Case study: Varese, NBA-style offense in Europe
High-tempo, analytics-driven, 5-Out spacing template = an interesting experiment
This is a short introduction, especially for coaches reading from outside Italy. Varese is a historic basketball town, most notably being one of the few towns in Italy where basketball is more popular than football.
Varese have been in the top league (Serie A) for decades, and two years ago the team was bought by NBA Legend Luis Scola. Scola is bringing in many positive changes to the structure of the club and the organization. On the court, the team hired Matt Brase in the summer of 2022 to spearhead the revolution. Formerly an assistant coach with the Rockets and Trail Blazers, he is incorporating many NBA tendencies and introducing modern concepts to Italian basketball. Varese and Paris, both coaches by Americans (Will Weaver is the HC for Paris), are the two best examples of bringing NBA concepts over to the European game.
Before diving deeper, there’s an important statement to make: this is working!
Before going deeper, there’s an important premise to make: this is working.
You may like or dislike these concepts for tainting traditional views of basketball, or you may think it’s based on luck or talent, but right now Varese has the highest OffRat in LBA - the Italian league - with 101.6 Points per 100 posessions. Varese’s record is 9-7, which places them tied in 5th position, higher than many expectations outsiders had at the beginning of the season.
I’ll break this analysis into three separate parts:
Their pace, number of possessions, and how they run
Shot selection: Last in midrange attempts (by a mile), first in 3PT attempts and rim finishes
XsOs: Some of the actions they run, without going into a complete playbook, just showing some concepts of 5-out that are quite new in Europe and the advantages they’re finding by playing with 4 pure perimeter players.
1 - Pace
As you can see in this picture, taken from this excellent thread by Francesco Olivo on Twitter, Varese and Paris are absolute outliers in Europe in terms of the number of possessions. They would be fast teams even in the NBA.
Before starting with the first videos, it’s important to notice that they’re keeping a high pace without turning the ball over. They’re the 6th best team in TOV total (for the Italian lovers of raw numbers), but most importantly they’re 3rd in lowest TOV%, the number of turnovers compared to the number of possessions (it’s different to turn the ball 10 times in 70 possessions or in 95 isn’t it?)
I’ve put here only a few significant clips, I love the 3rd one, where they’re able to get a layup after a made basket, the shot clock is at 19” and there’s already a paint touch, with the opposite corner filled and the wing is executing a ghost cut, ready to catch it or chase the offensive rebound. The 4th clip ends up with a layup from the point guard cutting in the open lane as a trailer after the floor has been spaced perfectly by the first three players to arrive.
The second thing they’re chasing, if they can’t get an easy finish, is to use the pressure they’re generating with the ball to create other opportunities.
Here in the first two clips, you have a perfect summary of what they want. In the first one the ball is deep into the paint with 21” on the shot clock, this brings five defenders into the paint, and creates a perfectly open 3PT on the kick out pass.
The second clip is even more interesting, there’s no crazy full court sprint, but the ball is getting inside the arc with 20” on the clock, hitting a good run by the trailer, who attracts three defenders close to him in the paint, resulting in a kick out to the corner and open 3.
So, the player with the ball obviously tries to push as often and as deep as possible, while the players without the ball are NOT running in the middle of the floor, but trying to get to the closest sideline. This depends on which side of the floor they are on once they’ve run wide, unless they have a chance of making a basket cut. You’ll see this concept clearly on two occasions in the video:
At the 38” and at the 47” mark, where they’re running wide and they see that the last defender is not looking at them, it opens up the possibility of a basket cut.
The last point regarding their transition is strictly connected to their shot selection. They’re comfortable shooting it in the first seconds of the possession if there’s space. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first pass and it doesn’t matter if the ball has touched the paint.
These are only some examples, I’ve tried to include different types of shots, from the trailer position, on a 2 side break, on a first pass in the corner, or from a handoff.
2 - Shot selection
Their shooting chart would make Daryl Morey quite happy:
They’re leading the league in both 3pt attempts per game and in finishes at the rim (per Synergy). They’re last in the league, by a mile, on mid and short-range attempts (again, Synergy definition and numbers).
They’ve taken only 2,8 per game of such shots, the team that has taken the lower number after them is Virtus Bologna with 7 (!) attempts per game, more than 2 times more than Varese. This shot selection brings them to the 3rd highest TS% of the league, following only the 2 Euroleague teams, Milan and Bologna.
This is what their shot chart looks like…
Now, let’s put the numbers aside, this chart absolutely matches what we see on the eye test: they’re not taking midrange jumpers. Instead, they’re aggressively driving into the paint, either to finish (many of their players are quite good at using contact to finish inside) or to reopen the perimeter.
On the perimeter, you can see their willingness to shoot 3-pointers either on the catch or off the dribble, with some players also experimenting with the side step and step-back 3s in close-out situations. For instance, they will make the defense fly with a fake and then shoot a 3 pointer instead of driving inside for a 2pt pull-up.
Now, let’s examine a little bit more how they get these shots, with some of their most-frequented actions and principles…
3 - Half-Court Offensive Principles
We are not going to analyze the whole Vaerese playbook in-depth, but the first thing that should catch attention is their ability to flow seamlessly from transition into their offensive triggers. Their starting alignment is usually the same, with the 4 interchangeable players running on the two sides of the floor and the 5-man running in the middle of the floor, from here they have four principal options that we’re going to analyze:
Drag: Ball screen in transition, usually very high on the floor if the corner is filled or deep and lower in the corner if empty corner.
