June 22nd, 2011Sebastian PruitiLeave a commentGo to comments
Ettore Messina was one of the best head coaches in European Club Basketball history, winning the EuroLeague title four times with two different teams. Messina has been rumored to take a number of different head coaching jobs over the years, and for whatever reason he just didn’t seem to be interested, until now. Messina has finally joined the NBA, agreeing to join the Lakers’ staff and as Ric Bucher reported, even though he will be listed as an assistant coach, his role will be to act as more of a consultant than an assistant coach.
With Mike Brown being a defensive head coach, it is my opinion that Messina will be a consultant on the offensive end more than the defensive end, so I thought it would be interesting to look at Messina’s offense with Real Madrid (the team that he coached for the past two seasons), and see if there is anything interesting that he could bring over to the Lakers.
BallInEurope, a great European basketball blog did a great interview with Land O’ Lakers, and in it, he talked about Messina’s offense:
In addition to his preference in the half-court, Laker fans will certainly be cheered by Messina’s specialty of working with the post. Nobody in Europe, where frontcourts tend to be notably smaller but the bigs typically have the complete skill set in shooting, really employs anything like a triangle offense. But if Mike Brown was serious when he implied that some stuff with the triangle would remain in the playbook, you can bet that some of those Gasol-Bynum double post plays will have been tweaked/modified/perfected with Messina’s input.
The numbers certainly back that statement up. According to Synergy Sports Technology, Real Madrid’s possessions ended with a post up 12.5% of the time, their second most (first was spot-up jumpers) used play type. Messina ran a few interesting sets that look to get the post that could work with Bynum, Gasol, or any other big that joins the Lakers (specifically if Kevin Love gets traded). Like everything else we have looked at the Lakers possibly running, it continues the theme of being simple, yet effective. Here are 2 post up sets that they can bring over.
Cross Screen To Post
One of Ettore Messina’s favorite ways to get the ball to the block was by running a cross screen for him with a guard being the screener and then coming off of a down screen/pindown screen on the weakside of the basketball, turning it into a double low post set (something that Mike Brown knows about).
This is very simple, but it is effective in that it gets the basketball to a post up player in their spot. By having the man posting up go from block to block (while getting a cross screen set) means his defender can’t stick to his body and push him off of his spot while he is posting up (most of the legal pushing on the block happens without the basketball). This is something that can benefit a Pau Gasol, who when he seems to struggle has trouble establishing post position (watch this past postseason). In addition, with a pindown screen getting set on the opposite side, it occupies the weakside defenders and prevents a quick double team (If that double team does come, then it is a simple cross court kick out pass).
If teams commit to taking away the initial post up opportunity the weakside action and double low post set provides a natural second option:
If the initial post entry isn’t there, or the man making the entry pass doesn’t like what he sees, he simply swings the ball back to the top of the key, and it gets swung around to the man who set the initial cross screen, now coming off of a pindown screen. The second big setting the pindown screen now simply turns and posts his man and gets an entry pass (there are also situations where the man coming off of the pindown screen is open for the jumper).
How does this fit the Lakers? Well, it helps Pau Gasol establish post position, and imagine if the Lakers run this using Kobe Bryant as the screener. He sets the screen for Gasol and comes off of a pindown set by Andrew Bynum, looking for the ball (this play can probably be tweaked where Bryant coming off of the pindown is the first option).
Double Screen Post
The second set that Messina liked to run with his Real Madrid team is a play that involves a guard running off of a double screen along the baseline (with one screen getting set at each block).
As the guard comes off of the second screen, he gets the basketball on the wing. As soon as that happens, the big setting the second screen simply turns around and posts his man. Again, simple yet effective.
Now, if you are the Lakers, you are probably running Kobe Bryant along the baseline in this set. Again, the play can be tweaked where Bryant is the first option, but the attention he would bring would also help the low post. Teams afraid to have Kobe’s defender trailing him through two screens will try to switch the second one in the hopes of keeping the basketball out of Bryant’s hands. In theory, that sounds good, but the switch creates a mismatch on the block that can easily be taken advantage of:
If you switch that second screen to keep the basketball out of Bryant’s hands, you now have a guard trying to defend a big. A simple entry pass and you have an easy two points.
With the Lakers running this play, you would probably have Andrew Bynum as the second screener, just because he is a bigger body that gets a better screen set, putting the defense in a tough position.
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The big theme when looking at the offense Mike Brown has run in the past with Cleveland and with San Antonio is simple. You don’t see a lot of real complicated or time consuming sets. The offense that Messina ran fits that mold as well, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see these two sets being run by the Lakers this season.
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