This game, we’ve seen the Blazers press up on AR at the point of attack, which is a common strategy for taking time off the shot clock - even going as far as to pick him up full court. Wasting clock is a particularly useful strategy against elementary offensive schemes with limited options that are easy to blow up. Once you blow up the offensive set, the opponents have no time to reset and have to rely on lower percentage Iso-ball, which we see a ton of. AR’s been struggling against these aggressive defenders as they aren’t displaced by prior action. Part of this is that he just doesn’t have the physical size to bulldoze the ball up past half-court.

The 2014 Spurs motion weak is a great counter and was used often against aggressive defenses like LeBron’s Heatles back in the day.

1. A wing player comes up to the sideline near half-court to receive a forward pass from the PG (Parker or Ginobilli), who is still in the back court.
2. PG sprints from the back court down to the 3 point line on the strong side.
3. Here he has an option to Iverson cut to the weak side, or back cut through a strong-side back screen and emerge on the weak side from a down screen.
4. Ball is reversed from wing to top of key, then swung to the emerging PG.

There are several advantages of this:

1. PG can attack on the catch with an out-of-position defender, and hasn’t used his dribble.
2. Point-of-attack is way closer to the 3 point line, with a shooting threat.
3. Defender is displaced by 2 screens on the back cut. If they cheat on the cut, the Iverson cut is open for the PG.
4. The biggest advantage: the ball reversal means defenses have to shift from the strong side to the weak side while guarding all that screening action as the PG sprints through the interior. There is going to be a change of who’s supposed to be in help position, who is zoning up the weak side, all while they’re tagging a cutter who can just get a lay up. This opens up a ton of options once the PG catches the ball.
5. Most relevant, there’s just no point for defenders to pick up AR full court if he’s not dribbling it up. If they press up, they’ll be out of position when AR sprints down the court into those screens. If AR is fast enough, it can even create a quick 4 on 3. This threat discourages the defender from pressing up as well, and the Lakers can go back to simply dribbling up the court and running motion weak from time to time.

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Basic motion weak

Examples of teams running Motion Weak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR_fPXs6hTY