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In this post we'll discuss some general thoughts about offense.
Earlier this week I tweeted out a list of ten of my beliefs on the offensive side of the ball. I wanted to put them in blog form to keep them in one place. Here's the list with some commentary that I couldn't fit into tweet form.
1. Look for Edges
This was more of a thought about what we should focus on offensively in the off season months.
Rather than revamping your entire half court offense, perhaps a more worthwhile endeavor would be to find the little edges that we are missing out on in games. With more emphasis on a concept, or more focused teaching in a certain area we might make up 3-4 points per game.
For example maybe we do deep dives into:
Transition Run Outs
Pushing More on Makes
More Efficient / Simpler BLOB's
Our Finishing, Skill Work
2. Players Make Plays
In a perfect world we would be able to put 5 play makers on the floor who would all be able to score, finish, & make plays for others. In reality, that's rarely the case.
Most years you have teams in which you have solid players, but ones who often need an action or your Best Players to create advantages for them.
That reality is what spawned this thought. We need to design offensive systems that will allow our best players to "do what they do" best. Just to be clear I'm not saying that we should change who we are every single season - I'm just saying that if there is a small tweak we can make that will open up the skill set of our best scorers then we should do it.
3. Make Sure to Design Offensive Spacing
I'm sort of building off of number two here - in that we need to design spacing for our "players to make plays".
Your best player (scorer) will be the number one priority for your opponent's defense. Knowing this, we need to build spacing into our offense in order for that player to make plays for himself & others.
This can be done in a myriad of ways:
False Movement to free him up
Cuts that Open Gaps
Screens that Create Small Advantages
I do think this is something that can be asked in season as well - "are we providing enough spacing for him to make plays." If not, then let's adjust.
4. Disguise Your Actions
I'm not advocating for complicating your offense more than it has to be, but we should be prepared to find ways to disguise what our true intentions are.
Not only have teams scouted your actions, but by the time the first 16 minutes are played they have a pretty good idea about what you are trying to do offensively.
In fact the opposing coaching staff and team have just discussed what needs to be done to fix their mistakes for ten minutes before play resumes.
As I said in the tweet I don't think you need to stray from your offense's core principles but perhaps we should have a wrinkle or two up our sleeve to mask our main actions heading into the second half.
5. Embed Scoring Opportunities for Everyone
This may appear as though I am contradicting my Offensive Thought #2 - but I think this is the other piece that pairs with it.
Not only should we be thinking about whether our system creates spacing for our best players - but we should also be thinking about whether it creates chances for other players as well.
Here is a great example from our own program a few years back that served as inspiration for this tweet.
Had a 6'8' Dominant Post Player
Had Solid Players that Complimented Him on the Perimeter
Our solution was to ditch the 3 Out Spacing & Set plays of the previous season - and move to a 4 Out Motion System that:
Created Isolated Post Ups
Created Scoring Opportunities off the Down Screen & Flare Screen Actions
Concluding Thoughts
I'm going to be splitting up this blog posts into two separate posts just to keep them to our normal length. Be on the look out for part two which I will post later this weekend.
Thoughts on Offense Part 2 - https://bit.ly/30tNcHD
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Coach Lynch Contact Info:
Email - mflynch21@yahoo.com
Twitter - @LeicBasketball
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