You may have never heard of the play ‘Chop’, and if you have heard of it, you may not know what it is.
But I promise, you’ve seen it.
As ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla likes to say, Chop has become “America’s Play”. Seemingly every coach in the country has installed this late-game quick-hitter, a dribble hand-off action that leads into a ball-screen and a flair-screen and creates a number of chances for a team down in the final seconds to get a quick look at an open three.
Kansas head coach Bill Self came up with the play, and it went viral, so to speak, after he used it to free up Mario Chalmers for a game-tying three in the final seconds of the 2008 national title game.
Remember this?:
Since then, the play can be found everywhere.
But that 2008 title game wasn’t the first time that Self got a critical three-pointer while running Chop.
Back in 2007, when Kansas was squaring off with Kevin Durant’s Texas team in the final of the Big 12 tournament, the Jayhawks were down by three points with 21.7 seconds left.
This is what happened:
Look familiar?