Joined: 23 Jun 2005 Posts: 8488 Location: The (real) short corner
Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 11:32 pm Post subject:
Our Princeton / motion sets: bad pacing, bad spacing
In an earlier discussion, I mentioned my problem with the Princeton offense:
Quote:
While the real Princeton is better than the *version of it* we ran last season, its pure form is also outdated for today's league. For the high post sets, the only way you're going to get the space you need to cut into the lane is if your center or 'hub' can handle the ball, pass, and shoot 3's or very high % 2 pt jumper's, and all other players are also 3 point threats. Otherwise the defense is just going to compact in and your team is going to be shooting outside most of the time.
Back-cuts, which is a staple of the system, are few and far between in the NBA. Because most of the time, they aren't going to bother to aggressively deny the wing when they can just close out, and if they do deny, it's with someone athletic and smart enough not to get beat backdoor. And without modification, the spacing which works in college, places players inside the 3 point line in the NBA, and you also don't get anything in the corners. So you don't get the shots that an offense should ideally try to get. You'll find that a lot of the stuff in the offense, like the two guard front, was put in ONLY to bail out guards who had trouble dealing with ball pressure, to the detriment of spacing.
Coaches have already taken the good parts from the Princeton and Triangle, the read and react, the screening and motion, and adapted it to get shots on the efficient parts of the floor. In contrast, what we did with our Princeton based sets last year was do the opposite, taking the spacing and cuts, but taking the read and react & continuity part out of it.
After watching these few games, my negative view on it still stands. If you can't penetrate the defense with anything other than a back-cut, then you likely aren't going to get anything at all other than wasting time off the clock.
Here are some plays from the first quarter against the Knicks.
Play 1
They run some motion, but the play call is really just for a Randle isolation. You see it's already eight seconds off the clock before Clarkson is in position to receive a wing pass. Russell makes a halfhearted UCLA cut and doesn't even look for the ball on his move to the basket, because everyone knows its going to Randle.
That's 12 seconds just to get the ball to Randle for a simple post isolation, and he gets fouled, resetting the clock to 14.
Play 2
The ensuing inbounds is where the real problem comes in. 14 seconds on the clock and you're trying to run Princeton? You have your guard to guard pass in the two guard front, from Russell to Clarkson. Clarkson throws to Randle who throws it back to Black at the top of the key. Then a chin cut from Russell, which flows into a Princeton entry set, and Clarkson also cuts in, and they set a double pindown for the two. Clarkson comes off the pindown to get the handoff from Black, and ends up... in the exact same place he had the ball before!
So we spent another ten seconds to get Clarkson the ball twice in the same place with bad spacing. With time running down Clarkson isos from 26 feet and launches a contested three that's not even close. At no point in all that motion did we ever threaten to penetrate the defense at all, other than maybe a post up opportunity for Russell which they didn't look for.
Play 3
Here we have Russell bringing it up the floor and passing to the wing, who passes to Randle up top, who passes it to the other wing who passes it back to Randle in the same place, as Russell makes the baseline cut to the weak side. Russell comes up to the wing and tells Jabari Brown to clear out to the other side so that he has room to run a side pick and roll.
So again, they don't threaten anything with all of that motion, so the defense is set anyway. They also have to wait for their player to get in position so that they have better spacing, when they could have set that exact same side PnR up as soon as they got down the floor with plenty of time to spare. At this point there are only 9 seconds left on the clock. Russell rejects the screen and passes back to Randle, who hands off back to him going middle, at which point he turns it over with five seconds left.
Play 4
Later on in the 1st half, the Lakers ran one of their more common sets, which starts with a Princeton formation but goes directly in a high pick and roll (I'll call it Chin PnR). Russell makes his guard to guard pass to Clarkson and makes his Chin cut. Clarkson then uses the screen from Black to sink the 20 footer.
