lakers offensive attack, with plenty of GIFs:

http://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2015/10/5/9455729/la-lakers-analysis-preseason-kobe-bryant-dangelo-russell

In the video that he embeds, you can see one sequence that illustrates what I was talking about with the talent overcoming the mediocre sets.



The Lakers run a meh Princeton-esque set that sort of resembles a floppy action with a big initiating rather than a guard (note that Kobe basically has to stand in place the whole possession). It takes entirely too long to set up, but Randle and Russell's playmaking abilities, they actually get a rhythm wing three out of it, albeit with the shot clock winding down.

From FiendishOC at LG. Kind of elaborates a little more on the specific play above.

 

Good find. Yeah, I noticed the Lakers this season borrowing several of the simpler sets that the Clippers run, which is slightly encouraging. Of course, this particular screen isn't exclusive to the Clippers, as we used to run it with Pau.

I wish they would go further with the borrowing and modernize their motion sets, like the one above.



For example, this play would be much better if:

1) Russell pushed the ball quickly up the floor and cut to the weak side in a thru action immediately after throwing it to Randle on the wing.

2) Hibbert came to the top as the trailer to receive the pass from Randle

3) Kobe uses the Clarkson screen under the basket to take the ball handler role

4) Either Russell or Clarkson fills the corner 3 area for either a direct pass or a potential swing pass.

You buy yourself ten extra seconds on the shot clock, and you get all five players involved on the play. The players are also already spotted up at the three point line rather than just on their way there.

Look how much time is left on the clock when the Clippers finish this thru action:



FiendishOC explaining that same action that the Clips use.

 

Meh. Where's Mike Brown when you need him. I miss seeing Hibbert being given the ball first thing every set out past the 3 point line.