Taking a look at the approach behind blending high volume and high efficiency
The Golden State Warriors’ first three-point make in this uncertain preseason period came off of a simple high pick-and-roll action — nothing novel, ubiquitous throughout the league, and quite uncharacteristic of a team that has traditionally eschewed the conventional for the unorthodox.
Fresh off his legendary Olympic campaign that added another notch to his legendary career, Stephen Curry was tasked to be the primary ball handler initiating the action. With Klay Thompson’s departure, the Warriors had multiple candidates at the two-guard position to replace Thompson as Curry’s backcourt partner in the starting lineup: Buddy Hield, whose volume of three-point attempts has rivaled Curry over the last five seasons; De’Anthony Melton, who is a more stable defensive option and has the three-point shooting to provide offensive relief on the other end; and Brandin Podziemski, whose ball-handling allows Curry to slot into his deadly off-ball role.
Steve Kerr chose to go with Melton to start the preseason against the Los Angeles Clippers, along with a frontcourt duo consisting of Draymond Green at the four and Trayce Jackson-Davis at the five. Rounding up the starting group was Jonathan Kuminga, whose viability as a three has been among the hot topics leading up to the start of the regular season.
Despite the potential for phonebooth spacing, Kerr momentarily solved that problem. By positioning Melton in the left corner, Kerr puts pressure on Melton’s man — whose decision to help or stay dictates what kind of look the Warriors get on Curry’s “Angle” pick-and-roll action with Jackson-Davis.
As it turns out from the clip above, Melton’s man decides to help off early to “tag” Jackson-Davis’ roll toward the rim.
Which is an automatic trigger for Curry to whip the pass to Melton in the corner, whose man’s help-off gives him plenty of room to drill the ever-valuable corner three.
Fast forward to game four of the preseason against the Detroit Pistons. The same “Angle” pick-and-roll — albeit, with Melton handling the ball instead of Curry — puts the same kind of pressure on the corner defender, whose charge this time around is Lindy Waters III, a career 37.7% shooter on threes who has been setting the nets on fire this preseason.
Jackson-Davis sets the drag screen for Melton. Watch what Waters does as Jackson-Davis starts his roll maneuver — and take note of the kind of shot the Warriors produce off of it:
Waters “shakes” up from the corner — which simply means that he relocates from the corner toward the wing — and brings his defender with him, which eliminates a tag on Jackson-Davis and provides him with an unclogged roll lane.
While both clips above are born out of the same run-of-the-mill spread pick-and-roll configurations, I feel they are representative of the Warriors’ “novel” approach to three-point shooting. While preseason is not perfectly indicative of what the regular season will look like, it’s a very important window providing a peek into ethos and philosophy. In that regard, the mantra is simple: shoot a lot of threes.
But shooting a lot of threes can mean a lot of things. It’s easy to chuck the ball wantonly, regardless of how those shots are defended. It’s also easy to conclude that shooting a lot of threes means running endless ball screens, spreading the floor, and kicking out toward open shooters off of paint touches — or finding the roll man if the threat of shooting nails perimeter defenders to their spots. Having someone who can pull up and/or penetrate off the dribble also helps, in the mold of prime James Harden and current Luka Dončić. While that heliocentric approach is not wholly ignored by the Warriors, it is by no means the meat and potatoes of their offensive system.
Nevertheless, Kerr has encouraged the Warriors to let it fly this season.
“The math just doesn’t add up (if you don’t take a bunch),” Kerr said. “Especially for us. We’re not a team that gets to the free-throw line much. It’d be hard for us to win a lot of games unless we shoot a high volume of 3s… What I like about this team is that, even though we lost Klay, we have more shooting depth. I don’t necessarily have a number in mind. I want to take a lot of them and I want them to be good shots, obviously.”
The crux of the statement from Kerr above comes from the last sentence. Good perimeter shots are generated in a variety of ways — one of which happens to be from conventional pick-and-roll possessions such as the one above. But Kerr has also mixed in plenty of the Warriors’ tried-and-tested motion offense formula, with sets that are both old and new.
The “new” is partly an infusion of influence from assistant coach Terry Stotts, former head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers. While Stotts wasn’t brought in to reinvent the wheel, his extensive experience as an offensive specialist gives him the leeway and voice to add fresh spokes to it.
Stotts — known for his proclivity for mixing in flare screens (a screen for someone moving away from the ball) and wide pindown screens — has already impacted the Warriors offense, particularly through a signature set play he once ran that involved Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.
The flare and pindown elements are clear enough from the clip above, and they still form the core of the Warriors’ version. But their clear emphasis on structured improvisation ensures that should the core action break down, they would be in a position to flow into more familiar actions — all while using the threat of the three-point shot to create looks at the rim, which is central to their historical approach of an outside-in attack.