Delay: Passing the ball to the 5 and playing from there. Either with the point guard getting the ball back immediately with a handoff or a screening guard-to-guard action on one of the two-sides
Stagger away: This can turn into different options, either a stagger into a handoff with the passer or stagger and immediate attack, or straight into a P&R
Pistol: Very common in the NBA, less in Europe, but not new. They can play different options out of this starting idea, with the guard-to-guard screen, or handoff, or also a stagger P&R that was used by Mike D’Antoni and the Suns back in the days.
In addition to this, we will see how they try to maximize the advantage of their lineup with four perimeter players involving the opponent x4 on defense, putting them in either a 1-on-1 situation or involving them in the action to force a switch.
Drag
Some quick things to observe:
The angle of the attack when they have a loaded corner. In the first clips you see, the ball handler doesn’t get below the level of the screen but attacks diagonally, to make it harder to get under the screen and make it easier to get a paint touch
The big slips the screen most of the time, his cue is the defender on the ball. When the defender opens up his hips and starts chasing the ball, he is getting ready to go over the screen. Now there’s no screen anymore, but a quick run to the rim that allows the screener to get deeper into the paint as a lob threat.
Spacing on the “4pt line”: The opposite wing stays wide, close to the sideline, and not on the 3pt line but 1 meter higher, in a spacing that many NBA teams call the “4pt line”
When they play with an empty corner they want to get the ball very deep, in order to make it tougher to stunt from the side of 3.
Delay
In the NBA the term “Delay” indicates a spacing where the 5 gets the pass at the top of the key and the players are in a 5-out spacing around him, from here there’s a multitude of possibilities that can be run…
Ball to 5 and a screening action guard-to-guard on either of the two sides. This is shown in the first two clips with different outcome and possibilities that emerge based on the different defensive coverages.
Ball to 5 and quick handoff with the point guard, who in this situation usually goes to play another quick handoff with the opposite wing. This action can either generate a switch, taking the team out of their original matchups, or this can generate a small advantage before getting into the screen if the defense chooses to go under the handoff instead of switching. This small advantage can prevent aggressive coverages and makes it easier for their bigs to slip.
Stagger away
From the same alignment, a Stagger action run with the 5 as the second screener from the middle of the floor and any other player as a first screener. From here they can either attack immediately if there’s an advantage, flow into a top P&R or play a handoff into a P&R with the passer. Sometimes, as you see at the 40” mark, the opposite wing can decide to come off on 5’s screen instead of setting a stagger, ensuring the offense has an element of unpredictablity.
Pistol
A pistol screen where one guard/wing sets a screen for the handler at the wing going towards the baseline. This is a good way to force a switch. While the guard is running off the flare from 5 there’s space for the point guard to create in 1-on-1, as you see in the first two clips.
Off this set, you can run an infinite number of options, either as specific calls or reads. Here you can see how they run a “Ricky”, meaning a screen + rescreen off the ball for the guard who set the first screen.
Another option they’ve played when they pass the ball ahead is one of my favorite actions. I’ve seen it called “21 Nash” from the Phoenix Suns, but lately this has been run by the Rockets, (you can find the video here). On the initial pass, the point guard sets a screen/ghost to the wing who runs into the P&R with the 5. It can be tricky to switch it and the result is often the ball going down-hill at full speed toward the middle of the floor, as you can see here, it creates a single-side tag situation.
The last thing that I want to highlight and that makes it very tough to play against Varese is how their roster and their lineup forces the opponents to make some tough decisions. For instance, such as changing their lineup to go smaller or adjusting their coverages for the rest of the game.
It’s something that is tough to summarize in a short video obviously, but I’ve made two short edits showing how they try to involve the opposing 4-man in the action, being forced not only to guard a player who’s able to shoot threes (most of the 4's in the league are floor-spacers) but real wings, who have played at the 3 most of their careers, who can play P&R, attack in space, come off a screen and so on.
Let’s take a look:
In the first clip, you see them simply attacking on the perimeter 1-on-1, the 2nd and the 3rd clips are more interesting. Putting the defender in an off-ball screen situation forces him to not only to guard a smaller and faster player, but also guard an action that he’s not used to guard.
Something else they like to do is to play a P&R 4-5 to invite teams to switch in situations where they usually wouldn’t, exposing their 5’s on the perimeter.
Look at what happens in the first clip, then in the second they get a miscommunication mistake on the Spain P&R.
The third clip is very interesting. They were attacking relentlessly using P&R 1-5, and the defense would struggle against the roll of the 5, so they put X4 on the 5 to switch the P&R and take away the roll, hiding their 5 on a wing. Varese reads this immediately and “hunts” the mismatch, calling the man guarded by X5 to screen. The conclusion is perfect for a highlight reel!
There are many other keys to the success of this team that can’t be included in a piece that’s already way too long. The coaching staff have drawn up clever ATOs, they have talented players and for sure they’re playing with intensity and clear ideas. They also have clear priorities on the defensive end of the floor, but we can’t go too deep here.
The idea of this post was to highlight what Varese is doing and welcome this sort of experimentation in European basketball. There are things that coaches of every level can take for their team, both professional and youth. Even if you don’t agree with this offensive approach, it’s still interesting to see a completely different model of basketball in action.
Ultimately Varese has a clear identity and idea in-mind of how they want to operate, which has been succinctly demonstrated by Head Coach Matt Brase. They have signed players who are effective at playing in this system, going as far as saying that some of them are perfectly suited to play in this way and would be way less effective in different environments. Looking forward to what will hopefully be more success for Varese in 2023!
Hope you’ve liked this, if you did I’d love it if you could subscribe and share it with your basketball friends and community, I’ll publish every weekend a list of 10 interesting things basketball-wise that I’ve seen, and some longer analyses like this.
Francesco
(All the numbers and stats are taken from SynergySports, on the 19th of January)