Michigan State Attacking Virginia’s Pack-Line Defense
We play a couple of really good defensive teams in our league that run really tough pack-line defenses, so it is always good for me to watch Virginia play so that I can see how teams attack their tough pack-line. Virginia seem to always be in position, and they make you take one tough, contested shot per possession. One of the things that makes them really tough is the way that they hedge and help on dribble penetration and on screens.
At half-time of the Michigan State vs. Virginia game, Tom Izzo mentioned that they have to do a better job of executing and hitting the ‘slips,’ giving insight on how one of the best coaches in the game looks to attack this pack-line defense.
Slips on the screens, whether it is a pin-down, ball screen, or fade, can be effective against the hedge of a pack-line because it takes advantage of the fact that the bigs that are guarding the screeners are temporarily out of position in terms of guarding their man slipping to the basket because they are helping on the guards’ men using the screen.
Virginia does a good job of helping the helper with the other big, but what Tom Izzo and the Spartans were able to do was get the other big away from the basket, making it harder for Virginia’s big to rotate over and help.
On the first play, Michigan State runs a ball screen set in which they slip the ball screen. They send a guard on an Iverson cut. On the pass to the cutting guard, the ball side big sets a screen for the back side big into the ball screen. Right before he gets to the ball screen, you can see the big’s defender beginning to hard hedge; then the big slips to the basket unguarded. Virginia’s weak-side big is at the free-throw line making it hard for him to rotate down and help on the slip.
The second play is an action that they tried to get several times. It is a simple pin-down action, but they are really looking to hit the guard curling so he can occupy the big hedging, leaving the big setting the screen open on the slip. By having their other big on the perimeter initiating the offense, Michigan State brought Virginia’s big to the perimeter leaving nobody under the basket to help.
The third play was their first set out of the 2nd half. They hit the big slipping, but Virginia did a good job of recovering, contesting a shot at the basket.
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Coach Reggie Bibb is a former college basketball player who has coached at the college, high school, junior high school and AAU levels. He started out as an assistant coach at Seminole State College where he helped head coach Tom Mills earn two conference top two finishes in three years. In two out of his three seasons in Seminole, the Seminole State Trojans won at least 20 games, including one regular season conference championship and another trip to the conference tournament championship game.
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Utilizing slips like Michigan State did against Virginia can take advantage of good, hedging bigs.
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