This is perhaps better than the previous sets because they don't waste so much time before going into the PnR, but if you look closely, the spacing is wrong. They are still partially in the 1-4 Princeton formation with two on the wings. Moreover, one of the guys on wing, Nance, isn't a shooter, so his guy is free to help out on the roll. The optimal spacing for a high pick and roll is a shooter on a wing, the non-shooter in the short corner on the same side, and another shooter in the weak side corner. If you have 3 shooters then you put two in the corners and one on the wing. You can see how much more room there was on the Laker's first bucket of the game, which was a high PnR play call:
Here are the Rockets running their version of it with much better spacing.
It starts with the handoff because then you can get a forward to make the cut toward the basket and have the small guard spot up- the forward has the size to catch and finish inside if necessary. More importantly the shooters should push all the way down to the corner, next to the baseline, unless the forward cuts to their side, in which case they move to the wing. Imagine Russell instead handing off to Nance who passes to Clarkson and then makes a cut to the basket for a potential alley oop, while Russell sets up for the corner three in anticipation of the PnR.
The devil is really in the details. You can say that maybe the Lakers can get better at running these sets with more practice, but still, they're putting their personnel in the wrong places and giving them not enough room to work. It's not as if they're running these plays incorrectly. And it's not clear either that better execution of these sets would do much, if anything, to compromise the opponent's defense.
Having said all this, the Princeton isn't going to be the main problem this year. I think we'll find that like last year, they'll run fewer and fewer of these sets as the season goes on, and we'll continue to have one-option stagnant sets with minimal ball movement, before going PnR heavy. It's time for some fresh ideas.
Joined: 25 Apr 2015 Posts: 31911 Location: Anaheim, CA
Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 11:52 pm Post subject:
^^^^
What a fantastic post. Seriously, really excellent. It is definitely time for some fresh ideas. Our coach is outdated, our offense is outdated, our sports medicine/training staff is outdated...see where I'm going with this?
Play 2 is the dumbest playcall possible with the :14 shotclock, it's disconcerting that someone would call that out of the inbounds. I actually like the action and what they could have got out of it with more time though. If Clarkson would have swung the ball back to Brown , Browns man was helping on the roller in that late PnR, Brown was open for a 3 or to attack the closeout. It would have to be a quick, Steph Curry like swing back pass. It's a read thing, Clarkson should know that's there. Did he not know or was the shotclock just in his head?
Play 3 , did Randle miss a dribble handoff for Russell? Seems like it would have been perfect there, with Russell's man trailing off of Jabari's screen for Russell. There was some confusion with Jabari's quick pass back to Randle, and Randle not being the most attentive guy on the court anyway, the opportunity to place another screen on Russell's trailing man was lost
I wrote this in another thread but literally just discovered this thread so I figured I'd post here. How familiar is everyone else with the Princeton? I ran it in HS for 4 years and know it like the back of my hand. Would love to discuss some of the sets the Lakers are running
Inverse wrote:
Mike@LG wrote:
The team isn't even running it properly because the ball keeps sticking.
Wow i just had some major high school flash backs. If anyone is familiar with the Princeton then you know you have 3 options when the ball is swung from the 1 to the 4. The 1 cuts through and the 4 passes to the 5 at the high post. At this point, its the 4's responsibility to read the defense and initiate the next play: "away", "over", or "through". When the offense is run to perfection it is a thing of beauty. But it is a very complicated system, and one that takes months and years to master. The thing is though that the offense is predicated on back doors and slip screens. I imagine that once D'Angelo gets the offense down pat, he will just absolutely destroy it. Believe it or not, the Princeton is a very good offense for D'angelo. However, at this point, I am not surprised at all to see the Lakers struggling mightily to run the sets. As my coach used to always say, in the beginning, most of his players look like robots when first starting off running the princeton as they are thinking where they should be/what comes next rather than making the correct basketball play. In time, however, when the team is connected on a string, its a very potent offense. The Princeton is most successful when it is run with a PG with a very high IQ. This is why after thinking about it, I think its a good offense for Russell to master.
