Straight Sets: Post Plays
Breaking down some of the recent sets Minnesota has run out of the post.
Sometimes you have to steer into the skid. Thanks to the inescapable nature of another pandemic-ravaged season, the Minnesota Timberwolves are skidding. It hasn’t been the complete collapse that their depleted roster may have warranted — they’ve consistently competed against teams with better health and more talent than them — but they have still lost four of their past five games and find themselves chasing the Western Conference playoff pack.
Wolves head coach Chris Finch has stood on the sideline, helplessly trying to manage all of this confusion. The constant ins and outs, the forced lineup choices and the gaping scoring canyon left by the multi-game absences of Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards and D’Angelo Russell. It’s all made what is a historically difficult job unprecedently harder. That’s why steering into the skid is important. It’s why creativity is essential. It’s why, in order to maximize the mismatched talent left on his roster, Finch has leaned into some different sets than we’re used to seeing. Namely, he has started running more advanced sets around post-up players.
When Towns is on the court, most post-ups either end in him attempting a field goal or trying to spray the ball to the open shooter after getting double-teamed. For better or worse. Without him, Finch and his coaching cohorts need to get a little more creative. They can still stick with a system that encourages bigs moving into prime post position, but they can’t rely on their scoring coming purely from their high-end talent. They need to pry as much juice out of the rotation guys as possible and sometimes that takes a little extra squeezing.
One of the easiest ways to create player movement around a post presence is by using post splits. It’s a common action around the league and has been a staple of Steve Kerr, Draymond Green and Stephen Curry’s wildly successful partnership. The Wolves don’t have Curry and they don’t have a passing big like Green, but they do have a creative coach and a willingness to try new things.
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