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JJ Redick (0:30)
You're 84, too.
LeBron James (0:32)
I'm 84. Yes, sir.
JJ Redick (0:33)
Yeah, we got bad vintages for always.
LeBron James (0:35)
One of the worst. Oh, thank you. Thank you.
JJ Redick (0:37)
Have you spent any time with Mark Dagal, by the way? No, bro, He's. He's ridiculous. He's so good.
LeBron James (0:45)
No, he's.
JJ Redick (0:46)
He's so good.
LeBron James (0:46)
Yeah, he's on his. He's young, too. Is he younger than us?
JJ Redick (0:52)
Yeah, I think he was. I think he's an 85. I looked it up the other day. He's definitely younger than us. Smidge.
LeBron James (0:57)
Yeah.
JJ Redick (0:58)
Like that.
LeBron James (0:58)
Yep. All right, cool.
JJ Redick (0:59)
We're already rolling, so you guys just loud.
LeBron James (1:01)
Oh, we already rolled. This is what we do.
JJ Redick (1:04)
This is what we do. Welcome to episode two of Mind the Game podcast with LeBron James and JJ Redick, presented by Uninterrupted and 342-Productions. First of all, just wanted to say thank you for all of you who listened and watched to episode one. We greatly appreciate the positive response from all of the stuff that we talked about. There's a lot more of X and O stuff in episode two. The title of episode two is simply the hardest actions to guard in the NBA. No, not necessarily the hardest players to guard, but some of the best players in the world are involved directly in these actions, as you will see when we break it down. And two of the actions that we focus primarily on in this episode are the Golden State split screens and inverted pick and rolls. All right, before we get to the plays that we're going to cover, I want to go over some of the key terminology. All right, the first two words are tilt and fire. I want to be clear here. Every team in the NBA has a code word or a word for a double team. A lot of teams I played on, we had a color scheme. So blue was a double team from the nail. Green was a double team from the baseline side. In this case, tilt and fire represent those colors. Tilt means in a post up a double team from the baseline side. Fire means in a post up a double team from the nail, and of Course, we covered what the nail was in episode one. Next two terms are hedge and blitz. So these are common terms in pick and roll coverage. Now in the NBA right now, not a lot of teams hedge in pick and rolls. A hedge is simply when the screener's defender jumps out past the screener and tries to reroute the ball handler around the screener's defender and then the screener's defender will retreat back to the screener again. Not a lot of teams do that, primarily because everybody can shoot the basketball. Sometimes in inverted pick and rolls, or sometimes as teams are targeting matchups, certain players will hedge. So for instance, if LeBron James is being guarded by Jonathan Kaminga and he wants to get a switch for Steph Curry, he will have whoever is guarding Steph Curry come set a pick and roll. And more times than not, Steph Curry will hedge, reroute LeBron, and then return to his man. That is what a hedge is. A blitz is simply a double team on a pick and roll. All right, a ghost screen, or as LeBron calls it, a bluff screen. A ghost screen is simply when you run into set a pick and roll, and you essentially don't stop, but you just run past the pick and roll and you either go to the three point line or you slip to the basket. That's essentially what a ghost screen is. It's a go screen because you're not really there. You're essentially just trying to create confusion for the two defenders involved in what looks like a pick and roll, but is actually just a ghost screen. Tag and two, nine go hand in hand. We have a defensive three second rule in the NBA. So as a defender, you're only allowed to be in the paint for three seconds without guarding anyone. There's two ways around this. You can tag a cutter, which simply means touching a cutter as he goes through the paint. 29 is simply a game of cat and mouse. How long can you be in the paint in a help position while not guarding anyone, but not get a three second violation? 1 1000, 2 1000. You're trying to be in and out in 2.9 seconds. That's what we mean by 2, 9. So when you're watching a game and you see a player with one foot in the paint, one foot out of the paint, one foot in the paint, one foot out of the paint. Almost like a tap dance. He's 2 9ing. A couple other simple terms. Backside, weak side, strong side. Strong side is simply the side of the floor where the ball is. So if a Player is on the right wing. The right side of the floor is the strong side. If a player's position in the corner while that player has the ball on the right wing, then the player in the corner is on the strong side of the floor. If a player is in the left corner opposite the ball, the other side of the court he's in the weak side. Backside is a little bit interchangeable with weak side. Backside is also a play where a player starts in a corner opposite the ball. Let's say the point guard passes to the five man at the top of the key. The player in the corner then receives a pin down and comes along the three point line and gets a dribble handoff from the five man. That's backside. Think Manu Ginobili in San Antonio. Or even better think JJ Redick in Philadelphia. All right, I want to go over what is called a varijau screen. A Varejao screen is actually named after LeBron's teammate in Cleveland, Anderson Varejao and all. A Varejao screen is is when a screener flips the side and angle of the screen. Let me show you. In this case, the X's are the offensive players, the O's are the defensive players. So in this case, the big man would run into this pick and roll. The defender would follow and as he gets to the screen, instead of setting the screen on this side where the offensive player would get to his right hand, he simply flips the angle on the screen side and varajows it. And the offensive player gets to drive away from the defense because most of the time this defender of the screener has followed and is assuming he's going to provide help defense on this side. Berjau chaos ensues. Okay, Blind Pig is something that we reference. Blind Pig is a triangle offense concept. I had to guard this concept playing against the Lakers. Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant would oftentimes be the two players involved in this. And then against the Knicks, oftentimes it could be Carmelo Anthony involved. Raymond Felton, Jeremy Lynn, essentially what Blind Pig is. The ball is right here with this player. Here is your offensive player, the X right here. O's are the defensive player. The X is being denied. This is Kobe Bryant, and this year this is Jalen Brunson. Isaiah Hartenstein will flash to the elbow. The ball then goes to Isaiah Hartenstein, right here. Jalen Brunson, who is being denied, then has a clear path to go receive the ball or get a drop off, pass, dribble, handoff, whatever Turn the corner, create havoc. Blind pick. All right, Golden State post splits a big part of this episode. We have so much visual component to this. You guys hopefully will understand this at the end. Again, this is another triangle concept. Let's do a two man post split to start. How about that? So here's the ball. The ball goes into the post. Now this pass for Golden State is not to score. This pass is to get Steph Curry and Klay Thompson into the action. So Steph can split with Klay Thompson, Klay can back cut towards the basket. He can curl towards the basket or he can come pop for three. And that's only one option. There are many options in this offense. Let's say Kavan Looney wants to get involved here. They throw it into Draymond Green. Steph goes towards Klay Thompson. Maybe Klay Thompson curls to the basket. Kavan Looney then cleans up Steph. Ball comes out to Steph. That's post splits. It's impossible to guard. The other thing I just wanted to tell you guys on this episode for these drawings, Mav drew these. I did not draw these courts. This clip went out on social America's play. Baseline, out of bounds, pick the picker, whatever you want to call it. This guy underneath the basket on a baseline, out of bounds play B, O, B, baseline, out of bounds. There should be an extra O, but who cares? It's just B, O, B. This guy right here, that's the shooter. This is Kyle Korver. This is Steph Curry. This is Ray Allen. This is. This is Duncan Robinson. He's going to set a back screen right here. A rip screen for a bigger wing. Usually. Maybe you get a switch, maybe you don't. Maybe you get a layup here underneath the basket. This guy in the corner over Here, this is Bam. This is DeAndre Jordan with me. This is Joel Embiid with me. This big guy then goes and sets a screen for the shooter to come off towards the three point line. So if you don't get a layup, you might get a three in the corner. America's play. Pick the picker. The other concept that we talk a lot about this episode is inverted pick and roll. Pick and roll. As most basketball fans know, it is simply a ball handler. Usually a point guard getting a ball screen. So a live ball dribble from a big guy, a five man right, a center. Think Kenny Smith and Hakeem Olajuwon. Think John Stockton and Karl Malone. Think Kobe and Shaq, right? It's a pick and roll. A normal pick and roll. The smaller player has the ball, the bigger player sets a screen for him. Inverted pick and roll is simply what when you invert that. In this case, a bigger player has the ball and a smaller player oftentimes a really good shooter sets a ball screen for the bigger player. Very rare that big guys can do this, but certainly a lot of them can. Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Anthony Davis, Giannis. Of course, bigger wings will also run inverted pick and rolls. So this is Duncan Robinson setting his pick and roll for Jimmy Butler. This is me setting a screen for Ben Simmons. That is an inverted pick and roll. We actually had a call in Philadelphia. It was called 12 rub rifle. So 12 was just a one, two pick and roll. I'm the two man. Ben was the one man. Rub was our name for a high pick and roll, which means in the center of the court rifle. I'll get to that in a second. So an inverted pick and roll would be the smaller player setting a screen for Ben Simmons. Right. If I set a good screen, Ben could get all the way the basket. Sometimes I would slip to three, though in that case, Ben would throw me the ball. And sometimes like against San Antonio spurs, late in the game, I would make the shot and get fouled and have a four point play to hit a game winner. But other times this would be Joel Embiid. This is the rifle part. The rifle just means chase action. Sometimes the definition of a concept is in the word. If I said go chase the ball, what are you gonna do? You're gonna pass the ball and run after it. So 12 rub rifle is a inverted high pick and roll followed by chase action. So if I didn't have a shot, I would throw the ball to Joel Embiid and we'd go right into chase dribble, handoff. 12 rub rifle. Miami Heat game four 2018 playoffs dagger. Do you look at basketball as a puzzle in some ways? I was with Missoula in September. He said competition is a puzzle and you have to approach it through intellect. And what I find when I talk to you, or when I talk to CP or I listen to you guys, Rondo, of course, who we had on the pod last year. It's like it's exploitation. I used the word manipulation once with Chris and he did not like that word. So I'm gonna use a different word today. It's exploitation you're exploiting. And sometimes it's maybe basketball iq, sometimes you're maybe exploiting a matchup. I know that I was exploited A lot at the end of my career, because by that time, it was about target hunting. And oftentimes when I was on the court, I was the target.