The Clippers and The Lost Art of “The Gortat™”

Marcin Gortat hasn't been in the NBA since 2019, but his lasting impact remains.

It’s easy to forget the players that weren’t Hall-of-Fame caliber, or even former All-Star selections. The bigger the name, the easier it is to recall the indelible mark they left on the game of basketball.

So you’d be forgiven for not remembering much of Marcin Gortat’s NBA stint. After all, he won’t be making the Hall of Fame. He wasn’t an All-Star, either. Gortat started 587 games during his career, but you would have never considered him an upper-echelon starter at his position. And that’s fine!

But Gortat did give the game something that we see on a near-nightly basis in the league: The Gortat™.

If you’re unfamiliar with what “The Gortat” actually is, well it’s quite easy to explain.

What takes place is the screener, either in transition or against drop coverage, will set a seal screen in the paint against his own defender in order to create a driving lane to the rim for the ball-handler which negates a shot-blocker from getting to the attempt.

Where Gortat rose to prominence doing this specific move was in Washington, D.C., alongside both John Wall and Bradley Beal. But it was Wall who predominantly benefited from the big man’s penchant for setting this specific type of screen.

In the above clip, we can see Marcin Gortat setting a screen on D’Angelo Russell while the Los Angeles Lakers are in drop coverage. That center in drop? Current LA Clippers center Ivica Zubac. So, yeah, this was a while ago.

This initial ball screen allows John Wall to attack downhill where he then puts Russell into “jail” to give Gortat enough time to navigate to the paint where Gortat then screens Zubac. That secondary action gives Wall a free lane to the rim, and Wall slams it home.

In short: that is “The Gortat” in full effect.

Its main objective is to punish teams that attempt to “ice” pick-and-rolls. Teams want offenses to shoot mid-range shots, but this negates that to a rather large degree because you’re eschewing the mid-range shot in an effort to get closer to the rim. And it’s using your preferred big in a unique way to take advantage of the space that specific pick-and-roll coverages are giving you.

“You watch [Marcin] Gortat with Bradley [Beal] and John [Wall] them years in Washington, they were getting that all the time,” said Norman Powell.

So, what does that have to do with the LA Clippers? Well, it all starts with the ball-handler from this play: John Wall.

“When John [Wall] was here, he was always telling me, like, ‘Gortat Screen’ and stuff like that,” Clippers starting center Ivica Zubac told me in early April. “I did it before, but not as much as this year.”

Wall and Zubac played 319 minutes together with the Clippers before Wall was subsequently traded to the Houston Rockets at the trade deadline back in February, but Wall’s lasting impact appears to have gone deeper than just core stats and the occasional highlight.

In the play above, you can see an instance of “The Gortat” being used by Zubac to aid Wall on a drive to the rim in transition.

As Wall grabs the rebound and begins his foray up the floor, Zubac is already beyond midcourt, sprinting to the lane just on the off chance that Wall might feed him with a nice little hit-ahead pass. Instead, Wall opts to drive.

Zubac does the thing that he’s been taught by Wall, which is to stop in the paint and take up space. Wall’s defender has sagged at the nail while Wall is above the arc, and Zubac then proceeds to walk his own defender down into the restricted area as Wall attacks off the dribble.

That gives Wall an easier chance of making the layup since he already has a head of steam against his defender while Zubac is walling off the helping big and preventing said defender from even attempting to block the layup coming from Wall’s right hand.

While Wall didn’t finish the season with the Clippers, his impact still remained in the form of this specific play.

You could see the Clippers get a tad cute with this type of thing, as well.

On the above play, Zubac sets a screen for Bones Hyland to curl, and then Zubac hard rolls into the paint where he could flash open for a pass from Russell Westbrook if the big in drop coverage (Xavier Tillman of Memphis) cheats too high up the floor to defend the Hyland curl. But Hyland isn’t really curling here.

Instead, Hyland runs into small-small screener action with him setting a secondary ball screen for Westbrook on Dillon Brooks. The aim is to allow Westbrook to turn the corner towards the middle of the floor while Brooks has to recover. After all, Memphis is doing everything possible to not allow Ja Morant to switch onto Westbrook. The Clippers know this and use it to their advantage.

Westbrook smartly attacks Morant as Morant shows on the screen, and by doing so he ensures that Brooks is unable to get back to the spot thanks to the screen that Hyland sets at the same time. But there’s Zubac in the paint, providing a key piece of the action.

Zubac plants at the dotted line and seals Tillman perfectly, thus allowing Westbrook a clear lane to the rim where the guard finishes with a layup as no defender is able to make the proper rotation over to challenge.

“Sometimes you gotta choose when you’re gonna do it,” Zubac said. “You don’t want to muck up the paint, but I think when a big is all the way in a drop and our guard [has] got all that space to snake dribble, it’s so easy. You get a layup every time. So, [the] big don’t know what to do. It happens so quick, and it’s so low [that] you can’t go under or over. It’s just over once you get screened.”

In another game against the Memphis Grizzlies, we see Russell Westbrook beat Dillon Brooks with a straight-line drive. Normally you would see Jaren Jackson Jr. rotate over and challenge the shot at the rim. But you already know what’s coming: “The Gortat.”

As soon as Westbrook begins to attack — which, as an aside, he did a great job here of waiting until Zubac was already there in the restricted area and ready to set the screen — Zubac sets a seal screen against Jackson Jr., preventing him from rotating over in time.

