The Value of Creating Space: Nymburk Playbook

One of the most interesting “game within the game” battles that takes place every night on the basketball floor, is the constant struggle for space. Defenses try and shrink it, offenses try and create more of it.

When thinking about offensive philosophy and set design, the best coaches have a thorough understanding of how, when, and who to create space for.

Enter Coach Oren Amiel and his club ERA Nymburk from the Czech Republic, currently playing in the Champions League. In this week’s breakdown video we took a hard look at their fantastic playbook (video and PDF’s below), and were struck not only by the amount of creative action and movement they run, but more specifically, how great they are at creating space in the half-court in which to either attack, pass, or screen into. Below we’ll take a look at some select actions from their playbook to analyze how and why they create that space within their offense.

1. Space at the Nail – PNR Concepts

{ Cuts and Drifts }

To start, we’ll revisit some old friends here on the newsletter, the “45 Cut” and “Baseline Cut and Corner Drift”.

Both the 45 and the Baseline Cut and Drift are terrific ways to move or distort the “Nail Defender” in a PNR whether the PNR is going toward or away from the 2-man side. Nymburk runs these “automatics” particularly well within their half-court PNR game. Here’s an example of that 45 Cut going toward the 2-Man side…

And the “Baseline Cut and Drift”…

*Creating Space: In both situations the 45 and the Baseline Cut help distort the “I Formation” of the Help Defenders on the 2-Man side. In both instances, the above cuts effectively flatten the “I Formation” and create a space for the ballhandler to penetrate into. Of note, in both scenarios above the PNR is going toward the 2-Man side, so the space that is created is for the ballhandler to get downhill into. These cuts are also effective if the ball is going away from the 2-Man side (like with a “Reverse Angle” screen) as they can move the Nail Defender and create a space for either the “Short Roll” or the “Pop”. Here’s a look at the Backside 45, sometimes called a “Burn Cut”, as the Big is Popping…

With Nymburk, the 45 Cut is also an action they’ll use to create space during a Drag Screen within their transition offense. This cut can be even more effective in transition as the defense is usually not set in their help rotations…

{ Flares and Pins }

The other way Nymburk creates space at the Nail during a PNR is by setting either a Flare or a Pin Down screen during the on-ball. Here’s the Flare…

And here’s the Pin Down…

*Creating Space: In both of these instances Nymburk is removing the Nail defender by occupying him with some sort of screening action. Both the Pin and the Flare have the similar effect of flattening the “I Formation” of the two help defenders and creating a single-side tag situation on the backside. From here, the ballhander can read the big and the backside tag defender with a bit more clarity since there isn’t a defender actively pestering the ball at the Nail.

{ Duck-In’s }

When Nymburk gets into their “4-Out 1-In” look offensively with a Big in the Dunker Spot, they’ll use a hard “Duck-In” by that Big to create a space for the ballhandler to attack into…

The Big in the Dunker Spot will follow the ballhandler and work to keep his man pinned behind them as the ballhandler gets downhill…

2. Creating Space on the Perimeter- Non PNR

Like many teams in the International Game, Nymburk does a fantastic job with their overall PNR movements to help created space and distort the Help, but they are also very clever with some of their Non-PNR sets as well. Here are a couple of ways they’ll create a space for a shooter to either fill into, or come off a screen into.

{ Post Flare Burn Action }

A really nice action here to get a shot or drive for a shooter after a Post Catch. Nymburk will Burn Cut the player in the slot/wing at the same time the shooter who fed the post is receiving a Flare from the opposite Big…

*Creating Space: A couple weeks ago we detailed a ton of interesting Post Actions from around the world, and this is another great one to add to the list. The timing and speed of the backside Burn Cut creates a nice space for the player coming off the Flare to play into. A subtle but important benefit of this Burn Cut is that it changes who the primary Help Defender would be on the Flare Action. Normally, the Defender guarding the “Burn Cutter” would be stunting or helping on the Flare if it’s needed, but the Burn Cut quickly makes the Corner Defender the Primary Helper, creating a nice 2 v 1 situation for the offense with the shooter spaced in the corner.

{ “RIP Pin” & “Ghost Screen” Action }

Nymburk also uses “RIP Pin Action” to create a gap for a shooter to sprint into off a screen. Here’s a look…

*Creating Space: There’s a lot happening here, but one of the main benefits of this set is that the RIP Screen creates so much gravity going toward the rim that there’s often plenty of space on the perimeter for the shooter to sprint into when coming off the subsequent Pin Down. As shown above, the timing of the cut and RIP screen causes both the Defender guarding the RIP Screener and the Defender guarding the shooter to take a momentary step back toward the rim. This is important because it 1) takes away the ability of the Defensive Big to “show” or “hedge out” on the Pin Down, and 2) doesn’t allow the defender guarding the shooter to either “top lock” or muscle him/her off the Pin Down screen. The result is a shooter sprinting freely off of a Pin Down into an open space with full advantage to either shoot or drive.

{ Ghost Screen }

We honestly tried not to write about a Ghost Screen again this week, but… here we are. Like so many, Nymburk also utilizes a well-timed Ghost Screen Set in the half-court to free up a driving lane for their better attacking guards…

Coach Amiel’s Nymburk club has been one of our favorites to watch in 2021. Outside of these concepts highlighted above they also have a ton of fantastic half-court sets against Man and Zone. Below is our full breakdown video of the playbook as well as the PDF’s.