Stockton and Malone. Just saying the names of those two Hall of Famers bring to mind the beauty behind the pick and roll. Seeing the mastery behind such a simple play led me, along with input from my friends, to explore the possibility of installing a Complete Ball Screen System. The reasons for installing the…
Motion Offense – Reading The Defense
It is time to start reading the defense! You cannot practice reading the defense in a downscreen often enough. Think of every single downscreen like an at-bat in baseball. The hitter learns more about the pitcher. There are different ball and strike counts to learn from each time a batter goes to the plate. The…
Motion Offense – Cutting And Screening Basics
In the premier of the FastModel Motion Offense Forum last week, we introduced the foundation of motion offense – the basket cut. Building the habit of basket cutting is essential to motion offense and it leads us to our next progressions. There are new concept to be introduced, but the basket cut will be referred…
Motion Offense – Foundations
There has been talk among basketball coaches, observers, fans and analysts this season about how basketball is becoming unwatchable. Scoring is down at the NCAA level and bad offense is partly to blame. One college basketball expert offered the opinion that far fewer coaches are taking the time and trouble to really TEACH offense…
3 Drills to End Practice
Just as there are many ways to begin practice, there are plenty of drills to bring practice to a close. Below are five drills that offer a good balance of competitiveness, conditioning, and skill work. USA Shooting: The set up for this drill includes 2 players at the far baseline and 3 lines of…
Play of the Day – Feb. 19, 2015
Today’s Play of the Day is one of the classic lob plays against a zone. Run by great programs like Cincinnati and North Carolina time and time again, the offense lulls the zone to sleep with perimeter passing, then strikes for a lob with two back screens on the bottom of the zone. That frees…
Plays Of The Week – Feb. 13, 2015
“Zone Offense Variety Pack” Facing a 2-3 zone can be challenging. At the end of the day, your players just have to knock down open shots when they come. It is really that simple. You move the ball, make skip passes, attack gaps, go inside-out, hit the short corner and hope that the shots fall.…
NBA Chin Series
The Chin set is useful across multiple levels of competition because it is so versatile. In the NBA, it is often used as a designed set to feature a particular scoring option on the floor. At the college level, such as we see with Tom Crean’s offense at Indiana, it can be used as a…
Scoring off your Baseline Out of Bounds and Sideline Out of Bounds Situations
The ability to execute and score off of your team’s half court sets is a crucial component to winning games. You practice your half court sets most days in practice and you constantly try to instill the importance of executing those plays in your players. Do you spend the same amount of time and place…
Plays of the Week – Jan 30, 2015
The flare screen is one of the best actions in basketball. Coaches spend hours drilling pick-and-roll defense and how to handle down screens. But I have found that covering flare screens is an under-taught aspect of basketball. Some keys to effective flare screens: The screeners back should be pointed to the corner of the court.…