The 2014 Spurs were a basketball machine. They were heartbroken after losing to the Heat in the 2013 Finals, and responded in a commanding way the next year, taking the finals 4-1. While they had a superstar in Tim Duncan, they won by playing team basketball. They were the opposite of a one-trick pony, blending multiple styles and executing multiple tactics within the same play, to be become unstoppable.

Using my favorite plays from the Spurs in the 2014 Finals, I’ll break down what I consider to be the 4 concepts that made them a juggernaut.

1. Shape-Shifters on offense - Featuring Boris Diaw

The Spurs had a way of attacking defenses in multiple ways, so they would threaten you, see how you respond to that threat, and then counter that.

In this example, Tim Duncan is being fronted in the post, so the threat is if Manu Ginobili can whip the ball over the defenders to get him the ball. But that’s a tough entry pass with Birdman’s height bothering Manu. The Spurs counter this by passing to Boris Diaw, who has a much better angle for the entry pass. Instead of making the entry pass, Diaw recognizes that Dwyane Wade in the weakside corner is collapsing onto Duncan, so he passes to Danny Green in the corner for an open three.

Notice how that pass to Diaw completely changed the shape of the play, because the threat of him passing to Duncan became more real.

On this one, we’ve got a mismatch with Dwyane Wade guarding Boris Diaw. The Heat once again front this to try to prevent the entry pass to Diaw. The Spurs recognize this, and have Tiago Splitter relocate from the baseline into a threatening position, where he is a high-low option. Regardless, the pass still goes to Diaw, which draws help from LeBron in the weakside corner. Since LeBron has left Kawhi, Ray Allen needs to rotate to him as he’s cutting from the corner to the rim, but that leaves Patty Mills open for three. In this example, the shape shifter (Splitter as a high-low option) isn’t actually used, but he’s a threat.

On this one, we have a cross match situation in transition, which causes confusion for the Heat. Ray Allen is guarding Boris Diaw, and while Diaw is relocating, Allen expects Chris Bosh to switch onto him, but that doesn’t happen. Boris Diaw once again becomes the shape shifter, and becomes a high low option with Tim Duncan being fronted in the post. With Diaw in position to execute the high low pass, the Heat cannot avoid Duncan getting the ball at the basket.

Another way the Spurs would quickly change the shape of a play is with what I call exit passes. The idea is to get into an action, not with the intention to run the action, but instead to get the defense into their coverage for that action, and then counter that coverage.

In this first example, Manu Ginobili gets into pick and roll with Tim Duncan, and the Heat coverage is for the ball handler to go over the screen, and for the big man to play up to the level of screen. After this initial coverage it turns into a switch, but Wade is on the top side of Duncan, which means Duncan’s roll needs to be accounted for with backside defense. In this case, LeBron has tagging responsibilities on Duncan, so that’s what he is paying attention to. But Manu immediately whips a laser pass to Patty Mills (who LeBron is guarding) in the corner. LeBron lost his focus on Mills because he was worried about Duncan on the roll, and Mills attacks the sloppy closeout for a layup.

In the next example, it’s a double drag screen with Mills coming off the second screen and the Heat have a similar coverage, with the ballhandler’s man going over the screen, the big playing at the level of the screen, and the big man of the first screen has tagging responsibilities. In this case, Shane Battier has the job of tagging, and Mills immediately passes to Kawhi after coming off the second screen, completely changing the dynamic of the play. Kawhi has a clean angle to hit Matt Bonner, who is free since his man is tagging the roll, and he attacks Battier’s closeout for an open floater.

2. Tim Duncan’s interior gravity

The second main concept the Spurs used in the 2014 Finals is Tim Duncan’s roll gravity, and this came in several forms.

First was the short roll, where the ball handler in pick and roll would see aggressive coverage, requiring a defender on the back line to cover Duncan’s roll. If Duncan got the ball in this position, he couldn’t roll all the way to the basket (which is why it’s called the short roll), but in this example he hits Tony Parker for an open three.

In situations where the defense would switch and then front Duncan, he would still provide gravity pulling in the weak side defense from the threat of him getting an entry pass over the top of the defense. Once that weakside defender pulls in to pick off that entry pass, his man becomes open in the weakside corner, so that opens up skip passes where Duncan would dictate the entire play but not get any statistical credit. This is evident in our first example where we talked about Boris Diaw as a shape-shifter.

Lastly, if the Spurs actually made that entry pass, Duncan was so good at punishing the defense inside with his soft touch on hooks.

3. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili as manipulative playmakers

Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were both experts in pick and roll action, and similar actions like Chicago/Zoom where the could recognize the coverage and counter it.

On this play that we just looked at, Ginobili runs a handoff with Duncan, Duncan slips, and Manu actually jumps very high into the air, enabling him to see over the defense and fit a pass in over Bosh’s outstretched hand. But the key here is that Manu waits until the last possible moment to commit to a passing target. When he’s at the peak of his jump, you could make a case for him passing to any of his four teammates.

On this one, it’s Tony Parker running a handoff with Duncan, but Kawhi is also relocation to the corner. This forces a decision from LeBron: does he tag Duncan’s roll, or recover to Kawhi on the perimeter? And this is where the magic happens. LeBron momentarily tags Duncan, but Parker looks at Kawhi, which makes LeBron leave Duncan for a wide open layup.

Parker also displayed an effective counter to the defense going under on his pick and roll, where he waited for Duncan to flip his screen, and Parker re-ran the action with downhill force going the other direction, forcing help at the rim and kicking out to Diaw. But Parker didn’t stop there; instead he relocated to an open spot on the other side of the floor, and Diaw hits him for the open jumper.

On this example, Ginobili runs Chicago action, which is an off ball screen which flows into a handoff. But after the Chicago action, they also run another pick and roll with Manu and Duncan. Manu’s skill in pick and roll really stretches the defense out here. First, he looks at Kawhi in the corner. Then, he recognizes that Diaw is open because Rashard Lewis was tagging Duncan on the roll. After forcing both Chris Bosh and Ray Allen out to the perimeter with their aggressive coverage, he finally finds Diaw, and from there the Heat are in rotation while Kawhi gets the ball going downhill for a layup.

4. Blending Actions - putting it all together

Above all, the 2014 Spurs were more than the sum of their parts. And that goes both for their personnel and their actions. They weren’t just executing plays; they had a deep understanding of the purpose of the plays, and could improvise them to do one action after another.

We saw a couple examples of this earlier in this post, first with exit passes, where we saw an exit pass coming out of a double drag screen, and then with the Chicago action flowing straight into a pick and roll.

Another example is in this play, where we see a pick and roll, but the roll flows into a Pindown for Danny Green who has just run screen the screener action. So that’s three actions in one play: a pick and roll, a down screen, and a baseline screen, and these all flow smoothly into one another and truly compromise the defense.

Finally, here’s a play where the Spurs have Danny Green and Kawhi running off ball screens simultaneously, and as Danny Green’s action sees two defenders commit to the ball, he hits the roll man and we see a quick bang bang interior pass for a layup.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these plays and reading the breakdowns. If you’re interested in watching in video format, I also made this YouTube video, and would appreciate you checking it out!