Now with the clip(s) that Mike posted above, that is called both the "High" set (ball is passed to the 5 at the 15 ft. elbow) and the "Low" set ( ball is passed to the 5 at the low block). The Lakers have not really incorporated this yet. What they run to exhaustion are the "head" set shown at the :46 second mark
as well as "Chin High" which is a guard-guard-forward pass and probably the easiest part of the Princeton to learn, and the reason why the Lakers have ran it a lot in SL
(notice in the 2nd clip, chin normally leads to head, where the 5 has the ball on the 3 pt line and wings are setting pin downs for the guards to come out...this is what I mean when I say this offense is very complicated, there are just so many different options)
Joined: 23 Jun 2005 Posts: 8488 Location: The (real) short corner
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 4:39 am Post subject:
KeepItRealOrElse wrote:
Play 2 is the dumbest playcall possible with the :14 shotclock, it's disconcerting that someone would call that out of the inbounds. I actually like the action and what they could have got out of it with more time though. If Clarkson would have swung the ball back to Brown , Browns man was helping on the roller in that late PnR, Brown was open for a 3 or to attack the closeout. It would have to be a quick, Steph Curry like swing back pass. It's a read thing, Clarkson should know that's there. Did he not know or was the shotclock just in his head?
I don't think Clarkson saw it. But freeze frame it at six seconds on the shot clock. That's even worse than the four out spacing in the chin pnr set. Russell and Randle are not threats, and if Porzingis had dropped back, then there would be absolutely nothing there. At five seconds is where Brown opens up, but I don't think it's as difficult a close out for the defender as it looks, given where the defender is and the distance the pass has to travel. Russell possibly is the guy who can make something out of this consistently.
Quote:
Play 3 , did Randle miss a dribble handoff for Russell? Seems like it would have been perfect there, with Russell's man trailing off of Jabari's screen for Russell. There was some confusion with Jabari's quick pass back to Randle, and Randle not being the most attentive guy on the court anyway, the opportunity to place another screen on Russell's trailing man was lost
Yeah, they could have, but the Russell Randle handoff roll that they ended up running later when Jabari moved to the weak side was more of the traditional side PnR spacing. Otherwise, the corner defender may get in the roll man's path.
Our Princeton / motion sets: bad pacing, bad spacing
In an earlier discussion, I mentioned my problem with the Princeton offense:
Quote:
While the real Princeton is better than the *version of it* we ran last season, its pure form is also outdated for today's league. For the high post sets, the only way you're going to get the space you need to cut into the lane is if your center or 'hub' can handle the ball, pass, and shoot 3's or very high % 2 pt jumper's, and all other players are also 3 point threats. Otherwise the defense is just going to compact in and your team is going to be shooting outside most of the time.
Back-cuts, which is a staple of the system, are few and far between in the NBA. Because most of the time, they aren't going to bother to aggressively deny the wing when they can just close out, and if they do deny, it's with someone athletic and smart enough not to get beat backdoor. And without modification, the spacing which works in college, places players inside the 3 point line in the NBA, and you also don't get anything in the corners. So you don't get the shots that an offense should ideally try to get. You'll find that a lot of the stuff in the offense, like the two guard front, was put in ONLY to bail out guards who had trouble dealing with ball pressure, to the detriment of spacing.
Coaches have already taken the good parts from the Princeton and Triangle, the read and react, the screening and motion, and adapted it to get shots on the efficient parts of the floor. In contrast, what we did with our Princeton based sets last year was do the opposite, taking the spacing and cuts, but taking the read and react & continuity part out of it.
After watching these few games, my negative view on it still stands. If you can't penetrate the defense with anything other than a back-cut, then you likely aren't going to get anything at all other than wasting time off the clock.
Here are some plays from the first quarter against the Knicks.
Play 1
They run some motion, but the play call is really just for a Randle isolation. You see it's already eight seconds off the clock before Clarkson is in position to receive a wing pass. Russell makes a halfhearted UCLA cut and doesn't even look for the ball on his move to the basket, because everyone knows its going to Randle.
