.png)
NC State's backcourt went crazy on Monday night in a wildly-exciting win over the top 10 Duke Blue Devils. Aziaha James, Saniya Rivers, and Zoe Brooks combined for 64 points and 7 assists on 26/42 from the field. James led the way with 36 points while shooting a totally made-up percentage from the field.
These are the three players that State initiates most of its offense with, and when you combine their efforts with a perfect fit in a small-ball four with Madison Hayes and the budding play of a young-but-developing frontcourt, you get the seven-game win streak the Pack is currently on.
These guards are phenomenal. On any given night, State has three guards that it can initiate offense with who can totally take over a game. We've seen Brooks do it, we've seen Rivers do it, and we most recently watched Aziaha James do it. State had Duke's top ten defense in a blender, and James's scoring outburst alone nearly matched the total team output of recent Duke opponent Cal.
This is the value of a legitimate three-level scoring threat. The senior guard is shooting almost 47% from the mid-range, almost 71% at the rim, and 33% from three. The first two numbers are elite. The third is okay, but her volume and range as a shooter, which contributes to that number, also creates a lot of gravity on the court. James has nine games of at least four made triples since the start of last season.
While Brooks and Rivers aren't quite the shooters that James is, both can get paint touches off the bounce and score at the rim. The fundamental elements that make this kind of offense work are built on that ability. Brooks is shooting 61% at rim this season and Rivers is shooting 64%. State creates rim pressure like NC State is Michael Bay and rim pressure is bad movies.
This is how the Pack rallied to beat Duke. It put a ton of pressure on the rim. It did this in transition and out of a variety of ball screen sets in the halfcourt. All three of the starting guards put in work off the bounce. There is not substitute for an ability to create paint touches at will like this.
The game becomes a lot easier when you have this type of versatility. Duke can't stay in front of James but it also can't afford to be passive when she has the ball because her range as a shooter. She's an incredibly polished scorer. When you can win off the bounce like she can, there isn't really a defense for you when you can also do this . . .
These skill sets became the building blocks of this offense, and the Duke game was an excellent example of State using its versatility to make Duke wrong. It was not an overly complex game from a set design perspective, but Moore did well to offer answers to Duke's changes in screen defense. State worked a handful of series-based actions to attack Duke's hedges.
Spread pick and roll
Flat pick and roll
77 pick and roll
Set up with a rip screen
Followed by a rip screen
Stacked screen rip
As mentioned, Duke wanted to hedge the ball screens, so this was one of the ways Wes Moore wanted to attack that. We'll call it 77 Rip. It is a 77 ball screen and then a rip screen on the roll.
With the big hedging off the first screen, Duke is going to tag off of Zoe Brooks. Once Duke's big turns Rivers, she has to recover to Trygger, at which point Brooks' defender can recover back to Brooks. Off the screen exchange, Madison Hayes is going set a rip screen or down screen on Duke's big, which delays her ability to recover to Trygger. This creates a momentary mismatch in the post that can be exploited with a good seal and entry pass.
Wes' use of 77 looks has been one of my favorite storylines of the season. It shows up every game and he's tinkered with spacing, flow, and different attached actions to adjust for different defenses. Here's another instance of it being ran for Saniya.
Duke has adjusted here and is not hedging the screens anymore. That didn't work too good for 'em. Here, The Blue Devils will sink into a drop coverage with the big and then switch on the second screen set by Madison Hayes. That covers Trygger's roll and keeps a defender in front of Rivers, but that defender can't guard Rivers. Switches create winning matchups, which Rivers takes care of here against a slower, smaller player.
In our Trinity Road Tape series this week, I covered a spread variation also designed to attack the hedge.
These are all slight wrinkles to a commonly-ran set to make defensive organization and timing harder for the defense. State is getting rotating players out of position with additional screening actions, amplifying the pick-and-roll's effectiveness. In the first example above, you also get to see Rivers and her development as a true point guard. In the video, you get to see how dangerous it is to be late as a hedge defender.
Duke seemed unsure how to defend this variation.
This is a stacked screen and the Blue Devils seemed unprepared for it. Moore ran it a few times, and the function was the same as the 77 actions, where Hayes would set the rip screen after the roll. This is player agency at work, though. Rivers catches her defender overplaying. She wants to blow up the screen and not get beat around the corner, and Rivers makes her pay and again just wins off the dribble. Her explosiveness and finishing length are really on display here.
Again, these aren't overly complex actions, but Duke didn't have a great way to deal with them. State had answers to the hedge, and Duke didn't the have the size to protect the rim in the drop coverage or the 1-5 athleticism to switch onto State's guards.
Speaking of rim protection, this is an area where all three of State's main guards make life hard. The Pack as a team was 9-15 from the mid-range in this game. Once Duke tried to drop on screens, State just nuked them from the mid-range. James was 4/4. Rivers and Brooks combined to 4/10, but both hit big jumpers late in the game after Duke transitioned its ball screen defense.
State aligns in horns here and then runs James off the down screen into a step-up ball screen with Awou. Duke sinks into a drop look off this screening action and also helps off of Madison Hayes as she exits the lane. Look at the gravity of James here as she enters the paint. Duke is selling out to stop her from getting to the rim. No problem. She'll just hit from 10.
Duke again sinks into a drop look here, this time against Zoe Brooks in a drag screen.
The whole point of this is to force the exact shot that Brooks takes. The mid-range is a forgotten art because it's statistically a poor shot, but it's also a giant killer that can erase rim protection. It still has tons of value, and I love that all of State's on-ball guards have it in their arsenal to some degree.
Versatility is key. State has versatility across the board in its guards and can pick the hot hand and send them in waves. It leaned on James for 36 against Duke and then ran some spread looks with Rivers/Brooks and a Awou to close out the game. What a luxury this backcourt is.