With the European leagues in full swing, we’re starting to see some absolutely beautiful coaching.
I wanted to point something out I saw with Gargzdai, a club in Lithuania. Gargzdai is coached by Paulius Malašauskas, who was previously an assistant at Lietkabelis, who I wrote about as one of my favorite teams to watch last season and a team that I will be watching closely this year. Well, I guess I should probably add Gargzdai, because they have been an incredible watch in this early season.
In the first half of a game against Neptunas (also a great team to watch), Gargzdai used a series of 77 Spain Twist actions that as soon as I saw, I knew I would be sharing with The Painted Possession.
First, let’s talk about terminology. “Twist” has come to mean something very different in recent times. Let’s work backwards.
Right now, if you say “twist” action, they would use it to suggest a last second flip of a ball screen. Like, a screener is coming to set a ball screen on the right side of the defender, before at the last minute flipping it to the left side. That’s fine.
A few years ago, if you said “twist” people would use it to categorize a stagger where the shooter would curl the first screen and the second screener would pin in for the first screener. Also fine.
But, when you look even 10 years ago, “twisting” an action would suggest a ball screen going towards the sideline, with a second screener coming in to set the real ball screen towards the middle of the floor. The most popular version of this was “Horns Twist” where the ball handler would go off one of the screens, inherently towards the sideline, before the second screener would follow into a ball screen towards the middle of the floor. We still see this lots, with the first screener playing either roll and replace or, more commonly, getting an exit screen.
So, with the idea of old school “twist” action in mind, I wanted to show you this Gargzdai 77 “twist” into Spain action. Piecing it together, you can see what happens.
Initially, the 77 will take the ball handler to the sideline, before the ball handler reverses course and finds a ball screen towards the middle of the floor. Gargzdai then spices it up by running in a back screen to create the Spain action.
There are three plays you will see in the video. In the first instance, they end up cutting the second screener through so that both corners are filled. That cut ends up clogging the paint a little bit with that player’s defender able to make a play on the ball, which is also something Neptunas will do with Spain coverage (provide a tag from the strong side corner).
Knowing this, in the second instance Gargzdai runs the same action but instead of cutting that second screener through, they keep him on the weak side and create an empty Spain. We’re starting to see more empty Spains in Europe because of how many teams are using a 4th defender to guard it, but I’ll have to cover that in a different article. This eliminates Neptunas’ ability to tag, and it’s a dunk.
They run it once more, and in this third instance you can see how the low man on the two side is now helping over much more, knowing they are going to be the last opportunity to help in any capacity. Seeing this, Gargzdai looks to the advance pass initially thinking the play will be a swing to the corner. However, with the botched coverage it’s a hit ahead to the roller, and it’s another dunk.
This was not only excellent play design by Gargzdai, but it was really well tailored to the coverage they were facing. In my mind, that is the holy grail of offensive coaching, and it was great to see this get rewarded.
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