In 28 days EuroBasket, an European competition featuring 24 countries and a high number of NBA players.  With the much anticipated exodus of NBA players to Europe not exactly happening (as of yet), this could be the last time you see some really good NBA players play in a true competitive setting for a really long time.  To get everyone more familiar with what we are going to see during the EuroBasket tournament, I am going to look at each team’s offense and break down a few interesting sets that they run, using game tape from the preparation games that are currently being played.

Slovenia, who is in Group D of the preliminary round, starts off their tournament against Bulgaria, and if their preparation games are any indication, we are going to see a lot of interesting sets being run from this team.

Halfcourt Offense

Movement Set

Maybe the most interesting play that Slovenia has been running is a play that features a lot of movement off of the basketball taking place at the same time.  At times, during this set, there are 4 players moving at once off of the ball.  As you can guess, this creates a lot of confusion:

The play starts with the point guard bringing the basketball up and entering it to the wing.  After making the pass, he follows the basketball and meets the wing he just passed it to for a dribble handoff.

The point guard gets the ball and quickly swings it to a big in the corner.  After handing the ball back to the point guard, the wing swings around and comes off of a screen away from the basketball on the elbow, cutting through the paint and straight to the rim.

After setting his first screen, the big at the elbow turns around and sets another screen, this time for a teammate flashing to the basketball.  At the same time, the point guard is trying to get in position to set a screen off of the ball as well.

What is great about this set in my opinion is that it is a motion offense, meaning that you can continue to run it until an opening appears (instead of sets that have one option and if it isn’t open, it’s over).  You have someone flashing to the top of the key, someone flashing to the wing, and the ball gets reversed and Slovenia simply repeats the action.  Here is the play in real time, and on this particular set, they get a wide open three point look going through the action the second time around:

The movement and action off of the ball can put the defense on their heels and lead to openings at the rim:

On this particular play, Slovenia hits the cutter at the rim and even though the lay-up is missed, he is wide open and they will convert those more often than not.

Here, the defense gets caught watching the shooter, and a simple skip pass results in a wide open three point shot (again, Slovenia misses the shot, but the goal of any offense is to get a wide open look, and that is what happens here)

This set definitely confuses the defense, however Slovenia has a tendency to confuse themselves while running this set. That’s a problem as more than once, Slovenia found themselves getting in trouble when trying to run this set:

So far during their preparation games, this set has been either feast or famine. If this continues, it can be a problem. However, it is important to emphasize that this is during Slovenia’s first two friendlies. It will be interesting to watch them towards the end of the month to see if things look sharper.

Pick And Roll Set

In addition to Slovenia’s set where they have a lot of movement off of the basketball, they use a set that features a pick and roll at the top of the key.  What’s interesting is that to get into this pick and roll, Slovenia uses a pick and roll:

The play starts with the point guard bringing the basketball down the court and takes it towards the wing.  As this happens, the wing player sets a screen off of the basketball for a big at the top of the key.  Coming off of that screen, the big goes ahead and sets a screen of his own, a ball screen on the wing and they run the pick and roll.  Finally, the wing who set the initial off ball screen pops out to receive the basketball.

As he makes the catch, a big is there and ready to set a ball screen and play pick and roll basketball.  In this case, they run a pick and pop that results in the ball getting entered in the paint to the original roll man:

While the spacing may be a little clunky (it’s weird to come off of a ball screen and immediately look to swing it, while not having the space to attack), I do like this play. It is a nice way to set up the ball screen at the top of the key, and it creates a number of options:

Here, Slovenia is able to attack the rim when using that second ball screen at the top of the key (and though he gets blocked, if the offense continues to get into the middle, they will have success).

Spot Up Set

The following play is a set that Slovenia runs to try and get a shooter a wide open three point shot off of a pindown screen at the top of the key.  As you might expect, it comes off a lot of movement off of the basketball:

The play starts with the point guard bringing the ball down the court and kicking it out to the wing.  After making the pass, the point guard dives off of a backscreen set from a big at the foul line.

After setting the backscreen, the big flashes up and receives the basketball at the top of the key.  Once he gets the ball, he quickly reverses it to the wing popping behind the three point line.  As this is happening, the point guard who dove down the middle turns around and sets a backscreen of his own.

After swinging the basketball, the big at the top of the key sets a pindown screen for Slovenia’s point guard who just set a backscreen.

The point guard comes off of the screen wide open and pulls up for the three point shot.  Here is the play in real time:

This is a nice set that really takes advantage of the defense’s tendency to help out on screens off of the basketball. There are so many taking place, that it is hard to hedge off of your man confidently, and that will lead to openings.

SLOB

SLOB To Post

When coming out of sideline out of bounds Slovenia loves to try and get the ball to the block, and have a real simple set to do that.

Once the ball goes to the trigger man, the point guard sets a screen for a teammate on the wing, who flashes to the basketball.  After setting his screen, the point guard flashes out to make himself available to the basketball.

The ball quickly gets swung around, and once it does, the point guard takes the basketball and dribbles the ball towards the corner.  As that happens, there is a cross screen taking place on the weakside block.  The big uses that cross screen to get into position and post up.

Once he gets into position, the ball gets entered into the post, allowing him to work with a lot of space.  Here is the play in real time:

While Slovenia really struggled with spacing for the most part in their halfcourt sets, coming out of the side, they really do a nice job of creating space for their big on the block. Here, he is able to turn and face-up without the worry of a double team, allowing him to hit the jumper out of the post.

BLOB

Pindowns

When running their baseline out of bounds play, Slovenia likes to use their point guard as the trigger man.  Doing so allows them to quickly get into the set they want, catch the defense off guard, and creating open looks:

The play starts with the point guard inbounding the ball to a big that flashes from the block to the ball.  After making the pass, the point guard cuts off of the big and gets the basketball from him, taking it to the middle of the court.  As this is happening, you have a shooter coming off of a staggered screen on the opposite side of the court.

When solid screens are set away from the ball, Slovenia’s point guard is able to quickly swing the ball to a shooter wide open behind the three point line.  Here is a few different looks at the play.

This is just a perfectly simple play in a BLOB situation. You have two things happening that really make it hard for the defense to stop. First, the point guard getting a handoff and coming off of it hard makes him a threat to attack the rim (and that is one of the reasons why Slovenia uses a PG to inbound the ball in BLOB situations). Second, you have the staggered pindowns. So if you focus the penetration to much, it’s an open three. If you focus on the man coming off of the pindown, the penetration becomes available. A real pick your poison situation.

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While Slovenia looks a bit rusty in terms of execution, a lot of these plays could give European defenses trouble if they get a lot more run and a lot more reps.  In a supposedly weak group, Slovenia can use these sets to make a nice run in EuroBasket.