I got an email from I suppose is a reader of this blog saying that they wanted to see more inbounds plays so I went on a mission to find some tonight. Another coach once told me that the sign of a well-coached team was whether or not they scored out of BLOB and SLOB plays. I wholeheartedly agree. Though my approach is a little more conservative, I would also add that the team that turns it over the most on the BLOB and SLOB is a sign of unpreparedness. Anyways, I caught a clip of this inbounds play by the Bulls which looked pretty neat. Watch the video and read my thoughts below,
1-4 High SLOB:
Quite a simple play but looks very effective. The setup is a 1-4 high set, the point guard is closest to the inbounder who should be your next best passer. I believe in this case, O2 the inbounder is the Bulls shooting guard Chris Duhan. 
The ball is inbounded to Kirk Heinrich who pivots and immediately attacks baseline. He beats his defender which causes both X3 and X4 to shift down and help. At that moment, O3 or Andreas Nocioni, cuts hard to the net and receives a perfect pass from Kirk for the easy layup.
I think option one on this inbound was for Heinrich to simply go all the way up with it, but since the defense collapsed, he dished it out.
For great info on SLOB plays, check out Kelvin Sampson's DVD on SLOB and Special Late Clock Plays. Coach Sampson is currently the head coach at Indiana University. If you want to request a play or ask a question, be sure to check out the X's and O's Basketball forum where you can talk to a whole community of coaches.
I manage to catch the second half of the Mizzou game against NC A&T. I went into the game eager to catch a glimpse of their pressure defense that is supposed to be really good as one poster had stated on the X's and O's of Basketball forum. The score was 41-35 at half, which was a little surprising. The second half was filled of great action and the Tigers would win 94-66. What was most interesting was that both teams went to pressure defense in the 2nd half, Mizzou absolutely destroyed NC A&T's press while the Aggies struggle to handle the Tigers' pressure. The Tigers used a multitude of presses, they were in a M2M full-court, then switched to a 1-2-2. But I felt the 3 quarter 2-2-1 press worked the best. Watch the video and read my thoughts below,
Setup:
The 3 quarter trap is really great because it allows you to compress the area of where the offense can use to beat you by 1 quarter as compared to a full court press. What this means is that if the offense beats your press, they are less likely to score off of it, because you can recover much more easily.
Here, the right sideline defenders X3 and X2 are the ones that set the first trap. Mizzou likes to use a forward on the front line, so DeMarre Carroll would sometimes play up. On presses where he guarded the inbounder, he was terrific.
In the video, X3 and X1 actually start out just over the half-court line. They allow you to reverse the ball, then trap you in the corner. Or, they allow you to cross half, then trap you immediately like they do here.
Secondary Trap:
Any pressure defense must make use of secondary traps. Less than 50% of the time will turnovers result from the initial trap. Because teams are coached to reverse the ball, they usually can avoid, or pass out of the initial trap. It's the secondary trap which usually causes the most problems for the offense.
Once this secondary trap is set, the dribbler panics as he is so close to the half court line. He tries to pass out but because Mizzou has a forward playing up, X3/X1 is able to block the pass and steal the ball.
This press is a little different than the one that Seton Hall uses. Seton uses mostly a full-court press that is much more aggressive and takes a lot more chances. I wouldn't say one is better than the other, but depending on the situation. For example, I would say you could use the 3 quarter press the whole game, but the full-court version I would say is limited to building momentum and getting on like a 10-0 run.
The quintessential video on the 2-2-1 press defense is Jim Calhoun's DVD on the 2-2-1 press. Coach Calhoun uses a full-court soft version, but you can adapt it to a 3 quarter pretty easily using the same principles. As always, don't forget to check out the the X's and O's of Basketball forum to get all your hoops fill.
