The Portland Trail Blazers have a couple of sideline pick-and-roll sets, some of which we've covered right here on The Breakdown already this year. Pistol action is a favorite of Terry Stotts, but I've noticed an action this season that the Blazers have run more often and it comes with a new wrinkle.

That wrinkle is called “wedge” and it’s best highlighted in a play called 3 Fist.

3 Fist involves a sideline pick-and-roll between the point guard and the center where a wing player first sets a horizontal screen for the big man. That horizontal screen is what’s called a wedge, or since it’s leading into a pick-and-roll, a “wedge roll."

The wedge does something the Blazers need desperately, and that’s a shakeup of their normal pick-and-roll action. Portland runs so much 1-5 or 2-5 that they need to throw teams off their defensive gameplans so they can’t disrupt Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum simply by overplaying the action.

Wedge also creates another decision point in the middle of the pick-and-roll for defenders, which can help add new options since big men need to not only play against the ball handler and their own man, but against the Blazer setting the wedge as well.

Check out the full breakdown in the video above to see how wedge and 3 Fist work together.