The danger of the middle
It is a basic basketball tenet to keep the ball from the middle of the lane.
From a basic geometry standpoint, driving down the middle of the lane opens up the whole floor. Every player on the floor is a threat to receive a pass. Going down the middle often leaves a player on an island without help coming. If that help comes, the passing angle is better to dump it down or kick back out to the 3-point line.
The middle creates the best angle to attack the basket and gives the most margin for error on jump shots. It is the most dangerous area on the floor for a defense to cover. That is how a defense gets scrambling.
Add in a screen and roll and giving up the middle automatically puts the defense at a disadvantage.
Tyler Dorsey made a living driving to the middle of the lane against the Orlando Magic in that game last week with the Memphis Grizzlies.
Dorsey here rejects the screen. But because Nikola Vucevic is too far off him and D.J. Augustin is in position to direct him to the left corner, Tyler Dorsey is able to cross back over and get right in the heart of the lane for an easy floater.
This was a repeated kind of defensive mistake throughout the first half of that game. Dorsey would come around a screen or reject a screen and cross back over to the middle of the lane.
This is bad defense on its face. The Magic are not dictating where he will go and allowing him to cross back over to his strong hand and to the middle of the lane. Every option is open to Dorsey including his own open shot.
That can get especially dangerous when it comes to passing.
Here Collin Sexton is able to get around the hedge Aaron Gordon sets and get right into the teeth of the defense. The Magic defense collapses around him and he leaves it off for Larry Nance Jr. who is able to hit the layup over the late-recovering Nikola Vucevic.
Sexton really gets all the way to the basket and has an easy dump-off to Nance. But if the defense collapses too much, it is easy to see passing lanes out to the 3-point line too.
That is what happens here:
Emmanuel Mudiay here is able to get into the heart of the defense. At least three Magic players surround him. He is able to kick out to an open shooter who moves the ball along to Henry Ellenson who drains the three over the late-recovering Jonathan Isaac.
That is the power getting into the middle can have. It deflates the defense and opens everything around the player open.
So how do the Magic successfully wall this off?