Baron Davis Takes Advantage of the Mismatch

One of the reasons why you want all your players to have well-rounded skills is because as a team you want to be flexible enough to take advantage of the mismatch. Baron Davis of the Golden State Warriors is one such player that can create so many mismatch problems.

Against the Raptors tonight, one of the Warriors offensive strategies was to isolate Baron Davis on TJ Ford. Because Baron has at least 3 inches and 50 pounds on Ford, Davis can post up TJ and score or force the double team. Here are a couple of sequences from he first half with Davis posting up,



Normally, Baron Davis is quick enough to beat his defender off the dribble. But the Raptors TJ Ford is probably as quick if not quicker. Which means, Baron has to use his other skills, namely his size to bully and move TJ. Here he posts him up 1v1 and scores on the turnaround J,


This time around, Baron posts up TJ at the high post drawing the double-team. Baron then finds his teammate wide open underneath the for the layup,


The most dangerous thing about having to double-team a point guard is that the point guard is most likely the best passer on the team and thus has the highest chance of finding the open man on the floor. In fact, Baron finished with 15 assists which is almost double his season average.

Now that the season is over, a video that might come in handy is Kevin Sutton's DVD on 10 Drills For Player Evaluation. Don't forget to check out the X's and O's Basketball Forum to talk hoops with other coaches.