Ethan Khoza breaks down four concrete, transferable skills illustrated by standout Christmas Day NBA performances: Jaylen Brown’s deceptive finishing/footwork to disrupt shot timing and draw fouls; Jayson Tatum’s control of defenders’ hands to create driving and shooting advantages; Luka Dončić’s elite playmaking that creates closeouts and rotational advantages for teammates; and Jordan Poole’s use of believable shot fakes to exploit closeouts and defender momentum. Each segment pairs clips with actionable practice suggestions.
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Christmas Day is obviously one of the best days of the year for the NBA and we get to see a lot of big time players and big time matchups on the biggest stage of the regular season. This year was certainly no exception with some of the performances that we saw. And I wanted to approach it from a little bit of a different perspective and give you guys four takeaways that you can get from different performances on Christmas Day. Now each of these players has multiple things that they do really, really well. But I want to break down one part of each of these players games you can take and add to your game to make yourself a more effective player. Now some of these you may have thought about before and some of them you may not have. But I promise that all of these points you'll be able to apply in some way to your own game to become a more effective player. Let's get into it. First we're going to talk about the Celtics duo who combined for 70 points on Christmas Day and we'll start off with Jaylen Brown. When you think about the ideal guard for today's game, Jaylen Brown is pretty much the prototype. He's long, athletic and can shoot the ball. But I want to take a deeper dive into his finishing, specifically with his finishing. He does a great job of messing with the timing of potential shot blockers because of his ability to use different types of deceptive footwork when it comes to finishing. If you pause any of these clips before he gets into his finish, it's impossible to be able to guess what kind of footwork he's going to be using to get into these finishes. And this is purposeful. Two things happen for him when he's able to throw off. That timing first of all becomes much harder for defenders to actually be able to block or contest those layups. And it also allows him to draw more fouls because he's able to play on the fact that defenders are going to jump early or sometimes jump late, or sometimes be out of control when he decides to go up for that layup. In terms of adding this to your own game, this is why it's important to mix up the type of finishes that you work on so that you're capable of switching things up to throw off the timing of defenders. This means different one foot finishes, different two foot finishes, adjusting when you release the ball. Where you release the ball. The more unpredictable you are as a finisher, the more difficult it is to get contested and the more likely it is you're going to get to the free throw. Line and get and ones and score more points in general. Now let's take a look at the other half of that duo and Jayson Tatum, who had 41 on Christmas Day. What I want to talk about here is a little bit more nuanced, but still a point that I think can add value to your own game. He does a great job of what I refer to as controlling the defender's hands. Now, sometimes that means he's forcing that defender to raise their hands or lower their hands, depending on whether or not he's giving a shot fake or a look at the rim or if he's driving. But sometimes it just means that he's occupying that defender's hands and by manipulating defenders like this, he's able to create opportunities for himself, whether it be drives or shot opportunities. Let's take a look at this clip right here where Jason Tatum catches the ball in the high post and has a smaller defender on him. Notice what this low rip does to Pat Connaughton. Forces him to lower his hands in anticipation of the drive. Tatum knows that he has size advantage, so if he can get that defender's hands down, he's going to create a wide open shot in the high post that's essentially going to be contested. And that little detail basically creates an unwinnable situation for the Bucks on this possession. Right here we see him use a pace change coming off of this ball screen in order to get to that step back, which again puts that defender's hands down when they feel that attack happening on that step back, which creates a wide open shot. Again, right here we see the reverse of that against Grayson Allen. We're just this little shot fake hesitation by Tatum gets Grayson Allen to raise his hands up a little bit in a contest, which gives Tatum a much easier ability to drive and get to the rim with the understanding that it's harder for a defender to first of all move with their hands up. And it also takes away their ability to be able to hand check or get any sort of advantage with their hands. Tatum understands that he creates an advantage for himself when he gets that defender's hands to raise. And here's a similar play by Devin Booker on Christmas Day where he understands the end of the shot clock is approaching, so he's patient and uses that little shot fake hesitation to get his defender to raise up and commit so that he can get to the basket. Now, I also mentioned that sometimes he just wants to occupy that defender defender's hands because he knows that they're occupied by bracing for contact or expecting a drive, then their hands won't be up to contest a shot. This essentially puts him in the driver's seat and allows him to get a shot off whenever he wants to, especially if he has a size advantage. Now let's talk Luka Doncic, who had a Great game with 3299 despite being double team the entire time. And Luca showed why he's a player who you really can't double team. Considering the double teams led to the Mavs having the highest scoring quarter and of the entire season with 51 the third quarter. Looking at Luka and his passing ability and his ability to orchestrate an offense, he does a great job of creating advantages for his teammates when he sees that defensive attention. He does this by creating closeouts for his teammates, considering closeouts are the absolute hardest thing to do from a defensive perspective. When he puts his teammates in situations where they see closeouts, they're able to either get shots, make extra passes or attack to get to finishes or extra kickouts. And while Luka officially ended up with nine assists in the stat book, the amount of shots he creates in the first or second or third pass after his initial pass is something that can't be overlooked as well. This is the way that elite offensive players view the game. How do I create advantages either for myself or for my teammates? Luka does this at such a high level because he understands if I see this defensive attention it means that the defense is shifted towards me, meaning a skip pass or a pass to the middle of the court forces defensive rotations, forces closeouts, which creates opportunities for my teammates to take advantage of. And that's how you elevate the team around you. And now let's look at the receiving end of that, which is how do you take advantage of those close up situations to create an advantage for yourself? We can definitely learn from Jordan Poole when it comes to exploiting these situations, especially when we take into account the level of effort that they were giving to chase him around to make sure he didn't get shots off. As I mentioned in the Luka clips, closing out is the hardest thing that defenses have to do because it puts them in a position where they're very vulnerable when it comes to their momentum going towards the offensive player. And that's why Jordan Poole will often utilize a shot fake right on the catch just to again take advantage of that momentum. If that defender raises up or jumps at all, they're moving way too fast to be able to recover in time to cut off his drive. But in a situation like this, even if they do turn to recover, they're typically going to be so out of control that you can exploit the momentum again on the stop and be able to create space like Jordan Poole does In this clip. Here we see him utilize this shot fake with even less momentum from that defender coming in, yet it's still effective. A lot of players struggle to have an effective shot fake because it doesn't actually look like their shot. A lot of times they rush it or they just don't make an effort to actually make it look like they're shot. Regardless, it's ineffective. There's a couple things he does here to really sell that shot fake. The first thing is the ball only really gets to about its upper chest level before he lowers it and starts to drive. This is because you really only need the beginning of your shot in order to get that defender to react. So he's still low enough that he can quickly get out of that and drive, but he still sells it enough that that defender is going to have to raise up and respond. Respected Having a believable shot fake is one of the most effective tools you can have as an offensive player and a great way to exploit the defense and create an advantage for yourself in driving situations. If you guys enjoyed this video, make sure you click the top link in my description below to get my free Elite Perimeter Score workout. Make sure you drop a like and subscribe if you're new. Talk to you guys soon. Peace.
