MIES (Switzerland) - Hapoel Netanel Holon traveled to Cholet with an unenviable record of losing their previous 3 road games in France.
Thanks to a red-hot shooting night that saw them go 16-of-31 from deep, Danny Franco's team managed to break the curse with a 103-92 win over Cholet Basket.
Holon actually made eight of those 16 three-pointers in the fourth quarter as they caught fire from deep to blow the game open.
Whilst it might appear that one hot patch won them the game, the truth is that their offense had been surgical in its execution for most of the night.
No doubt Danny Franco and his coaching staff will have taken some satisfaction from the way his team moved bodies and the ball to dissect their opponents in this game.
Let's dive into the film and see how they did it.
Shake, rattle and roll
The primary method that Holon used to dismantle Cholet's defense was moving around the pieces on the board during pick-and-roll action to force Cholet into finding different players to defend the roller.
Watch the first clip below and pay attention to the arrows on the screen. After you've watched it, we will explain what Holon were doing.
First off, we saw Holon's #10 Lior Carreira on the opposite lane line as #6 Hassan Martin sets the ball screen in the slot. His position informs his defender that helping on Martin rolling should be his responsibility, but Carreira leaks out during the ball screen action and forces him into a difficult decision.
Cholet hard hedged the screen, leaving the short roll pass open.
With Holon putting shooter Jordan McRae in the corner, it ended up his man who was forced to stop Martin in the short roll. When Martin made the read and found McRae in the corner, look at the impossible distance that Carreira's man had to recover to contest the shot.
Again, in the next play, we see the same alignment from Holon with one big already in the lane and the other high. Only on this occasion, #4 Todd Withers sets the "Ram" screen for #11 Nysier Brooks before he sets the ball screen.
Watch the arrow on screen again, and you see Withers' man hesitate for a split second to make sure he had no responsibility for Brooks rolling to the rim.
For a shooter like Withers and a passer like Jordan Bone, that split second is more than enough time.
In the next clip, we move into the third quarter, and Cholet were up by two. The player you need to watch here is Holon's #5 Xavier Munford.
Informed by the coverage we saw in the first clip, Munford already knows that his man will have to take care of Martin rolling to the rim.
The cut he makes is called a "Shake" as he lifts from the corner to the wing, timed exactly with the point of contact in the ball screen. This may look like such a simple action to create an open shot, but basketball is a simple game when all five players on the court know the reads and execute the timing.
We should also mention that Munford not only took a blow to his eyebrow that drew blood, but also played from the start of the third quarter with four fouls after picking up a technical foul.
Jordan McRae will rightfully take the headlines with his 24 points, but Munford's disciplined 17 points in 17 minutes, whilst shooting 75 percent from the field, made a huge impact on the outcome of this game.
When it comes to manipulating Cholet's defensive rotations, this fourth clip might be the one that gives Danny Franco and his staff the most satisfaction.
It is certainly the most satisfying to watch and analyze. The design of the play and the way his team executed it were both as good as you will see on a basketball court this season.
As the arrow pops up on the screen pointed at #52 Jordan McRae, watch as #21 Netanel Artzi is waving him through to use the down screen from Carreira.
McRae was already in position and didn't need to be told what the play was. Artzi was just selling the defense that the play was for McRae, when really it was misdirection for the same short roll action and isolated help on the roller that they had used so ruthlessly all game.
And the reward for Artzi's acting skills? A wide open three-ball to give Holon a nine-point lead. Just watch the frustration from Cholet's head coach, Fabrice Lefrancois, behind him.
However, as frustrating as it is when your opponent is executing like this, Lefrancois will hopefully have taken some encouragement from the way his team's defensive effort rushed and harassed Holon into playing at a tempo they hadn't planned to.
"It was a very high-tempo game. Not really the game we planned at the beginning. Definitely, we were able with a heart of determination to try to minimize their huge athletic ability. [...] My players' determination came out and did a good job. An impressive win for us," said Danny Franco.
Not every team that visits Cholet will shoot the ball like Holon did in this game.
Bonus
We couldn't end this article without mentioning one final play.
With 5:14 left on the clock in the fourth, Cholet called a timeout, down four and looking for a score to keep the game in reach.
Coming out of the timeout, Holon not only broke up the play that Cholet planned and got the steal, but also went down the other end and delivered the eye candy that you see in the clip below.
Watch as Holon used a dribble weave to move the ball from the first side to the second side. Then watch as #21 Artzi timed his back cut to perfection.
Just when his defender thought he'd covered the back door cut well enough, he found himself running into a double pin down on the weak side.
Artzi just needed to wait for the perfect delivery from Jordan Bone, and Holon had broken the game open again. Cholet never really recovered from this again.