Two screeners stand a stride apart, usually around the free-throw line. The shooter sprints up through the gap between them, and as soon as he is clear they step together and close it like a door. His defender, running a step behind, has nowhere to go.
Why coaches use it
It produces the cleanest catch in the game. The shooter arrives at the top of the key going away from the rim, feet already under him, with nobody within reach. Against a good closeout team that catch is worth more than an extra dribble anywhere else on the floor.
It is also an honest one-shot special. Everybody in the gym knows what happened after they see it once, and the same team rarely gets it twice in a night. That is why it lives in the after-timeout and inbounds part of a playbook rather than in the offense.
Two details decide whether it works. The doors must be set when they close — two players moving into a defender is a moving screen, and officials at every level call it. And the top of the key has to be emptied first, or the shooter catches into traffic and the whole thing was for nothing.
How it is guarded
- Get through early. The only clean answer is for the defender to beat the door, which means jumping the cut before the shooter reaches the gap.
- Top-lock the runner. Stand in front of him under the rim and refuse the route. He should cut backdoor instead.
- Switch. One of the screeners’ defenders picks him up at the top. Cheap, and it leaves a big closing out on a shooter.
- Go under the doors. Possible if the two screeners are wide, and the reason some teams set them tighter than they look on paper.