I came home from practice today and the Duke game was over so I caught some clips from Mizzou and the Navy vs. SDSU game. The Navy game was great, it went down to the final few minutes. I was really amazed how Navy was able to stay in the game. I know they are 3-8 on the season now and last in the Patriot League no less, but with the talent they have to work with, I think it is really a testament to how they play the game. If you look at their games, they've never really been annihilated, they usually stay within 10-20 points of their opponent. On offense they are primarily a Princeton type, 5-out motion team, and on defense they are mostly an extended 2-3 zone with a lot of corner and sideline traps. I took several clips of their 5-out motion offense. Watch the video and read my thoughts below,
Give and Go:
Perhaps the simplest and still most effective play out of the 5-out motion offense is the give and go play. It works simply because for that brief second that the defender hesitates after the pass, it's a backdoor pass for a layup. 
The key here is patience. You won't hit the give and go the very first time, every single time. You'll notice in the first sequence of the video, the point guard actually back pedals then sets it up. With the 5-out motion, you want to continuously run pass-cut-fill, pass-cut-fill, and after about 3 or 4 times, you will eventually get an open backdoor give and go. Trust me on this one. It just takes patience.
Drive and Kick Series:
In this sequence, Navy continuously drives into the paint, draws the defense, then kicks it back out. All the while, the players fill the spot vacated by the driver.
In this first diagram, O3 drives from the top of the key. Gets stuck, and skips it to a semi-wide open O4 in the weak-side corner. X4 does a good job of stopping the penetration along with the help from X5. 
Finally, O1 fills in behind O4. X1 gets stuck getting sucked in by the penetration by O4 so O1 is open for the 3 pointer.
Summary:
I'll admit, with the 5-out motion, there is a tendency to settle for the 3-pointer. If you have a great shooting team, then it shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise, you could hit those dry spells where nothing is going down. However, as long as your team is patient, and continues to move the ball either by pass-cut-fill, or penetrate-kick, you should be able to find a good shot. In those HS leagues where you have no shot clock, that is where you get those 20-18 final scores.
But it does work. Just take a look at Navy's scores so far this season, not bad considering they probably don't have a single recruit that was offered a scholarship to anywhere other than Navy,
Fri, Nov 9 at Longwood W 88-72
Sun, Nov 11 at Drexel L 70-86
Wed, Nov 14 Robert Morris L 77-93
Sat, Nov 17 at UTSA L 67-77
Tue, Nov 20 Canisius W 71-60
Fri, Nov 23 Seton Hall L 75-79
Sat, Nov 24 at Pennsylvania L 67-71
Tue, Nov 27 at Howard L 65-75
Thu, Nov 29 Towson W 73-59
Mon, Dec 3 Mount St. Mary's L 58-62
Mon, Dec 17 at San Diego St. L 76-86
The Seton Hall and SDSU games look good. Drexel didn't quite work out, but it was their second game of the year on the road against a good team.
If you are looking for video info on a Princeton-based offense similar to this one that Navy uses, check out Joe Scott's DVD on the Fundamental building Blocks of the Princeton Offense. Coach Scott is the current head coach at Denver and used to be the head coach at Air Force and Princeton, both 5-out teams. Be sure to check out the X's and O's Basketball forum to discuss your favorite coaching topics.
In anticipation of Duke's game tonight against Albany and 11th ranked Pitt on Thursday, I thought I would do a detailed analysis on the transformation of Duke's offense this year. A lot has been written about it, like this article on CNNSI. It really has been remarkable what Coach Mike Krzyzewski has been able to do in just a short amount of time. I'll be real honest, going into this season, I didn't think Duke would be any good at all. With their traditional 3-out 2-in motion set, it would be extremely difficult for Duke to be successful without a legitimate back-to-the-basket player. But given the new recruits that Coach K has brought in, the new Spread PNR system has worked beautifully.
You look at the players that Duke has, a couple of great guards a bunch of great shooting forwards. The new system that Coack K has adopted from working with Mike D'Antoni during the summer with Team USA is fast and scores in bunches, similar to the Phoenix Suns. It utilizes penetration of the paint, and excellent 3-point shooting, both of which Duke currently has.
