The job is to move the wall before hitting it
The Knicks-Spurs Finals has put a clean basketball phrase in front of everyone: keep Victor Wembanyama out of the paint. That sounds simple until you picture the floor. You are not really trying to make an elite shot blocker disappear. You are trying to make him choose a location before the shot arrives.
The practical answer is this: NBA teams pull elite rim protectors away from the basket by making them defend space first. Put the big in actions where standing in the lane gives up something else, and the rim is no longer protected by a stationary body. The possession starts to ask a different question: does he stay home, step out, tag, recover, or arrive late?
That is the whole point of attacking someone like Wembanyama. Scoring over him at the rim is the least comfortable version of the possession. Making him guard before he blocks is the cleaner version.
Make the shot blocker defend before the shot
A great rim protector wants the play to end in front of him. The driver comes downhill, the ball gets near the restricted area, and the shot blocker is already waiting with his feet organized. That is not a contest. That is an invitation to lose the possession on his terms.
So the offense has to change the shape before the drive. Move the big with screening angles. Make him show his body outside the lane. Put the ball in places where his first responsibility is not the rim but the space just above it, beside it, or away from it.
Once he has to move, the timing changes. The pass can beat his recovery. The drive can start while his hips are still turning. The next catch can happen while he is still deciding whether to stay attached or retreat. None of that guarantees a basket, but it keeps the offense from treating his best skill like a traffic cone it must drive directly into.
That is the mistake fans sometimes miss. The point is not bravery at the rim. The point is making the rim protector late to the rim.
Force the choice, then play the answer
With Wembanyama, the visual is extreme because the recovery window feels different. He can be away from the basket and still seem close enough to matter. That is why the first action cannot be decorative. It has to force an actual choice.
If he stays planted in the lane, the offense has to punish the space he is giving up. If he follows the action away from the paint, the offense has to use the gap behind him. If he tries to split the difference, the ball has to move quickly enough that the possession does not wait for him to reset.
This is where the game becomes less about one matchup and more about sequencing. The first pass does not have to be the winning pass. The first screen does not have to create the shot. Its job is to bend the big's starting point so the second action has a cleaner runway.
That is how teams keep elite shot blockers out of the paint: not by asking smaller players to finish through them, but by making the shot blocker spend the possession traveling, deciding, and recovering. The rim is still there. The difference is whether the defender gets to own it before the offense has even started.