Spurs Playbook: Diving Into How San Antonio Runs Their Offense

Coach Popovich has continued incorporating new actions for his youngsters.

Can you believe the San Antonio Spurs are at the midway mark of their regular-season schedule? Even with them sporting an abysmal 7-34 record and sitting dead last in the Western Conference, the youngest team in the league has seen numerous encouraging developments that have made their aggravating losses manageable, including an ever-expanding playbook.

Coach Popovich kept things simple for his battalion of inexperienced prospects at the start of this campaign, but he has continued incorporating brand-new actions into his half-court sets that boosts the strengths of his best players. Keeping that in mind, here are six plays that highlight how the good guys have manipulated the Xs and Os to find cracks in the defense.

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1.) Delay + Chin + Lob

Spewing terms on a page and hoping everyone follows along is never my goal, and this site is supposed to be a place where Spurs fans feel at home to ask questions and learn about the intricacies of basketball. So, before you open another tab and search what in the world any of the words that make up this play mean, how about we explore this set from end to end?

Everything starts with Sochan advancing the ball up the court and executing a dribble handoff with Vassell on the right wing. From there, San Antonio is in position to flow into the two main actions that help them score on this sequence, which are Delay and Chin. Let’s break them down.

The first element that sets the Spurs in motion is Delay Action. That refers to Vassell swinging the ball to Wembanyama at the top of the key with five-out spacing. Despite that pass seeming somewhat innocuous, it makes Victor a temporary playmaking hub, prompting his teammates to relocate around him. Tre cuts through the paint and into the right corner while Devin sets a brush screen for Sochan to lift to the slot.

From there, Wembanyama reverses the ball to Sochan and receives a back screen from Champagnie, a simple maneuver known as Chin Action. Victor uses that brief pick to make a beeline to the basket for an uncontested alley-oop courtesy of a picture-perfect lob over the top of Luke Kornet. But why does this work?

First, San Antonio clears out the entire left side of the floor, ensuring that no one tags Wembanyama when he dives to the basket. Though help defenders could always come from the right side of the floor, the threat of Jones and Devin screening for each other in the corner occupies Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum. With everyone engaged, Jaylen Brown and Al Horford fail to communicate a switch after the back screen. SLAM.

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