Given all that, in order to really illustrate the transformation, I thought it would be prudent to compare video from the 2006 NCAA tournament, sweet 16 matchup between LSU and Duke to a game from this season, Wisconsin vs Duke.
3-out 2-in Motion, 2006
I wrote about Duke's motion offense earlier before the season started. It was great because Duke had some great all-american forwards like Sheldon Williams, Josh McRoberts, Carlos Boozer, etc.. 
It was very simple, get the ball in the post, the guards on the weak side screen and fill. From the clip, the guards do an L-cut while the low post screens. It is a very patient, delibrate, use the whole clock offense. Emphasis on getting the ball into the post. They will use a high-low on occasion against a fronting defense.
Spread PNR:
Fast-forward to the present. The current lineup includes some great driving and shooting guards in Greg Paulus, DeMarcus Nelson and great shooting forwards in Jon Scheyer, Taylor King and Kyle Singler. The 3-out 2-in wouldn't work. So this year, they've spread out the offense, penetrate the key and shoot 3-pointers. It really is an early offense as the idea is to score within 10 seconds of the shot clock. Here is the play from the video,
Notice how everyone the floor is spread, the defense has trouble recovering because the players are spaced very well.
The Blue Devils will run a lot of sets with Greg Paulus with the ball near halfcourt, Kyle Singler will come and set a pick, because Greg has been penetrating the key, they decide to switch to try to stop him, Kyle simply pops out of the pick and spots up for the 3-pointer,
Finally, depending on the defense, if they show hard and try to trap the ball-screen, O4 will fake the PNR and slip to the basket. Greg will reverse dribble and go over the top to Kyle for the easy dunk,
Gerald Henderson, O5, will usually come up to the weak side high post for better spacing and allow Kyle a free lane right to the hoop.
Summary:
The Blue Devils really look like the Phoenix Suns this year with a couple of notable differences. Namely, the Blue Devils don't have an Amare Stoudamire. So, they run a lot more dribble drives, and ball reversal. The Suns use the roll very often because Stoudamire is unstoppable going to the basket. This really is the perfect offense for the Suns because they can shoot, drive, and have forwards that are extremely athletic and can finish.
Just how good is Duke's new offense, the proof is in the numbers 86.7 ppg, 7th in the country so far this season. Last season, Duke did not finish in the top 50 in scoring. I couldn't even find their stat for ppg but it was below 72 ppg, so at least a full 15 ppg differential. Remarkable.
There are a few other teams that run a Spread PNR in college. Florida ran it alot the past 2 years under Billy Donovan with Joakim Noah. I've seen Indiana and Oklahoma run it with Blake Griffin.
If you are thinking of running a spread, keep in mind 2 things,
1. You must have players that can shoot. No point to spread the floor if they cannot hit outside shots, otherwise, the defense does not have to respect the spacing and can sag.
2. You must have guards that can penetrate the key, and/or athletic forwards that can catch the pass on the run and finish strong going to the basket.
The best video out there that teaches this offense is Billy Donovan's DVD on the Spread Offense. Coach Donovan used it to win back-to-back national championships at Florida. As always, please check out the X's and O's Basketball forum to talk hoops and exchange notes and ideas.
I decided to catch the Blazers game against the Nuggets tonight in between all my regular NFL games that I watch (it was a bad day as the Seahawks lost). But I wanted to see for myself what all the buzz was about regarding the Blazers and their recent winning streak and they didn't disappoint winning 116-105. What was really evident to me was just how much more efficient the Blazers were and how inefficient the Nuggets were, both on offense and defense.
