Pistons Spread Pick and Roll Crushes Pacers

The Pistons are just an incredibly balanced team. They're probably have the most on court chemistry of any team in any form of organized basketball, them and the Spurs. Tonight, they were playing the Pacers at home and they used a spread PNR offense to pick apart the Pacers pack-style defense.

Very similar to a Phoenix Suns styled offense, they spread the floor almost 5-out. First, Chauncey Billups would go 1v1 or off a ball-screen and beat his defender off the dribble for the easy layup. The Pacers adjusted and decided to hedge all ball screens, the Pistons then proceeded to hit all kinds of 3-point shots mostly from Rasheed Wallace and Rip Hamilton. The Pacers adjusted again to rotate to close out all shooters after the ball-screen hedge. The Pistons then went outside-inside and burned the Pacers for easy layups underneath off the overplay, here are a couple of sequences broken down by the FSN crew,



Piston's Spread PNR Outside-Inside:

Once the Pacers decided to hedge the ball-screens, that caused a ripple effect that would filter down. By committing 2 players to stop the dribble penetration, that causes a rotation down low,


Now that the players are out of position, both low defenders go to close out on Rasheed leaving Amir Johnson wide open on the baseline,


Summary:

The spread offense is great because you can adjust it to be an inside offense. Of course, it all predicates on your team's ability to hit perimeter shots and penetrate. If you can't do those 2 things, than teams can pack the lane and watch you struggle to miss shots or penetrate into 5 defenders.

For a great video on the spread PNR offense, take a look at Billy Donovan's DVD on the Spread Offense. Coach Donovan used it to win back-to-back national championships at Florida. As always, please check out the X's and O's Basketball forum to talk hoops and exchange notes and ideas.