Ratiopharm Ulm Head Coach, Jaka Lakovič, is widely considered one of the best young head coaches in the European game. He had a great playing career as a pro, and comes from the Igor Kokoškov coaching tree, who, if you’ve been a subscriber, know we’re big fans of as well.
We spent the last couple of weeks digging into his extensive playbook, and yesterday put out a 20+ minute breakdown of many of the great sets he’s running with his club, ratiopharm Ulm (yes the “r” is lowercase).
One of the key areas of operation within Coach Lakovič’s offense is the Elbow. They have a variety of sets/actions in which they can enter the ball to the Elbow (all of which are shown in the video below), but here we’ll specifically focus on some of Ulm’s key actions once it gets to the Elbow.
Ulm “Elbow” Actions
#1 – “ZOOM” Action
This initial “Zoom” action, where the PG enters to the Elbow, then sets a Double Away for the Guard in the corner, who then receives a DHO, is one of the staples of Ulm’s offense. We looked at this action way back in the summer of 2020 with Utah State and Coach Craig Smith running this action for Sam Merrill (now with the Bucks).
Deeper Teaching Point: Ulm also heavily utilizes the “Reverse Ball Screen” within their PNR game, and this Zoom action gets them into essentially the same ending “look” as the Reverse Screen with similar backside reads for the ballhandler. The difference with Zoom Action, is that it’s difficult/impossible for the Defending Big to play any other coverage but a short drop as seen above. One of the advantages of the DHO as opposed to the PNR is that it’s hard to “Show/Hedge” or “Hard Switch” on a DHO because a slick Offensive Big can easily keep/fake the DHO and attack downhill.
For reference, and to see the similar “ending alignment”, here’s the look of Ulm’s “Reverse Screen” PNR Action with a “Pop and Burn” ending (included in the video as well). See in the clip below how the Defending Big is “Hedging” the “Reverse PNR Screen” while he can’t in the DHO above. A small difference, but one that these great coaches keep an eye on when trying to find an advantage to play out of.
Twists and Counters to Elbow “ZOOM” Action
Like all good teams, Ulm mixes things up out of this initial “Zoom” action. Not only can they play from the motion on the weakside (the Double Stagger to DHO), but they can also reject the Zoom Action and play a “2 Man Game” on the strongside.
And when they want to counter an over-aggressive defender on that strongside DHO, they can pull this nice backdoor set from their bag of tricks…
#2 – Elbow “Splits”, “Scissors”, and “Rips”
The next set of actions that Ulm specializes in after an Elbow catch are “Splits” and “Scissor” cuts. Both of these have a “Princetony” feel, but also have roots to actions the Slovenian National Team has run in past years under Igor Kokoskov (who Lakovič coached under). First, here is the “Split Action” run at the opposite Elbow.
And second, here is “Scissor Action”, which is run above the sameside elbow…
*Deeper Teaching Point: The real magic of these actions is directly flowing into another PNR or DHO after the initial cuts. Both the “Split” and “Scissor” cuts create situations where the Defenders guarding the cutters are slightly out of their desired PNR coverage and cannot exert the same pressure on the ballhandler as normal. That’s a lot of words to say… it’s really hard to guard if you flow into another action.
Lastly… this “Elbow Rip” action for a shooter has been a staple in the Slovenian Playbook for years (thanks Ryan Pannone), and for good reason. It works.
Additional Learning Resources
For a complete breakdown of all of Ulm’s Actions in their Playbook:
- Breakdown Video (20+ minutes)
- Free PDF’s