That's 12 seconds just to get the ball to Randle for a simple post isolation, and he gets fouled, resetting the clock to 14.
Play 2
The ensuing inbounds is where the real problem comes in. 14 seconds on the clock and you're trying to run Princeton? You have your guard to guard pass in the two guard front, from Russell to Clarkson. Clarkson throws to Randle who throws it back to Black at the top of the key. Then a chin cut from Russell, which flows into a Princeton entry set, and Clarkson also cuts in, and they set a double pindown for the two. Clarkson comes off the pindown to get the handoff from Black, and ends up... in the exact same place he had the ball before!
So we spent another ten seconds to get Clarkson the ball twice in the same place with bad spacing. With time running down Clarkson isos from 26 feet and launches a contested three that's not even close. At no point in all that motion did we ever threaten to penetrate the defense at all, other than maybe a post up opportunity for Russell which they didn't look for.
Play 3
Here we have Russell bringing it up the floor and passing to the wing, who passes to Randle up top, who passes it to the other wing who passes it back to Randle in the same place, as Russell makes the baseline cut to the weak side. Russell comes up to the wing and tells Jabari Brown to clear out to the other side so that he has room to run a side pick and roll.
So again, they don't threaten anything with all of that motion, so the defense is set anyway. They also have to wait for their player to get in position so that they have better spacing, when they could have set that exact same side PnR up as soon as they got down the floor with plenty of time to spare. At this point there are only 9 seconds left on the clock. Russell rejects the screen and passes back to Randle, who hands off back to him going middle, at which point he turns it over with five seconds left.
Play 4
Later on in the 1st half, the Lakers ran one of their more common sets, which starts with a Princeton formation but goes directly in a high pick and roll (I'll call it Chin PnR). Russell makes his guard to guard pass to Clarkson and makes his Chin cut. Clarkson then uses the screen from Black to sink the 20 footer.
This is perhaps better than the previous sets because they don't waste so much time before going into the PnR, but if you look closely, the spacing is wrong. They are still partially in the 1-4 Princeton formation with two on the wings. Moreover, one of the guys on wing, Nance, isn't a shooter, so his guy is free to help out on the roll. The optimal spacing for a high pick and roll is a shooter on a wing, the non-shooter in the short corner on the same side, and another shooter in the weak side corner. If you have 3 shooters then you put two in the corners and one on the wing. You can see how much more room there was on the Laker's first bucket of the game, which was a high PnR play call:
Here are the Rockets running their version of it with much better spacing.
It starts with the handoff because then you can get a forward to make the cut toward the basket and have the small guard spot up- the forward has the size to catch and finish inside if necessary. More importantly the shooters should push all the way down to the corner, next to the baseline, unless the forward cuts to their side, in which case they move to the wing. Imagine Russell instead handing off to Nance who passes to Clarkson and then makes a cut to the basket for a potential alley oop, while Russell sets up for the corner three in anticipation of the PnR.
The devil is really in the details. You can say that maybe the Lakers can get better at running these sets with more practice, but still, they're putting their personnel in the wrong places and giving them not enough room to work. It's not as if they're running these plays incorrectly. And it's not clear either that better execution of these sets would do much, if anything, to compromise the opponent's defense.
Having said all this, the Princeton isn't going to be the main problem this year. I think we'll find that like last year, they'll run fewer and fewer of these sets as the season goes on, and we'll continue to have one-option stagnant sets with minimal ball movement, before going PnR heavy. It's time for some fresh ideas.
great post fiend. a consistent theme in every clip that is really aggravating to see is the way we completely ignore the corners. our floor spacing on offense is so extraordinarily HIGH and it allows the defense to just push up and take away space. we don't utilize the space given to us and flat out ignore the most efficient spot on the court (corner 3).
They looked much better yesterday. It actually looked like at times they were actively trying to push the tempo. It also looked like they ran less Princeton sets and more pnr and horns.
