PLAYERS CORNER: Elijah Bryant Breaks Down Film (MILANO VS EFES)

What's up guys, welcome back to the Players Corner, another film breakdown. Today we're gonna be breaking down Milan. This game got out of control early, but they were missing their number one option. And when you're missing your number one option, everyone's pretty much used to playing a certain way, so now you're trying to insert other guys. Ladeya just got hurt earlier, so it's an excuse for them. But also, like I said before, or I said in a I repeat this in one of my videos, is a wounded lion is scarier than a healthy lion because a wounded lion is scared of dying. So here I just know, like, with Shields, is he always wants to get to his right hand. So coming off, if I'm a little bit late and he's going left, I'm not too worried, just knowing personnel. But not letting him get back to his right hand is the main main thing here. Pick and roll, ball's going towards me. So the rule usually is the ball is going towards you, you go to your man. The ball goes away from you, you pull with the ball. But I'm on the double side, so if you notice, if the ball from here goes to here, I'm responsible and Darius drops back. Erjon can't be responsible for tag and getting to this guy because it's single side. So if he's able to tag, okay, but it's not his responsibility. So you see he's late on the closeout and boom, okay, exactly. We talked about it, first team all-flop maybe. Look, but it's smart, it's a skill. Why fight the resistance when he's pushing you? Look, so Erza's job, push and allow him to get under. But the D can fight back, or he can just fall and they caught— they have to call foul. So it's like trying to battle that happy medium. But since Vinnie runs, he puts pressure on the rim. So watch Shields, watch Shields' reaction. Which drop— if I sprinted a little bit more, I could be wide open for a 3. But yeah, that's I gotta sprint more because if I sprint, Erjon catches it and I'm open right here for a 3. So sprint the floor, buddy. So this, it might not seem like a lot, and I always tell you guys how I watch a lot of NBA games and I've been watching a lot of Oklahoma City, obviously Shay, but when I'm watching the games, I watch a bunch of, um, Lou Dort and Caruso. And hand activity on defense is very important. So me just getting close, messing with the ball— watch all the movement he does. So he can't see anything that's going on over here. Look, doesn't seem like much at all, and we didn't have to switch there. But so right here, like we said before, I'm double side, so Regardless, the ball is coming to me or going away from me, I'm responsible for the help. Or we call it in high school, we put out— the guy who puts out the fires, so fireman. So perfect scenario, I should be here, but I'm responsible for protecting the house. I go to protect the house, or John X's out. And if we think about it, we're talking about psychology. Is this shot that Mannion has. If I stay here and don't come and help, this is a 100% shot, okay? 99.9%. This shot, best shooters shoot 40-45%. So you got to play the psychology. If you do that over the course of a game, then you really help yourself out. So the reason he's bringing it deeper here, Balmoral, is to give himself more space to operate with. So lower he goes, understanding that his first— he could, he can shoot the ball, but his first option is not shooting. He likes to drive, attack, slash, cut. So knowing most teams go under, if you go under, then you can re-screen and the screen's even lower. So he's playing into the psychology of his defense. Because you can't go under that low. Okay, so now I'm strong side, but here the idea is to eat space, right? So knowing the shot clock, knowing there's a mismatch, knowing the psychology of this player is that he wants to drive, doesn't want to shoot. So me, I try to get a swipe and it looks like nothing, but it— over the course of a game and on offense, you can feel the difference. So here they go, pin down for Shields, and I have to lock and chase because if I cheat here, then he has all this space to operate. So lock and chase, knowing he wants to shoot. Can't let him get to his right hand. So right now we're in a mismatch situation out of the press, so I'm trying to eat space here so he doesn't drive right on Benny, considering my guy is all the way out here. Shane's in a mismatch here, so me eating space deters him driving and could deter this pass right here so Rollins can help more. So see me eating space, trying to get a swipe right here. First thing I look at when I know it's— they're coming to attack me, his eyes. He's coming to screen. I have no help, so I can't get back cut here, but but I have to force the catch higher. So the idea is to try to get this left leg over this, but you have to be careful because he could easily backdoor me. But if he does backdoor me, the emergency situation is he backdoors and Rollins takes him. And you gotta understand the psychology of the shot clock. Rollins takes him and I take, uh, Richie, number 17. And Richie's expertise are shooting threes, and obviously he's gonna try to post me