Explain One Play: Steve Kerr Expands D'Angelo Russell's Game

This one weird trick will help D'Angelo Russell fit better with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green

A list of all Explain One Play articles and videos is at The new Explain One Play index.

One of the big themes of this season is Coach Steve Kerr having the team play in an offense that will be compatible with the core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Because Steph and Klay are so incredible off-ball and Draymond is so intelligent on-ball, it is important for D’Angelo Russell to start becoming a threat off-ball.

D’Angelo actually had decent catch-and-shoot stats with the Brooklyn Nets:

and these have ticked up in the Kerrball Space Program, both in frequency and EFG%:

Video Analysis

But I wanted to deep-dive into how D’Angelo is getting the catch-and-shoots. Kerr is trying to expand D’Angelo’s off-ball game in a subtle but important way. So here is a video analysis of D’Angelo’s scoring from the 2019 Brooklyn Nets vs Philadelphia 76ers playoff series, and a comparison with the recent 1/28/20 Golden State Warriors at Philadelphia 76ers game and last night’s game at Cleveland Cavaliers.

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Other In-Game Notes

• For god’s sake, Dubs!! You can’t just tank all season and then take a night off against a serious rival for last place. REAL TANKERS (DON’T) BRING IT EVERY NIGHT

• CLE seriously overplaying the handoff. So Dray hands off to Poole, immediately slips to counter the overplay. But Poole didn’t lob, turnover pass instead.

• Definitely in “very stoppable force vs very moveable object” territory here. Nance DHO off Love’s foot. Then Chriss drives, hands ball to CLE. Then immediately steals back, leading to a brick 3 for D Lee.

• Quietly poignant moment there. D-Lo gets stopped, swings ball to a weakside curl, which makes a ton of sense if Steph and Klay are there, but in this case it’s Chriss and GR3 and it gets ugly. But I guess building habits for their return...

• Haha, Draymond nowadays exclusively gets his defensive energy from successful lobs on the offensive end

• Ooooh, that Dray-Chriss lob should be good for another 2 minutes of intense D from Dray

• When Tristan T actually had the nerve to try to iso Dray, I think that awakened the fires of the four Finals

• Chriss also has the important skill of dunking the ball so that it goes through the basket very fast and bounces high off the floor. Looks really cool and slows down any counter attack. (This is more than 10% serious, but less than 90% serious)

• I *think* Dray was trying to end Q3 by running that fake PNR, weakside slip play (usually for Klay) for GR3, but everyone was completely in chaos and they got nothing but a Dray hoist.

• That’s actually a nice set GSW could stand to use more. Dray and Chriss on wing, D-Lo curls. Chriss dives. Dray either gives D-Lo handoff, or lobs to Chriss.

• What is this Victory that people speak of? I am not familiar with these strange customs

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