“That was a Terry Stotts action, the Portland stuff that he ran with Dame and CJ,” Kerr said of the action above. “Part of the idea of bringing Terry was that his offense resembles ours, but had more structure based on personnel. What was interesting about that play was it was all old Portland stuff. And then we didn’t get anything, and then it came back to the split game that we’ve been running forever.”
The mix of the old and the “old new” (i.e., Stotts’ input) are blended with the outright new. Thanks in large part to the Warriors’ efforts to push the three-point era forward over the past decade, the concept of shooters being used as screeners has become somewhat more commonplace relative to a few years ago, where the likes of Curry and Thompson monopolized such a maneuver.
More and more teams are embracing that concept and implementing it within their own schemes. Others have put their own twists and innovations to it. But there’s nothing like the OGs running what they made famous — and putting their own spin on it when it was once thought their ideas were becoming stale and outdated.
Take this action, for example — and watch how two shooters (Curry and Hield in this instance) are bundled or “clustered” together in one spot to create chaos:
When the ideal thing to do above would be for Curry and Hield’s defenders to switch, the prospect of two high-volume, high-efficiency three-point shooters coming together is a Pandora’s box of a conundrum. Open the box of attaching two to Curry and Hield will find himself open on the cut, possibly with a wide-open layup; open the other box of two attaching to Hield coming off the rip screen by Curry — as what happened above — and defenses will be faced with the prospect of an open Curry around the Kevon Looney screen. Or at the least, a defender realizing his mistake too late, scrambling to recover toward Curry, and giving him an open lane to the rim.
Hield’s job, however, doesn’t stop after being a decoy around the rip screen. He relocates to the weak-side corner to take his defender with him, which makes Curry’s drive to the rim a breeze with no rim protection there to deter him.
There’s just enough of the new to pique one’s interest — even if the old stuff still forms the core of the offense. But the old stuff has also been inundated with fresh ideas, even if the new thing is just simply a matter of different positioning or different situational context.
Take for example, the Warriors’ “Quick” action — an early-offense away screen for an off-ball player to come toward the ball and receive the pass. The screen would traditionally be set on the opposite slot area:
A “new” version of “Quick” in preseason — especially when used in sideline out-of-bounds (SLOB) situations — is to set the away screen deeper in the corner, which increases the chase distance of the defender and makes it exponentially more difficult to cover Curry, especially without the presence of a top-lock or denial away from the screen:
Another example: the Warriors’ “Quick Touch” action, which is comprised of two components:
- “Quick” action (away screen for an off-ball player to come toward the ball)
- An immediate pass back to the initial ball-handler (the “Touch” component), who then comes off a ball-screen by the big who initially set the away screen
The Warriors’ approach to being novel this preseason is not to scrap and rebuild — but to add and refine. This was evident when they took the very same “Quick Touch” action and stacked another layer onto it against the Pistons:
“Quick Touch” is but an initiation tool to flow into the meat of the half-court possession. Once Looney flips the ball back to Podziemski, he turns around to form the second component of a staggered “Away” screen setup, with Moses Moody being the first. Once Kyle Anderson curls around the Moody screen, Moody then runs to come off the Looney screen. Moody’s man, distracted by Anderson’s curl and cut, falls behind. Moody promptly punishes by drilling the three around the screen.
The foundation for excellent double-sided movement (and overall movement across the board) is taking shape. Execution has been excellent relative to preseason standards. Good looks are being created both from structured randomness, which is an indication of where the Warriors are at this point of their ramp-up period. Another “Quick Touch” variation —this time, with a “Flex” screen for Gary Payton II flowing into a single “Away” screen for Hield, creates another look the Warriors are more than happy to take:
When coupled with the usual “organized chaos” (occasionally outright chaotic) that the Warriors have been known for — i.e., the occasional pull-up threes, some from the usual suspects and others from unexpected yet welcome places — there’s a recipe for three-point proficiency they can make use of to excel beyond their theoretical means:
Last season, the Warriors were sixth in three-point attempt rate that didn’t include end-of-quarter heaves (39.4%), all while being eighth in field-goal percentage (38.5%), per Cleaning The Glass. The obvious caveat of a massive difference in sample size shouldn’t be ignored, but the Warriors’ numbers in the same metrics in four preseason games — 52% (!!!) of their total attempts have been threes, while they have made 40.5% of their threes — are an indication of their willingness to shatter their own marks last season.
But not at the expense of mindless chucking and untimely shot selection. They’re out to prove that a productive three-point program can be a function of smart decision making and excellent shot creation.