That Basketball Life

I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of years breaking down general offensive movements.  I have shown my general philosophies on how to get open on the wing to start an offense to what players should do when the ball is in the middle of the paint.  What I haven't done is expressed my philosophy on offensive flow.  This is what this article is about.

There is a nice article on ESPN about Steve Kerr and how he and his coaching staff came up with the offense that made Golden State such an efficient offensive powerhouse. The article states that Steve Kerr's philosophy is to get everyone involved in the offense in order to get max effort.  To pass the ball and then to move.  There is no standing still.  If your not open you're moving. I love the article because the offensive beliefs that it lists as being a huge part of the Golden State offense are beliefs that I try to instill in my teams when I coach offense.  Granted any team is always going to be as good as the parts that it has.  But as shown in the article, a team can get a lot better with the right philosophy. It's an interesting article.  Link is here .

Coaches spend a lot of time teaching each practice teaching offense.  One of the most important items which need to be taught is what I call Offensive starts.  What are offensive starts?  The are the wrinkles that you will need to add to your offense to help you get things started.  Against a basic zone you may not need to use any of these.  However against a solid man to man you will need to show your team a number of options they can use to get the offense started.  The six that I like to teach my team at a basic level are: V-cuts L-cuts Pin downs Backdoors Dribble At Dribble Handoff

As we move up the age ladder we like to continue pushing our players both athletically and in terms of basketball.  When the kids hit the 9-10 year old group we continue building on their basketball knowledge. Since we teach a lot more concepts at this age group we will have multiple posts covering our 9-10 year old topics.  Additional topics covered will include the intro to man to man, and more detailed looks into game situations.  In this post we will be covering how we expand our offense and build off of the basics that the kids learned at the 7-8 year old level.  Our goal is to teach the kids proper positioning and as they get older and start to understand this concept, we start taking the leash off of them and let them use their creativity.

A while back I wrote a post about my general philosophy on coaching kids under the age of 10.  As a coach you shouldn't spend too much time exposing your players to exotic defenses or offenses.  What you should be doing is exposing them to the fundamentals of the game along with various coordination and athletic development drills (covered in another post soon). However, if you are going to expose them to games you do need to prepare them by introducing some basic ideas which will keep them competitive.  In today's post I will discuss some of the basic team offensive concepts you should expose your kids to.  I will break these down into 2 groups: 7-8 year olds 9-10 year olds Today we will be discussing the 7-8 year old group.

In this installment we are covering what our players should look for when the ball is entered on the low block.  Knowing their options before they even step on the floor will help slow things down in players mind.

When running your offense it is always a good idea for your players to know exactly where their options are going to be when they catch the ball in certain spots on the floor.  Today we cover what our offense should be doing when we get the ball in the high post.

A few days ago we covered middle of the lane penetration .  In this post we cover what the offense should of when we drive baseline.

A good offense is about trying to put your players in a position to get good shots from areas on the floor where they can take advantage of their strengths.  A defense is most compromised when there is penetration either thru a screen or a simple blow by.  Once the penetration has occurred, your players need to know where they should go in order to take advantage of the defense scrambling to recover.  There are 2 types of basic penetrations, one is middle lane and the other is baseline.  These names describe the area on the floor where the ball enters the lane from.  Any drive that comes from an area outside the baseline is considered a middle lane.  We will be cover the baseline penetration in another post.  Here will be focusing on middle lane drives and the proper rotations an offense should take to get good shots while not exposing the backcourt and keeping the floor balanced.

The shuffle offense is a nice little offense that was made popular by Dean Smith and it's origins date back to the 1950's.  The thing that I like about this offense is that it forces all 5 players to be familiar with playing both in the post and on the perimeter.  It also necessitates that all players know how to set screens and how to use screens.  To me this is an offense that can be used at the youth levels where a coach's main goal should be to expose players to multiple positions as opposed to tying kids down to one position at a young age. Once all of the wrinkles are in this offense can be a bit complicated for the beginner but in it's basic form it can be taught to 3rd and 4th graders.

This is a nice drill from Danny Miles.  This drill helps you run your offensive sets and helps with your team conditioning at the same time.

In an effort to expose our readers to as many different philosophies as possible, we at TBL will spend a few posts introducing you to the flex offense and variations of it. The beauty of the flex is that it is simple to learn and it forces defenses to defend against screens and cuts thru the paint.  Because of all of the cuts and screens that it calls for, the flex offense forces defenses to cover the element that is toughest to defend against which is movement and screening.

This is a play that works really well against a man to man defense.  The good thing about this set is you can start it from your basic 3 out set.

When you are coaching team offense one of the most important topics that will need to be covered will be floor balance.  Floor balance is making sure that your players are positioned properly to do 2 things: Support your teammate who has the ball in his possession. Force the defending team to cover as much space as possible on the defensive end. On the surface accomplishing the 2 points mentioned above seem counter intuitive.  In order to support your teammate, one needs to make sure that there are plenty of options around the ball yet when you want to force the other team to defend the whole court it implies that your players need to be spaced away from the player with the ball.  Two contradicting forces fighting each other is the reason why the term floor balance is so appropriate.

This is a nice play run by coach K and the Duke Blue Devils.

One of the most famous offensive sets in college basketball is North Carolina's secondary break.  The Tar Heels run this offense on a miss or a make by the opponent.  It forces tempo and well run correctly it keeps the opposition reacting as opposed to dictating tempo.  Below we attempt to analyze some of the basics.

Here at TBL we like to provide content to help players, teams, and coaches with training tips and tricks. In our effort to look for content, there are times where you run into a video that is just so beautiful to watch.  Such is the video below which shows North Carolina running their secondary break and the different options available to the Tar Heels when running this break. Enjoy!!!

In basketball the rip is one of the moves that all players should get into the habit of using.  This move allows the person with the ball an opportunity to create space when being guarded closely and can also allow that person to begin a drive by the defender who is covering them.  The are 3 types of rip moves and all 3 can be effective when properly used.

Here is another video.  This one shows how Villanova practices wing catch, rip, and drive under pressure.

The ball screen is such an effective play in basketball that it can't be ignored.  As a matter of fact, at the upper levels of basketball this basic play is so prevalent that one would have to try hard to avoid seeing it.  It is a misconception, however, that this move is simple.  The ball screen and subsequent roll the screener makes requires both physical execution by two teammates and an effective read of what the defense is doing in reaction to the move.  There is so much detail involved in the screen and roll that we at TBL will have multiple posts on the topic.  In this post we will cover the basics of the screen and roll.  Some of the topics covered will be: Areas of the court where the screens should take place. Areas of the court where the screens should not take place. Rules for the screener. Rules for the ball handler. Options for the ball handler. Options for the screener after the screen.