The pick n roll Scola-r and another 5 reasons why Argentina upset Serbia
By: Stefanos Triantafyllos
Tags: Basketball, Sports, Argentina, Serbia, Fiba World Cup

Speed is the name of the game and three short guards managed to mess up the tallest team in the competition. Scratch that. Three short guard, an 8 or less offensive strategy and a living legend, Luis Scola did the trick in order Argentina to beat Serbia in the quarterfinals of the FIBA World Cup.

Be quick or be dead

Against Serbia, a team which showcased a “Tall-Ball” style of play during the World Cup, Argentina proved once again that basketball is a game of guards. During the quarterfinal game Campazzo (1.79), Vildoza (1.91–86 kilos) and Laprovittola (1.90) were simply too much for the oversized Serbians.

Note: Sasa Djordjevic picked 4 centers for the final roster and on the other hand just 4 guards after the injuries of Teodosic and Milosavljevic. Their shortest player is listed 1.95!

Campazzo had a virtuozo-style performance with 18 points and 12 assists. He scored or created 44 points in total, from which 19 came in the message-sending first quarter and 18 in the decisive last one. He caused a great deal of problems to the Serbs by delivering the ball to cutters, by creating from the pick-n-roll and by scoring off the dribble mostly in ISO plays (against his man or against a big guy after a switch).

Vildoza added 11 points and 3 assists, while Laprovittola had 8 points and 3 assists. From their side they also scored or created 30 points (Vildoza 16 and Laprovittola 14), having a great impact in the 2nd quarter when Campazzo sat on the bench to take a breather. Overall it was their best game collectively and this is a fact of great importance,because the two of them straggled to find rhythm during the tournament coming of the bench and having limited time with the ball on their hands, due to Campazzo’s leading role.

All three of them had great reads. The pick-n-roll offense they orchestrated was the cornerstone for Argentina’s victory. They found ways to score off the dribble, delivered first rotation passes to the rolling big man which were converted to points in the paint (mainly by Scola who finished the game with 20 points) and when it was needed they hit the pass-back for open shots or close-out attacks. Textbook pick-n-roll offense. Serbia drank its own poison. The pass-back has been the Serbians bread and butter for decades, but apparently they did not bring the remedy with them to China.

A total of 76 points. Out of 97. This means that the three “shorties” scored or created the 78% of the entire team’s offense, adding a little bit of sauce along the way: Campazzo’s behind the back pass to Delia was like a Renaissance masterpiece, while Vildoza and Laprovittola both managed to deliver bounce pocket passes between the big man’s legs.

Manu Ginobili approves.

2. Speed over anything else

Basketball is a matter of speed. Speed of thought, speed of pass, speed of moving your damn feet quicker than the guy that plays against you. The tall and bulky Serbians lacked speed. That is why Djordjevic quit rather quickly the idea of a twin-towered line up. He started the game with Jokic and Raduljca, but pretty soon changed his plan, sticking to a normal line up with a stretch-four like Bjelica or Simonovic.

On the other hand the Serbians did not have quick enough guards to put against the short and spicy Argentinian back-court. Jovic is a dedicated pick-n-roll defender, but he could not keep up with Campazzo. Neither could Micic or Guduric. And at the same time Bogdanovic’s offensive impact is so great that he could not be wasted in order to chase Campazzo around. So, slow legs mean lesser ball-pressure. And lesser ball pressure means clear view for a great passer to read the floor and connect with his teammates. This is a great advantage that many non-shooting passers are enjoying, like Nick Calathes on Euroleague terms or like Rajon Rondo for the NBA lovers out there.

Exactly the following play: Jovic is far away and he cannot deflect, or even add any level of difficulty to Campazzo.

Note: This play is really interesting not only because of the way it is been executed, but because of its origin. It goes a lot of years back and it was run by another Argentinian, Pablo Prigioni. This was a transition play that Baskonia used when Ivanovic was coaching there. The baseline cross screen was set either for Splitter or for Scola. It is an Argentinian thing after all. Last season this play was used often by Real Madrid, Baskonia (same transition formation) and by Fenerbahce as part for different sets.

