In a previous post, we mentioned the importance of visioneering and highlighted this quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Every great endeavor begins with a vision of something greater than yourself, but until it’s shared and internalized by the team, it will get no traction. So, as a coach, you are responsible to create (or at least mold) your team’s vision. You are the captain of that ship after all.

You can develop a successful vision for your basketball team by making three commitments:

Commit to the Art

Coaching is an art and you have to embrace it as such. Anyone can learn a skill and teach it. Anyone can put in an offense. Anyone can fill out the book and shake a ref’s hand. But, coaching is something completely different. A coach understands that there are no little things: it all counts, each basketball drill in practice, each substitution, each decision. Coach like your an artist… because you are.

Commit to the Brand

Your team should have an identity that it embraces and respects. It probably already has a name and a logo, you need to develop a culture to go along with it. It matters little what that brand is – it will depend on your philosophy and your players. And, every player, parent, and coach should be able to recite your brand message, your tagline.

Since everything matters (see first point), part of the art is designing practices, meetings, events that all point to that brand. That brand is who you are as a team and everything you do should further develop that message.

Commit to the Culture

You must intentionally create a culture for your team otherwise a default culture will just naturally wander into view (and, you may not like those wandering cultures). There are many traits of a good team culture. Here are a few:

• Players must be accountable to the team, the organization/school, and the coaches.
• Players must be unconditionally bought in. Players who are engaged only when they are playing well, getting enough playing time, or scoring their desired amount of points are not bought in.
• Hard work must be engaged, not avoided.
• Discipline must be a pervasive trait amongst the players, coaches, trainers, parents, and anyone else associated with the program.

Each of these commitments is a plank in your team’s ship. Once it’s built, will it be something you’re proud of or something you make excuses for? You are building regardless, so you might as well build a ship that can train young men and women to build their own ships of vision, discipline, resolve, and commitment. That’s what coaching is all about anyway.

Once you build that ship, the wins will take care of themselves.

I define a “situation” as an offensive action that engages two or more defenders simultaneously. For example, most screening actions create situations, an attacking drive generates a situation, and many times just feeding a competent post player instigates a situation.

If your opponent lacks cohesion as a defensive unit, a single situation may be enough to break them open for a score. The reality, though, is that most defensive teams are better coached and more prepared: they are capable of helping and recovering as well as double-teaming and rotating back without giving up a scoring opportunity.

But, just because a team can handle one situation doesn’t mean they can handle two or three in a row, or even two or three simultaneously.

Set this as a goal for your Read & React team (especially when you come up against better defensive teams): every possession, force the defense to handle more than one situation back to back or at the same time.

Below are a couple of examples of how you can do that.

Read & React Offensive Situations in a Row

Example 1: Feed the post, set a Pin Screen on the weak side, have the post skip the ball. That’s two situations in a row: the defense must handle the post feed and navigate a Pin & Skip in quick succession.

Example 2: Drive and pitch; screen the ball; then pass, cut, and set a screen for the post. Now the defense must help and recover on the drive; hedge, switch, or whatever they do against a pick and roll; and navigate a screen away from the ball in a “big-little” scenario. That’s at least three situations and will potentially create a couple more.

Even something as seemingly simple as two Pin & Skips in a row works. Or, two drive and pitches. The options are really endless and up to your team’s creativity and experience.

Read & React Offensive Situations at the Same Time

Example 1: Every time your post player deliberately posts up and asks for the ball, set a Pin & Skip on the other side of the floor, especially if the defensive strategy revolves around double-teaming the post. This forces the defense to decide which is more important: stopping the post feed or defending the Pin & Skip. Sure, they may be able to stop one, but can they stop both?

Example 2: Use an X-Cut after a post feed. That’s a simple way to generate simultaneous situations – the East/West screen with the ball in post. And, there’s going to be a basket cut coming along as well. Throw in a Pin screen on the opposite side of the floor and you have three or four simultaneous situations. That’s tough to defend.

When you’re trying to kill a snake that wants to bite you, throwing one rock at a time will preserve your supply of rocks but you might run out of time before you hit it. Why not throw a handful of rocks at one time? The odds of hitting the snake goes up dramatically!

It’s not a perfect analogy, but you get the point. One situation per possession is not enough to take down a good defensive opponent.

Seth Godin recently wrote the following on his blog:

Fledgling sushi chefs spend months (sometimes years) doing nothing but making the rice for the head chef.

If the rice isn’t right, it really doesn’t matter what else you do, you’re not going to be able to serve great sushi.

