How the Bucks slowed Zion Williamson and beat the Pelicans using a unique approach on defense
Bucks starting point guard Jrue Holiday is listed at 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds. His teammate Wesley Matthews is listed at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds.
And on Monday night, they served as the Bucks’ primary defenders of Pelicans star Zion Williamson, who is listed at 6-foot-6 and 284 pounds and considered one of the NBA’s strongest players.
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In the Bucks’ 128-119 win in New Orleans, Williamson scored just 18 points on 7-of-16 shooting. He tallied seven rebounds and seven assists, but the Bucks held off the Pelicans’ second-half surge to close out a victory against one of the best teams in the Western Conference to open their five-game trip.
Giannis Antetokounmpo was spectacular with 42 points on 12-of-17 shooting and a 17-of-22 performance at the free throw line to go along with 10 rebounds. And Brook Lopez added a season-high 30 points, but the Bucks won the game because of their defensive game plan against Williamson.
To be clear, it wasn’t Holiday and Matthews who slowed down Williamson; it was a full team effort on the defensive end. Holiday might have been the one assigned to guard Williamson most of the night, but the whole team participated on every possession.
Let’s take a look at Williamson’s first shot attempt of the night:
By the time Williamson took this shot, Jonas Valančiūnas had already scored the Pelicans’ first 10 points of the game and a large part of that outburst was how the Bucks asked Brook Lopez to guard him. Valančiūnas, the only Pelican to have scored in the first five minutes of the game, is standing wide-open behind the 3-point line and creating a 3-on-2 advantage on the back side of the play and Lopez does not care one bit. That was not his responsibility.
Lopez’s priority was helping Holiday and making sure Williamson did not get a clean look at the rim. When Williamson catches the ball against Holiday, Lopez and Antetokounmpo are both within five feet of him, totally taking away any thought of driving to the middle of the floor. With no lane to drive middle, Williamson went baseline where Holiday bodied him and Lopez met him at the rim.
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Did they manage to avoid making contact with Williamson on the drive? No. The Bucks were quite physical, but the officials didn’t call it and they took advantage.
That example doesn’t mean they managed to cover Williamson without fouling the entire night though. In fact, Matthews picked up three fouls in one minute and two seconds against Williamson in the second quarter, but he managed to foul him in the act of shooting just once and kept him from getting the satisfaction of seeing one of his shots go through the rim in the run of play.
Williamson went to the free throw line following the second-quarter foul above, but he didn’t appear to be all that happy about taking another foul from Matthews. At halftime, Williamson had just six points on 2-of-3 shooting, but in securing the rim against Williamson, the Bucks had given too much space to Valančiūnas. With Lopez (and the rest of the Bucks) regularly playing off of him, Valančiūnas scored 28 first-half points, which included six 3-pointers on only eight attempts.
To combat Valančiūnas’ hot start, the Bucks changed up their match-ups in the second half.
Rather than having Lopez cheat off of Valančiūnas, the Bucks asked Lopez to cheat off of second-year wing Herbert Jones and moved Antetokounmpo to Valančiūnas. Antetokounmpo helped off of the Pelicans’ big man in many of the same ways as Lopez, but his quickness allowed him to more easily recover all the way to the 3-point line against the Pelicans’ center. Staying connected to the much quicker Jones would be a bit of a challenge for Lopez, who was whistled for a defensive 3-second violation just over a minute and a half into the third quarter, but his presence would continue to prove vital against Williamson.
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And just like Lopez, Williamson’s primary defenders kept the pressure up in the second half. It wasn’t perfect, but overwhelmingly, through the first three quarters, Holiday and Matthews pushed Williamson away from the block and closer to the 3-point line. On this play, Holiday even snuck around Williamson and poked the pass away for a steal.
Great players are difficult to limit for an entire game though and Williamson got loose in the fourth quarter. He started attacking the Bucks’ defense quickly and charging to the rim immediately after catching the ball in the post rather than waiting to check out the help defense. And after the Pelicans trimmed the Bucks’ lead — which was as large as 18 points in the fourth quarter — down to four with 3:25 remaining, Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer called his use-or-lose-it timeout and made one final adjustment.
Out of the timeout, Budenholzer replaced Jevon Carter — who did strong work chasing CJ McCollum (31 points on 11-of-24 shooting) around the floor all night — with Pat Connaughton. With Carter off the floor, Connaughton took Jose Alvarado, which allowed Holiday to take Williamson and Matthews to take McCollum. From there, Matthews and Holiday could switch any Pelicans two-man action featuring their two biggest offensive threats.
The switching discombobulated the Pelicans’ offense.
When Williamson tried to get to a nice spot on the elbow, Holiday pushed him out toward the 3-point line. When Williamson set a screen for McCollum, Matthews switched onto the Pelicans’ big man and fought for position, starting around the 3-point line to keep Williamson from getting an easy catch or an easy cut through the middle of the lane. And all the while, Antetokounmpo and Lopez waited at each block, cheating off of Jones and Valančiūnas respectively.
Antetokounmpo got to the free-throw line on the next possession and that stoppage in play allowed the Bucks to set their defense. With time to talk about it and a made free throw to set up their defense, the Bucks got their matchups exactly right and Lopez moved to Jones. That simple change ended up paying off in a major way on the next defensive possession.
Matthews and Holiday immediately started the possession by being physical with their assignments and then Matthews called an early switch. That left the reverse wing with Williamson at the left elbow. The Pelicans used Jones to initiate the offense and pull Lopez out of a help possession at one of the blocks, but Lopez refused to cover Jones and instead stood in the middle of Williamson’s best driving lane. With Williamson bearing down on him in the middle of the lane, the Bucks’ Defensive Player of the Year candidate came up with two huge blocks and a massive defensive possession with just over two minutes remaining.
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The Bucks still needed a clutch stepback 3 from Holiday (18 points, 11 assists) and a fast break bucket from Lopez, but they put themselves in a position to win by playing tough defense and showing off their defensive versatility against one of the league’s most devastating offensive players.
(Photo of Jrue Holiday and Zion Williamson: Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)
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