Welcome back to the new series here at Hardwood Paroxysm, You Better Recognize. Each week, I’ll take a look at a specific aspect of a specific player’s game and tell you just how and why a player has been so successful (or unsuccessful). Last week, I covered Tyson Chandler’s inspired defense. Today, we stay in the Atlantic Division and look at how Lou Williams uses off-ball screens to free himself for open looks.
It’s easy to overlook Lou Williams. He plays for the Philadelphia 76ers who, despite being located in one of the largest media markets in the country, don’t really feel like a big market team. After all, superstars aren’t falling all over themselves to play in Philly like they are for Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or even Brooklyn. The Sixers still sit atop the Atlantic Division standings, yet you wouldn’t know it based on the media coverage of the division. Everything is all about Linsanity, or Dwight Howard possibly going to the Nets or Boston shopping Rajon Rondo. Yes, there was that one week (one day, really) where everyone talked and wrote about the Sixers for a little while, but the stories were mostly of the, “Can they really sustain this?” variety.
When the Sixers do get attention, it’s mostly heaped on other players, and Lou is often the odd man out. Andre Iguodala is Philly’s All-Star, their best player, their leader. He does a little bit of everything out there on the court, and he’s really put it together to have a career-best year. He’s entirely deserving of all the attention and admiration he’s getting this season. Thaddeus Young has received vocal praise from head coach Doug Collins for his activity on defense and the way he defends the pick-and-roll. Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner are the young back court tandem of the future; nearly everyone has high hopes for them. Elton Brand, despite his bloated salary, is still counted on to be a steadying veteran presence. Spencer Hawes’ early season break out got a bunch of pub, but that spotlight has since faded away due to injury.
Williams, meanwhile, may just be the most important player on the team. His 16.0 points per game leads the Sixers, and if he keeps that up through the full season, he’d be the first bench player to lead his team in scoring since Dell Curry in the 1993-94 campaign. He’s a leading Sixth Man of the Year candidate for sure (ESPN’s Marc Stein handed it to him as part of his mid-season awards), even if James Harden is still the favorite (our own Matt Moore picked him at his day job). He’s averaging career highs in PER, Usage Rate, WS/48, and AST% while turning it over less than ever before. In fact, of the top 15 players in the NBA in Usage, he’s turning the ball over less than any of them.
Down the stretch of games, Lou’s Philly’s de facto go-to guy, and with good reason. The man is a legitimate crunch time killer. He’s shooting 56.4% from the field in the last three minutes of 4th quarters this season according to Basketball-Reference, and NBA.com’s Stats Cube says he is averaging 33.5 points per-36 minutes in the clutch (“clutch” being defined as the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter or OT, game within 5 points). His usage rate climbs 7% in the clutch, and he justifies it by hitting shots at a 5% higher clip and posting a TS% more than 12 points above his season average. He’s also getting to the free throw line in the clutch at nearly double the rate he does during the rest of the game, and hits at his usual 80+%, a huge asset at the tail end of games.
One reason he doesn’t get much attention is that Williams’ game has very little flash to it. You won’t often find him dunking on people’s heads or shaking them up with a crazy crossover dribble. He goes about his business much more quietly than that. He’s subtle. He uses angles, reads the defense and picks his spots. Not many people appreciate the art of reading the defender’s route and flaring into the corner after coming off a screen instead of curling around up top. It’s not often that you see guys revered for the way they use screens to get themselves open. That praise is pretty much limited to Reggie Miller, Ray Allen and – in a since bygone era – Richard Hamilton. But Lou has all that mastered.
According to mySynergySports, Williams is shooting an utterly absurd 61.8% off screens this season and his 1.34 Points Per Possession (PPP) places him 2nd in the NBA. If you throw in shooting fouls drawn, he’s scored on 63.2% of his possessions (plays that end in FGA, FTs or TO) that ended with him using a screen. Philly likes to get Williams the ball off screens in two locations: just about the elbow on the right side and in the left corner. They basically just run different variations of the same two plays to get him the ball there, and it works exceedingly well.
The first play involves Williams starting either in the corner or on the low block and the right side and running his man off a down screen to catch the ball just above the right elbow. More often than not, he gets a wide open catch-and-shoot jumper. However, if his man tries to cut that off, he’ll occasionally either flare back out into the corner to create separation or curl the screen around and come to the middle of the floor and catch the ball on the move going toward the hoop.
Here’s the first version, where he runs his man off a down screen and releases a catch-and-shoot jumper from just above the elbow. This is the most common way the Sixers get Williams a jumper off screens.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuHd52wiyQw&list=UUrH0cFTogF5bW0j6MdThQcA&index=3&feature=plcp]
The second and third versions, where he flares into the corner or comes all the way around the screen into the lane, aren’t as common, but are no less effective ways of getting open.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6KsZR_uvUQ&list=UUrH0cFTogF5bW0j6MdThQcA&index=2&feature=plcp]
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eZ7V-v-9uw&list=UUrH0cFTogF5bW0j6MdThQcA&index=1&feature=plcp]
Philly has one basic set they like to use to get Williams a corner jumper off a screen, but they’ve altered the way it’s run since the beginning of the season. At the start of the year, the play looked like this:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAm8RQ_57tc&feature=youtu.be]
The ball starts off at the elbow extended and is swung to the top of the key. As the ball gets swung around again to the opposite side, Williams sets a back screen for the man at the top of the key, who flashes toward what is now the weak side corner. Philly then uses the “screen for the screener” concept and sends Williams off a back screen of his own toward the strong side corner for a jumper. However, because Williams comes to a complete stop in the middle of the lane when setting a screen for the man at the top of the key, it gives the Knicks’ defense time to see him coming and rotate out to contest the jumper. Amar’e Stoudemire contests, but Williams uses a pump fake to get by him and drop a shorter jumper. The play works, but only because Williams was smart enough to use the pump fake to get Amar’e to bite.
They’ve since altered the play a bit. Williams’ route is very much the same, but this time he starts the play from the elbow extended and swings the ball to the top of the key. Here’s where the new wrinkle comes in; as the ball is being swung around, Williams fakes as if he will cut to the top of the key, the spot vacated by the man that he screened for on the earlier play, while knowing that he will come off a screen of his own and flare into the corner. This time, the jumper is wide open.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaKlMhvD7MI&feature=youtu.be]
The defender doesn’t know Williams’ route, so he bites on the fake toward the top of the key, leaving him way out of position and trailing Williams. The screen puts even more space between Lou and his defender. It’s a simple adjustment made to get an excellent catch-and-shoot player a little more room with which to unleash a deadly jumper.