Jackson Jr. still challenges the shot, of course, but the attempt from the now-current Defensive Player of the Year is a step late and Westbrook’s layup falls. That’s all “The Gortat” aims to do: delay the help long enough so that the ball-handler can get a clearer shot than they would normally get.

This play features a unique wrinkle in how the Clippers can use this particular type of screen action within their offense.

The Clippers love to run a lot of elbow action for Kawhi Leonard. After all, it’s his bread and butter. You get the ball to your best players in their best spots. Sometimes basketball can truly be that simple of a sport.

As Leonard beats his defender at the point of attack, Zubac sets a nice little seal screen near the restricted area against his own guy. This is actually one of the better screens that Zubac sets all season long, at least of the “Gortat” variety. The reason being that it washes two defenders out of the play.

Zubac’s screen pushes the big into the wing and allows Leonard to get to the rim where he’s able to not only finish but also draw a foul. It’s a clever way to disrupt the flow of the defense since the big has to navigate way too much space to properly contest without fouling either the screener or the driver.

“Everybody penetrates a little differently,” backup center Mason Plumlee said to me when asked about how tough it is to perfect this type of screen across a whole host of potential ball-handlers.

“Some guys back dribble before they go, some guys are all downhill, some guys snake, some guys probe, so just understanding [them]. Paul’s a little different, Kawhi’s a little different than Bones and Russ. Just having a feel for those guys.”

Understanding the differences between each person is key, and it’s also part of what has made Zubac specifically so good in this area.

As an example of that, at times we saw Russell Westbrook just put his head down and barrel into the paint with reckless abandon. Other times we saw him opt for a more patient approach as he waits for help before attacking.

This play highlights the latter.

Norman Powell pushes the ball up the floor before laying it off to Westbrook. Instead of attacking right away, Westbrook waits for the running Zubac to enter the fray. That’s when the real fun begins.

Zubac sets a seal screen against Deandre Ayton that also washes out Torrey Craig. Once again, the ol’ two-for-one “Gortat” action works like a charm, and it leads to a Westbrook layup that gives the Clippers a six-point lead early in the third quarter of Game 4.

It’s the subtle nature of this type of screen that sets it apart. It’s not a brutal screen. You’re not trying to demolish the defender by cracking him. Instead, you’re nudging them off of a spot and preventing them from turning the corner to help on the drive.

Despite how good Ivica Zubac was at those types of screens, it wasn’t something coaches wanted him to do in the past. There is a reason for that, of course. The main one is that it could clog spacing, and also lead to more illegal screens being called if referees were so inclined to do so.

“Coaches never really wanted me to do those [screens] because they feel like I take up the space,” Zubac said.

“So they wanted me to just roll up and roll all the way and get out to the dunker [spot], but this year I just decided I’m going to do it anyway. And it worked well for us, especially when you set a step-up [screen] when the big is in a drop and [the] guard snakes, and you’re rolling right into your big. Just seal him, kind of screen him, and your guy, he got an open lane for a layup.

“If you don’t do it right, you’re just gonna get in the way of a guard, so I feel like it’s a lost art. But if you know how to do it, if you know when to do it, I think it can be really useful.”

The Clippers found it useful many times this season. It wasn’t always a favorite of the coaching staff, mainly due to the spacing issues that Zubac touched on, but coaches didn’t dissuade players from doing it, especially with how lax illegal screen rules can be at times in the NBA.

“I think now with the rule changes and things like that, it’s tough to get those [screens],” Norman Powell said. “Often you gotta go cover it up and disguise it a little bit, but we’ll take one illegal screen versus four layups, so it’s all give and take.”

It can also be tricky depending on the player operating with the ball in their hands. Everyone is different. There are variations in speed, tempo, etc., not just from a pure running perspective but also from a dribbling aspect. Not to mention each player has their preferred method to attack in pick-and-rolls.

“It’s just a feel and read,” Norman Powell said. “Like a lot of times in the pick-and-roll, I’m telling [the big] to set and hold so I can cross the grain.”

Powell said he actually will talk with whoever the big man is on the floor with him as to what he wants them to do. Not necessarily on the fly, but there will be a level of communication established so there are no hiccups during the process.

“Not to set the screen low, but just a read,” Powell explained.

“Like, set the screen, hold, I’m going to have them on my hip when he’s trying to fight over, and then once you roll I’m trailing you. You see how they’re playing. A lot of the time for me it’s better in transition because they’re running directly into the paint, so I’ll make a move, and then I cross the grain right behind him and he’s able just to seal and block off like he’s just running down the lane so I can get the layup.”

While John Wall’s time with the Clippers lasted only 34 games, the mark he left might be felt for a while. Even in something as simple as “The Gortat” and the ways it can be deployed.

Mason Plumlee, who was acquired by the Clippers at the trade deadline and as a result never played with Wall, said he had never done this particular screen prior to arriving in Los Angeles.

“I’ve never done it before in my life,” Plumlee said when asked how long he’s been doing it. “I guess just seeing how these guys probe, it’s a slower attack so it’s given more time for it.”

As the offseason kicks into high gear, we’ll just have to see who else gets brought in and the chemistry they’re all able to build together as they look at continuing the tradition of “The Gortat.”

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