Olympiacos half-court trap out of the 2-2-1 press

Earlier in the day, I caught the last bit of this game, it's Olympiacos against CSKA Moscow. Olympiacos made headlines in North America last month by signing Marc Jackson to a contract. CSKA Moscow has former NBA player Trajan Langdon. This is a clip I took of Olympiacos using their half-court trap from a 2-2-1 full-court soft press. Watch the video and then you can read my thoughts below (Olympiacos is in white, CSKA Moscow in black).



Olympiacos didn't use their trap the whole game, but in a few instances. The element of surprise was used well to disguise the trap which was even better when it was executed. In the clip above, the referee actually called a foul on the Olympiacos player setting the trap but I thought it was pretty clean. Here is how it breaks down,

X1 comes up and traps O3 from the blind side, hence the element of surprise. X2 comes in to take away the first pass back to O1 once he crosses half. X4 should be fronting O4, but in this case is just guarding him. X5 is following O5 up the sideline to deny that pass. The only pass we want to allow is the skip pass to O2, but if the trap is set properly, that pass shouldn't be made.

The quintessential 2-2-1 press video is Jim Calhoun's DVD on the 2-2-1 press. Coach Calhoun also uses half-court traps extensively as he explains in his video. To get your fill on more hoops talk, check out the X's and O's Basketball forum to talk to other hoops addicts.