PANATHINAIKOS: How do you guard these guys? | Players Corner w/ Elijah Bryant (Film Breakdown)

Why do you do that? That was so funny. What up guys, welcome back to the Players Corner. I'm Elijah Bryant, current professional basketball player overseas, NBA champion, EuroLeague champion. Um, in this game we play Panathinaikos and let's break it down. Usually in tip-off, most of the time you don't have your matchup that you're gonna be guarding. Like, I'm supposed to be guarding Nunn, but just so happens that I'm next to Grant, so I'm just gonna— for this possession, I'm just gonna stay with him. KYP, know your personnel. So I know if I'm guarding, I know he doesn't want to shoot. I know let's get to a right-hand drive. I know he likes mid-range. I know he wants to organize the offense. So now I know, okay, Derek's in trouble here. Not in trouble, but I know I have more opportunity to help. Benny gets switched on to him. Now I know, you see me telling, look, I'm about to go, I'm about to go. Stay. I'm trying to help Benny out. He cuts. Great cut. Got a box out there. We live with that shot. We gotta box out. Golly, this is an example of KYP. So if on this screen I go over, it gives him what he wants downhill. If I go under, he goes back left and that helps all on that side. This is empty side pick and roll. So I go over, now Benny has to make a decision with no help over here. But the fact that I go under Okay, roll, we have help. So get in here, create contact to create more space, and then I also have Jay here. So what you're looking at when you're throwing that pass is there's two things you look at: where he's at, uh, when you're Gabriel. Sometimes if he's not looking, it's easier to throw. But I also could have thrown to Derek right here. Look at Vinnie and throw to Derek. I gotta get better at the no-look. Hey, look, look at the line. Boom, I throw here. Now he rolls, puts pressure on the rim. If he tags in, he comes up, he throws his pass over there. Great pass by Jordan. This is the one I gotta shoot. I remember this one. Boom, let it fly. Because once he opens up, I can bring it back and he can't get the shot at all. Bad pass. When they hedge, usually the rule on hedge is get out early, strong side, but And one. I gotta close out better, especially knowing how I'm guarding. So Lucas goes, he gets past the free throw line, so now it's Vinnie's job. And then when he goes back out, we're gonna switch back. And this is all no commu— you can't hear anything in here. And Darius couldn't foul there because he had 2 fouls already. So I know Stugus does that. As soon as he— I was like, I'm leaning too far up, leaning too far up. I gotta be in a better stance too. His go-to is reject, but bro It's a travel. Are you kidding me? So why do you call the step through when dude literally just traveled? I gotta be more patient here, and there's no space, especially with Vinny. I gotta bring back out. No time and score, get a good shot. First team all-flop. So right here, knowing who I'm guarding is no matter what, usually you want to go over this screen, hot shooter, over twice. And this is a big thing, like you might not think it make— does anything, but having after this ball screen, so naturally he's looking over here, right? Because his job is to tag and his job is to be inside and help. So right here, I could even have my hands up earlier. Just by doing that makes— even if I don't touch it, makes the pass more of a loftier pass, allowing my team to recover faster or steal it. So see, he had to pass it back out there. Got me with the eyes. So my responsibility as being the top of the eye— this is the eye, boom boom, top of the eye, bottom of the eye— is when he's coming out, I have to tag this. But as you see, I know who this is, and he knows that I know that I'm more worried about Kendrick in this situation. So just by turning a little bit and then throwing the pass, and then Roddy has to be the last, last fireman. But I can do a better job of tagging and forcing him to pass the ball out. So here, when you're taking the ball out, y'all run some plays like this. Use your body, right, and use their momentum. So Jetty is running full speed. I just stop to stop his momentum. Then I push off him. Be careful not to step back because, you know, in Europe they'll flop. So, you know, if you want to go off the ball screen this way, Coach Giannis, uh, Saropoulos taught me this. The coach in Red Star is always working this all the time in practice. If you're coming off left, first test them going right because look at the angle it sets up, and then you can even go back to that other way. Let's watch it again. Catches it. This is where you want the ball screen, right? First of all, the rule of thumb is to get to the level of ball screen. So boom, okay, I don't get quite level, but I have him thinking I'm going that way, which allows him to set a better screen, which makes him come out more. So here I gotta make this pass right here. Boom, then he steals because look, he's late coming back. So when I make this pass here Vinnie doesn't wait here. He comes and meets him right here, because if he waits here, it allows him to get back. But if he meets him here, he steals layup. So see how Kendrick does? Same exact thing we just talked about. The first rule of thumb is to test the defender first to make sure that he guards the ball screen right. So he knows he wants to go left, being a left-hand player, so he's going to test me going right. Hence why if I'm too close up, either it's a foul or he gets by me. So then boom, solid. And right here you go, bing bing, back to the other right. So you have to know this, and you're gonna be a tiny second late on the ball screen, but if you get rejected, then you have no help. I gotta be more patient here. And be more patient. Get the switch. Okay, now come— got 10 seconds left. Come play the ball screen with, with Vinnie. Remember talking about it earlier? Erjan, get to the corner. It's not a lot, but it allows him to just clog the space up like this right here. It doesn't seem like much, but when you're trying to get over and not run into this guy, they're never going to call it, period. But I also think Darius can be right here because Lucas, Lucas, just like the last play, he's not in the play. So if he's here, it deters him. Anyway, good shot. And then you might want to say, oh, contest at the end, but if I jump right now, he's falling forward, I'm gonna jump right into him. Like we talked about before, remember, is he's liable to reject again. That's why if I go to meet him at the screen too early, this can happen. But