from the moment that luca dantic stepped foot in the nba we could all see that he was one of the most skilled players that we had ever seen and with a couple of seasons to develop so far he cemented himself as one of the most unguardable players in the nba this is due to both his insanely high skill level and extremely mature basketball iq as well the fact that luca is able to dominate the way he does at such a young age should have basketball fans very very excited for what he's going to do in
the future in this video we're going to take a look at why he's able to dominate the way he does let's get into it watching luca play maybe the number one reason he's so difficult to stop offensively is because of his elite ability to change pace so luca comes off of the screen and then comes to almost a complete stop this forces zubak to raise himself up and relax and then luka explodes behind with that push cross and finishes at the rim even though luca is only an average nba athlete he's able to blow by
defenders so regularly because he's so great at changing his speeds being able to go from slow to fast being able to go from stops to explosions forward it's extremely difficult to stop now there's a few situations that luca uses the change of pace to create opportunities for himself and for his teammates this past season luca was third in both possessions for a game using the pick and roll and points per game using the pick and roll so it makes sense that a lot of times when he's using this change of pace it's coming off of
a ball screen the change of pace on this ball screen does two things first of all it relaxes kawhi leonard making it easier for him to get caught by that screen when luca speeds up second of all it puts paul george in weird position because luke was able to attack him going 100 downhill and paul george being that drop guy has to come from a standstill to try and stop him one big key you'll see when watching luca doncha's use ball screens is that he's not going to be going 100 coming off the ball screen
every single time he's going to come off going 50 60 70 and then he's gonna make a decision to either speed up or slow down in this case he knows that morris is going over the screen so he's going to slow his pace down so we can wait to see what decision that hedger is going to make as soon as he sees the hedger zubak run back to guard the screener that's when he gets into that top gear and goes 100 to the basket a big mistake that a lot of younger guards make is that
they feel like they have to be going 100 coming off of every ball screen when the truth is that if you play with pace and you're patient coming off of ball screens a lot of times easy situations and easy looks are going to open up for you those are those you won't get if you just go 100 off of every single ball screen another situation that luca utilizes the change of speeds is when he goes one-on-one with somebody you'll see in this clip with him against patrick beverly how he starts off with slow size up
between the legs dribbles and then he explodes forward with his between the legs dribble to get by patrick beverly and finish at the rim the other thing to notice about this attack is that luca attacks patrick beverly's top foot making it incredibly difficult for bad devil to be able to stop him without fouling here's the thing to understand about getting by your defender you as the offensive player have all the power because you know what you're going to do and the defender doesn't in this clip right here despite the fact that kawhi leonard is one
of the best athletes and best defenders in the nba luca blows by him right here using that change of pace and it's because when luca speeds up to 100 right here kawhi leonard has to speed himself up and it's just a second too late and because of that luca gets by him and is able to finish at the rim one of the major reasons that luca scores the ball so consistently and so easily is because of his willingness and his ability to pass the basketball a lot of players think that in order to be a
scorer you have to look to shoot the ball every time you touch it but the truth is if the defense believes that you might pass the ball or shoot the ball they're gonna have to play you differently they're gonna have to be less aggressive guarding you and it's going to create a lot of opportunities for you to score yourself when we look at this path that luca makes right here the significance of it is that it's going to force the help defenders to think a little bit differently the next time luca drives to the basket
if they know that luca is willing and able to make this cross-fork pass off of a drive then that weak side guy who's rotating over off of seth curry is going to have to be cognizant of the fact that luca can make that pass to a knockdown shooter in the corner luca is fantastic at baiting defenders into jumping out of position so that he can hit his teammates for open shots when luca comes off the screen the miscommunication results in a two on one for paul george right here luca recognizes this understanding that he's got
trey burke who's a knockdown shooter in the corner so luca baits paul george into jumping towards him hits trey burke in the corner for a wide open three now we'll take a look at a couple of his go-to moves the first move that he loves to use is his push cross he's going to come into this push cross going slow and then add that push cross is going to be able to explode downhill and attack the main situation he's going to go to to use this is when he's approaching a stationary defender so if he's
coming in transition and defenders waiting for him or if he comes off the screen and sees the help defender standing still he's going to use that push cross to explode by and get to the rim another one of luka's go-to moves is the inverted drag and he uses this move both to get his shot off and also to get by his defender and go to the room now luka ghosts the inverted drag when he gets his defender to move quickly in one direction you'll see him take a hard dribble to the right to get his
defender to start moving that direction and then when he takes that cross step with his left leg he's gonna go between his legs and stop his defender is going to keep going and he's got the opportunity to either shoot the basketball or attack the open lane the last category we're going to break down is luca doncic's finishing now the first thing you're going to recognize is that he's really really good at using his body to shield the defender off and neutralize the shot blocker luca loves to use what's called a veer finish where he's gonna
step into that defender to neutralize his ability to jump forward and block the ball and then he's gonna extend out and finish that layup and a lot of times he's gonna get an and one called as well he's also great at slowing down his pace on these veer finishes so that his defender goes by him and because of that when he goes up into his actual layup it's uncontested he's also fantastic at using the evasion finish to be able to get around that help defender and finish at the rim and all this entails is him
taking either a euro step or just two wide steps to go around a defender when typically they're expecting him to try and go into them or finish with a veer finish make sure you guys go to the top link in my description to get my free elite perimeter score workout where you're going to work on the skills that you need to be an elite scorer on the perimeter if you guys enjoyed this video make sure you drop a like and subscribe as well and drop a comment for me let me know what you want to
see next that's it guys peace
