The Pick-and-Roll, Explained for People Who Just Want to Follow the Game
One screen, two players, and most of modern basketball. How the pick-and-roll works, how defences answer it, and how to tell which answer they chose.
By Andre Whitfield9 min read
Keep a tally of every time one player stands still so a teammate can run his defender into him, and you will run out of napkin before halftime. The pick-and-roll is the most common action in professional basketball. Commentators say it the way they say "good look", as if everyone already knows what it means.
Plenty of people do not, and that is fine. The action itself takes about four seconds to understand. The part that makes it interesting is everything the defence does in response, and that is what this piece is mostly about.
The action in four beats
- A ball-handler, usually a guard, holds the ball somewhere above the three-point line.
- A teammate, usually a big man, walks up and plants himself beside the ball-handler's defender, feet set, arms in. That is the screen, or the pick.
- The ball-handler dribbles past the screen, tight enough that his defender either runs into the screener or has to go around him.
- The screener then moves. What he does next is the second half of the play.
For a second or two, the offence has a two-on-two with a lot of room around it, and one attacker has a head start on his man. Everything after that depends on how the two defenders split the job.
What the screener does next
The screener has three basic choices.
He can roll. He turns toward the basket and runs into the space behind the defence, hands up, waiting for a bounce pass or a lob. This is the classic version. For a generation of fans, the picture of it is John Stockton and Karl Malone in Utah, who ran it together for the better part of two decades and made it look like a rule of nature.
He can pop. Instead of diving to the rim, he steps back out toward the three-point line or the elbow for a jump shot. This works when the screener can shoot, and it punishes a defender who sank toward the paint expecting a roll. Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas was the great example: a seven-footer the defence could not leave alone at 20 feet.
He can slip. He fakes setting the screen and leaves early, cutting to the rim before contact. Slips work best against defences that are in a hurry to switch or trap, because both defenders commit to the ball and the screener is gone before anyone touches him.
There are variations stacked on top, like the "Spain" pick-and-roll, named for the Spanish national team, where a third player back-screens the roller's defender and then pops out to the arc. Denver turned the whole thing inside out with Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic, where the centre is very often the one making the decisions. But roll, pop and slip are the alphabet. Learn those and the rest reads easily.
How defences answer it
This is where the game actually happens. A defence has to decide in advance what its two defenders will do when the screen comes, and every choice takes something away and gives something else up. There is no answer that stops everything, and the argument over which one to use runs through a good share of what we write on the basketball beat. Here are the main ones.
| Coverage | What the screener's defender does | What it takes away | What it gives up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drop | Sinks back toward the paint, around the free-throw line or lower | Layups and lobs at the rim | Pull-up jumpers, and the screener popping open |
| Switch | Swaps assignments and picks up the ball-handler | The open window created by the screen | Mismatches: a big on a quick guard, a guard on a big |
| Hedge or show | Jumps out past the screen to slow the ball, then retreats | A clean downhill drive | A moment where the roller is unguarded |
| Blitz or trap | Joins the guard's defender and attacks the ball with two | The ball-handler's shot and vision | A four-on-three behind the trap |
| Ice (or down) | Drops to the baseline side while the guard's defender steps above the screen, so the ball is pushed away from the screen and toward the baseline | Use of the screen and the drive to the middle | A jumper on the move, and the big has to cover both the drive and the roll for a beat |
Drop
Drop is the conservative choice, and many teams with a big, slow centre live in it. The centre stays near the basket, the guard's defender fights over the top of the screen and chases from behind, and together they sandwich the ball-handler on his way to the rim. It protects the paint well. The cost is the gap between the two defenders: a guard who can stop at the free-throw line and shoot a pull-up will get that shot all night, and a guard who can pull up from three makes drop look silly.
Switch
Switching is simple to describe and hard to do well. The two defenders swap assignments, so nobody gets left behind. The offence's head start disappears, but it gets a mismatch instead: the centre on a quick guard out on the perimeter, the guard on a much bigger player near the basket. Switching works best for teams whose players are all roughly the same size and quickness, and teams like that are rare.
Hedge or show
In a hedge, the big man leaps out past the screen, almost into the ball-handler's path, forcing him to retreat or swing wide. It buys the guard's defender time to recover. Then the big has to sprint back to the roller. In that half-second while he is retreating, the roller is open, and somebody else on the defence has to bump him. If nobody does, it is a dunk.
