Detroit Pistons replay center: Blake Griffin post-ups (part 2)

Post Moves

Make no mistake. When Griffin gets the ball down low, he wants to go middle and he goes hard. He’ll bang his way towards the rim and I’ve now realized this is starting to sound like innuendo. Back to the point. His favorite block is famously the left one because he can get to his right hook over the left shoulder.

Most coaches teach you that to get to that shot you need to extend your inside foot and plant it over the defender’s left foot.

But that’s not what Griffin does. He doesn’t rely on his long strides but on his brute force. So, instead, he’ll plant his foot between your legs.

Then he’ll give you a nice shoulder push to create the space needed to get his shot off.

It’s physically impossible for a defender to maintain his balance against that move and it has become a very effective way for Griffin to utilize his advantage – his strength – over most of his opponents. If the defender, now out of position, tries to contest, Griffin will pump fake and get a foul. Lots of fouls.

Deny middle and he’ll use the drop step.

Bite on the pump fake and he’ll go up & under.

And if you lean too much too early, he’ll spin baseline.

Poor Dario Saric!

Catch him on the spin and he’ll spin right back around his left shoulder.

If he can’t back his opponent down or if help comes, he’ll go to his running hook, which is probably less effective.

Come on Blake, you can see the double coming and Zaza Pachulia is open under the basket. He can probably make that one.

When he faces up, he’ll probe his defender to see how he reacts. No or little reaction will lead him to one of the previously discussed moves. Overreact and he’ll jab right and go left.

And if you defend that, he’ll spin right back to his right hook.

He can spin all day.

If none of that works he’ll go to his last resort – the fadeaway.

That’s not Griffin’s best shot. In fact, I can live the rest of my life never watching another Griffin fadeaway shot.

Turrible!

Contrary to what bad-mouthers would have you believe, Griffin can post on the right block as well. On that side of the floor, he prefers using right-hand finishes which is not always optimal. Usually he’ll probe middle, then spin around his defender’s body with a drop step to finish over him.

He’ll do that even when his opponent allows him to go middle

And even when he does go middle he prefers right-hand finishes which are extremely inefficient. It’s very difficult to maintain balance when you lift off your right foot, falling to the left, trying to finish with the right hand. Not many of those shots are going in and it’s just a bad habit that some players have.

In the first piece, we covered the plays that the Pistons call specifically to get Griffin in the post. Now, we’ll look at how Griffin uses variations of other plays to get himself in the post.