How To Dominate The Pick & Roll

[0:00]How we doing, guys? Nick Friedman, associate head coach of the main red clothes and owner of the preparation NBA pre-draft training company. Um, we are going to go over and review some reads at the level of the screen. I think the biggest thing for guys, you know, coming into college, coming into the NBA is just being patient at the level of the screen. You have a number of coverages you have to read, right? And if you're moving too fast and you're in a hurry, you're going to miss your reads, right? So the first thing we're going to start off over here is we're going to be flowing into a drag, okay? So we've got our screen here, I'm the big, right? If I'm the big, right? I'm guarding guarding this big. Right now, right, we can start to be physical. Now, if I'm bringing the ball up the floor, we don't necessarily want to turn our back, right? But if I'm here and I'm here, right, now he comes to set it, now I can open up my stance a little bit. Because if he tries to overplay, right, I'm just gone and I'm beating it that way. He may not flip it, I may just refuse. But right here, I'm initiating, right? So we got handler here. Now, it's the big's objective, right, to hit what we call the lower third. And it's our guard's responsibility to communicate with our bigs when they don't do it correctly, right? A lot of times, we allow the communication factor to really screw us up, and then now we're bickering at each other. As opposed to us knowing exactly the angle at which the big should be screening. So say I'm calling out right, right, right, he's into the ball. Right, right, right, he gets that lower half, now I'm dropped, right, it's our big's responsibility. A lot of times we hit and hold for too long, so come back right here. Hit and hold, right? And say he holds for a split second too long, he's coming down, now the roll's too late, he's not even in his vision. Right? So for us, at the NBA level, we always talk about hitting and spinning out. So now, as the minute he gets a hit, boom, he's out, right? Now you've got decisions to make, right, you've got pocket pass, you've got lob, right? So now let's take it back. Ideally as a handler, too, you have a number of initiating angles. So, right here to me, this is too close to the sideline. We want to initiate in what we call point guard alley right here, centrally between the college slot, and wing, right? So if we initiate in this space, right, and our coverage is changed, we have space to either refuse or what we call flip the angle. So right now, say for instance, he comes out, and you call, I I call ice, ice, ice. So ice, push, blue, down, it's all the same terminology. That means that we're influencing the ball to the sideline and keeping it here. So he jumps, now I'm here, now it's a matter of being patient. If you're too impatient and you immediately take it down, you're not necessarily wrong. But now, you don't give this this guy enough time to flip the angle, he may just hit and go, and then now you're squaring the ball and then now I take the roll man away. So what I want is you're calling, I'm calling ice, ice, ice, jump into the ice. Give him time to flip the angle exactly. Now we become to a one-on-one matchup against what we call the drop. Now you're in your zone, you're making your moves, you're getting to your drop crosses in and outs, right, and then now you're rolling. For our guards, it's important to understand that we have to, the bigs have to hold screens. So if I change the angle here, so jump into it. Ice, ice, ice, ice, ice. Good, give him time, now he's downhill. Good, snake it, boom, good, let's do that again, though. So when you screen, let's have you roll, let's have you snake. Perfect. Roll opposite. Yeah. Roll opposite. Ready? Ice, ice, ice, ice, ice. Good, flip it, good, now he's rolling, snake it, good, perfect, perfect finish. Good. That wraps up really just our patience at the level of a ball screen and reading angles.