Blitz or trap
The aggressive answer. Both defenders go after the ball-handler, aiming to take the ball out of a star's hands or force a turnover. Against a great scorer late in a close game, it is often worth the gamble. But it leaves four offensive players against three defenders behind the trap.
Ice
Ice is for screens set on the side of the floor rather than at the top. The guard's defender jumps to the high side, between the ball-handler and the screen, and does not let him use it at all. The ball-handler is pushed toward the baseline, where the big waits, and the sideline becomes an extra defender. Teams call it "down", "blue" and other names. A ball-handler who can pull up while drifting toward the baseline hurts it, and so does a screener who rolls into the space the big just left.
Many teams also play something between drop and hedge, with the big meeting the ball at the level of the screen, often called "at the level" or "up to touch". Like most compromises, it is good at a bit of everything and best at nothing.
The short roll and the four-on-three
When a defence hedges hard or traps, the ball-handler's job is to get rid of the ball fast. The usual outlet is the screener, who rolls only a few steps into the space near the free-throw line rather than all the way to the rim. That is the short roll.
Picture the floor at that moment. Two defenders are still out by the three-point line with the guard. The screener has the ball in the middle of the floor, facing the basket. Behind him, three defenders are trying to cover three offensive players: usually two shooters in the corners or on the wings, and a big man near the basket. That is four on three, and the screener is the quarterback.
He can shoot a floater, throw a lob to the other big if the last helper steps up, or kick it to a corner shooter whose defender has dropped into the paint. The best short-roll players read this in a beat. Draymond Green in Golden State made a career out of catching the ball in exactly that spot and finding whoever was open. When you see a big catch the ball at the free-throw line after a trap and immediately look away from the rim, he is reading the four-on-three.
How to spot the coverage in the first two seconds
You do not need the broadcast to tell you what the defence is running. Watch the screener's defender as the screen is set, and look at his feet.
- Feet in the paint or around the free-throw line, waiting: drop.
- Feet up near the three-point line, level with the screen: at the level, or the start of a hedge.
- Feet past the screen, chest to the ball-handler, alongside the guard's defender: blitz.
- Two defenders pointing and calling, then exchanging players: switch.
- On a side screen, the guard's defender standing between the ball and the screen with his body turned to the sideline: ice.
Do this for the first few pick-and-rolls of a game and write it down. Then watch whether it changes. A team that starts in drop and moves to a blitz late in the fourth quarter has decided the ball-handler is beating them. (If you want more of these small habits for watching from a noisy room, I wrote up how I read a game from a bar stool earlier this year.)
Why switching teams get hunted
Once a defence starts switching, the offence's whole plan changes. It is no longer trying to free the ball-handler. It is trying to choose who ends up guarding him.
The offence picks the defender it wants to attack, usually the slowest player on the floor or the smallest. Then it has whoever that defender is guarding come up and set the screen. The defence switches, as it planned to, and now the weak defender is alone on the best ball-handler, with the other four offensive players spread out of the way. Run that four or five times and you will see either a basket or a coach calling timeout to change the coverage.
This becomes the central fight in the playoffs, when there is time to prepare and every weakness gets found. Coaches will bench a good scorer for this reason alone. It looks harsh from the stands, but if he cannot survive being hunted, he costs more than he scores.
Quick answers
Is a pick the same as a screen?
Yes. You will also hear "ball screen" for the same action.
Why does the screener sometimes get called for a foul?
A screener has to be set, with his feet still, when contact happens. If he leans, sticks out a hip or slides into the defender, the referee calls a moving screen, which is an offensive foul. Watch his feet on the replay.
What is a "pocket pass"?
A pass from the ball-handler to the rolling screener, threaded between the two defenders, usually a bounce pass right after the screen. It beats hedges and traps if it is on time.
That is the whole thing, more or less. Next time the game is on, wait for the first screen at the top of the key and look at the big man's feet before you look at the ball. Drop, switch, hedge, trap or ice: say it to yourself. Then check again after the first timeout of the fourth quarter. If the centre who waited in the paint all night is suddenly standing at the three-point line with his arms out, somebody on that bench has decided the guard is winning.