Too often, we quickly jump ahead to the new thing, failing to get good enough at the important thing.

This easily applies to you as a basketball coach.

• In your rush to put in as many layers of the Read & React as possible are you sacrificing the gains your team could achieve by mastering the first few layers?
• In your practices are you pushing your players into more and more complex basketball drills when they could most benefit from more repetition?
• Do you allow your players to train far beyond their abilities when they should be focused on the fundamentals?
• Are you worried about getting to the next level before your feet are firmly planted on this level?

None of those things are inherently wrong (in fact, some might be right for your team), but next time you are working on your coaching philosophy, practice plan, or off-season workouts just ask yourself…

Do we need to make more rice?

When defending a player on the wing, you should do everything you can to keep the ball from being dribbled into the middle. This means forcing, influencing, or shading the ball towards the corner/baseline and then working hard at stopping the drive (by yourself) before the attack reaches the short corner.

The above sentiment is nothing revolutionary, but let’s examine why it works.

When the ball drives baseline, there are several factors in favor of the defense:

1. The offense is actually decreasing the usable court space.
2. The baseline becomes a defensive “sixth man”.
3. Shooting angles are not as good as being in the middle of the floor (read: shooting percentages drop).
4. Natural passing angles are fewer and more difficult.
5. Non-ball defenders seem to drop toward the goal more easily than when the ball is driven into the middle.

When the ball drives into the middle away from the baseline:

1. The ball-handler has more space.
2. The ball-handler has more passing options with better angles.
3. Post players have to be careful about stepping up to help leaving their players open at the basket.
4. Teammates on the perimeter are reluctant to help for fear of giving up the three point shot.
5. Statistically, this drive simply seems to favor the offense over the defense.

So, when you’re guarding the wing (outer one-third) of the half-court, do everything you can with your stance and your distance to make the drive go toward the corner more times than it goes to the middle. Percentage-wise, it’s worth it.

Dear High Ball Screen,

This is difficult for me to say (well, write). I just want to be friends.

I know. I know. We’ve had some great times. And, I’m sure there will be more to come, but right now, I just need some… space.

You see, we’ve had this love affair for a long time. Heck, you were probably the first screen I was introduced to as a young basketball player. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I’ll always cherish our memories.

But, I recently got to thinking. Are we as compatible as I think we are? Do I love you because my previous coaches told me to? Are you just a Sacred Zombie Cow? Or, do we really fit?

I needed to know (for both our sakes) so I decided to test it out on the biggest stage I could find: the NCAA National Championship game – theoretically the two best non-professional basketball teams in the world. It would be perfect. I would chart all the amazing impact you made in that game and fall in love with you all over again. You know, just like when we were younger.

Well, that’s what I thought would happen.

Instead, here’s how that chart turned out:

• Total number of High Ball Screens (HBS) attempted: 39
• Total number of direct baskets: 4
• Total number of indirect baskets: 2
• Total number of non-related baskets on a HBS possession: 2

I know that’s hard to swallow so let me clarify what I mean.

A direct basket is a score by either the ball handler receiving the screen or the screener (rolling, popping, etc.) after setting the screen.

An indirect basket is a score by any player as a result of the screen, but not directly related to it. This happens when the screen creates turmoil in the defense and a score results. Or, if the ball handler uses the screen, then pitches for a shot. Or, even if the screener gets the pass and finds an open shooter once help arrives.

Non-related baskets are those scores on any possession where a High Ball Screen was used, but had nothing to do with the score. For example, a High Ball Screen is set, the defense stops it, the offense resets (calls a play, runs a motion, etc), and scores. That basket had nothing to do with the High Ball Screen except that it occurred on the same possession.

You see, I didn’t want to believe it either. But, the numbers don’t lie (at least in this one admittedly small sample).

You were only responsible for 6 baskets that entire game.

You were only successful (directly and indirectly) 15% of the time you were used.

Let’s just say I’m rethinking our relationship. Sure, I still want you around to shake things up every once in a while. You’re great at that! Yeah, I’d love to see you in late shot clock situations or as part of a Quick Hitter. But, as a significant part of my offense… I just don’t think so anymore.

So, listen High Ball Screen… let’s just be friends.

Scott

PS: Even though we’re not as intimate anymore doesn’t mean that I don’t want to spend time with your siblings. The Pin Screen, the back screen, post blocking, and the others… those are some screens I could see myself getting to know on a deeper level. Thanks for understanding.