up being that I'm smaller. But if he goes to post up, I'm just gonna switch back on the Shields. He's not gonna be able to shoot a three because I'm gonna be in his space because I'm quicker. So right here I know shot clock has to be close to being out. We have fouls to give, so I can be super aggressive. I'm not in foul trouble, so Shields look at the shot clock. Okay, look at the shot clock. It's time to be active. So I'm eating space, get a swipe, hits off his leg. So in that situation, if I would just— if I would have just allowed him to look at the shot clock to get comfortable, he would feel comfortable. Me using my hand swiping allows him not to be able to think what's going on. Okay, yes, he knows the shot's winding down, and maybe he does hit a tough shot on me, but it wouldn't be what he wanted to do, you know. Dang, Shane had a layup there. So this is a tip, like knowing when a guy isn't a natural point guard. Like, um, number one, when you pressure them, like we talked about before, is you're not pressuring them to per se steal the ball immediately right now. You're pressuring because you're forcing them to do something that they don't feel comfortable doing and their coach doesn't want them to do. Their coach just wants them to bring the ball down, organize the offense, get in the set, and go. But if you pressure him, he goes to score and he doesn't make it. Now the coach is on his head and he just checked in the game, so you know, he's trying to find a rhythm in the game. The crazy thing is I actually touched this ball, but we go back to hand activity. I touched it, but I wasn't the last to touch it, you know. And it's like, this doesn't show up on the stat sheet, it shows up as a turnover for Shields. But it's the little things, like right here, you see I touch his hand a little bit, which kind of messes everything up. And to me, that's a skill. So like, yeah, it doesn't show up in the stat sheet, but that's a skill. Draymond Green, Pat Bev, Lou Dort, all those defensive guys, Dyson Daniels. This has been evolution of my game specifically, being hedged. So trying to learn, understand new coverages that teams are playing against me. So here they hedge, or soft, whatever. Anyways, this read, you know, the ball handler, you're reading this guy. If this guy is behind the defense, your next read is the corner help, right? So I see him behind. This isn't Fall, this isn't Eddie Tavares. These guys are in bad positioning, so one guy should be here. So I'm reading here, but I put it where only D.O. can get it. And if Lade jumps, it's going to be a foul. We could have way better spacing there for sure. Bang, same situation. They're kind of the same level, so this is a tough pass. The pass needs to be to me because Shields is bumping. So Shields bumps, if it comes to me, wide open shot. Let me play out the post. So you might be saying, why are we watching this game? You guys blew them out. Because no matter what, in every game there's something to learn from. It doesn't matter. Because at the end of the day you're trying to get better as a team, as a player. So there were good things that happened in the game, there were bad things that happened in the game. Speaking of bad things, I can't fall for this, but puts the fire out, we switch. Cam on the day, first team off. I wasn't even trying to foul, so I'm just looking at the ref like, wait, what? But if I'm not aggressive there, then he can bury me. Pause. Okay, so here again we have fouls to give. No one's in foul trouble, so it's an opportunity to be aggressive. Boom, we switch. Okay, now that we switch again and they set another ball screen, Benny doesn't have to be up as much because this is double side and I'm already in the gap. So we know Shildon's good to his right, so now Golebski rolls on the double side. I get attacked. Gotta get the rebound, gotta get the rebound and finish the play. So here, uh, I have the mismatch and I feel like I can score, um, on this guy, but I mean, 12 seconds left, so let's keep playing action. Pass it, go to split action. And just knowing this guy's probably not used to guarding, you know, split action, so I slip. So right here I slip and I see Benny's throwing it. The guy's bigger than me, so I'm not gonna go up immediately, but I need to act like I'm about to go up. So I get it, pump fake, because he— the psychology for him is that, oh shoot, I'm late, my coach is going to cuss me out. Okay, give him something to, to bite on. Go to the free throw line, make sure you shoot it still. Okay, so Shane's in the mismatch. This guy's a non-shooter, so that means I can help more. Don't let him go right, that's where he wants to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a— that's why Shane got mad, because right here I'm— I look, look, I look up at the thing to check the fouls and I'm screaming foul, foul, foul. Foul, foul, foul. So then we just take the ball out, we match up. And the reason I look twice, because sometimes I get confused, you know. You see the other— oh wait, no, we're in bonus. Oh no, no, no, foul, foul, foul, foul. So you see Shane get mad right here. Foul. So here