How Donatas Motiejunas Became Houston Rockets' Best Low-Post Threat
Donatas Motiejunas has turned out to be the right answer, but apparently the Houston Rockets got the question wrong. They thought he was going to be their stretch 4. Instead, he’s become the team’s best low-post scorer.
And as far as the Rockets' philosophy goes, that’s just as good. There are two ways they like to score: inside the restricted area and outside the three-point line. While Motiejunas has shown improvement in the latter—shooting 36.6 percent from deep this year—it’s inside the smaller semi-circle he’s marked the most progress.
When NBA.com/Stats rolled out their play-type stats, it was apparent just how good Motiejunas was. One they monitor is “post-ups” which they define as, “When an offensive player receives the ball with their back to the basket and is less than 15' from the rim when the possession-ending event occurs.”
Motiejunas has scored 225 points on post-up plays, which is 13th in the league. Among players who have scored at least 100 post-up points, he has the highest average at 1.0 points per possession, per NBA.com/Stats. In other words, you can argue that not only is Motiejunas the best low-post scorer on the Rockets, he’s one of the best in the entire league.
A large number of those points have come from hook shots. In fact, Motiejunas has netted 106 field goals off those this season, which is first in the NBA, per Basketball-Reference.com. That means the majority of his post-up points have been off hook shots.
Granted, not all his post possessions end in hook shots, nor are all his hook shots necessarily coming from post-up plays. But if there were a Venn diagram available, it would have a lot of overlap.
When you’re a true 7-footer, a hook shot out of the post is a lethal weapon. And Motiejunas is using skilled footwork to establish position and create them.
And this is what I personally love about this story.
It’s great when a player works on something in the offseason, then he has this blossoming experience the next year and everyone can write about how he improved because he put in the extra work.
But it doesn’t always come that quickly or that easily. It’s not always overnight success. Sometimes it takes a couple of years of working on a thing before it starts paying dividends.
Look at this footage from Sept. 13, 2013 of Hakeem Olajuwon working with Motiejunas on his post-up moves.
And as recently as Feb. 24, Olajuwon was still working with Motiejunas on his game, per NBA.com.
He’s been honing this skill for over two years, and all that work is starting to pay off. Let’s look at what he’s doing, specifically, to generate points.
Drop Step to Baseline
Motiejunas moves are not fancy. You see them at the high-school level. But perfecting these skills is what makes them special.
The first move Motiejunas likes to utilize is a simple drop step to baseline, meaning he drops his back foot to the baseline and pivots off it. Keeping his body between himself and his defender, he puts up a shot. See him execute it here:
That’s not his go-to move, though. That’s just the move that he uses to set up his go-to move. Being able to execute a drop step to the baseline is essential to being able to fake it.
Drop Step, Spin to Lane with Hook Shot
The move has three basic components. First there’s the drop step. The offensive player drops his foot back toward the baseline, getting the defender to commit like Motiejunas does to Kenneth Faried here:
Once the defender commits, the offensive player spins to the lane, opposite of the defender’s momentum, creating distance. See how much space Motiejunas is able to generate with this spin:
By the time the shot is up, the defender is completely out of position. His weight is going the wrong way, and he has no time to get back. Then it’s as simple as making your shot:
Look here at the moment of release, and notice that Faried’s feet are still on the ground. He has no chance at all of contesting the shot.
Motiejunas uses the same basic movement here against Timofey Mozgov:
And here he gets Mozgov once, but then gets stopped by the help defense. So he fakes, lures Mozgov into biting again, then pivots back and drops in the shot:
It's the same premise but, with that one extra movement, Mozgov is hung up like yesterday’s laundry and is completely helpless to defend the shot.
And when the help defense comes, Motiejunas is becoming more adept at finding the open man and getting the assist out of the post. He’s topped five assists just four times in his career, but twice since Mar. 3.
There have been ups and downs. He recently had a three-game slump in which he was 6-of-24 from two. After ending that against the Denver Nuggets on Mar. 8, when he scored 18 points on nine shots, Motiejunas told Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle:
"The last couple games I think were awful for me. I couldn’t catch the rhythm. I couldn’t catch anything. I felt really bad. I missed practically layups. I really was not happy. I don’t think anyone was happy. I appreciate the people who support me, the coaches, my teammates and the fans. It was tough for me, but I’m happy I’m back on track.
"
It’s almost enough to sound like real life. Dealing with frustration. Developing skills through hard work and practice. I can identify with things like that.
Not everything in the NBA has to be new or original. Nor is it always about the most athletic, exciting player who can touch the rafters, spin 720 degrees and put the ball between their legs before jamming it home. A basic post-move with a hook finish gets just as many points.
Sometimes, we need to pause and give credit to a player for honing the rudimentary skills of the game. And Motiejunas has done that to the extent of having one of the most unguardable shots in the league. It’s not fancy, but it’s effective. And that’s all that matters in the end.
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