The best offensive attacks are free-flowing, more closely resembling a great jazz performance than a scripted symphony. But, what if your players tend to fall into predictable patterns? What if your players don’t have enough experience (yet) to know how to adjust effectively to the defense? What if your players just need a jump start?

Well, that’s when you can introduce some very basic passing patterns. Below are three easy to implement passing patterns that will make your team appear like they know what they’re doing when they come up against a traditional man-to-man defense, a traditional zone defense, and even a pack-line defense.

You could even introduce color codes to make transitioning between them even easier.

Against player-to-player… especially when your offense focuses on off-the-ball screening.

RULE: Corners pass fast. Wings pass medium. Top pass slow.

WHY: Corner and Wing players are going to be using and setting the screens. When the ball is Up-Top, it can see the screening actions on the entire half-court. In this position there’s no ball-side or weak-side. In addition, if nothing is open, holding the ball Up-Top gives the team a chance to clear and “space” and get ready again.

Against zones…

RULE: Corners pass slow. Wings pass medium. Top pass fast. (This is the opposite to the first pattern.)

WHY: Against zones, your team should swing the ball fast from one side of the floor to the other. But when the ball slows down at the wing or corner, it gives your cutters, flashers and pin screeners time to do their work.

Obviously, if you are facing a corner trapping zone, make the appropriate adjustments to this pattern. Holding the ball in the corner probably won’t be effective in that situation.

Against pack-line player-to-player…

RULE: Have a Pass-Pass-Hold rule (PPH) in contrast to Pass-Hold-Pass-Hold, etc rule.

WHY: The pack-line allows the ball to be freely passed around the perimeter; therefore, a Pass-Pass-Hold rule requires defenders to change their positions twice in quick succession. As an example, if you are guarding the ball and a PPH occurs, you’ve gone from guarding the ball to being two passes away almost immediately – being one-pass-away occurred so fast that you didn’t have time to adjust properly.

Pass-Pass-Hold makes the defense jump two defensive positions at a time. This creates Close-Outs, which are difficult defensive actions; thus, Close-Outs are scoring opportunities. PPH also reveals gaps into which the ball can be driven or passed. Even against good defensive teams, position breakdowns will often occur after two or three PPH’s in a row.

And, of course, you can attack all of the above defenses (and any others you come across) with a single offense. It might be time to consider the Read & React Offense.

Please ignore this placeholder post as we are using this to set up our new podcast. Stay turned for more information and our first episode.

For those of you checking out the Read & React for the first time, the video below is an excerpt of Layer 1: Pass & Cut from the Read & React Offensive System DVD Set.

Here’s why I think most coaches look past Layer 1 Pass & Cut: They only see the initial scoring opportunities, i.e., the give-and-go that comes from a Front Cut or a Rear Cut. They think that it is easily defended (which we all know is not the case), but more importantly, they don’t see what else that action creates:

Draft Drives

After the basket cut an immediate help defender one position away has been temporarily taken out of the picture. A dribble drive in the direction of that cutter takes advantage of this space. Now, the closest help defender must come from a distance of two spots. By the way, that help defender is also trying to guard an offensive player who is filling up and on the move.

It’s amazing how effective this can be. I’ve seen draft drives end in lay-ups over the back of the original cutter’s defender.

Fill Cuts

There are unique scoring opportunities made possible for the player who fills the open spot, especially if that player is a Slasher.

Read Line Rear Cut if the defender is denying.

Curl the Puppydog (Front Cut) if the defender is trailing.

And, if the pass is made to the Filler, he now has the opportunity to attack while in motion. This may be a rip against the grain, a shot in rhythm, or a variety of other actions.

It’s obvious to say that a player in motion is more dangerous. Well, the Fill Cuts generate moving players on every pass.

Spacing, Player Movement, and Ball Movement

In only a few seconds, a Read & React team can make the defense change sides of the floor, defend on the perimeter, defend a North-South cut, defend in the post, and close out multiple times. Modern day defense requires that five defenders guard two-thirds of the floor. Layer 1 can break that down for most teams in only 10-15 seconds.

This opens up gaps to attack with other actions. Even if the Layer 1 action isn’t the scoring action, it can still create the opportunity for the score. In many cases, it should be credited with an assist.

Next Best Actions

Next Best Action decisions are given to the players only after or during a basket cut. Layer 1 is a hinge layer: the remaining 19 layers are contingent on the action of constantly cutting the lane and threatening the basket.

