Golden State Warriors and in particular the philosophy and culture of Head Coach Steve Kerr, has truly changed the game and the way it is played. The Warriors get an enormous amount of credit for revolutionizing pace and space basketball and heralding the birth of the three point culture in the NBA, despite this, what the Warriors have been doing on the defensive end of the ball over the past 5 years is where their real impact lies. Kerr has developed a system where switching is an ultra aggressive tool, turning the traditional mindset that switching creates mismatches and defensive disadvantages on it’s head. One of the tools that he has used is Scram Switching, a tactic that the Warriors have used to neutralize post mismatches following a switch. I’m going to dive into this concept in a bit more depth over the course of this article, looking at the what, the why and the how of Scram Switching.
A Scram Switch or as it’s sometimes referred to as an Emergency Switch is a post switch on the air time of a the post pass that switches a mismatched player back out to the perimeter and to a more favorable match up slotting a bigger or stronger player into legal guarding position behind the post player. This is something that Draymond Green is truly world class at. Scram Switching allows teams to choke up perimeter based actions such as Pick And Roll’s and Dribble Hand Off’s without worrying about being posted up following the action, something that is a really common response to switching on the perimeter as inevitably the switch will result in a smaller player guarding a bigger player. Despite this, Scram Switching is a complex tactic to perfect as it requires nano-second perfect timing. It is essential that the switch occurs on the air time of the pass i.e whilst the ball is in the air, and not when the ball is in the hands of either the post player himself or the post feeder on the perimeter. If you switch too early then skip passes to perimeter players on the weak side become too simple and straight forward generating wide open shots for the offence. Equally, if you switch too late, this creates a momentary period of indecision which the post player can exploit to get to the rim. Despite all this if you are able to perfect the timing of the switch, Scram Switching present’s a tonne of possibilities for the defence, allowing them to maintain their aggressiveness on the perimeter without giving up the traditional draw backs of switching. On balance I think that it is a concept that can be drilled to a quality level of performance just as you can with hedging on the pick and roll for example, and on balance if you are a switching team I feel that its worth devoting the time to this concept. Let’s dive into some of the X and O’s.
So, X1 has been switched onto the 5 man in the low post, most likely the result of a cross screen to bring 5 into the low post from the weak side in the diagrammed case but this could be the result of a Pick and Roll or back screen (essentially an action that you could potentially switch). In this case on the air time of the pass X5 comes over from the weak side and bumps X1 back to his man. It is imperative that this switch or bump back happens on the air time off the pass, not whilst the ball is in 3's hands and certainly not whilst the ball is in 5's hands.
The further from the basket we can push 5, the more time there is to execute the switch.
One way of better performing a Scram Switch is for the player who is out matched (In this case X1) fronts the low post player. This does two things:
1. Increases the air time off the post pass as it has to be passed high in order to get the ball over the top of the fronting player. This gives more time for X5 to make it over to switch.
2. Provides a better angle/ path to X5 ensuring that he is in a solid legal guarding position on the catch.
Again in this case 1 has been switched onto the 5 man on the low post most likely because of a cross screen. However, this time there is a weak side exchange. Because the opposition is looking for a post up instead of X5 staying with one, him and X4 simply switch. Firstly, this allows X5 to be the player that switches back onto 5 instead of X4 and another potential mismatch. Secondly, if you are worried about 1 being a mismatch on the outside, this would be an equal mismatch whether X4 or X5 is defending them so by switching your not really giving anything up. Again this Scram switch must happen on the air time of the pass.
The player who comes to pick up the post player in a Scram Switch will come from the weak side, in this case X4. However X1 or the mismatched player doesn't always have to rotate or recover back out onto a weak side player. Where he goes to next following the switch is determined by the spacing of the perimeter players. In this case, once X4 has switched over, X1 bumps out to pick up 1, X2 shifts over to pick up 2 and X5 drops down to cover 4. This means that the only miss matches that are now left are 4 vs X5 and 5 vs X4 which, broadly speaking for most teams will not be much of a miss match. It is certainly a more favourable match up than 1 vs 5 in the low post.
A rolling Scram Switch is where you force the post player in a specific direction allowing a taller player to come over and switch you out to the perimeter following only one dribble. Its different from a regular scram switch as you are not switching on the airtime of a pass but following a set number of dribbles. Now the first question here is why is this a Scram Switch and not just early help? The reason I would determine this as a scram switch is because X5 is coming out of the lane extremely early to release X2 from being posted up following a previous action that has been switched, most likely a Pick and Pop or a DHO. In this case a Pick and Pop between the 4 man guarded by X4 and 1 guarded by X2.
X5 comes over and switches X2 out to 1 at the head effectively neutralising this threat. X4 drops off 1 who was the original ball handler, to cover the 5 man at the basket whilst X1 and X3 stick their men on the weak side. This means that the only miss match is now between the two guards which in this situation could be further switched if 4 keeps hold of the ball for a prolonged period of time.
This is just one example of linking perimeter switching with scram switching neutralising the post up threat that the initial switch creates.
There is absolutely no doubt that this is an extremely advanced concept and the perfect timing that Scram Switching requires, demands top quality connectedness among all the players on the floor. However from my perspective the benefits of this defensive action far out ways the draw backs allowing you to switch everything without giving up the inevitable post miss match. Scram Switching can be adopted as a full philosophy whilst also being used as an Emergency action if you have a high IQ 4/5 man who can read defensive miss matches and has the where with all to react. However from my perspective if you are a team that switches a lot of actions either within the Pick and Roll in Dribble Hand off's or even within off ball screens and actions, Scram Switching is something that you have to embrace and adopt into your system.
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