[Highlight] — Coaches Corner: Pacers coach Rick Carlisle breaks down tape with Stan Van Gundy, walking us through a masterfully designed Pacers set-play and expounding on how spacing and movement have made the modern game so beautiful.
This is why I hate it when noisy people shout that the game is bad now and is just about shooting threes. Most of the time just shows how they actually do not understand what is happening on court.
For sure.
Also when they say nobody plays defense, meanwhile like the Pistons, the Thunder, the Rockets, The Celtics, almost all the top teams hang their hat on defense.
The Spurs also.
100%
Going into last playoffs, many people wrote off the Pacers because they “didn’t play defense”. Which was objectively wrong.
The Pacers used 2 starting lineups last season. The only difference between the two was the starting SF.
Last year’s Pacers’ overall defensive rating was dragged down by the 2nd unit. TJM gets hunted like crazy because he’s tiny while both of the Pacers’ back-up centers suffered achilles tears to start the year. But the 2nd unit’s defensive woes didn’t make a meaningful difference bc how teams adjust/condense bench rotations in the playoffs.
That 4-tiered, multi-sequence set play is so intricately designed and executed that you almost wonder how anyone could ever defend against it.
I love that they discuss how all that movement and spacing actually gets all of the players involved and how that makes them buy in more than if they are just standing in the corner waiting for a kick-out.
I’m confused even watching it on replay
The main takeaway is that they are setting a very specific sequence of screens which eventually causes a breakdown of the defense.
It’s difficult to defend ahead of time, but off the cuff, you’d probably want Mobley to switch onto the second cutter, letting Allen stay attached more closely to his man. The idea is that you cover the cut while preventing Turner from slipping free off of those screens, which is what caused the full breakdown to begin with. Plus, it leaves Mobley as the help-side defender even if Allen gets broken down. It leaves a possible mismatch with Max Strus on Obi Toppin, but in exchange you don’t get your center’s legs broken lmao.
Still, that’d have to be a pretty hyper-aware switch. It’s only something you can read if you’re thinking ahead about how the Pacers are trying to remove your rim protection.
Anybody comes for any of the Pacers coaching staff, I’ll cut you. It really is a well-run village over there, so maybe call back in five years or three rings, whichever comes first.
Jenny Boucek and the four verts story (as told to Caitlin Cooper here) is just one example of how it works.
EDIT: The actual play (and its predecessors) starts at around six minutes in, which I mention because wow that’s a lot of backstory.
Last season’s playoffs by the Pacers was possibly the best coaching job I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching the nba for over 40 years
Guy is a genius on offense and im still salty that Doc Rivers was picked over him for the top 15 coaches in history. It was his time to move on from the Mavs, but I’m happy he’s still having success.
Ah, fascinating. I think this play is targeting Allen the whole way through, both pre-play cuts are moves that would prompt him to sink down and tag the cutter as they rotate through the paint. That’s what gives Myles Turner the extra space to really exploit the double screen. The setup forces Allen to run at damn near full speed to get back in front before Turner can pull a three, but as soon as he gets there, there’s already a PnR happening to the other side, exploiting his momentum. That’s why he falls down.
Plus, thanks to all the cutting and screening, you’ve forced a small guard to be the only player in position to possibly apply help defense. Since he’s alone on the weak side, even if he does manage to gum up the roll there’s still a wide open man on the outside.
Man, that’s a fun play!
Man I am not sure I can even do this level of analysis but sounds accurate
You nailed it with the Allen breakdown - they basically used him as a decoy twice before he even had to defend the main action. That weak-side guard being stranded is the cherry on top, such a brutal domino effect.
Yep. I think the only way you can realistically defend this is by having Mobley pre-switch onto the second cutter, having him act as both the tag-man and the weak-side defender. That way, Allen can stay attached to his man so he’s in better position to recover for the PnR, and even if things break down you’ve got an actual rim protector in position to help out.
Problem is, that’s a pretty insane read to make mid-possession, since it requires you to accept a moderate mismatch of Max Strus (6’5”) onto Obi Toppin (6’8”) and isn’t at all obvious until it’s already too late. Hard play to cover.
He and Mazzulla are my favourite coaches ever. Kerr too kinda, not a fan of the motion offense after 2017 but mostly because of the special defensive schemes he comes up with
Ott looks super impressive as a coach already
Pop and Pat Riley were incredible too.
As far as guys that I like to hear talk ball, Hardy from Utah and Darko in Toronto are amazing teachers
No team has better X and O coverage than the Pacers.
Their whole team’s secret sauce is “coaching”
What is this show? Is it active?
This is called “Coaches Corner”, I love it, and you can watch a lot of them on YouTube (just search nba coaches corner) and also here
https://nbacoaches.com/coaches-corner/ And here
https://www.nba.com/watch/list/collection/coaches-corner
And yeah it’s active they have several from the last month
Fantastic
I actually prefer the ones with Tim Leggler instead of Van Gundy but they are all good
Legs is always great so that’s fair.