you see all like, once he gets settled in here, he gets settled and he's looking, camera start creeping up, creeping up. Hand activity, hand activity. Force him to do something he doesn't want to do. Remember, shrink, shrink, shrink the floor. Should have got Shane out here, but late shot clock. If I get— if I X him out and he's not ready, then leave Shields wide open on strong side. So here again, we have foul to give, so takes a tough shot. I don't know what happened this play. I think the coach just called like to do something, like maybe read everything, switch everything, but we kind of got stuck. And then at this point it's kind of like Shane can't see what's going on, he doesn't know he's out. I notice here, okay, it's better for me to be on Gillespie instead of him, so I push him out to guard Shields. We got lucky there. Oh, we almost got lucky. No, but great, great contest by Benny because if he's like, okay, whatever, he's open, this makes him do something else he doesn't want to do. So these are very dangerous moments. Start of the third quarter, team's down, they have nothing to lose. When we were there playing, we almost smoked it, um, there. So gotta be very cautious here and play very serious. Good shot, rebound. Okay, set something up, ball screen, balanced shot, more balanced shot. So here, boom, get back to the right, hesi, pull. Instead of one foot. One foot is old. That, that's, that's 2022 Elijah Bryant. I've evolved. But the key in those situations, like, you got to keep playing, you know. I heard this quote by Billy Donovan, is that if a player misses, I don't know, he goes 0 for 5 and he allows that to affect his game, think about this. It takes a second for you to shoot each shot, so you're allowing 5 seconds of the game to affect your whole game. Pretty powerful quote here. Something for you to learn. So every time there's a DHO and the ball handler is still moving and you're guarding the opposite guard, if he runs into you, fall every time. Move and screen every time. It's like a free, free free call. You know that he's going for a handoff. He can't come full speed and stop. So, you know, like, that's basketball IQ, like, understanding that, because most guys would be scared, 'Oh, I'm gonna run and get a foul on me.' No, it's gonna be a foul on the other guy 100% of the time. Okay, 99.9. So I have 6 seconds. I'm not gonna be able to drive, paint's crowded. Getting into Vinny in 6 seconds, and I was giving him a grenade. So now It's time to get to work. It's time to get busy. One thing I gotta get better at though, if they have their hand out when I go up into that shot, get, get their hand inside there. So why does Sheng get that open shot? Finney put pressure on the rim, which made the D pull in, which made Ousmane open. When Ousmane was open, they X'd out. When they X'd out, they didn't have time to get back out, and he closed out short knowing Shane's fast, which gives an open shot. So the bucket really comes from Vinnie. Doesn't show up in the stat sheet, but that's Vinnie's bucket. Here I gotta do a better job of boxing out. I'm just kind of waiting to see. So right here I need to boom hit him, but it's hard because it could be a foul too. I get a lucky bounce and get it. So standard procedure would be is to follow him over, but I know I'm a little bit late, but I'm gonna cut through. Now if I follow him over, he has the option to curl. If he passes it to Glebsi, I wait because what if he thinks I'm late and he pops out here? Then I can just chase him. So here I can get through, no advantage was really created. Now I'm back on my man. I gotta— I did get that. I smoky. Hey, happens to the best of us. It's okay. But like I said, don't let one shot affect your focus or determination. Keep playing, keep playing, keep playing, keep playing. So here, right there, knowing the psychology of the game knowing the time, knowing you have fouls to give. Low-key, I could have took a charge, but this guy Flaccidore just checked in, so 1.2, he's jumping. If he passes here, okay, I'm playing percentages. Like, if he drives, maybe there's a foul, maybe there's a layup, but that's about like— oh, Marcus Smart, that's who I've only seen play this year. But he is the best at this. So here, Spanish pick and roll back screen. I'm guarding the shooter, very, very hot guy. As soon as he gets out, my responsibilities are over. I'm gone in this coverage of defense. So you see how I'm not shrinking the floor as much because he has very deep range. Good foul by Vinnie because we have fouls to give. I could be better about snaking, so boom, then I would have a layup. But I feel comfortable with that shot off two feet, more balance. And another thing too is like, you might say, oh, why are you guys trying to score? Well, if EuroLeague, point difference matters. So it's not like the NBA where guys get upset if you start scoring. There we go, thank you. So what did you guys learn from today's breakdown? Did you learn about X defense? Did you learn about, you know, the double side and tagging? When to tag, when to cheat, hand activity. Hope to see you guys in the next one. Peace.