Golden State Warriors: 3 ways that Russell, Curry, and Thompson will work together
2. Floppy
One play that all teams in the NBA run is floppy. This is a very basic play where a shooter is underneath the basket and they have the choice to run off either a double or a single screen to the wing where they can shoot an open three or a mid-range jumper.
The Warriors run floppy from time to time and occasionally they will have both Curry and Thompson run off screens to each wing. This causes a lot of confusion for the defense as they both have massive gravity, drawing defenders towards them, often leaving the bigs who set the screens open.
In floppy, there is also a player at the top of the key with the ball who makes the pass to either shooter. This player often stands still with the ball while waiting for the shooters to run off their screens.
This makes it easy for the defense to pressure the ball handler to make the pass more difficult and potentially disrupt the play.
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One thing the Warriors do to keep the ball moving is to start the play by having a shooter run a dribble handoff with the passer to get him the ball. This keeps the ball moving but also gives additional options for the passer.
If the defender tries to stop them from getting to their spot at the top of the key, the passer can drive down the lane. D’Angelo Russell would be excellent at this as he is a great dribble-drive artist.
He can drive to the basket and potentially draw attention from defenders as they look to protect the basket, giving Curry and Thompson longer to get a shot off if Russell kicks it out to them.
It is also likely they’ll see a situation where the defense is so set on making sure the splash brothers don’t get a shot off that they leave Russell too much space and he can go straight to the rim.