“Horns”

Term: Horns

Definition: A half-court set in which two bigs set ball-screens on both sides of the ball-handler with one big rolling and the other popping.

Synonyms: “V”

Explanation: Every good pick-and-roll play design stresses the tagger, either by lengthening his distance of travel or making the choice between staying home on the three-point line or taking the roller especially difficult. One of the simplest and most effective ways to do this is through a set known as “Horns,” in which the ball-handler receives simultaneous middle ball-screens on both sides of his defender.

In the most traditional Horns action, the 4 and 5 are the screeners, and the ball-handler uses the 5’s screen. As he begins to turn the corner, the 5 rolls and the 4 pops. The 2 and 3, meanwhile, stay buried in the deep corners as shooters. Real basketball, however, does not operate in a vacuum. Sometimes it might be easier for the ball-handler to come off the 4; maybe the ball-handler is one-hand dominant and makes a decision based on direction as opposed to personnel; maybe the 5 is a better shooter than the 4, so the 5 pops and the 4 rolls.

The decision-making within any Horns set is fluid. However, teams must be careful to avoid two players rolling or two players popping. This is why some guidelines usually govern how the play unfolds, with NBA teams generally running the action in one of two ways:

1. The better shooter of the screeners pops, and the worse shooter rolls.
2. The big who actually sets the screen rolls, and the other big pops.

In both cases, the direction of the ball-handler is not predetermined, but the subsequent roles of the screeners develops accordingly.

The reason why this roll-pop dynamic is so important relates to the concept mentioned at the outset: pressuring the tagger. (This idea within a Horns action is very similar to that of a “Double Drag.”)To understand this more fully, let’s walk through an example.

Here we have the New York Knicks running Horns, with Jarrett Jack as the ball-handler and Enes Kanter and Kristaps Porzingis as the screen-setting bigs. Jack, as we can see, chooses to use the screen from Kanter.

At this point in the play, everything looks pretty clogged. There doesn’t appear to be anywhere for Kanter to roll, and Jack is moving downhill into a mess of bodies.

Fast-forwarding just a moment more, however, reveals the central defensive tension Horns action creates. As Kanter begins to roll, Robin Lopez, Kanter’s defender, is caught in a the familiar two-on-one scenario created by a “Drop” pick-and-roll coverage: He must keep both the ball-handler, Jack, and the roller, Kanter, in front. Ideally, he is aided by the tagger — the man who briefly bumps the roller to slow him down — as the on-ball defender fights to get back in front. In this case, the tagger is Lauri Markkanen, who is guarding Porzingis.

But Markkanen is caught in a dilemma. If he gets in front of Kanter to slow down his momentum, he leaves Porzingis wide open for a potential catch-and-shoot three on the pop. If he sticks with Porzingis, he leaves Lopez on a two-on-one island.

Although this is the natural problem for the tagger on any pick-and-roll, Horns action emphasizes this dilemma by presenting the obvious tagger immediately. Markkenen, therefore, has no time to read the ball-handler, Jack, and suss out where he might be going with the ball. Thrown right into the thick of things due to the placement of Porzingis, he must choose immediately without knowing what Jack is going to do. For Jack, this makes life easy. All he has to do is read Markkanen: If he stays on Porzingis, hit Kanter on the roll. If he stays with Kanter, hit Porzingis on the pop.

Now let’s look at an inverse scenario with the screener popping and the non-screener rolling. Whether or not this is by design or personnel-based, only the team who runs the actions knows. Either way, it manufactures a twist on the roll-pop predicament by taking advantage of traditional pick-and-pop defense.

Against any typical pick-and-pop, non-switching defenses respond by having the nearest perimeter player stunt at the popper to buy time for the popper’s defender to recover. But due to the mechanics of an inverted Horns action, this traditional defensive maneuver does not work.

The concept behind the Horns pop play is simple: remove the stunter. Take this Horns set run by the Toronto Raptors, in which Serge Ibaka screens and pops, while the other big involved, Jonas Valanciunas, simply rolls.

