Everyone immediately jumped to talking about how “devastating,” “unstoppable,” and “terrifying” Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo would be as a pick-and-roll tandem.
I was the same. It was and still is rather obvious material. Since Lillard is the greatest pull-up shooter in history who isn’t named Stephen Curry, two defenders will undoubtedly jump at him. This will leave Giannis, an athlete straight out of a comic book, in a sea of space as he charges toward the basket.
Perhaps my assumption that people would realize how devastating this combination would be was incorrect. I thought that their combined weight would have a cascading effect on opposing defenses, making them vulnerable to attack.
Was it really expected that Giannis would just roll freely to the rim in order to dunk the ball? Was that Giannis’s thought?
It’s worth your time reading a recent piece by Eric Nehm of the Athletic, and it sounds like he did. “The first couple of games, I couldn’t understand it,” Antetokounmpo told The Athletic on Nov. 20, referring to the clogged lane he found himself continually facing once Lillard had passed out of the double team. “What’s the matter with this place being so crowded?” And …
The craziest part is this,” stated Antetokounmpo. “You’re thinking, ‘Oh sh*t, the pick-and-roll, I’m going to get so many easy looks,'” prior to the season. However, at the moment, our pick-and-roll connection is helping others more than it is helping us, as Dame is double-teamed and zoning out when I get the ball. Thus, it’s like “swing, swing,” with additional benefits for others.”
“There is too much people here. I think I traveled two or three times at the beginning of the season,” Antetokounmpo remarked, beginning to display his awareness of defenders’ positions when he catches the ball during a pick-and-roll with Lillard. “I understand, and as I turn, the man is already here. Alternatively, I turn and am ready to go hit a crowd when I get it. It’s packed.
This is rather confusing. For the past five years, Giannis has been staring at walls of defenders in the paint. Why, then, is he or she surprised that they aren’t putting out a red carpet to the rim simply because Lillard started the action?
This is how pick-and-rolls are usually done. On short rolls, even Draymond Green, who isn’t nearly as dangerous as Giannis as a downhill rim attacker, sees several defenders in the paint. It’s only a mathematical issue. The defense has lost a man after sending two players after the ball handler. Due to the limited number of defenders, Giannis is urging the team to “zone up” in an attempt to stop four offensive players.
It doesn’t take a basketball wizard to figure out that those three defenders will focus almost all of their combined efforts on stopping Giannis before he starts to lose ground. Again, it’s puzzling if Giannis didn’t anticipate this happening.
It doesn’t take a basketball wizard to figure out that those three defenders will focus almost all of their combined efforts on stopping Giannis before he starts to lose ground. Again, it’s puzzling if Giannis didn’t anticipate this happening.
Lillard understands this. For the better part of the last ten years, he has been getting doubled on ball screens. It’s literally an inches game, as he explains in Nehm’s piece, explaining it in great detail.
When defenses close in on Giannis, the players spacing out beyond the 3-point line will be the ones with open looks. If they can consistently make those shots, defenses will naturally begin to lean slightly in their direction and away from their main duties of guarding Dame’s pull-up 3-pointers and Antetokounmpo’s rim rolls.
It only takes a tiny bit of open space for them to kill you.
However, for Lillard and Giannis to receive those little pockets of space, two things must occur. It is up to the shooters to make the shots, and Milwaukee does have a large pool of competent shooters. However, the pass needs to be given to them before that can occur. Giannis is to blame for that; he doesn’t feel confident making such snap decisions. If you falter for even a single second, the defense gets back up and any advantage you may have had is gone.
It didn’t make for great offense, but it gave an unnatural playmaker who is prewired as a wrecking ball time to consider his options, to get the lay of the land, and to locate his outlet shooters before he was into his drive. In the past, Giannis has had more time to stare down the walls in front of him. He’s stood at the top of the key and survey before he took off like a bull out of a chute.
He now needs to catch up, and it takes longer to process information now. That portion makes sense. It takes more skill to short-roll pass and ice defenses than Draymond gives credit for. That Giannis doesn’t seem to have anticipated this is another thing that makes it less than comprehensible.
In any case, this is the arrangement, and Giannis can only become more accustomed to playing as a roller in confined spaces by doing so more frequently. And that’s where it seems like Lillard is sort of telling Bucks coach Adrian Griffin to step up the frequency of these plays, which Griffin has been reluctant to do this season out of concern that it would jeopardize his preferred, more inclusive motion offense.
Regarding his pick-and-rolls with Giannis, Lillard told The Athletic, “I think it just takes reps.” “I believe we should play pick-and-roll together more often. That, in my opinion, is how you improve. You get to know each other better in this way. We simply don’t play as many pick-and-rolls where I handle the ball and he sets it, in my opinion. Furthermore, we haven’t focused on it enough. I believe that because we don’t run it as often as you might think, we don’t currently get enough practice against the coverages. Therefore, it will just take some time for us to master it.”
The bottom line is this: great players draw multiple defenders to create space for their less skilled teammates. This is a simple basketball concept to understand, but it can be difficult to implement on the fly. The solution is also simple: the more you practice, the more proficient you’ll become. Dame doesn’t need repetitions; his role in the equation hasn’t changed. Giannis is the one entering unfamiliar territory, but there are signs that he’s beginning to understand. Nehm quotes Giannis regarding raising the screens on the floor to give him more floor space to make a decision before he faces the defense.
He can benefit from small creases like that, and Giannis’s realization of this is heartening. Even so, I find it absurd that he was blind to it from the beginning. His shooting is subpar. When Giannis has the ball on the perimeter, defenses will drop into the paint, whether it’s as a roller, in isolation, or in any other configuration. Not particularly a novel idea.
Once more, he simply does not have the time that he once did to decide and pass, and for that, well, he needs more time. Should Griffin give it to him in the hopes of perfecting what might be Milwaukee’s go-to offensive strategy come playoff time, even if it’s a little clunky at times in the short term? Most of all, Lillard.
