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 the same importance on your baseline or sideline out of bounds plays? Say there are an average of 6 baseline out of bounds (BOB) situations for each team per game. That is 6 opportunities to score without having to run a half court set. Scoring on just half of those opportunities would yield 6-9 points per game. Is there any coach in America, or anywhere in the world for that matter, that does not want 6-9 extra points? There are a number of important aspects to creating quality scoring opportunities off baseline (BOB) and sideline out of bounds (SLOB) situations.

• Run a number of BOBs and SLOBs that each starts out with the same initial player set-up.  For example, have a combination or series of plays that set up in a box with two posts high (one on each elbow of the free throw line) and two guards low (one at each block). Name each one of the plays in that series a color – yellow, red, blue, etc. (see below for some examples of these plays). Then run a separate combination/series of plays that set up in a box, but this time with one guard and one post positioned both down low and up high. Name each one of the plays in that series a state – Utah, Alabama, New York, etc. Running different plays out of the same initial formation makes your team harder to scout and harder for your opponent to beat you to spots on the court. See below for a number of different BOBs that can be run from the same formation.

• All of your players must start in an athletic stance – knees bent and ready to move quickly once the ball is handed to their teammate by the referee. Another benefit of starting in an athletic stance is not allowing the opponent to “get up in you” and thus dictate your movement. A way to stop opponents from gaining this leverage is to have all of your players start with their hands on their knees. See the below image of LeBron James for a picture of that stance.

• Use your BOB and SLOB plays as rewards for those members of your team who have proven they can score quickly and efficiently, specifically if they are good shooting off screens. Most teams run all of their BOBs and SLOBs for their “best players”. Think about using those players as decoys; your opponents will most likely be primarily concerned with your star, and can often forget about other players who are capable of scoring out of specific situations that can be created from your BOB & SLOB plays.