Layer 1 is the door that players walk through in order to get to decisions like the following:

1. Post-up after the cut (if there’s an advantage).
2. Set a screen for a post player before filling out.
3. Set a Pin Screen on weak-side defenders.
4. Use a Pin Screen set by one of your Read & React teammates.
5. Set a Back Screen for anyone, anywhere on the perimeter.
6. Use another cutting teammate as a Brush Screen.
7. Set a Brush Screen for another cutting teammate and then shape-up for the ball.
8. Use a screen set by your post player either coming into the lane or going out.
9. Use both post players (if you have them) as double staggered screens.
10. And the list goes on…

I know of many high level coaches who have “taken a look” at the Read & React only to skip over the first layer as if it just applies to youth teams and camps.

As far as I’m concerned, they don’t know what they’re missing!

Are you tired of practicing different offenses for different defenses?

This could be as simple as having one offense for man defense and one offense for zone defense, but I’ve seen coaches with arsenals full of offenses with a different one to be deployed for every possible contingency.

Not only does that steal the fun out of the game, it’s just not practical to spend precious practice time working on sets, plays, or patterns that your team will never use. Even implementing a new offense for each defense you scout is a time suck and ultimately just confuses your players to the point where they can no longer be effective.

The Read & React Offense, though, can attack any type of defense from any formation with only a few slight adjustments. This allows you to focus on only one offense in practice your entire season. Now you can spend more time polishing it and tweaking it so that it fits your team’s strengths perfectly.

In the video below, you’ll see different types of teams using the Read & React to attack zones, high pressure man, and sagging man defenses. If you want to see more game footage, check out our Read & React Video Archive.

Will the Read & React work against zones?

The best way to attack zones is with spacing, ball movement, and player movement. Actually, that’s the best way to attack any defense. Throw in a threat to the zone’s seams and you’re good to go. The spacing, ball movement, and player movement are obvious in the clips, but watch as cutters hook their cuts into the seams of the zone and look for the interior pass. We call that the Hook & Look for obvious reasons and it keeps the defense on edge.

And you don’t have to be a great three-point shooting team either. Half these clips end in lay-ups.

For more ideas on attacking zones, check out Attacking 1-3-1 Zones with Read & React and 3 OUT Zone Attack with Read & React.

Will the Read & React work against high-pressure defense?

Actually, if you are a Read & React team, you should be begging your opponent to bring the pressure. With all the cutting actions of the offense, pressure just isn’t a problem. In fact, every one of the clips in this section end in lay-ups off the Read Line cut. That’s just Layer 1 stuff. When you start to take down a defense with just one layer, you’ll soon find yourself up against another defense.

Will the Read & React work against good, helping weak-side defense?

If I were to defend the Read & React, this is the defense that I would choose. Not because it is a Read & React killer, but because it forces a R&R team to go deeper into the layers than the previous two options. You see, the ideal way to counter sagging defenses is the Pin & Skip (Layer 7) and that requires a higher level of skill than the simple rear cut.

Of course, sagging defenses are similar to zones so linking several layers together is also highly effective. And, remember, you don’t have to shoot 3′s if you’re team isn’t up to it: pump fake that open shot and attack the basket against that recovering defender. Good things usually happen when driving against a close-out.

Tradition tells us to attack an odd fronted zone with an even fronted offense. In that case, to attack a 1-3-1 zone defense, you should use a two-guard offense to split that top defender.

But, what if you attacked odd with odd? What if you attacked that 1-3-1 with a 5 OUT formation?

In the first part of the video below, Uie Garcia has his team use the Read & React Zone Attack against a 1-3-1. The first series begins with a 5 OUT formation, then he switches to a more standard 4 OUT attack. Each seems to work equally well.

The point is this: don’t let the formation of the defense necessarily force you into an offensive formation that you don’t like. It is possible to attack a 1-3-1 effectively in 5 OUT.

This video is an excerpt from Read & React Clinics: Planning the R&R Practice. It’s a 5 DVD set designed to walk you through the finer points of designing and implementing an efficient Read & React practice.

Rick Torbett takes it a step further, adding the Pin & Skip. You must make help-side defense pay for cheating closer and closer to the ball. The easiest way to do this is to Pin a deep defender and Skip the pass over her head.

Do this a couple of times in a possession and even the most disciplined defensive teams will lose their spacing and wind up vulnerable. And, if nothing else, it will keep the help-side honest, opening up space in the lane.

Now, the best teams can generate Pins & Skips organically, but if your team needs a temporary crutch, try this one: any Dribble At against a zone creates a Pin & Skip for the player who was Dribbled At. So, if the guard Dribbles At the wing, the wing cuts (that’s basic layer 3 action) and receives the Skip pass on the other side of the court.