Play Your Man On Offense

It seems to me the beauty of the dance should be in the movement of the duo. One of the reasons I never spent much time in team offense working on clear out situations. Now my momma didn't raise no fool! I certainly realize there is a time and place for 1 on 1 moves but it seems to me team offense suffers more from a lack of purposeful movement than it does from exploiting 1 on 1 perceived advantages. If you want to try an interesting

experiment, try counting how long and how often the ball "sticks" in the

hands of some players. I remember hearing of a pro coach that had a

three second rule. If you had the ball, longer than three seconds it was

recorded. He wanted quick decisive decisions.

A very interesting statistic was published by a division 1 college coach recently. He had someone count the number of passes his team made over a three or four game period and found the more passes his team made the better the team's offensive production was. Now I am not the sharpest pencil in the box, but it seems to me it makes sense the better ball movement you have the more efficient your offense becomes.

"Now this is the face of a competitor!"

We teach our players on defense to "play your man." Much of the same mind set can be applied when you play offense. Players don't always understand what their purpose is when they are on offense. Sometimes the best thing you can do on offense is to simply occupy your defender and keep them out of the action. We coaches like to use the phrase "moving without the ball" but do we teach the concept to our players? One of the problems I have with dribble drive type offenses is we tell our players to "space away from the ball" and make sure the ball "can. see you". Now all of this has some merit to it, BUT do we teach it to our players or do we simply use some coaching phrases we think they may understand.

Now I don't mean to insult anyone's intelligence, but which is easier to guard a guy who stands in one place or the player who moves? When we teach team defense, we often start with a 4 on 4 drill and we simply have

the 4 offense players stand and pass the ball from player to player while the defense moves and adjusts. THEN, to make the drill more game like, we have the offensive players move. Obviously, it now makes playing defense

much more of a challenge.

Random, purposeless movement can do more damage than standing. We used to tell our players the only way to "screw up" or offense was to pass and stand. Now that is not the only way to screw up offense and we

often found a way to mess up things even with movement! Poor cuts. Poor timing. Poor spacing etc. can also create offensive problems.

Regardless of the level you are teaching, there are some movement you can and will need to teach. Some of the points to consider teaching are:

a) How to get open when you are one pass away ...... Can your players

execute a V-cut, L-cut, pop out, or back cut? Each movement requires

teaching and practicing specific techniques

b) How do you execute a give and go basket cut?

c) How do you cut off a screen?

d) Once you set a screen then can you .... roll, slip (rim run), or pop?

e) How should you cut off a screen if the defender trails the screen, goes over

the top of the screen, or runs into the screen?

Once in a while you may hear a fairly knowledgeable basketball coach or

fan comment on how well so and so moves without the ball. Those who do

develop the ability to move purposefully usually exhibit certain traits such

as: a) They break the vision of their defender b) They change directions

c) They change speeds when cutting d) They understand spacing e) They

know who they are and who is guarding them

You know the old adage never assume. I believe this certainly applies to

teaching movements without the ball. There are many opportunities to

analysis play in practice in which you will be able to teach how to "read"

the defense. Regardless of what type of offense(s) you run the key to making those offenses efficient may very well lie in how well you can teach

your players how to play their man on defense.