A hammer is a baseline drive in one direction timed with a flare screen on the far side of the floor. While the ball goes to the rim, a shooter is screened out to the opposite corner. The finish is a skip pass across the baseline. It is commonly credited to the San Antonio Spurs, and the name has been standard coaching vocabulary for years.
Why coaches use it
It puts one defender in a job he cannot do. The low weak-side defender has to step in and stop a layup, because that is what he is there for. The moment he does, he is the closest man to the corner the shooter is flaring to, and he is now two passes and thirty feet — about nine metres — away from a set-feet three.
The rotation behind him is supposed to solve it. In practice the x-out is long, it starts late because the helper commits late, and the pass beats it. That is the whole play.
Timing is the only hard part. The screen has to be set before the driver reaches the block. Set it early and the defense sees it coming, set it late and the shooter is still moving when the ball arrives.
How it is guarded
- Do not help off the corner. Which means living with the layup, so most teams do not.
- Help from the nail instead. Send the top weak-side defender and keep the low man home. It works, and it opens the pass back to the slot.
- Switch the flare. Clean, and the reason a hammer is often set by a big for a guard.
- Beat the screen. The shooter’s defender jumps under it and stays attached, which gives up the slip to the rim behind him.
Draw the drive and the flare on the same count and step through it phase by phase. If the two do not arrive together, the shot is not there.