Blind Pig

Korea women ran a clever & quick hitting backdoor play out of a timeout that in the coaching community we call “Blind Pig.”

This works against teams that are “up the line” or denial teams one pass away, or if teams are going to try and take away your best player.

As we see the denial opening up after a flash to the high post, then a backdoor cut.

The key teaching point with this is to drop the ball off the passers hip for a quicker pass.

If you are familiar with this terminology then you know this is from the Triangle Offense that Phil Jackson made popular with the Michael Jordan Bulls & Kobe Lakers championship teams.

Phil Jackson’s Triangle Offense calls this “Back Door Step”

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Phil Jackson’s teams had 2 main variations of this action, the “Back Door Step” action, as well as a strongside option.

The main read out of the Triangle Offense was when the main options were not available or a team (like Rondo here) is gap heavy, the opposite big on the block would flash to the elbow/nail and hit the guard up top backdoor.

The other variation or counter was the strongside option where the initial entry pass was denied, the big steps out of the post on the ballside and then hits the wing backdoor.

Here is an example for Jordan from the 1996 NBA Finals:

D’Antoni in 2005 ran this as an ATO special with the Suns as a counter out of their “3 Down” series.

In the 2015 NBA Finals, the Warriors countered the Cavs denial of Steph Curry multiple times by flashing to the elbow and finding him backdoor. Here is a counter to their “Loop” action for Steph.

“Loop” action:

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Quin Snyder is the current coach that has run Blind Pig action the most, especially his time with the Utah Jazz.

Mike Brown ran a creative setup with this during his time with the Kings, using a player like Sabonis as the handler in multiple plays. Here they setup “Ricky” action initially and then flash for the backdoor setup.

This action has evolved over the past 5-10 years in different ways, morphing from just a backdoor setup to a way to get a player going downhill and then into a ballscreen setup.

Dame used to get free for backdoors off the Iverson action, when a team goes over the top or denied his initial cut.

Luka with the Mavs and Porzingis used to setup this action out of the initial Iverson cut to get him downhill and into the 2-man game easier.

The Celtics have been one of the most innovative teams over the past few years under Mazzulla, watch here how Smart goes into a Flare screen for Tatum, then flashes to free up Brown downhill. Hiding Mobley on Smart works in theory, but NBA modern offense has evolved so much now Smart is the “Big” in this action.

Using traditional bigs as well to free up the pass and ballscreen options, the Celtics like to pass to Tatum for a ballscreen and put the big on the opposite wing. Now they use this action as a counter to flash the big and then go into the hand off/backdoor option into spread ballscreen.

Last year the Celtics put their bigs in the opposite corner often and set guard/guard screens as the play here starts with Brown screening. Then when the big cheats they skip into this hand off/blind pig action.

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Coach Pyper