Raptors Playbook: Feeding Scottie & Beating Zone

As the talent level in the NBA continues to creep higher, and the variety of roles and positions you can put players in grows; so too, does the job of head coaches and offensive architects. The Raptors, as currently constructed, are bereft of pull-up shooting and and dynamic, live-dribble creation. Those limitations force the Raptors to shorten the playbook in some of the more conventional 2025 areas, and widen it in some unique ways.

Considering half the season is gone, it’s a good time to check in on some of the Raptors successes from their playbook. You’ll get to see how the Raptors create buckets despite their limitations. This is part one of a three part series highlighting some of my favorite plays.

First up: a classic of the Raptors (and the NBA’s quite frankly) playbook and a set that extends past Darko Rajakovic’s time as coach. The “Chin” screen comes from the Princeton Offense, and the Raptors have been one of the highest usage teams with it because they’ve had huge wings/forwards as their “main guys” for a long stretch of years now – this play also follows LeBron James around wherever he goes – particularly, with Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby (to some degree) and now Scottie Barnes, the Raptors have to create deep touches for their forwards. 

Here’s three plays that help illustrate why it’s such a homerun for Barnes in particular.

The first, against Boston, is less an attempt at getting a post touch — which is often how this play is used, as we’ll see later — and more a means to escape the matchup against Jayson Tatum. Barnes uses his size advantage as the top horn (role in the play), to set the Chin screen and plant hard enough to force the switch. Then, once Barnes has the matchup he wants, they filter into a snug pick n’ roll and Barnes slow plays his way, under control, into his spot for the short jumper. Nothing too fancy, but a good look for your star in an area that he’s clearly interested in developing – and keep in mind this is just a counter against teams with strong wing defenders like the Celtics.

The second play, against the Cavs, is the usual, intended function of the play. Barnes operates as the initiator, and Immanuel Quickley is the Chin screener. Basically, the Raptors want to force the Cavs to defend a Barnes post up with a guard, or surrender a sliver of space to Barnes heading downhill with the potential of a high-low pass. In the first play, the Cavs opt not to switch the action and that allows Barnes to get the seal on Dean Wade, and Poeltl delivers a great high-low feed that leads to a dunk for Barnes. Additionally, putting Gradey Dick in the weak-side corner so that the tag man is A) a relatively tiny Darius Garland and B) reluctant to come over and help off of Dick – well, that’s a nice touch.

Obviously, the Raptors loved this look against the Cavs — who are weak on the wings — and ran it a second time in a row, only this time the Cavs surrendered the switch from Wade to Caris LeVert. With the immense size advantage, Barnes punishes the hell out of LeVert and gets fouled to head to the line.

Easy offense for the Raptors, and for their best player.

Second up: a couple zone busters – one of them scripted, but most interpretive.

Also, kind of a funny thing, I’ve been pulling clips the past little while to write this piece and had pulled a specific Barnes/Dick link up, only to see that LeeZ requested I break it down under my piece after the Raps/Magic game. Serendipity!

So, as a quick side note: the Raptors have been a relatively limited dribble creation/pull up jumper team for, at this point, years and years. As a result of that, they’ve faced more zone (top 7 this season), and have had to be very specific in how they utilize their shooters against it. They can’t just run cross screens at the top and have a guy like Garland or Jalen Brunson make magic out of it.

The lynchpin of the Raptors zone offense is, of course, Dick. Not only are the Raptors actually one of the 6 best teams in the league scoring against zone (1.182 ppp, very strong), but they have a huge reliance on Dick’s spacing. Also, by his lonesome he’s responsible for nearly 40% of the Raptors 3-point makes against zone this season.

All the main tenets of good zone scoring are present here. The Raptors have a guy flashing middle, they’re moving the ball quickly to try and tease the zone into collapsing, and more than almost anything – they want to collapse space for Dick to work in.

In the first play, Barnes sees an opportunity to set a flare against the outside of the top of the zone, then flash middle to catch the ball. What this accomplishes, basically, is to make the low man responsible for Dick, then on the catch force him to step up to you. Barnes is screening to create an empty-side 2-on-1 scenario. Now, the brilliance isn’t just Barnes’, as Dick realizes that ‘KCP’ is attempting to zone up the corner while Banchero steps up to Barnes – and therein lies the opportunity for the cut. A nice mind meld play from Barnes & Dick as they manipulate the zone for a layup.

The second play is a lot simpler, even though it’s scripted. The Kings were throwing zone at the Raptors after time outs, so the Raptors had Dick inbound (he often does), and had him cut to the side of the court that DeMar DeRozan was on. If DeRozan was strong side, Dick would’ve stayed there. The reason being: DeRozan isn’t a very proactive defender, so the Raptors can simply sink middle, extend wide, and see what the defense responds to. In this case, the top of the zone played the pass middle, so Mitchell sprayed wide to Dick for the triple.

And lastly, we’re going to see the Raptors utilizing the pass to shift the top of the Magic zone, but they’re also going to utilize a timed corner to bucket cut from Olynyk as the ball touches middle — just to see if a layup materializes — and if nothing comes of it, he filters out to the other side and sets a pin-in screen for Dick. Simple, easy, effective basketball. Although, when you’re scoring against zone, it always looks easy.

The next piece will focus more so on how the Raptors respond to high pressure defense, and what their counters to that are. Stay tuned!

Have a blessed day.

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