Here's a play I liked. A pick for Russell (not the best pick by Randle), a pass to to Randle, he drives in sucking the defense in and creating one of the rare corner threes.
How many corner threes did we produce last year in our offense and how was it comparatively to the rest of the league? Is there any data for this? From my recollection of watching games last year we barely took corner threes, and during the summer league it seems as if we are deathly afraid of them.
They looked much better yesterday. It actually looked like at times they were actively trying to push the tempo. It also looked like they ran less Princeton sets and more pnr and horns.
Here's a play I liked. A pick for Russell (not the best pick by Randle), a pass to to Randle, he drives in sucking the defense in and creating one of the rare corner threes.
How many corner threes did we produce last year in our offense and how was it comparatively to the rest of the league? Is there any data for this? From my recollection of watching games last year we barely took corner threes, and during the summer league it seems as if we are deathly afraid of them.
that play stuck out to me as well. finally had good floor spacing and ran a pnr with 2 of our best players, and it resulted in a corner 3. EZ stuff
They looked much better yesterday. It actually looked like at times they were actively trying to push the tempo. It also looked like they ran less Princeton sets and more pnr and horns.
Here's a play I liked. A pick for Russell (not the best pick by Randle), a pass to to Randle, he drives in sucking the defense in and creating one of the rare corner threes.
How many corner threes did we produce last year in our offense and how was it comparatively to the rest of the league? Is there any data for this? From my recollection of watching games last year we barely took corner threes, and during the summer league it seems as if we are deathly afraid of them.
that play stuck out to me as well. finally had good floor spacing and ran a pnr with 2 of our best players, and it resulted in a corner 3. EZ stuff
Worthy doesn't think we should be running the Princeton either
Quote:
James Worthy @JamesWorthy42 · 20h20 hours ago
James Worthy retweeted PV
I agree @tequilaandice, I'm not sure, but I believe Coach will tweak it a little to use a smaller, quicker unit.
James Worthy added,
PV @tequilaandice @JamesWorthy42 @Dloading James curious on what's your take on the Princeton offense. I think they are too athletic for the Princeton offense
Worthy doesn't think we should be running the Princeton either
Quote:
James Worthy @JamesWorthy42 · 20h20 hours ago
James Worthy retweeted PV
I agree @tequilaandice, I'm not sure, but I believe Coach will tweak it a little to use a smaller, quicker unit.
James Worthy added,
PV @tequilaandice @JamesWorthy42 @Dloading James curious on what's your take on the Princeton offense. I think they are too athletic for the Princeton offense
Interesting. 'Tweak it.' Meaning, scrap most of it.
Kinda genius move by the FO if you think about it. They got a coach that the greatest lakers, who a lot of fans listen to, will never complain about _________________ Kobe
You have the initial wing pass, the pass back to the trailing big, and the cut to the weak side for the guard. This followed by a screen the screener action inside which frees up Jabari Brown for an open 3 on the down screen. If he didn't shoot, he could then gone straight into a high pick and roll with decent spacing.
Is it a sign that they are finally joining the rest of the league in adopting sets from the Spurs? Hopefully, but I never saw it again from them after that. I would have liked to see the team run it several times to work through the different options. It's a heck of a lot better than the Princeton sets that they were trying in the previous games, and would fit the Lakers' regular season personnel pretty well.
Joined: 23 Jun 2005 Posts: 8488 Location: The (real) short corner
Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 4:53 am Post subject:
^ I remembered there was some screen the screener (STS) action in the first game, so I fast forwarded through to see if any of it was Motion Weak. Turns out they ran it one time, and on several other possessions, ran a slower developing version of it.
I see a couple things here that temper my excitement a bit. The Lakers don't even look for the first two options, even though Upshaw was open on the cross screen. And then when the shot off the down screen isn't there, instead of setting a high pick, Nance just clears out like it's an isolation, and the play resets when Mitchell calls for the screen.