3. A 22 point advantage

The Argentinians tried to exploit their speed. In many cases they tried to tip the inbound pass to initiate a quick offense. They were trying to play an up-tempo game, even if they did not take care of the ball as much as they wanted in a do-or-die game.

But on the other hand they managed to get way too many points in the first 8 seconds of their offense. In total they scored 22 points in the first 1/3 of the short clock. And in these 22 points fast breaks or free throws on the bonus are not included. And as a matter of fact Campazzo is responsible for 18 of those points.

This shows that Argentina tried really hard for easy points and finally got them. The Serbians could not match their opponent’s speed, lacking quick feet to play 1on1 defense. And these are 22 points too many for any team that plays a knock-out game.

4. The defensive aces and the full Deck

Argentina’s defensive game plan was simple: put pressure on Bogdanovic and everybody else protect the paint. The players of coach Hernandez did a terrific job collapsing under threat and make the Serbians work really hard for any points near the basket. They always used two additional players to defend pick-n-rolls and all five players hustled when anyone that wore blue was putting the ball on the floor looking to attack the basket.

Hats off to the role players. Garino (an elite Euroleague defender if you ask me) gave everything he got to defend Bogdanovic. Brussino, Delia, Fjellerup, Gallizzi and Caffaro added slides, rotations, deflections and above all fouls for the greater cause. Brussino’s raised hand trying to cheat his way into picking up a foul instead of Scola tells the whole story.

Defensively Coach Hernandez had some hidden aces rolled up his sleeve. In fact he had an entire deck of cards with Gabriel Deck’s face all over. The feisty forward was all over the place and his 8 rebounds and 2 steals are just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. He was a great weak side force protecting the paint, he stopped Bjelica in many one-against-one plays (Bjelica shot 30% for 2-points) and played for an entire half as 5 on defense. The Deck-Scola duo on the front-line was the best one for coach Hernandez. And in order to keep Scola out of foul trouble and fresh for the crucial moments the Argentinian coach assigned Jokic to Deck (measured 2.02), leaving his 39-year-old captain to go after Simovovic.

In that time Deck managed to push around Jokic and everybody knows that this is a very difficult task. He also bleached any Bogdanovic pick-n-rolls he came across, a defensive strategy that the Argentinians did not followed more than a few minutes. Mostly they played high flat (with everybody else packing the paint behind) and switching defense on late-game or short-clock situations.

5. The center position

Coach Djordjevic used 5 different players in the 5-spot. Raduljca started the game and after that sat 36 minutes and 17 seconds on the bench. Milutinov played only 3 minutes in the end of the third quarter, while Marjanovic in 2 minutes and 28 seconds managed to commit 3 fouls. Bjelica also played as 5 in a small-ball line-up at the end of the game. So,this means that Jokic was the go-to-guy for the Serbians, finishing the game with 15 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists. Offensively he was solid, even if he had troubles against the Argentinian defense that zoned-up and often trapped when he had the ball at the low-post.

On the other hand the presence of Jovic created two other issues. Firstly, Serbia lacked a rim protector (only Milutinov played briefly that role) and secondly the team got derailed off its pick-n-roll orientation. Jokic is not a pick-n-cut type of guy. On the other hand he binds a big part of the offense for his low-post plays. So that means that a pick-n-roll general like Jovic gets left out of the equation. Thensame with the other handlers (Guduric, Micic) and the spot-up players (Lucic, Simonovic), who did not get open looks from the post-up game. In a 1on1 type of game Serbia has only two other options: the do-it-all Bogdan Bogdanovic and Bjelica who faced problems against Deck.

In total the Serbians looked shocked by the way Argentina entered the game and for the entire game focused more than normal to deliver a first-rotation pass near the basket, than to swing the ball to the other side and create a spot-up.