Defensively, the Blazers were far better. Though part of it had to do with the static offense of the Nuggets. I thought 2 of the keys were Brandon Roy's ability to beat his man off the dribble and penetrate the lane, which allowed Channing Frye to have plenty of open shots. Finally, Joel Pryzbilla was a monster on the glass. Here is the mini-highlight clip I put together,
The Blazers probably ran the 1-4 low about 10 times. Brandon Roy was either able to breakdown his defender and go all the way up, or drew the help side defense and kicked it out to Channing.
Joel had 6 points and I believe all 6 came off of offensive boards. You cannot underestimate offensive rebounding. The Blazers finished with 88 shot attempts, the Nuggets with 80, the Blazers won the offensive glass battle 18-11. Those 7 extra possessions at roughly 50% shooting added at least 6-7 more points.
Tomorrow morning, I will breakdown the re-vamped Duke Offense as they prepare to face Albany in their first action in over a week. For all of you dealing with the winter storms, take extra care and we'll see you tomorrow...
I watched about the first 15 minutes or so of this game between UConn and Quinnipiac. It was clear from the start that the Huskies were too much for the Bobcats but one of the great things that I saw was how the Huskies absolutely dismantled the 2-3 zone of the Bobcats. It was just really good ball movement and people movement. I'm sure Jim Calhoun was at least somewhat happy with the way they executed it. Anways, watch the video and read my thoughts below,
3-out 2-in, Zone Offense:
What I like about the way the Huskies did it was that it was so simple. A lot of times, we as coaches complicate things. I've seen Bo Ryan's X Zone Offense, and though I don't doubt that it probably works great, to be honest, I think it's a little complicated.
Here the Huskies give a 3-out 2-in look (which is great because that is their regular M2M look), and just move the ball and players are cutting and filling. 
The first part of the offense is just passing the ball from wing to wing while the forwards look to gain position down low going from block to block. As I've mentioned before, most zone defense will breakdown when you work it for the whole possession.
High-Low Action:
The play is so simple but it's the details that count. First O3 cuts to the high post. O1 does a dribble drive to the wing. O1 skips to O2 on the other wing. If O2 has a good shot he can take it.
Instead the pass goes to O3. Notice that the pass is high so that O3 catches the ball above his head. That way all he has to do now is pivot towards the basket. Also, it makes it much more difficult for the collapsing defense to swat at the ball.
Now, it's the easy part. After the block to block action, O4 just curls around his defender and looks for the high-low pass and finishes it off nicely. Notice again that O4 has both arms above the shoulders looking for a high pass that he can catch turn and shoot.
Simple, right? Wrong. It does take a lot of practice and patience, especially when you are working with younger players that don't have the discipline. Be patient as a coach, and realize that good zone offense needs sufficient time to be good at. Kids don't just pick these things up, they have to be taught the right way and practice. That's why team basketball is so different from street basketball, there is structure and players have to learn to play within it or things break down.
If you want your team to execute zone offense like UConn, take a look at Coach Jim Calhoun's DVD on Zone Offense and his M2M defensive drills, that's 2 in 1. To discuss this and many more of your favorite basketball topics, head over to the X's and O's of Basketball Forum to talk with other coaches from around the world.
Dissecting Purdue's Win over Louisville
Posted by bruchu Labels: *NCAA, Fastbreak and Early Offense, Zone OffenseIt was great to the college kids get back to action and boy was it a busy day. I was pretty much up at 9am PST all the way to 3pm PST watching games and taking clips before I headed for our JV game against an Australian U16 club team (we lost...). Anyways, back to the college action, there were so many great games and I took tons of clips. I only really have time here today to go through one set but I have took a ton of clips on Kansas, New Mexico, Texas Tech, Niagara, Arizona St, UAB, Kentucky, Marquette.
The Louisville vs Purdue matchup was intriguing to me as a coach on many different levels. Rick Pitino came into the game with 3 of his top players, all forwards, not playing for various reasons. What would be his gameplan?? Then there was Purdue, CBS made the point ad nauseum, the youngest starting 5 in the country, 4 freshmen and 1 sophomore. How would they come out?
