Sergio Scariolo’s Eurobasket Qualifiers Playbook

After an unexpected run at the Italian championship, Virtus Bologna has decided to change his head coach, replacing Alexandar Djordjevic with one of the top coaches available on the market: Sergio Scariolo.
Scariolo is back at the helm of a basketball club seven years after the last time when he was in Baskonia. As you already know, in the meantime he has won everything with the Spain national team, and also an NBA ring as an assistant coach with the Toronto Raptors.
So, right now there’s a lot of curiosity about how he’ll run the team in Bologna.
Spoiler: it’s basically impossible to predict how a coach will exactly run a team when you don’t know which players he will have. And right now we know some players Scariolo will coach, but not the entire roster of his future team. That said, I’ve watched the six games Spain played in the Eurobasket Qualifiers over the last two years. Tryin’ to understand if there’s something in their playbook that Scariolo could propose again once he’ll start to coach Virtus Bologna.
I’ve chosen these six games for a specific reason: I think that the Spanish teams Scariolo coached previously were too fully loaded with talent and incredible players (the Gasol brothers, Ricky Rubio, Serge Ibaka, Nikola Mirotic), to make some real parallel with what he’ll run with Virtus Bologna. Conversely, during the Eurobasket Qualifier, Scariolo had to manage a more “FIBA like” team (without NBA and Euroleague players). As a result of this, I think that also the playbook they used was more “FIBA like”, and probably there’s some more that we could see shortly.

Ok, less talk, more basketball.

One of the sets that Spain has used more often, during these six games, was Flex Offense. Played mostly to return the ball to the playmaker, so that he could play a more dynamic pick&roll.

Flex Offense requires a lot of read and reactions, based on what the defense is conceding and the spaces available to attack.

So the players have the freedom to break the plays, for example, as we can see in the clip above, by rejecting the flex screen, entering in a DHO into PNR action, again aimed to play a more dynamic pick&roll.

Spain also has a lot of different options to develop their flex offense:

• A double pindown that allows the playmaker to bring the ball back with some gap between him and his defender
• A keep option, where the playmaker, coming out from a screen on the block, enters a DHO into PNR action
• A flare option to put the ball on the low post, generating offense from there
• A quick 54 pick&roll, useful to exploit a 4 man with good ball-handling and shooting ability

Next to the Flex offense Spain also played UCLA sets, sometimes as an entry to the same flex offense.
The basic set was used predominantly for the 4 man, often with a Ghost screen into a flare able both to create space for an open three (if the defense puts too much focus on the ball) or to open driving lanes to the basket for the ball handler.
It could also serve to open the lane for a slip action.

As mentioned above, the UCLA set could also be used to enter the flex offense. Aiming to put the ball on the low post, to attack the basket, or using the spacing on the floor to create some open shots.

The ghost and flare action returns also in a basic 1–4 set. A UCLA offense variation designed to quickly open the paint. Something that allows guards to attack the basket with more space and sometimes forces the defense to overhelp from the corners, leading up to open three-point shots.

Finally, some Horns sets. Played with creativity and with a very good ability to use decoy actions to distract defense from the main target of the play.

I like the transition from horns to floppy, against a matchup defense, leading to a basket exploiting an error on the switches. And also the ability, on the rip/slip options, to use some actions to eliminate the weak side help.

Again, this is not meant to be a preview of how Virtus Bologna will play next season. But only a (not so) deep dive into what Scariolo has recently done in terms of playbook with his last team.
For sure there’s something that could be envisioned to be installed with his new team (think about the creativity of Milos Teodosic in some of the above situations). But don’t be surprised if you’ll see a different style of play once the season begins.

One thing that I’m sure of, is that Scariolo’s team will be one to follow closely next year.