Playing Off the Gravity

When one player pulls the defence

Every team has someone the defence worries about most.

Maybe it’s your go-to guy — the one they’ve scouted and game-planned for. Maybe it’s just whoever has the hot hand tonight: three in a row, and now everyone in the gym knows it.

Think about what defences do when Steph Curry comes off a screen. Go under? He drills it. Fight over? He’s already past. So they send a second body — and the instant they do, someone on Golden State is open.

That’s gravity.

Either way, that player has the whole defence tilting towards them. It’s one of the most valuable things that can happen in a game — if the rest of the team knows how to use it.

What gravity actually does

When a defender cheats towards the threat, they’re leaving someone. When two bodies collapse on a drive, someone somewhere is standing alone.

Watch LeBron in the post. Before he’s made a single move, his defender’s help is already leaning his way — and a corner shooter just gained a step of separation. LeBron hasn’t scored. He’s already done the work.

Gravity doesn’t score by itself. It scores by pulling defenders out of position — and the team has to see it and act on it fast, because the window closes as quickly as it opens.

The thing most teams get wrong

Here’s what usually happens. The go-to guy starts drawing extra attention, so they stop attacking. They become a passer. They fade to the corner, defer, try to be unselfish.

That kills the gravity immediately.

The defence relaxes. The extra attention disappears. The advantage is gone — surrendered, not taken away.

The primary scorer has to stay aggressive. Keep attacking. Keep being the thing the defence is afraid of. Even when they pass, even when they don’t score, the threat has to stay real. The moment they opt out, they let the defence off the hook.

What the rest of the team needs to do

While the gravity player stays in attack mode, everyone else has one job: stay ready and stay moving.

Not watching. Moving.

Filling corners. Drifting to wings. Setting screens that stretch the defence even further from the threat. When your hot player drives, don’t stand and admire it — get to the spot where a kick-out means an open shot, not a scramble. Be ready before the pass comes.

The whole team is working, even when the ball is only touching one person.

Using them as a decoy

Sometimes the play is to run actions through your primary scorer knowing the defence will overcommit — and read off the reaction.

This is basically the entire Draymond Green playbook. Steph uses the screen, the defence panics and sends two, and Draymond slips to the rim untouched. The ball goes to Draymond — but Steph created it just by being a threat.

A drive by your best player collapses two defenders; a skip pass finds the open shooter. A screen set for the hot hand brings pressure; the screener’s man is suddenly scrambling.

One condition: the primary scorer has to commit fully. Half-hearted decoys don’t work — defences read intent. Drift through a screen lazily and nobody panics. Come off it like you’re attacking the rim and the defence flinches.

That flinch is the opportunity.

When it all connects

When the gravity player stays aggressive and the team is reading off them, you stop looking like five individuals and start looking like a system.

The defence faces impossible choices. Commit to the threat — leave someone open. Stay home on shooters — let the threat keep attacking. There’s no right answer, and that’s the point.

That’s when the game gets easy. Not because everyone is equally dangerous, but because one player’s threat is doing the work of creating chances for all five.

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Gravity creates what I call borrowed space — space paid for by a player who may never touch the ball. It’s one of five kinds, all mapped out in The Five Kinds of Space.