Basketball Screens - How to Use Them

Basketball screens are a great way to put our players in to better positions from witch they can be productive. Coach Chris and the Hoopsking team decided to analyze some of the best screen users in the NBA in order to help you help your players realize what is the right way to use the screen.

We will start with Stef Curry. As a magnificent shooter that he is, nobody is really talking about how he moves without the ball and how is he using screens.

In this first example, we will see some great moves. First, we will talk about his preparation for getting loose off of defender, and in this act he is bumping and pushing Shumpert towards the paint. This way, he is creating space in witch he can operate. The basketball screen needs to be somewhat deep. The deeper the screen the more space you have to operate after you used it. If the screen is high, after you use it you will be in no position to take a shot, or, if you want to drive to the basket defense has more time to reconnect or to switch.

Look how deep Steph pushed Shumpert, almost to the paint area, and all that time he was aware that Livingston is coming from the top.

After he dealt with his direct defender, Curry made contact with the player guarding the screener. By hugging him, and pulling him towards himself, he prevented Richard Jefferson from switching below the screen. This is illegal move everywhere but in the NBA, but that doesn`t diminish how superb it is.

The moment Curry stopped pushing everybody around him, he stepped back towards the 3 pt line, but now Livingston continued the brawl. Both Shump and RJ got pushed again witch provided space needed for a good shot position. NBA and their rules.

For our next analysis we will use much cleaner situation. We have a flat basketball screen made by Kevin Love for Kyle Korver. First that catches my eye is spacing and geometry of offense. Perfect positioning at it`s best.

If we look at the screen closely, we have to notice how Kyle is making that inside step with his left leg, throwing his defender in to situation where he needs to loose sight of the ball. Then he switch balance to his right lag in the same moment screener is making contact with the defender.

Let`s take a look at next picture and comment some of the mistakes.

We already notice how Kyle`s defender has no sight for the ball, but the player guarding the screener is deep in paint area, and he should standing next to Love with the hand on the passing lane. The second thing that needs to be pointed out is the position of help defenders on the passive side, who are too close to their man even though LeBron is looking away from them. Thompson needs to step on the elbow and KD needs to be with both feet inside paint.

To be more transparent, we marked free space with the green circle just to show you the resault of bad defense.

Let us see the whole video:

If you want to learn more about using basketball screens, know that we have tips and drills from some of the best Coaches in the USA. The wisdom of Coach Chris, Bo Ryan, Curt Miller, Will Ray that will help you get better at basketball are just one click away: