"Switch & Shrink": Barcelona's Unique Defense
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Today’s edition will cover:
“Switch & Shrink”: FC Barcelona’s Unique PNR Defense
Tobin Anderson: Inside the Episode + Q/A Session
Best Sets of the Week
Watch | Read | Quote
Let’s dive in…
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Switch & Shrink: FC Barcelona
FC Barcelona Head Coach, Šarūnas Jasikevičius, has his club playing in the Euroleague Final Four this weekend in his first season at the helm after a successful run with BC Žalgiris.
Spain’s top basketball league, the ACB, is always well worth a watch. With as much creative PNR and off-ball movement that teams run in the ACB, it’s no wonder coaches have continued to tinker with ways to slow all that motion down on the defensive side of the ball.
Enter FC Barcelona’s late-possession “Switch & Shrink” PNR defensive scheme.
What is it? It’s a bit of switching… mixed with some zone concepts…covered in “packline”…and dashed with some Chris Beard “no middle.”
Before diving into the “Hows” of this defense, here’s a few of the “Whys” behind running this scheme…
It provides great backline help for a Defensive Big who has switched onto a playmaking guard in late-clock situations.
It forces that playmaking guard to either shoot over the top of the defense, or have to penetrate into a crowded key to try and make a play. It can severely limit the ability of a playmaker to get all the way to the rim.
It minimizes the number of actions the defense has to guard late in the shot clock.
It aids in defensive rebounding as all 5 defenders have “shrunk” closer to the rim.
It provides quick and immediate help on a mismatch in the low or high post area.
Below we’ll look at three main concepts of the “Switch & Shrink”:
The Fundamental Building Blocks
Controlling Space and Mismatches
Effective Ways to Attack the “Switch & Shrink”
As always, we also put together a full breakdown video of all these actions, which is out today on SGTV below.
1. Building Blocks
On a very basic level, the “Switch & Shrink” is exactly what it sounds like. When the offense runs a late-clock PNR Barcelona will simply switch it, and then “shrink” the rest of the defense into a zone-like coverage with extreme help coming from the Blocks and Elbows.
Here’s a look at some of those fundamental building blocks and coverages that must be in place before getting to trickier actions.
Backline & Elbow Coverage
After the switch, the other four defenders will collapse to provide coverage of the blocks and elbows, giving the defense a “zone look…
The defender guarding the roller will make sure to stay on the high side and “front” the post, while the other two defender shrink in toward the blocks. The other perimeter defender not guarding the ballhandler will sit in the gap at the elbow opposite of where the ball is. Here’s a look…
Stunts and Strings
After switch and shrinking into proper alignment, the next crucial element of making this defense work is the ability for all five players to understand “stunting” and “playing on a string”. Assuming the Defensive Big will need help against a playmaking guard, the players sitting high in the gaps must be prepared to “stunt and recover” to keep the ballhandler guessing…
*Zooming In: The above GIF nicely shows all the players in their correct gaps as the ballhandler attempts to make a play into the paint. Here’s where the “packline” concepts can really be seen as the defenders do a great job of stunting in their gaps and then recovering back toward their matchup. An important detail here is that the help defenders don’t want to over-stunt and put “two on the ball” too early in the possession and give up an easy drive and kick three.
If the ballhandler doesn’t try and operate 1 v. 1, and instead tries to skip or move the ball to another offensive player, it’s important that the entire defense “moves on a string” and slides into their next gap assignment…
2. Controlling Space & Mismatches
If an offense decides to just play 1 v. 1 against the switch and take long threes or jumpers over the top, this newsletter would’ve been wrapped up and we’d be out to dinner many hours ago. Unfortunately for our wives, that’s not the case, as Barcelona is also playing against some of the best coaches in the world who have tried various ways to attack the scheme (more on that in Section 3).
To attempt to control where on the floor a team attacks from, as well as mitigate a dangerous mismatch, Barcelona utilizes a few effective strategies…
Controlling Space - No Middle
If an offense gets a switch in the middle third of the floor, Barcelona will apply all the principles above, where they’ll make it difficult to get any quality look in the paint or at the rim. If, however, the offense runs a PNR or skips the ball to a player on the outer third of the court, Barcelona will attempt to keep the ball on that side of the court while loading up defensively on the backside with the same “Blocks and Elbows” principle…
Here’s a look at a Side PNR scenario, where the Defensive Big does a good job trying to keep the ball on one side of the floor while the Help Defender shrinking to the elbow gets a quality “jumping jack” workout in at the same time…
And here’s a “No Middle Closeout” on a skip (somewhere in Texas, Chris Beard is intensely smiling)…
*Tangent: It’s worth noting that this “Switch and Shrink” scheme also plays well into the defensive concept of “Weaking”, or forcing a player to their weak (most often left) hand. Looking through that lens, you can see in all the GIFs above how, if “weaking” is your cup of tea, having players shrink and stunt in a tight, zone-like shell works for that concept as well.
Controlling Mismatches - Sending Doubles
Barcelona has shown two effective strategies to minimize a bad defensive mismatch after the switch, one more common than the other. The first, more common action, is to immediately double a mismatch in the post. Being so tightly packed into the key on the “shrink” makes this a quick and effective double…
Referring back to the “Building Blocks” section above, the guard’s job who switches onto the roller is to front the post with active hands. This alone makes taking advantage of the mismatch difficult as a lob over the top is a hard pass to throw if there’s good pressure on the ball. Secondly, the backside help is moving and doubling on the flight of the ball, which makes it hard for the offensive big to have any clear windows to look through when trying to skip the ball back out.
The less common and potentially riskier double comes from the opposite “Elbow Help Defender” as the shot-clock ticks under 5 seconds. In this situation the defender at the elbow will leave their man and sprint to double with active hands. This action can be risky if the offense can move the ball quickly before the double closes in, but, on the flip side, can be highly effective at forcing an offensive playmaker into a tough shot or turnover…
3. Attacking the “Switch & Shrink”
With the shot-clock ticking down against a team that is packing the paint, this can be a disorienting defense to consistently attack. That said, FC Barcelona is playing against some of the best coaches in the world, and here are a few ways (outside of bombing threes over the top) that teams try and attack this scheme.
Flare/Slips, Hi-Lo’s, & Baseline Spacing
The first action to look at is how teams will try and utilize late-clock Flares and Flare/Slips to try and manipulate the tight shell of the defense. Here’s a look…
*Why this works? With a defensive guard in the middle of the “Switch & Shrink” defense whose main concern is to battle and front the rolling post, along with a bottom “block defender” who’s trying to maintain a tight backline shell, the Flare/Slip is an action that can effectively get the ball into the heart of the defense on the slip. Furthermore, as the guard slips into the middle of the defense, the offense benefits from 1) having a guard shoot a high percentage 10-12 foot jump shot while 2) the offensive big has great offensive rebounding positioning on the shot as he/she’s being fronted.
This Flare action is also very useful when it comes to another way teams try and take advantage of the “Switch & Shrink” defense, and that’s through the Hi-Lo look. Here’s an example…
Looking at the GIF above, as the offense looks for the Hi-Lo over the top, the Flare for the passer helps remove the bottom help defender whose job it would be to “double” on the flight of the ball during the Lob.
Lastly, another effective way teams try and attack this scheme is through their court spacing. After the switch, Zenit spaced their two bigs along the baseline in the “Dunker Spots” and placed their Guards on the wings and/or corners…
*Why it works? One of the main reasons the spacing is effective is because it opens up much more space in the middle of the floor for the playmaker to attack into. At the same time, once the playmaker starts to attack and the defenders at the elbows “stunt” at the ball, it makes their closeout much farther and more difficult as the offensive wings float toward the corners on the attack.
For a look at all the stunts, rules, and actions of FC Barcelona’s “Switch & Shrink” defense, here’s our latest deep-dive breakdown on the concept out today on SGTV.
Tobin Anderson: Inside the Episode
Tobin Anderson, Head Coach of NCAA DII St. Thomas Aquinas, joined us this week for a jam packed podcast episode. Not only is Coach Anderson one of the great basketball minds in the game today, he is also a ton of fun. During the episode we explored:
Program Turnarounds
All the elements that go into turning around underperforming programs
Why it’s so important to get head coaching experience early on in a career
What elements need to be in place to successfully re-build a program
Coach Anderson’s Full Court Match-Up Pressing System
Rules, Reads, Drills, Philosophy, and more
“Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Best Ways to Get out of a Funk as a head coach after a loss
Winning on the Road: What matters most
Motion Concepts
And More
We are also excited to welcome Coach Anderson back on Tuesday, June 1st at 4pm EST/10pm Central European Time for our first Q&A/Clinic Session for all SG Plus members. We’ll send a private Zoom link in our Coaches Corner Community and members will have a chance to interact and ask questions to Coach Anderson. We can’t wait.
Here’s the link to hear the whole podcast…
Best Sets of the Week
The best we saw from the week that was, including the New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks, Crailsheim Merlins (Germany) and Mornar Bar (Adriatic League).
Watch | Read | Quote
Watch:
NY Knicks (NBA)
Anadolu Efes (Euroleague)
Chicago Sky (WNBA)
Read:
From Seth Godin: How to Be Remarkable
From The Ringer: The Anatomy of Dame Time
Quote:
On dealing with conflict…
“Never cut what you can untie.” - Joseph Joubert
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Have a great week coaching,
Dan and Pat