Suns Backdoor Flex Cut Early Offense

I've only been writing on this blog for about 2 months and in that time, I haven't written a single post about the Phoenix Suns and their early offense. I was surprised by that, simply because if you talk about early offense, probably what comes to mind are the Phoenix Suns. There has been even more interest recently as Coach Mike Krzyzewski of Duke has adopted Mike D'Antoni's philosophies on early offense and adapted it at Duke. This is a designed play, a quick hitter out of early offense. I don't think you can run it over and over, but it worked extremely well here. Watch the video and read my thoughts below,



Backdoor Flex Cut

A lot of people think the Phoenix Suns offense is just run and gun with no organization at all. In fact, there is a lot of organization, there is a lot of screening and plenty of off-ball movement and on-ball movement. This play is run straight out of a made basket. All 5 players sprint down the court and get into position. Steve Nash is the last player bringing up the ball,

Steve Nash, O1, swings the ball to the trailer, Stoudamire, O5, who reverses it again to O4 in the corner. At the same time, O3, Grant Hill sets the back-pick for Leandro Barbosa who does a flex cut underneath and cuts back under the hoop. Barbosa gets the pass and gets the easy layup before the defense can recover.

Note that Barbosa goes underneath while his defender goes over the top. This gives Barbosa the separation necessary to get the easy shot off. It's very important that Barbosa goes underneath and not over the top.

I took quite a few more clips of the Suns and will feature a few more of their early offense sets in future posts.

Coach Roy Williams has a great DVD on his Secrets of the UNC secondary Break. As always, please check out the X's and O's Basketball forum to talk hoops and exchange notes and ideas.