“Veerback Switch” (aka “Late Switch”)
Term: Veerback Switch (aka “Veer Switch,” “Late Switch,” or “Paint Switch”)
Definition: an emergency/unplanned switch after a ballscreen in which the ballhandler’s defender and the screener’s defender realize they can’t recover to their original assignments, so they switch: The ballhandler’s defender takes the screener, and the screener’s defender takes the ballhandler.
How It Works:
How Veerback Works Against a Pick-and-Pop:
In the diagram below, x1 and x5 are icing a side pick-and-roll: x1 puts himself between the ball and the screen, forcing the ballhandler down the sideline, and x5 drops to contain the ballhandler’s dribble penetration:
Because x1 is denying the ballscreen, the ballhandler dribbles once or twice down the sideline. The on-ball defender, x1, tries to recover back in front of the ballhandler, but icing the screen has caused him to be a step or two behind the ball. As a result, x5 must stay with the ballhandler so as not to give up an easy layup:
However, the screener, 5, pops instead of rolls and is wide open on the perimeter. Because x5 is too concerned with the ballhandler to leave him and recover to 5, he and x1 execute a veerback switch. The screener’s defender (x5) yells out his team’s call for a veerback, often “veerback” or just “veer,” so x1 knows to take the screener as x5 stays with the ballhandler:
How Veerback Works Against a Pick-and-Roll:
Veerbacks can be used with any pick-and-roll coverage, but are seen most often with drop/ice/weak, all of which ask the screener’s defender detach from the screener and drop back. Sometimes, containing the ballhandler brings the screener’s defender too far from the screener, even in a pick-and-roll situation. In this diagram, x1 goes over the screen and is attempting his “rearview pursuit,” but then veers back to x5. Notice that the veerback switch occurs below the 3-point line, which is where some teams want it to occur on a pick-and-roll:
The primary difference in veerback switching against pick-and-pops versus pick-and-rolls is the activity of the ballhandler’s original defender (x1). Against a pick-and-pop, he is concerned with closing out to the screener. Against a pick-and-roll, x1 is taught to get into the legs of the roller to prevent a pocket pass and then box him out to prevent an offensive rebound.
That assumes x1 successfully navigated over the screen. If he gets caught by the screen, however, the veerback can happen much sooner—while the screen is still being set, in fact. Watch in this play as Cam Reddish (who was icing the pick) gets caught up on Nikola Vucevic’s screen. Instead of retreating to the roller, Reddish gets low and into Vucevic’s legs early to prevent him from gaining momentum in the first place. Because of the mismatch, Reddish fronts Vucevic in the post, which tells Skylar Mays, the low man, that he needs to come into the lane and prevent an over-the-top pass to Vooch:
Veerback Against a Pick-and-Pop
Because drop/weak/ice coverage ask the screener’s defender to drop back and protect the hoop, they are susceptible to pick-and-pops. In this example, Kevin Love is setting an angled ballscreen for Ricky Rubio. Rubio’s defender, Devonte’ Graham, is icing the screen: shifting his body towards the inside to force Rubio down the sideline, not through the middle.
After he passes Love, Rubio takes one more long dribble, drawing Graham and Love’s defender, Herb Jones, with him. Because Graham iced the screen, he is behind the ball and thus relying on Jones to contain Rubio’s dribble penetration:
As Rubio picks up his dribble for a pass, Graham attempts a veerback, spinning around and closing out to Love:
Graham’s closeout is too late and/or too short to deter Love, who knocks down the 3-pointer:
This is a common theme. Veerbacks can be beaten by tall pick-and-pop bigs who easily shoot over point guards’ closeouts:
But if the veerback comes early enough, it can nullify a pick-and-pop.
This next play is called Horns Out Miami. From Horns Out, Vucevic (5) sets a cross screen for Zach LaVine (2) to cut to the left wing and get the ball, followed by Miami action: a DHO from LaVine to DeMar DeRozan (3) into a ballscreen from Vucevic:
But Atlanta switches the DHO, putting Reddish on DeRozan, and then Reddish ices the would-be ballscreen, forcing DeRozan toward the sideline, away from Vucevic:
Thus Vucevic flips the angle of the ballscreen so DeRozan can drive toward the sideline:
DeRozan attempts to do what Rubio did in the previous clip: dribble once or twice toward the baseline to draw both defenders away from Vucevic on the pop. But the Hawks call out the veerback soon enough for Reddish to recover to Vucevic before he has time to shoot.