Early on, it was clear what Pitino's strategy was going to be, use their 2-2-1 soft press all game and zone it up. I thought about it for a while, then it became clear. Without their top forwards, they had to zone it up to try to protect the paint. Without their top forwards, the Cardinals would need to force turnovers and score in transition. Lastly, Pitino knew the Boilermakers were young, they had blown a big lead to Missouri a few days earlier and in that game they had trouble handling the pressure.
Throughout the game, you couldn't help but admire how Purdue responded. They did have some problems with Louisville's pressure, but for the most part, the broke the press and executed. As for the zone, they exercised a high level of patience, something usually rare among freshmen, but certainly a sign of a well coached team. Matt Painter obviously has done a fine job with his young team. It was in breaking the Louisville press and beating the 2-3 zone that led to the big win.
This first video shows just a couple of the dozen times that Purdue was able to break the press,
This next video shows just 1 sequence of many in which the Boilermakers were able to find the gaps in the zone and score points, this one a 3-pointer in the third quarter,
Press Break, Reverse then Attack Middle:
On most presses (2-2-1, 1-2-2), the weakness is right in the middle. If you're team is having problems breaking the press, it's probably because your players spend too much time in the corners and trapped on the sideline. Here, Purdue reverses the ball to the inbounder who attacks the middle.
I've never been one to scheme much for press breaks. The only rules I have is to have a safety to reverse the ball to (inbounder here), and attack the middle. 
Nothing too complicated that Purdue does, they reverse to the inbounder each time who attacks the middle. Sometimes he was able to go right through for a coast-to-coast layup, other times Louisville did a good job like in the diagram to cut off the penetration. In that case, one of the sideline players breaks for the ball, receives the pass, then they run the half-court offense, which is key. A lot of times, I see teams break a press, then they go into some wild sequence where they jack up a bad shot. Be patient, work the offense (next section).
Bust that 2-3 zone:
For most of the game, Purdue used a 2-1-2 set to attack the 2-3 zone. And it worked extremely well. They were patient, they moved the ball, and more importantly they cut , screened, penetrated the gaps and made shots. Zone offense takes patience, that is one of the reasons why Pitino used it the whole game, he hoped that Purdue's youth would catch up to them, that they would break the discipline, it didn't happen.
Here, Purdue does a good job of flashing to the high post to receive the pass. A lot of zone offenses I see have the offense already in formation. In opinion, you have to be moving to receive the pass otherwise the zone will anticipate the pass and pick it off. 
Just a simple drive to penetrate the gap, then a quick pass (almost a handoff) to change direction, then O3 attacks the middle gap.
Since X2 and X3 get all mixed up in the gap penetration, they are out of position and the zone has morphed. O2 flares to the 3-point line free-throw extended and O3 hits him for the wide open 3-pointer.
What I loved about Purdue's zone offense was in parts of the video from before the diagrams I showed. They were moving, cutting, screening, passing. They used the whole 35 second shot clock to get the best possible shot off. That is how patient you must be against a good zone, use the whole shot clock, make the zone defend you for 35 seconds, I bet they won't. Most HS zone defenses I've observed breakdown after 10 seconds.
Summary:
It was such a great day for basketball watching. I was so beat up after watching basketball all day (including our JV and Varsity games) that I couldn't take any clips of the NBA tonight.
I love dissecting games like Louisville vs. Purdue. Both teams played their hearts out, and executed well on both ends of the floor (though Louisville shot the ball terribly but it was expected without an inside presence). I love how basketball is a big chess game. Team A does this, what does Team B do? Team B changes from x to y, how will Team A respond?
For video info, check out Bill Self's DVD on the 1-3-1 press break and Mike Krzyzewski's DVD on Attacking the Zone. Both are great DVDs that should give you plenty of ideas on attacking these 2 key defensive strategies. If you want to request breakdowns of the video clips that I took today, feel free to post a message on the X's and O's of Basketball forum and I'll be happy to do so.
