The following general offensive principles apply to virtually all man-to-man offense, regardless of the specific continuity offense or set play being employed. An essential part of the coach's job is to teach these fundamental principles to his or her team. As players and teams learn to collectively utilize these principles, their coaches will usually begin to see dramatic improvements in execution of the offensive schemes.
If a team is struggling offensively, it can be tempting as a coach to throw out entire offenses in favor of new ones. However, if a team lacks the foundation that these principles provide, the coach will almost always see the same disappointing results. The first place for the coach to look to improve offensive play is under the hood at these fundamental concepts.
1. Spacing
Most good offenses place players between 15-18 feet apart on the perimeter. This creates the space needed for screens and cuts to be utilized effectively and spreads the defense out, creating more space for a player with the ball to penetrate. Poor spacing brings off-ball defenders much closer to the ball, make it easier to defend the drive and even to spring an occasional trap.
2. Player Movement
Every man-to-man offense must feature either cutting or screening. Most offenses feature both, giving the defense multiple situations to try to handle effectively and increasing the chances of drawing fouls.
3. Ball movement
This is also termed: ball reversal and swinging the ball. The ball should change sides of the floor in any offensive attack. Regardless of the defense being face, ball reversal forces the defense to adjust and/or rotate, which opens up scoring opportunities. On the other hand, a team whose offense features very little ball movement gives the defense a distinct advantage by allowing the defense to form a strong help side, providing better coverage against penetration. Since almost all good man to man defenses require that defenders change positioning with relation to the 'ball and the man" as the ball is passed, the defense has fewer adjustments to make when ball movement stagnates. This translates into fewer defensive breakdowns and decreased defensive fatigue.
4. Limited Use of the Dribble
The dribble is a very effective but often over-utilized offensive weapon. Many young players become enamored with fancy ballhandling to the point that they mistakenly consider it the only important aspect of offensive development (the same could be said of dunking. The dunk is the highest percentage shot in basketball and is a shot that should be taken when it is available. However, there are times when a player driving to the basket will face an aggressive defense and a dunk might not be available. In this situation a player often needs to adjust his shot at the basket, which requires experience and ability at shooting the ball from different angles off the backboard. Players who are allowed to dunk but never practice layups at different rob themselves of development in this area.) Purposeless dribbling often grinds the offense to a halt and frustrates the ballhandlers teammates. In most man-to-man half court offenses the dribble should only be used for the following reasons:
A. To penetrate for a shot attempt (this includes pick and roll situations and individual moves) or to draw defensive help and pass to the open man,
B. To improve a passing angle (such as dribbling towards the baseline to improve a passing angle to a post player),
C. To get out of trouble.
5. Triple Threat
Any time a player catches the ball on the perimeter, he should immediately face the basket in triple threat position. The player vision should be directed at the rim, which permits a view of the entire offensive area as the play develops. If no shot or dribble move is immediately available, he should hold onto the ball for a slow two-count. This gives time for a play to develop. Holding the ball for more than three seconds typically disrupts the timing of the offense and brings the action to a halt.
Three subtle but important habits that many players must break after establishing triple threat position are telegraphing the pass, bringing the ball above the head, and staring at the defender's feet. A player should never face squarely in the direction of his next intended pass. Telegraphing the play in this way greatly increases the likelihood of defensive steal and greatly reduces the ballhandlers viability as a scoring threat. Players at every level often hold the ball above their head after facing the basket.
This poses two problems. At best, the ballhandler eliminates himself as a shooting or dribbling threat, reducing offensive pressure and telegraphing the direction of his next intended pass. At worst, the defense recognizes that there will be no need to help defend dribble penetration, denies all pass receivers, and force a turnover. When a player stares at the defender's feet he is usually trying to make a read to beat the defender off the dribble. Unfortunately, this also grinds the offense to a halt as this player often misses the open pass. Over time, this tends to frustrate teammates.
6. Aggressive cuts and movements
Change both speed and direction on and all cuts by walking the defender in one direction, then changing direction with and explosive change of pace cut.
7. Scoring balance
We want to have a balanced attack, and to score in different ways. We always want to pass the ball to a player who has a size advantage in the low post - this includes our guards in many offensive situations - The first option for any player receiving a pass on the wing - the free throw line extended - is to pass to the post. We also want to achieve balance in how we score from the perimeter. This means that we should have a balance of penetration baskets and jump shots or three pointers.
8. Emphasis on shots in the paint
The following simple statistic is one of the most consistent indicators of victory: The team that scores the most layups wins. We interpret layups to mean shots in the paint. While perimeter shooting is critical in keeping the defense honest, providing scoring balance, and for the three pointers game breaking potential, the team that converts the most shots in the paint usually wins. We focus on all of the ways to get shots in the paint - feeding the post, penetration, good screens and cuts that free players for a pass and layup, offensive rebounds, fast break baskets, and baseline out of bounds plays.
9. Offensive Rebounding
This is an absolute must for offensive success. Offensive patterns will only produce one shot, but aggressive offensive rebounding can provide a team with multiple shots in the same possession. Further, the put-back shots that follow offensive rebounds are often high percentage shots from the paint.
10. Defensive balance
While offensive rebounding is important, teams should also be prepared to defend the fast break. Usually, this is accomplished by having one or two players fall back to defend the fast break while the other players go after offensive rebounds.
11. Post feed
To feed the post from the wing, the passer should fake a pass to make a pass - fake high to pass low, and fake low to pass high. If a post player is being denied on the high side, the passers angle for the post pass improves as he gets closer to the baseline. For a post player being denied on the low (baseline side), the opposite is true. For a post player who is being full-fronted, the wing player should lob the ball over the top, tossing it towards the foam cushion on the bottom corner of the backboard (obviously, the passer doesn't want to actually hit the foam). The pass receiver is responsible for chasing down the pass. Often, when players try to make a precise pass directly to the hand of the fronted post player, the pass is easily stolen. I teach my perimeter players that they should pass to the foam and trust that the pass receiver is a good enough athlete that he will be able to chase down the pass.
Disclaimer: All information on this site is provided for informational purposes only! By no means is any
information presented herein intended to substitute for the advice provided to you by any health care or other professional
or organization.
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