What’s the unique play style behind this year’s biggest turnaround? This detailed film breakdown & scouting report breaks down the Memphis Grizzlies “weird” offense that’s inspired by a Division 3 college and has their offense much improved from 2 seasons ago.
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35 Comments
They play how I want my AI teammates to play in 2k. “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY AND LET ME COOK. STOP BRINGING A DEFENDER TO THE PAINT FOR NO REASON”
Great insights
Great video!!!
It's a creative regular season offense.
I doubt it'll work in a playoff series.
Still, it's great 1 team is trying something different
they are not running that offense in the playoffs notice how ja was barely in the highlights
This is simple basketball. Easily gets stopped in playoffs with a good Zone defense. no need to rotate. Specially cause they have no shooters.
Go Grizz Gang GO!!! Ja Morant it's my favorite player & in my opinion he's the most exciting player in the NBA. I didn't really notice their offense this season & their play style has went over my head😅 I did notice that they play defense, they score in the paint & that they don't overly rely on the 3pt shot but get on my nerves with it just a bit🙄 Overall, I'm glad u just broke this down cuz this is very unique read & react type of basketball making moves & taking what the defense gives u🤷🏿♂️🏀 Maybe next season or two, the Memphis Grizzlies may be ready to compete for a championship🏆👀
there was a D2 or D3 college doing this a few years back and it is super effective… basically when a player drives right everybody moves to their right, when a player drives left everybody moves to their left.
edit: that college coach is now an assistant coach in the NBA????? DAMN
Isn't this just a form of the triangle offense?
I was just thinking of st Joseph's. I didn't realize he was on staff
This is the most used movement used in handball
Imagine if the Grizzlies had Bam Adabayo to run this offense with instead of Zach Edey? That would be scary.
This is funny because this is exactly how park is played in 2k depending on the year. 1 iso player 2 shooters spread the defense out. Because of how easy it is to score in isolation you have to help, but the shooters can shoot 50-60% from 3 and from half court. So stay as far away from each other as possible because we can shoot from anywhere and straight iso because we cant be guarded 1 on 1. On the fast break never run to the paint because stopping at the 3/ running to the corner makes more scoring opportunities. 1 player is unstoppable down hill, but not if another rim runs and brings their defender. If both teammates sprint to the corner the defense is stretched and 1 player is left on an island every possession. I don't really understand ball from the 90s and 2000s, but I understand exactly whats going on today because of 2k.
good vid
This is how I want to play basketball
this is very similar to football, almost like an adaptation of south american foorball
I watched this offense before on HS basketball. I think its from St. Joseph name of their team back on 2016
THIS REMINDS ME OF PEP GUARDIOLA’S POSITIONAL PLAY
Great job breaking this down and explaining it!
t has to do with Tuomas Iisalo which was in Paris and has implemented the same offense, rebounding and deffensive habits as in Paris. Nothing to do with Noah LaRoche
It's cool to see but I think it's kind of a gimmick. During the regular season it appears to do okay simply because teams spend most of their time preparing to defend generic PnR offense so part of what makes this work is teams not being used to defending it. But in a 7 game playoff series it's going to have a much tougher time
That's why they don't play Zaxh Edey no more seems like he doesn't fit their offense.
"even lebum" as if he does anything on defense 😂😂
There was a clip a few years ago of a high school team running this screen-less offence and it was just open look after open look. Fantastic!
I'm from europe, this is how I learned to play (and cut/reposition). I can't be the only one
So it's creating space with flow and attacking the spaces, even with off ball players to create stress everywhere. Whereas pick and roll creates space with collisions and logjams but doesn't necessarily challenge the rest of the D.
The basic concept of this offense kinda makes sense; if you drive towards another defender and your teammate guarded by him cuts away, it puts more distance between the two of you and makes it harder for the defender to help on you without leaving his matchup even more open.
And when all 4 offball teammates are doing that, cutting away from one teammate towards another, it puts a lot of pressure on the team defense to keep track of everyone.
I’m curious to see some zone defense against this type of offense
"Weird Offense"?
Basically a free flowing Dribble Drive
It make sense. Over using anything make it predictable.
Its weird watching this. I played on a team running offense like this in my teenage years in Europe. Its way less efficient and I guess for two reasons. One is the athletic difference, but I would argue that considering that the Memphis opponents are of equal quality, this is not the main reason.
Playing positional and disciplined defense is seemingly not a thing in the NBA. Sometimes players like draymond green or others are touted as genius, but what they do is ensure people are in the correct spot, and themselves also being in the correct spot.
If the weekside defender is actually aware of his man and positioning himself correctly, that baseline cut would be negated very easily.
I think Memphis can keep this going against most teams, since NBA players are not comfortable playing defense like this. Their awareness is focused on the ball and in screening situations. It should be easy for defenses to "just be aware" of positioning and mitigate the offense to rely completely on ja Morant.
But the way defense is played in the NBA, I think it takes more than 1 season to fix that.
A disciplined team could probably force Memphis to change offensive style in a playoff series
Football (soccer) been doin this for decades… Space and positioning is everything
It makes alot of sense considering they have the best rim attacker in the league. Create more space for him but also being able punish teams that try to over commit to stopling the drive
It's kinda American bias because half of this new Memphis attack came from new assistant coach from Europe – Tuomas Iisalo, former head coach of Paris basketball team and you didn't even mention him. Paris by the way started their first season in Eurolegue ever with 11-4 score and that`s the 1 place.
It's becomeing like soccer, all about seeking space