Can The Wolves Go Spanish?

A play I would love to see Coach Chris Finch run.

With just over two weeks until the start of the NBA season, previews and prognostications are out in full force. I can’t add much to what brighter pundits have to say, but over the coming days, I have a few short posts on sets, plays, and actions I would love to see teams try out with some of their fresh faces.

First up, a favorite of mine: the Spain pick and roll (also known as a stack pick and roll). I wrote about it here. It is a screen-the-screener action, with a shooter typically setting a back screen for a big man’s defender, with the big rolling to the hoop and the shooter popping out. When run crisply, the offense often ends up with either a window for the shooter, the big man on the roll, or a driving lane for the ball handler. Watch the Utah Jazz open a 2021 game against the Memphis Grizzlies with a Spain set to get Mike Conley Jr. a layup:

Bojan Bogdanovic is the shooter there, setting a back screen for Rudy Gobert, who screens and rolls for the ball handler Conley. One way to defend the Spain pick and roll is by having the big man defender (Gobert’s man in this case) drop under the back screen, have the ball handler’s defender (Ja Morant) switch onto the popping shooter, and have the shooter’s defender (Kyle Anderson) switch onto the ball handler.

Here’s the Jazz running the play again, getting a dunk for the rolling Gobert after the shooter (Georges Niang in place of Bogdanovic now) ghosts the back screen:

Now, imagine the newly reconfigured Minnesota Timberwolves running a Spain pick and roll with Anthony Edwards as the ball handler, Gobert as the primary screener, and Karl-Anthony Towns setting a back screen and popping out. Defenses may end up with either Towns’ man switched onto the more athletic Edwards, or Edwards’ man switched onto the bigger Towns. I would bet on Edwards being able to take a bigger defender to the cup, or Towns shooting over a guard switched onto him. And that’s if teams get the switches right. Mess things up slightly and Gobert’s vertical threat lurks.

Big men aren’t typically as adept at navigating screens and chasing their man out to the perimeter; try somebody better (and smaller) at that on Towns and you might be rolling the red carpet out in the post. The Wolves could also experiment with D’Angelo Russell running the play to leverage Edwards’ superior catch-and-shoot threat to keep help defenders honest.

The 2021-22 Wolves were a bottom-three team in scoring off of screens per NBA Advanced Stats. Having one of the best screeners in the league now on their team should help.