Motion Ideas Against Good Helpside M2M Defense

In watching some local playoff games the other day, I caught one game where one team's M2M help-recover defense was causing the other team's motion offense all kinds of problems. When it comes to the playoffs, it's all about the adjustments, everyone knows what everyone else is running, so the ability to make subtle but important changes is crucial.

I came across these great notes from a coaching clinic conducted by Coach Bad Brownell that outlined some great adjustments you can make to your motion offense against a strong help defense team. In watching that playoff game, I thought a couple of tweaks could have helped them overcome their difficulties:

Motion Ideas vs Helpside Defense

General thoughts - move the defense:
- Ball reversal
- Player Movement
- Early Offense, flow into motion acting out of transition

Flare Screens
Use flare screens because the defense usually jumps hard to ball (over-committing) when playing help defense,


Screen and Skip
Screen in for the crosscourt pass, then skip to the open side. The side to side action really causes help defense teams a lot of problems, just like it does for zone defenses,


Downscreen Cutters
Pass and cut on the perimeter. Cutter cuts through the basket and receives a weakside downscreen by the offensive player on the weakside, then you can reverse the ball quickly to that open cutter,


Drive the Weakside
On the quick ball reversal or skip pass, your perimeter players need to attack the glass as defenders are temporarily caught on help rotation,


Penetrate and Fill Behind
Drive hard at a shooter's defender, and the shooter should fill behind for the open shot. Basic drive and kick principle,


For more info on drills to use for motion offense like the dribble drive, take a look at John Calipari's DVD on Perimeter Drills for the DDM. Coach Calipari is the head coach of the University of Kentucky Wildcats.