A big man who can pass from the short roll ruins every aggressive coverage

Trapping the ball handler only works if the man who catches it next cannot read the floor, and increasingly he can.

Blitz the pick and roll and here is what you have done. Two defenders on the ball, three defenders covering four players, and a numbers problem that the offence has to solve quickly before the rotations arrive. For decades that was a good bet, because the pass out went to a big man around the free throw line whose job description ended at catching and shooting or catching and dribbling into traffic.

Give that spot to someone who can genuinely pass and the arithmetic reverses.

The short roll is the space between the screen and the rim, and a player catching there with two defenders behind the play is looking at a four on three with the ball in the middle of the floor, which is the most advantageous position in basketball. From there the reads are simple in principle and hard in execution. Low man steps up, throw it over the top to the corner. Corner defender comes in, hit the dunker. Nobody commits, finish it yourself. Each read has to happen in under a second, off a moving catch, against defenders who are also moving.

The players who do this well have changed what an aggressive defence costs. It used to be that trapping conceded a difficult shot. Now it concedes a wide open corner three or a layup, and it does so systematically rather than occasionally, which means a coach cannot trap at all against certain lineups and knows it.

Which pushes defences back towards containment, back towards switching, and back towards trying to keep the ball in front rather than take it away.

There is a knock on effect in how bigs get developed, and it is underrated compared to the endless discussion of whether a centre can shoot threes. Shooting stretches the floor. Passing from the short roll breaks the coverage. The second is rarer and, in my opinion, more valuable in a playoff series, because a defence can live with a centre who shoots thirty four percent from range and cannot live with being unable to send help.

Most young bigs are being taught to shoot.

Very few are being taught to catch on the move with two men on their back and find the corner in half a beat, which is the skill that actually decides what the defence is allowed to do.