A few years ago, the YouTube channel “Coach Daniel” did a close-up on the attack of the small college of Saint Joseph's, which had generally decided to do without the pick-and-roll.
The YouTuber wondered if this was not the “future of basketball”. Technically, however, the principles of this offensive system were not new. It was “Read and React”with players learning to move and cut based on the ball carrier, and potential assists, in order to get into “open” areas.
Half as many pick-and-rolls as the others
Except that this summer, the Grizzlies almost renewed the entire staff of their “head coach”, Taylor Jenkins. And if we talked a lot about the arrival of Tuomas Iisalo, the former coach of Paris Basket, in the staff of the Tennessee franchise, the club also decided to hire Noah LaRoche… the former Saint Joseph's coach.
Result: after almost a third of the season, we can say that the Grizzlies have adopted his offensive philosophy, since Ja Morant and his teammates have very severely reduced their use of the pick-and-roll.
Globally, as Adam Pike notesthe Grizzlies only use a screen on 20% of their actions. This is almost twice less than the NBA average, which is around 40%…
That is to say that since Mike D'Antoni, the pick-and-roll (then the hand-to-hand with screen) has become the first weapon of offensive creation in the NBA, the one which makes it possible to create shifts, and surplus situations. For twenty years, most offensive and defensive strategies have been linked to this screen for the ball carrier.
“Original” and “weird” for Draymond Green
As “Thinking Basketball” also details, the Grizzlies take the opposite view by setting up an attack that generally does without this first screen, to rely on pure one-on-one.
Draymond Green also noted this in mid-November, during the Warriors' victory in the NBA Cup: the Golden State power forward had never faced an attack of this kind, which he described as “a original” and “weird”.
“In the NBA, most rotations and play patterns are similar. But what Memphis is doing, I've never seen it.” explained the veteran of the Bay. “If one guy attacks the circle on the right, the whole team moves to the right. If a guy attacks from the right and there is a teammate in the corner, the latter moves to give him space. If one guy attacks in the middle, the whole team moves. No matter who attacks, everyone moves. It's just a little different and it changes the classic aid scheme. »
This pattern of play is necessarily disruptive for defenses especially used to managing the pick-and-roll. And it works since the Grizzlies (18 wins – 8 losses) are in 2nd place in the Western Conference with the 4th most efficient attack in the league (116.9 points scored on 100 possessions). Above all, this is the first year since the arrival of Taylor Jenkins at the head of the group, in 2019, that the team has a more efficient attack than the average on placed play, while the Grizzlies were mainly used to shine in fast play for six years.
And if the team wants to go far in the playoffs, that might count…
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| Ja Morant | 15 | 28.4 | 46.3 | 31.9 | 83.5 | 0.7 | 3.9 | 4.5 | 8.6 | 3.7 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 1.7 | 22.1 |
| Jaren Jackson, Jr. | 24 | 28.2 | 51.2 | 35.7 | 81.1 | 1.3 | 4.5 | 5.9 | 1.3 | 2.0 | 1.5 | 1.8 | 3.2 | 21.8 |
| Desmond Bane | 18 | 28.3 | 44.2 | 32.4 | 82.9 | 0.8 | 5.1 | 5.9 | 4.3 | 2.2 | 1.0 | 0.6 | 2.6 | 14.8 |
| Santi Aldama | 26 | 26.8 | 52.6 | 38.9 | 75.0 | 1.6 | 5.8 | 7.4 | 3.1 | 1.3 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 1.1 | 13.5 |
| Jaylen Wells | 26 | 24.8 | 45.8 | 39.0 | 80.0 | 1.0 | 2.4 | 3.4 | 1.8 | 1.3 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 1.8 | 11.5 |
| Zach Edey | 14 | 20.1 | 61.0 | 60.0 | 66.7 | 3.1 | 3.9 | 6.9 | 0.8 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 3.1 | 11.1 |
| Scotty Pippen, Jr. | 26 | 23.0 | 47.3 | 33.3 | 71.7 | 0.6 | 3.0 | 3.7 | 5.3 | 2.0 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 2.5 | 10.6 |
| James Huff | 26 | 15.6 | 51.8 | 41.0 | 75.6 | 0.6 | 2.2 | 2.8 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 1.2 | 1.7 | 9.4 |
| Marcus Smart | 16 | 21.5 | 37.3 | 32.9 | 82.9 | 0.8 | 1.6 | 2.4 | 4.0 | 2.1 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 1.7 | 9.3 |
| Jake Laravia | 26 | 23.2 | 50.0 | 39.3 | 69.5 | 1.4 | 3.2 | 4.6 | 3.5 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 0.7 | 2.3 | 8.3 |
| Brandon Clarke | 25 | 18.7 | 61.4 | 6.3 | 60.0 | 1.6 | 3.4 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 2.1 | 7.6 |
| Luke Kennard | 14 | 19.7 | 43.1 | 40.4 | 78.6 | 0.5 | 1.9 | 2.4 | 2.9 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 6.7 |
| Cam Spencer | 3 | 15.3 | 50.0 | 40.0 | 100.0 | 0.3 | 1.7 | 2.0 | 2.3 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 1.7 | 5.3 |
| Vincent Williams, Jr. | 3 | 14.9 | 36.8 | 12.5 | 25.0 | 1.3 | 2.3 | 3.7 | 3.0 | 2.3 | 0.0 | 0.7 | 3.0 | 5.3 |
| John Konchar | 13 | 11.9 | 50.0 | 38.9 | 75.0 | 0.9 | 1.9 | 2.8 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 2.5 |
| Colin Castleton | 8 | 2.8 | 25.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.3 |
| Yuki Kawamura | 14 | 2.9 | 26.7 | 18.2 | 66.7 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 1.0 |