Due to the related skill sets of Ibaka and Valanciunas, this is the logical high-low outcome for the two players. But the process of rumbling down the lane is more than just a spacing cut by Valanciunas. Once Ibaka pops, it would make sense for Greg Monroe, Valanciunas’ man, to stunt to Ibaka. He is, after all, the closest perimeter defender. Devin Booker, who is in the far corner, expects this.

As the play progresses, Valanciunas’ roll drags Monroe, the logical stunter, away from a stunting position — he can’t just leave Valanciunas free to momentarily stunt at Ibaka. In an ideal world, Booker would recognize this development and stunt instead. But even with instanteous play diagnosis, that is an extremely long stunt for Booker. What ends up happening, therefore, is Booker stays put and Ibaka pops into wide open space.

At this point in the play, there’s nothing the defense can do other than to hope that the initial on-ball defender, Tyler Ulis, can pivot and sprint back out to Ibaka in what amounts to a late switch. Here, none of the potential fixes occur. Ulis stays on the ball and Booker remains in the corner. Ibaka has all day to knock down a jumper.

In a perfect Horns world, either the roller, popper or ball-handler springs free for a clean look at the basket. Often times, this is exactly what happens. But NBA players have run and defended Horns action hundreds of times over the course of their careers and are familiar with the ins and outs of the action.

If nothing opens up on the initial screening action, two continuing actions are commmonly built into Horns. The first is one drilled into players of all ages: high-low. Because both the popper and roller operate in the middle of the floor, a natural opportunity to throw the ball right down the lane opens up.

The circumstances for this connection arise out of particular defensive responses to Horns action. In the simplest form (and most uncommon), the ball-handler hits the popper, and the roller turns and seals his man in the restricted area.

More likely is a situation in which the defender in the weak-side corner gets caught momentarily on the roller. This happens when the defense utilizes an aggressive tactic against the initial Horns ball-screen, with the screener’s defender confronting the ball at or above the level of the screen. This leaves the roller free to get in behind, as the tagger takes the popper and a guard takes the rolling 5.

To see this more clearly, watch this example involving the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics. As Josh Richardson of the Heat comes off the Horns ball-screen from teammate Willie Reed, Kelly Olynyk greets Richardson with pressure. Reed, therefore, rolls freely down the lane.

Due to the ball pressure, the defense properly anticipates that the roller, Reed, will not be an available option for the ball-handler, Richardson. The tagger — Jonas Jerebko of the Celtics — subsequently ignores his tag and takes the popper, James Johnson, trusting that his teammate in the weak-side corner, Gerald Green, will take care of Reed.

But Green, as we can see, is caught in his own dilemma. Does he get to Reed, or does he stick with the shooter in the corner? The natural choice is to prevent a dunk, but even with proper positioning Green is at a size disadvantage. If Reed seals him in the paint, he will not be able to contest with any force.

Hitting the high-low is hard because it requires bang-bang recognition and passing. Here, Richardson gets rid of it quickly out of the initial ball-screen, and Johnson basically touch passes it down low to Reed. This is too quick for Boston to handle, and the result is an easy two points.

The full evolution of a Horns action results in two pick-and-rolls on opposite ends of the floor. If the popper receives a pass from the ball-handler and cannot shoot or hit a high-low pass, he immediately looks to dribble handoff or throw-and-chase with his teammate in the opposite corner. Although this doesn’t have the immediate scoring potential of the initial action, it keeps the offense flowing by pushing the ball through multiple hands.

Film Study: “Horns”

Below is a video compilation of various examples of NBA offenses running Horns. Pay attention to the particulars of each action: whether the 4 or 5 screens, whether the 4 or 5 rolls, and whether the particular route-running decision makes sense given the skill sets of the screeners. Also lock in on how each play stresses the tagger and how he reacts to the subsequent decison-making pressure.