Recreate Kyrie’s Big Shot

The shot that sent the NBA’s best regular season game into overtime, came from a welldesigned out-of-bounds play easily added into your playbook.

Why use this out-of-bounds play

• Every team needs a few 3-point options when precious few seconds remain and the ball is being inbounded from the side.

Set up

• Form a straight line across the free-throw area.

How to play like Kyrie

• 2, who starts farthest from the ball, breaks to the right and crosses with 3, who moves to the left.
• This crossing action begins the process of forcingdefensive focus away from where the ball will end up [1].
• 2 and 3 clear to their respective corners pulling defensive attention with them.
• 5 steps toward the top and picks off 1’s defender. 1 pops to the top ready for the pass [2].
• 4 fires the inbound pass to 1, who catches and shoots the open 3-pointer [3].
• In the Cleveland/San Antonio game, Kyrie Irving actually took a dribble to the right to create more space.

Here’s a simple diagram for setting up this out-of-bounds play

How to perfect the technique for this out-of-bounds play

• The initial cross is critical as in this example, 3’s defender doesn’t follow him but calls out for help moving to the opposite corner.
• Also, 5’s defender steps low as 2 moves to the corner, whichkeeps him too far from the final action.
• Once 1’s defender is screened, no one is available to close out on 1’s shot.