This tells me that the coaching staff may have turned this into another one of their read and react motion sets that he took the read and react part out of, running it as a play to get a top of the key jumper- sort of like their Triangle sets. It's like diagramming a complicated football play with a lot of motion, and then telling your quarterback beforehand which receiver to throw it to, and when. I hope I'm wrong about this though.
Joined: 02 May 2005 Posts: 90306 Location: Formerly Known As 24
Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:12 am Post subject:
Motion weak is exactly the set I want to see. Perfect with clarkson and russell, and both hibbert and Randle can make simple and easy reads and passes from the free throw line area.
This is a great post, Very informative and also debatable!
The Princeton has been around for some time and quite a few coaches have come to use it in their offensive schemes of course no more successful than Mr. Princeton himself Coach Pete Carril.
IMO the keys to this offense will definitely contribute to the Lakers team this year. This offense is predicated on "PLAYERS". One thing I've learned early on in coaching that in order to be successful, you have to have players in the right position. So for example the Princeton is built on the basis of ball movement and player movement and constant motion, so you have to be able to read and react as well, but the key is simply this. In order for the offense to be effective, each player on the court should have a high level of skillset in the the following areas: Passing, Shooting the Ball and Dribbling.
If you can get those three core pieces out of 5 players on the court at one time your Princeton offense can be really effective.
Let's look at the Lakers probable starting five and see where they fall with those three catagories:
D'Angelo Russell (Pass, Shoot, Dribble [PSD])
Jordan Clarkson (PSD)
Kobe Bryant (PSD)
Julius Randle (PSD)
Roy Hibbert (Here is where the problem lies but not really)
Hibbert isn't a hybrid of any sort but his focus is on the defensive end, but consider the recent free agent acquisitions and our bench.
Brandon Bass (PSD)
Bass can come in and help down low with Randle and then we have a formidable core for the Princeton, but we lack size.
Remeber that offense and defense just isn't about X's and O's but about strategy and that starts with personnel and the ability to put players in position where they can have the greatest level of success!
This is a great post, Very informative and also debatable!
The Princeton has been around for some time and quite a few coaches have come to use it in their offensive schemes of course no more successful than Mr. Princeton himself Coach Pete Carril.
IMO the keys to this offense will definitely contribute to the Lakers team this year. This offense is predicated on "PLAYERS". One thing I've learned early on in coaching that in order to be successful, you have to have players in the right position. So for example the Princeton is built on the basis of ball movement and player movement and constant motion, so you have to be able to read and react as well, but the key is simply this. In order for the offense to be effective, each player on the court should have a high level of skillset in the the following areas: Passing, Shooting the Ball and Dribbling.
If you can get those three core pieces out of 5 players on the court at one time your Princeton offense can be really effective.
Let's look at the Lakers probable starting five and see where they fall with those three catagories:
D'Angelo Russell (Pass, Shoot, Dribble [PSD])
Jordan Clarkson (PSD)
Kobe Bryant (PSD)
Julius Randle (PSD)
Roy Hibbert (Here is where the problem lies but not really)
Hibbert isn't a hybrid of any sort but his focus is on the defensive end, but consider the recent free agent acquisitions and our bench.
Brandon Bass (PSD)
Bass can come in and help down low with Randle and then we have a formidable core for the Princeton, but we lack size.
Remeber that offense and defense just isn't about X's and O's but about strategy and that starts with personnel and the ability to put players in position where they can have the greatest level of success!
Any offense is good when you have 5 players who can pass, shoot, & dribble. This phrase is often said about Princeton, and I think it demonstrates the issues with Princeton more than the benefit of it.
... which would be a good one to run for Randle, assuming it's a variation with the players inbounds (there was a rule change because of what George Karl was doing).
... which would be a good one to run for Randle, assuming it's a variation with the players inbounds (there was a rule change because of what George Karl was doing).
Pick and Pop to the weakside to provide space and limited double-teams would be great set for Randle
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me too!
