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“The single smartest nugget of basketball knowledge I ever heard was from Hubie Brown, who taught that screens are set for one reason - to make defenders think.” -David Thorpe, Basketball is Jazz One of the Warriors best actions is to have the greatest shooter in the history of the NBA set a back screen and then receive a flare screen. They ran it a lot during the regular season on sideline out of bounds plays. Steph is actually underrated with his willingness to just scrap and claw for every inch (which you notice when he’s working to get open, but for some reason goes overlooked in other aspects of his game). The action is lethal because as a defender, when Steph is setting that back screen, you can’t help on the guy getting screened because of Curry’s gravity. If you don’t help, sometimes they’ll get a great duck in or a deadly post up for Durant (whom they have inbounding more often than not in these sets). The point of the back screen, however, is to disrupt the defense. To make them think is to force them to make decisions, and then you have the advantage. If Steph dislodges a defender, that extra bit of space is the difference between a good shot (he can make shots over outstretched arms, we all know this) and a great one (if he can get a clean look at the rim and it happens to be BEFORE the defense gets there? It’s over). Everyone knows that when he gets that flare screen (cue the outrage for moving screens if you’d like, but whining on here won’t do anything about it), and he comes off clean, you can put two or three points on the board before the ball is even through the net. He can pull no matter how high he has to come out to get it. Sometimes, as you see at 1:10, they run it similar Spain Leak, which is to say they run that Spain PnR where there is a spread pick and roll that happens up top, and then shooter back screens for the rolling big man, except for the leak action, the shooter won’t really set the back screen, but will receive a screen to flash up. If you'd like to donate: Venmo - @Evin_Gual Cash App - $EvinGual Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/evin_gual
