2 Guard Front with 'Crossing'

Sometimes PGs get a little disoriented when bring the ball up the court with another guard.  The fact that there are another two players off to his side as well as a defender in front of him creates a sense of crowdedness.  Good ball handlers should not be phased by this because they are pulling defenders up and away from the basket while setting up entry passes and pressure release action. 

We have all sort of ways in our offense to exploit this situation which have been described previously in other post but one thing that the guards can do is run a 'cross' where the ball handler just waves or pushes the non-ball handler to his side while dribbling the open or wide side of the court.  It is a simple action but effective to do every once in a while.  The non-ball handler can just loop to the ball handler's side of the court or he can run a blur cut right in front of the ball handler to make it look like more of a screening type of action.

Fast Break vs. Press Break

Heard a great way of looking at the fast break.  If the other team misses then your team runs like crazy trying to get a quick layup and/or shot in transition before the defense sets itself up.  If the other team scores then you have a secondary ball handler take it in to a primary ball handler and bring it up in a 'flow' type of action.  The coaching staff wants to run but the onus is on the defense to stop the opponent.  If the other team's offense can't be stopped then we really can't run and we will have to take our time b/c we are going to have to score repeatedly to stay in the game.

Helping Defensively

One thing that we have to analyze is how we want to help defensively.  With so many teams running dribble drive and looking to draw quick and immediate help, we need to make sure we don't come off the strong side at the first thrust. 

Once the dribble drive forces the defense to pinch, it allows the kick out for 3pter, it opens up the second drive behind the first drive and finally the it allows for the +1 pass to punish the defense for 'helping the helper'.

The help has to come off the strong or weakside post.  Going to be a hard defensive principle to teach but this allows the perimeter to stay locked in awhile longer.

Fake Pressure

In preparing to havef a full-bore pressure defense called  'Up' with denials/steerings/trapping from behind principles and also having a sagging/helping/post double base defense called 'Back', i think it is also important to have as part of our base package a zone pressure defense that involves the look of pressing/steering/trapping but does nothing of the sort.  Sort of a false pressing defense.  Maybe a good name for this would be 'Fake'.  We are faking the press, faking the steering of dribblers and faking the presumed trapping locations.  Whether we do this out of a 1-3-1 or a 2-2-1 doesn't really matter but anything to cause confusion by our opponent.

Zone Offense

Last year we had a continuity zone offense and 3 set plays.  Used the sets very sparingly and I have decided to make a change so that we have 1 set play and 1 last second shot play. 

Our zone offense is predicated on getting the ball inside and/or behind the zone on the baseline.  Because of this emphasis I think our set play versus the zone has to have as its first look a 3 pt shot with a layup possibility. 

Pick and Roll

Just got back from the CoachingU Live NBA Clinic over at the University of Maryland.  This weekend we saw alot of pick and roll options which is a big part of the NBA offensive package. 

I feel like I have a better handle on this and how it causes some mismatches beneficial to the offensive team.  Since so many teams are going to pick and roll I also think it is good to have it in our offense so we have to guard it in practice every day.

The first way to incorporate the pick and roll in our stuff might be in 1-2-2 'pass'.  So if the Center passes to the wing rather than drive drill with the wing, he would immediately follow his pass.  On the roll the corner man would fill up to the wing and this would allow for an easy post entry pass.

Up and Back Defenses

Thinking about a defensive system where we are in total all out pressure or in a total sag keep ball out of the paint with post double principles.

In our 'Up' defense we would be all out pressure on makes and misses with a 'jammer' of the ball or the inbounder, 3 anticipators and 1 get back or hole guy.  We work on pressing on makes and misses, we work on getting to the first available man and we work on steering offensive dribblers/receivers into preordained traps.  If the offense was to get out of the full court pressure we would immediately get into half court zone pressure of a 2-2-1 with four guys swarming and 1 big protecting.  Since we have limited time to teach man principles and with the emergence of more of a dribble drive and ball screen offense, i think the zone pressure allows for the defense to dictate to the offense to spread the floor for outlets.

In our 'Back' defense we are sprinting to recovery to the 3pt/lane line area and we are in full help off the ball and compacted to limited layups and offensive rebounds.  Our defense would fight the lane pass and the drive with quick help but would be willing to concede the catch on the 3pt line with a quick contest of the shot.  The 'back' defense would also have the post double trap coming from the top of the key area so the low post defender would not have to front and give up lobs/ offensive rebounding position, etc.

Every day we would work on the 'up' defense for at least 8 minutes to simulate having to come back from behind in a game.  We would also work on our 'back' defense to simulate the part of the game where you have to hunker down and get stops.  In past years our shell drill defense was about 16 minutes of practice plans so this practice set up would allow us to work the same amount of time on defensive principles but might in the long run allow our players to also begin to work on situational defense.