From there, the Bulls attempt to attack the mismatches resulting from the switch, first by DeRozan isolating Capela and then with Vucevic posting up Reddish, but the possession ends with Vucevic missing a turnaround baseline jumper:
Stunt Against a Pick-and-Pop
If not veerback switching, many NBA teams defend a pick-and-pop by stunting from the closest perimeter defender. In this play, John Collins screens Derrick Rose and pops:
Collins’s defender, Taj Gibson, is in drop coverage, putting both himself and Rose in the paint to contain Trae Young, who throws a behind-the-back pass to a wide open Collins on the perimeter:
Moving with the flight of the ball, RJ Barrett, who is guarding Kevin Huerter in the corner, makes an aggressive stunt towards Collins—buying time for Gibson to close out—but recovers before Collins can find Huerter open for a corner 3:
Trae’s pass is just a little bit off, and Barrett’s stunt plus Gibson’s closeout are enough to successfully contest Collins’s shot:
At the lower levels, stunts are sometimes designed to discourage the pass to the popping big, but NBA teams tell their defenders not to stunt until the ball is in the air so that the player receiving the pass thinks the stunt is actually a full closeout. How hard he stunts depends upon the shooting ability of both the popping big and his original matchup. If he stunts too hard, he can still give up a 3, albeit to someone else:
Punishing a Stunt With a 45 Cut:
There are many ways to punish a stunt, which often leaves the defense vulnerable on the weak side since one defender is momentarily guarding two people. The simplest is a cut from the stunter’s mark, especially a a 45 cut from the weakside wing.
In this play, Jaren Jackson Jr picks and pops to the top of the key, prompting a stunt from Bojan Bogdanovic at the nail:
But Bojan makes the mistake of stunting before Ja Morant passes to Jackson. Instead, Bojan bites on Morant’s pass fake to Jackson, and then Morant hits Kyle Anderson making a 45 cut behind Bojan:
Although Bojan falls for the fake pass, Kyle Anderson should have been met by the “low man,” Donovan Mitchell guarding Grayson Allen in the weakside corner:
Even if the low man stops the cutter from scoring, he leaves open the player in the far corner. In this next clip, Vucevic “releases into the pocket” (similar to the short roll) instead of popping, but the effect is the same. The nail defender stunts (blue), and the weakside wing 45 cuts behind him (yellow):
This time, the low man (Bogdan Bogdanovic, blue) follows the cutter (yellow), and Vucevic makes a skip pass to Bogi’s man, DeRozan, in the far corner for an open 3:
There are countless ways to punish drop or ice coverage with a popping big. Put simply, the more often a defense is in stunting and thus in rotation/recovery, the more likely it will make a mistake:
Veering Back to the Veerback:
The veerback is not without weaknesses. The most notable is a poorly executed switch, such as in this next example. Notice that Clint Capela points at Vucevic to tell Bogdanovic to take him on a switch, but both of them remain with the ball as Vooch hits an easy 3:
The second biggest weakness of a veerback is the resulting mismatch. In this example, of Pistol Nash, the Hawks successfully execute a switch, but then Bogdanovic is guarding Vucevic and Capela is guarding DeRozan. The Bulls flow into split-cut action and Capela, perhaps more concerned with DeRozan cutting than shooting, gives up too much room and concedes a catch-and-shoot 3:
There are ways to mitigate mismatches, such as “triple switching” or “scram switching,” both of which involve a second (off-ball) switch to lessened the mismatch caused by the first switch. If the offensive big tries to post up his mismatch, the defense might try to front (the call for this is often a color, such as “red” or “white”). All of these, however, are made easier by having the right personnel, which is often what dictates whether a team veerbacks or stunts in the first place.
Veerback on Pick-and-Rolls:
Veerbacks often occur during pick-and-rolls when the ballhandler “drags it out” or “snakes” the PnR, dribbling sideways to make it difficult, if not impossible, for the screener’s defender to guard both ball and the roller.
In this example, of Horns Chin Ballscreen, Royce O’Neal “weaks” the pick-and-roll, jumping between Gordon Hayward and the screen to force Hayward to reject the screen and dribble toward his left (weak) hand. “Weak” is similar to ice in that the on-ball defender denies the ballscreen while the screener’s defender drops to contain dribble penetration:
The screener, Miles Bridges, flips the angle of his screen, and Hayward snakes back to his right toward the middle of the floor, as Derrick Favors, Bridges’s defender, drops to contain the drive:
At this point, O’Neal is too far from Hayward to stop the easy layup, so the Jazz veerback switch: Favors takes Hayward, and O’Neal takes Bridges. Here’s the first part of that possession:
But because the Hornets get into their offense quickly — there are 19 seconds on the shot clock when LaMelo Ball makes the first pass to Hayward—there is still enough time after the veerback switch for Hayward to reset, make a boomerang pass with Terry Rozier, and make a pull-up 3 over Favors:
Full play:
Notes on Terminology:
- The Veerback Switch or “Veer Switch” has nothing to do with a Veer Screen, in which a player sets a ballscreen and then sets an off-ball screen for a different teammate instead of rolling to the hoop.
