New Orleans Pelicans: Illustrating Stan Van Gundy’s go-to offensive plays
By Nick Alvarez
Stan Van Gundy’s variation of “Horns” will take advantage of the New Orleans Pelicans’ biggest strengths
When Stan Van Gundy runs “Horns” he does so as a way to facilitate offense from the high-post area of the court. The reason why he does this is that the offense can create a lot of scoring options from that area of the court.
For that reason, the two “Horns” variations that Van Gundy loves to run are, “Horns Chicago” and “Horns Over the Top Flip”. These two variations create the key shots that Van Gundy loves for his offense to have, 3 pointers, and open lanes to the rim. It’s also interesting to note that these plays limit the number of dribbles a player takes which helps Van Gundy limit turnovers.
Starting with “Horns Chicago”. In this play, the ballhandler begins in the halfcourt by passing the ball to the big man in the high post. After that, a series of events occur. The initial ballhandler will set a screen for another player to come up and receive the ball from the big in the high post. From there another player will set a screen for a second shooter to come up. This sets up the ball-handler to either pass to a couple of shooters, shot himself, or attack the rim.
“Horns Over the Top Flip” runs the same way initially but then gets more complex by adding in another screen designed to spring 3 shooters open across the perimeter.
These plays should work wonders for the Pelicans for a couple of reasons. First, the Pelicans have a variety of players who can play the ballhandler role in these plays. That allows for more creativity to keep the defense off-balance. Secondly, the addition of Steven Adams gives the Pelicans the perfect big-men to operate the high-post. He’s an underrated passer and an excellent screen-setter.
Like I said originally though, Stan Van Gundy loves his pick-and-roll as well, and we’ll certainly see a lot of that too.