A Look at JinX
Things I like and don't like about JinX's offence and defence
JinX have been one of my favourite teams to watch for a while. 2022 was relatively successful for them with a win at Elite Invite in April and 10th place at WUCC (Europe’s best) the highlights. They have great athletes, strong throwers, and play in a way that uses a lot of concepts and ideas that I like.
Recently they were streamed in a couple of games at Tom’s Tourney* so I thought I’d write a few notes on why I think they’re good, and areas they can improve on.
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#1 Handler Defence
JinX are a tall, fast, strong team so they're naturally very good downfield defenders. But they're exceptionally good in the handler space**.
Here both the reset defender does an excellent job of jumping the reset handler’s route to beat the handler to the space - and as you'll often see with them there's also good heads up defence from the stack. This sandwiches the reset and creates a block.
A smaller example here but I like this positioning of the far handler mark vs a 3 handler set. A lot of teams sag off the nearest handler which I don't like.
Here even though there's no block the positioning narrows the lane for the thrower without giving up a free reset - they come incredibly close to a block, and I think this is a situation where the defender deserves some credit for not creating a dangerous situation for the cutter.
#2 Solid Offence
JinX generally come out in a vertical stack, although they do have other tricks up their sleeves. I think they’re at their best when they do mix up their play rather than relying on their handlers to generate motion in a vert stack.
a) JinX O at its best
In this vert stack possession, they go full field in 3 passes, showcasing all their athleticism and throwing skills. One thing they do well here in this possession, which they quite often don’t when they struggle, is get options cutting to both sides of the field***.
b) JinX redzone at its best
In their redzone they are excellent at using the short space to generate motion through their handlers. All their handlers are strong throwers and athletic, so once they get into flow they are difficult to contain. Oh, and Anna Gerner is an incredible athlete with some of the purest layout form you could ever see. What’s not to like?
c) Side Stack
In this side stack they create a big cutting lane and a good gainer initially, although their flow breaks down.
d) Horizontal stack
I also liked this motion off horizontal stack- emptying out the space on the wing to use Anna Gerner's athleticism upline with a straightforward throw and go.
However: once again there's no clean continuation to exploit this movement which forces resets.
#3 Overuse of handlers/lack of downfield activity
Here we see a similar motion from the handlers but without the empty space to attack. JinX's athleticism means they actually create two free options but in each other's way and the defender takes advantage to steal in for a block.
Again in this clip we see the same handler motion run twice in immediate succession, neither getting free, and they end up with a thrower stuck on the sideline with no reset.
These sort of handler strikes aren't necessarily a bad thing, but JinX overuse them. This cuts off space and opportunities for cutter involvement, and also ends up tiring out their handlers. When you have such dominant, talented handlers it can be easy to default a lot of offence through them. But you run the risk of creating uncertainty and passivity in your cutters - if you don’t feed your cutters consistently they tend to stop cutting****.
Their redzone set has some of the same flaws - they can struggle to score efficiently with too many resets and backwards passes. Here good upline defence from GB stifles forward momentum and after 40 seconds of hard work JinX are forced 20 yards back and need to call a timeout.
(and they were completely devastating out of that timeout)
#4 Good Zone Offence Ideas
JinX offence vs zones is almost really good.
I like that they don't try to take long swings, throwing shorter swings and looking for handler movement through the centre of cups. I really appreciate seeing teams do this - far too many teams get trapped by the orthodoxy of throwing long swings out to the sidelines. Long swings have their place as a (very small and situation) part of a zone offence, I like that JinX aren’t really interested in throwing them.
However their spacing can let them down as a result, with no outlet on the wings. You can see on this turnover how many GB defenders have collapsed in on this pop because there's no offence on the wings.
Overall, as I said in the intro, I really like a lot of the ideas and patterns that JinX have. I also love their grit - Tom’s isn’t the first tournament they’ve shown up to with a small roster and they compete with intensity in every game. I think they’d really benefit from having a more aggressive version of their offence they can turn to - if I was coaching them I wouldn’t really be concerned about a few extra turnovers on longer throws because their defence is so good. More threat in that area would open up more room for their handlers and relieve some of the pressure of creating all the offence from them.
Looking forward to seeing them play at the Elite Invite in a few weeks time.
*I don’t really want to complain about streams - I can easily remember a time when there were no streams! - but I was disappointed that the JinX semi final vs Shout wasn’t on stream. As with the last couple of editions the women’s semis have been first thing on Sunday and only one streamed, with both open semis on later and both streamed. I understand scheduling is difficult but it does feel like the women’s division is given lower priority.
**JinX also run a lot of offence through their handlers, so presumably they get a lot of practice at defending them during their sessions
***one thing I always tell teams when I am helping them with their vertical stack - if you aren’t using both sides of the field in a possession you would have been better playing a side stack instead.
****this creates a cycle - cutters move less so they aren’t options when the handler DOES look for them, so the handlers are less confident in their cutters being available so they give them less time…
