With the number of international friendlies being played increasing due to preparations being for EuroBasket at the end of the month, there are some interesting matchups and interesting finishes, I’ll be breaking those down.

Yesterday, Spain took the court for the first time when preparing for EuroBasket, taking on France in an international friendly that drew a lot of attention because of all the NBA players on the two rosters (I can think of 10 of the top of my head who were on these two teams).  During this game, Spain ran a really simple, yet really effective play from a SLOB situation that put the ball in Ricky Rubio’s hands while providing him with plenty of space to create with:

The play starts with Ricky Rubio inbounding the ball from the side as Felipe Reyes sets a screen off of the ball for his guard who makes himself available for the ball at the top of the key.

After making the pass, Rubio cuts across the court going parallel with the free throw line and getting a screen from Reyes, who simply turned around and set a screen in the same general area.

With Rubio’s defender getting caught on Reyes’ screen, Rubio gets the ball and turns the corner with nobody in front of him, giving him a lot of space to work with.  Rubio now has the ball on space and his job is to read how the defense reacts.  He has three defenders (his man and two helping bigs) coming across the paint looking to cut off his path to the rim.  In addition to these three defenders, Rubio needs to pay attention to a 4th defender who is with a Spanish player in the corner.  If he leaves the corner, Rubio can hit him with a skip pass for a three, if not, Rubio will probably have Serge Ibaka open on the weakside block.

Rubio reads the help and reads that the 4th defender is delayed in sinking down and helping on Ibaka.  This allows him to throw the pass to Ibaka, who gives a nice pump fake and draws the foul.

It’s a simple play, two cross screens with a big on the opposite block, but it is still able to put a ton of pressure on the defense by giving the ball to a ball handler with space.  It forces the defense to react, and in this case, they panic and overhelp to Rubio (with one defender delaying in his help), giving Rubio an open teammate to pass it to.  Great play, great spacing, and great execution.