I'm already, I'm already knowing because boom, when they hedge, I know they're gonna hedge. So boom, he hedges, 2 on the ball. Boom. Now he's gonna make the decision after that. Perfect. Great shot. Cash app. Good shot. So here again, okay, I can be better at defense, but he's out of the picture. He's here. I can't foul because we're in bonus, so So like I said before, like, your tendencies, like knowing who you're guarding is a big factor. So right now I'm guarding none. I know I can't help as much, but as soon as I said that, I freaking helped. But if I do help and he was wide open, then Darius should be in the middle and just take first pass. So see, first try to see if he's And if you don't want to do all the dribbling, just dribble him down slow. So, and this pass isn't open because he's helping. So if he came more right here, he'd be wide open. But this is a— it's okay pass. Uh, it's okay. Good pass. Go to work. This shot, I gotta get an and-1 on this one. Instead of fading, instead of fading, um, it's right here. Boom. If I fade into them, that's an and-1 for sure. But we're lying, maybe still foul. So if you look here, this guy's already in the eye. So me coming off, first of all, I gotta give myself better space to come in the middle and then go off, whatever. But if he's already cheating here, screen, go downhill, decent shot. That's me, I'm just watching the ball. This is the worst thing to do. Look, just watching the ball, find a body. There's two people coming, boom, boom, box out. I gotta be more patient here. And look at Jay. Jay's wide open. Moving screen for sure. But, and on these, it's weird because like the last one I could have stood Kendrick up and not fallen, but I feel like it was so obvious. So you have to kind of like fall. This one, if I do the same thing and they don't call it, he has a butt naked 3. So it's kind of tough. Like, you have to flop for them to call it, especially for guys who are stronger. Like, okay, he really knocks you over, okay, it's a charge. But Kendrick could knock me over, I could stand him up. Here he could knock me over, but if I fall, then it brings attention to it. It's definitely a skill to learn. So here I'm going to contest, but he jumps forward, so I have to get out of the way, got to allow him to land. So like what you're thinking is like, okay, here we got 2 on the ball, go, Go! Look at all this space. Go here. Now you make the decision. It's 3 on 2 after that, but I can't pick up my dribble regardless. So at the end of the day, that's my fault. But Jay with the tough fillet. So here, just like we said before, pass here, pass here, and he comes up. Good pass. Shot. Wait, wait, talk about— watch here, watch here. I didn't even see that. Why do you do that? That was so funny. There we go. Remember we talked about first rejecting the screen? So if I'm, if I'm crowding him up here, rejecting the screen, depending on how fast you are, I would say Kendrick is faster than me in this situation, so I'm not going to crowd him. I'm going to be realistic and give him space to react to it. So he tries to reject, I'm ready for the reject, and I could have fallen there too to try to get a charge, but it's kind of— you got to pick when to do it. 2 on the ball. So it's like a super quick decision, like, and I don't necessarily— I don't think you want to throw the bounce pass because he's looking like this. Depending, you gotta have some chemistry with whoever, but I know it's easier for Rollins to catch like that. That's a foul too. Oh, so rule of thumb is a Spanish pick and roll back screen. So pick, roll, he's setting the back screen. But as soon as he gets out, if we're not— this is my responsibility, this is my responsibility. But he's late, so I go into the red, but I need to be more right here. Jay does a good job of seeing it late and getting some sort of contest on it. But so right here, I gotta stop. He's in drop back. I gotta stop, get him on my hip, go to screen, and go and lay it up. Too sped up right now. Oh, this was the toughest move of the game. I remember this play. This move was OD. The footwork was great. The biggest thing I feel like that's tough that I realized— I've gotten better at this, but so I already know, like, look at the shot clock. He's shooting this, right? But the patience to have in the paint is like— reminds me of Jalen Brunson. Uh, pump fake, goes. And anyone else probably shoot it thinking they don't have the shot clock. It's about to expire. Maybe a foul too. See how like if I don't fall there, then there's no foul call, but that's a moving screen. Like, since when can you use your butt to set a screen? Like, what is this? Smoky. Good move though. I was trying to— I look up to check the fouls. That little dude is— little Lucas is gone. Okay, how many fouls we got? Psych, gone. All right, as soon as I looked up— oh, we don't have any foul. Oh, I can't foul. Dang it. Jugglers are hitting everything, but we scrambled good. Watch. So Roland's on the switch. We know he's on— we gotta help. So I tell Roddy to X out, keep the bigger body inside. So we switch. Roddy's on the bigger guy. I'm the last man. I'm already here, so he's gonna roll. X out, Roddy. Roddy, get out, get out, get out. Get him to this guy. So now Roddy has to help here, and I spray out to try to contest this. Great shot, great ball movement by them too as well. Create something like here. This type of move, like if I did, I wouldn't move this much. Like, boom, I wouldn't fall this much this way. I don't know if he did it on purpose, but I know who's really good at good at this is Mike James. When he gets hit, he falls more that way to put more emphasis on how much the person hit them. So if you don't know, you have to play to the end of the— end of the quarter or end of the game because, uh, point spread matters. So that's why everyone's playing. I guess it still matters. I should have gave this to Jay so he could just punch that joint or drop it back off the Rollins. I don't think he found me. I got stuck in the air. I know you guys been waiting for this, to see my reaction to him saying I was too small. I didn't even notice it during the game, but when you're cooking like that You honestly can say what you want, he doesn't talk trash too much. I've known Kendrick for years since we've both become professionals, but he was cooking, so what can you say? And they were winning. But hopefully we'll get the chance to play them in the finals. And what do you guys want to see on these player film breakdowns? How can I help you be a better basketball player? And remember, it's consistency over intensity. Love.