One of the first things people think of when they talk about coaching is the ability to draw up really good plays. Now we know that part of coaching is a very small part, and not the most important part of the job, but I wanted to take a look at this small piece. I decided I wanted to look at the top College and NBA team in ATO SQ PPP and see what they may have in common with each other. The top College team was the Liberty Flames with Coach McKay and the top NBA team was the Dallas Mavericks with Coach Kidd.
When those two teams are first mentioned, the first thing to pop in everyone’s mind is that they both have a dynamic, high-usage, and efficient backcourt player, and the coach must draw up every play out of timeout for him to get a shot. To an extent, this is true for both Coaches, as both Darius McGhee and Luka Doncic are the leading shot takers in ATO situations for both their teams. Luka Doncic is at 1.07 SQ PPP which is in the 81st percentile in the NBA and Darius McGhee is at 1.11 SQ PPP which is in the 93rd percentile in College. But in ATO situations, McGhee’s SQ PPP goes up by .07 and Luka’s SQ PPP goes up by .05. While both Coaches do rely on their Star players coming out of timeout, they both devise different ways to take advantage of defensive coverages and putting the opposing defense in compromising positions.
Dallas Mavericks
When studying the Mavericks ATO possessions, one certain play jumped out at me in terms of the usage throughout the season, and they way they manipulate the defense to get an efficient look.
This play above starts in a Horns 42 formation with Tim Hardaway Jr popping out to the 3pt line to get a catch. The PG runs over to Hardaway Jr and they fake a handoff with Hardaway Jr now coming off the a ball screen set by the 4. While the ball screen is happening, the 3 on the baseline is exiting strongside and coming off what we at BYU call a Curry screen. This empties out the bottom to help on the roll, and the PG stays high on the weak side wing to make a tag really hard on the big rolling to the rim. Because the ball screen is so low, Reeves has to go over. Lebron calls out the switch, but because Reeves went over, Porzingis is wide open on the roll with no tag and no bottom to help.
Again here it’s the same play, but they don’t even get to the ball screen because the Spurs defensive coverage gets messed up on the Fake DHO. The miscommunication allows Hardaway Jr to get a wide-open, in-rhythm 3, and you can see Pop on the sideline confused on why they let that just happen. In both scenarios, I would imagine the Mavs ran that specific play to take advantage of both the Lakers and Spurs defensive coverages. For the Lakers, it was exploiting their switching of 1-4 ballscreens, and for the Spurs I would imagine it was them switching dribble handoffs.
Now let’s look at the use of Luka Doncic in ATO situations. Here we have another Horns Action where Doncic throws it to the 5, and then comes off the screen set by Hardaway Jr. Because the Pacers don’t want to give any space to Doncic, his matchup is more susceptible to getting velcro’d to the screen, which he does. Hardaway Jr’s matchup is playing him tight so that he doesn’t race up for a DHO and shot, and doesn’t give support on the screen. Powell makes a great pass and Luka finishes it over Brogden for an easy basket.
Then on some occasions, they just get Doncic the ball in an iso situation and have him go create his own shot. Here they go with a zipper screen to get him the ball, and then space with actions happening on both wings while he iso’s in the middle of the floor in a favorable matchup.
Liberty Flames
Coach McKay similarly likes to draw up plays out of timeout that tries to exploit the defense’s coverages and positions. We are going to first look at two ways they do this with the ball out of McGhee’s hands and then two ways they use McGhee out of timeout.
In this play above, Liberty runs a high ball screen, and we refer to this Ghost screen as a peel. The roll man peels out and gets the pass, and right when the peel gets the pass, McGhee is setting a Curry screen for McDowell to come off and get a shot. McDowell’s guy is first engaged in the bottom due to the high ball screen, and then falls asleep for a split second. McGhee is always the #1 thing on any opponent’s scouting report, so his matchup is hugged up and entirely focused on him, not giving any support to McDowell coming off the screen.
In this above clip, Liberty is in a Horns formation with their 4 popping out to get the catch. Peebles who made the pass is shooting 41% from 3 on the year, so as he chases the pass, his matchup is trying to blow up any kind of DHO or pass. Peebles then curls it downhill wide open to get a pass, and because McDowell is shooting 44% from 3 on the year, his defender is giving no help on the curl. The 4 makes the pass to Peebles who attracts 5’s defender in help defense, and he hits the 5 cutting to the rim for an easy layup.
In this next clip, I can give a little more insight because we actually played Liberty in Hawaii, so I know exactly what we were trying to do defensively with him here. Our goal defensively with McGhee was to top lock him the entire game to take away his catches and 3’s, and force him to beat us a different way than he is used to in a game by cutting backdoor.
Once they realized that this was how we were going to guard, they began to try and exploit it with backdoors as we can see here. They hit the elbow on the side where McGhee was, and then went quickly right into a backdoor cut. I wish our player on the weakside was a little earlier in the bottom, but he does get there with verticality and forces a really tough finish that McGhee makes.
In this last clip, and in a similar philosophy with Coach Kidd, he gets his best player the ball in a favorable situation, and lets him go to work. Here it’s simply a high ball screen with spacing, and McGhee goes and makes a big shot in crunch time.
Summary
There are some similarities to how both top ATO teams generate efficient looks. They both effectively take advantage of the opposing team’s defensive coverages, as well as manipulate the spacing to their advantage. They also have the luxury to just get the ball into their best player’s hands and let him go to work in a favorable situation/matchup. In the end, Coach McKay and Coach Kidd have been really successful in their ATO playcalls, and will be interesting to see if they can continue the same success in the future.