“Pre-Switch”
Term: Pre-switch
Definition: an off-ball switch in anticipation of a ballscreen so that a better defender is now guarding the ballscreener and can thus switch onto the ballhandler
See Also:
- Veerback Switch: an emergency switch after a ballscreen in which dribbler’s defender can’t recover to the dribbler, so he switches onto the roller as the roller’s defender switches onto the dribbler
- Peel Switch: an emergency switch in which a help defender switches onto the ballhandler/cutter, whose original defender then peels off and guards the open player
- Scram Switch: a switch to lessen the mismatch caused by an earlier switch (a pre-switch PREVENTS a mismatch, whereas a scram switch mitigates a mismatch that’s already happened)
How It Works:
In the diagram above, x3 and x5 pre-switch so that x3 is now guarding 5 when 5 sets a ballscreen for 1. Typically, a preswitch is followed by another switch: When 5 sets that ballscreen, x3 then switches onto 1.
Towards the end of the first quarter, New Orleans’s Trey Murphy is guarding San Antonio’s Lonnie Walker IV (green), a few feet from Herb Jones—one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA as a rookie—guarding his man in the corner. Meanwhile, Dejounte Murray (orange) waits for the clock to wind down:
But as Walker goes to set a ballscreen, Herb Jones preswitches onto him so he can then switch onto Dejounte Murray:
Dejounte Murray now has only 5 seconds left on the shot clock, and he’s guarded by a better defender (Herb Jones) than who had been guarding him at the start of the play (Naji Marshall). Not only does Herb force Dejounte into missing a tough 2, he gets a fastbreak layup right before the quarter ends:
Why It Works:
Pre-switches work because they turn a negative (your worst perimeter defender switches onto their best ballhandler) into a positive (your best perimeter defender, or at least a better defender, makes that switch instead).
Most NBA defenses switch everything when there is less than ~7 seconds on the shot or game clock because that’s not much time for the offense to attack mismatches. A 1–5 Pick-and-Roll, for example, lets the defense switch its point guard onto the opponent’s center because there’s not enough time for that center to establish post position, get a pass, and punish his smaller defender. The ballhandler is thus forced to isolate the opponent’s center, but there’s little time to do so (and the help defenders are keyed in and waiting).
As ballhandlers got better at self-creation, however, pre-switching became more and more popular, especially with Draymond Green and the Golden State Warriors.
Besides low-clock situations, pre-switching is also common when preventing the offense from mismatch hunting, which is discussed further in the next section.
Countering the Counter: Attacking a Pre-Switch:
The first thing offenses try to do is cancel the ballscreen; if you can avoid the opponent’s best defender from switching onto your ballhandler, you probably should.
Here, Boston’s Derrick White (light blue) comes to set a ballscreen for Jaylen Brown so that White’s defender, Steph Curry (green), switches onto Brown. But Draymond and Curry pre-switch, so Brown cancels the screen:
Even though the Warriors don’t get to switch Draymond onto Brown, they avoid a mismatch and they force Marcus Smart (instead of Jaylen Brown) to attack Curry, and Smart misses the layup:
Another anti-pre-switch counter offenses use is having the screener start further away from his other off-ball teammates. In Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Finals, the Boston Celtics pre-switched so that Curry couldn’t attack Robert Williams III’s ballscreen defense. But then the Warriors made pre-switching more difficult, mainly by having the screener (usually, Andre Igoudala) begin at the Elbow or near middle of the court instead of by the baseline (in other words, farther away from a pre-switchable teammate). For example, Igoudala begins in the middle of the court to set this drag screen:
With the pre-switch prevented, RWIII had no choice but to switch onto Curry, leading to predictable results:
If the defense still tries to pre-switch that, the off-ball player is left open for much longer, for either a catch-and-shoot 3 or a cut to the hoop. In this example from the 2021 NBA Playoffs, Atlanta’s Danilo Gallinari (light blue) is setting a ballscreen so that his defender, Brook Lopez, switches onto Trae Young. Milwaukee’s Thanasis Antetokounmpo, who subbed in this play for his defense as the quarter winds down, leaves Bogdan Bogdanovic (green) so he can pre-switch onto Gallinari and then switch onto Trae Young:
However, Trae Young passes to Bogdanovic before Lopez can close out, and Atlanta scores a 3:
In a similar situation, the Warriors punish the Denver Nuggets’ pre-switching by having Curry find Klay Thompson for a 3 before Nikola Jokic can close out in time:
(These counters are also used to attack scram switching, which is the focus of an upcoming post.)
Another counter to a pre-switch is to set two ballscreens on the same play. For example, if x3 pre-switches onto 5, then 5 sets the ballscreen for 1 as he normally would, letting x3 switch onto 1. But then 1 gets a ballscreen from 3, who is now guarded by x5—the defender whom the offense originally wanted to attack:
