Motion Offense - Getting Post Player Touches

By Joe Haefner

In our recent teleseminar for the people who purchased the Motion Offense eBooks, there was a question that I really wanted to share.

Here is an edited version of the question and answer between the listener and Don Kelbick.

Guest: I’ve got a 6′9″ kid actually that’s going Division 1 next year. I want to make sure that our number one rule is that every third, fourth touch is a post touch. Does this rule sound like a good rule for the motion offense?

Don Kelbick: Right. I used to do that, and that might work for you, because it worked for me sometimes. What I found with this rule is that it shows how much kids want to please you. A lot of times, they’d get concerned about how many passes were thrown.

So a kid would stand out on the wing, and somebody would be wide open. They wouldn’t throw it to them because they would say, “You know, I thought we were on the fourth pass, so I have to throw it into the post.”

I actually went away from that rule and used this rule instead, “We’re not taking any jump shots until the post man touches the ball.”

And if you have a real good post player, then let him touch the ball twice. And then you teach your post player that when the ball goes into the post, the defense is going to collapse. At the very least, the defense is going to turn around to try and find the ball.

Teach your shooters, when the ball goes into the post, here’s where you go. And then you teach the post guy that if he doesn’t have a post play, this is where you look.

By throwing the ball into the post and having the post guy throw the ball back out, the number of open shots that you will get will stagger you.

Offensive Tips For Coaches With Shooters & Post Players

By Joe Haefner

Don Kelbick recently answered a question about offense from one of our email subscribers.  It has some great information about utilizing post players and shooters within your offense.  Here it is:

Question:

I have one good shooter and two good post players. I need an offense for my team. Anything would help out would be great.

Don’s Response:

If only the answers were easy, we would all be undefeated.

I would need more information to give you an answer but I can give you some concepts.  Then you trust yourself and your instincts, keep it simple, use a little trial and error and I am sure you can come up with an offense of your own.

First, you say you have 2 post players. Most teams don’t have any so you are blessed. However, if they both posses the same skill set or have to occupy the same area, they will get in each other’s way and cancel each other out. That is why the “Twin Tower” experiments (Houston’s Sampson & Olajuon, NY’s Ewing & Cartright) didn’t work out too well.

Next, you say you have a good shooter. The effect of shooters with good post players is profound. If you use him wisely, he will open up many and varied options. Good shooters strip post help. If the shooter and the post player are on the same side, the shooter’s man cannot drop down to help in the post. If the shooter is on the other side, your players will be able to penetrate due to the fact that the shooter’s man cannot help. If his man does help, it will open penetrate and kick opportunities.

Lastly, an old concept but a very effective one. This is what most offenses are based on. The offense, with 5 players, is divided into a 3 man game on one side, and a 2 man game on the other side. Screen-downs with shooters and posts are very effective. Ball screens with kick opportunities are also very effective. You need to have someone to handle the ball though.

Keep your shooter moving, as much as possible. Use your post players to screen for him so the post defender has to make adjustments and that will open the post.

As I said, try and to keep it simple and experiment. Most of all, let the players do what they are good at in areas in which they can be successful.

I don’t know if this helps but hopefully it will at least be a start. Let me know if I can help you any further.

Don

The Easy Way to Teach Basketball Offense

By Don Kelbick

Coaches constantly complain that they can’t get their players to remember their plays. They want an easy basketball offense.

Over and over again I hear, “My guys are thick. I can’t get them to remember anything.” Once in a while I might hear, “How can I teach my offense better?”, but I don’t hear it often enough.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do have an opinion. Since this is my space, here is my opinion.

Lack of Background

First and foremost, if you continuously have trouble getting your team to remember their offense, the first thing you should think is that it is too complex or you have TOO MANY PLAYS. I know that it is difficult for a coach to look at himself that way, but he has to.

You have to remember two things…

First, your players don’t have the background that you do. Your past experience will allow you to be much more adaptable than your players.

The second thing is that you came up with the basketball plays. They have to be second nature to you before you bring it to the court. You will know all the positions and all the adjustments long before your players are comfortable with even one aspect.

To draw an analogy, I teach players that a “good pass” is a pass that your teammate can catch. It doesn’t matter where or how you throw a pass if your teammate can’t catch it. Passes that one player can catch, another one can’t. You have to make allowances for that when you pass the ball. When you teach a basketball offense, it doesn’t matter how simple you think it is. If your players don’t get it, it is too complex. It is not important what you think, it is important if they get it.

Drills, Progressions, Dummy

These are the three magic words of teaching offenses…

Drills

When you decide on the drill you are going to use in practice, what criteria do you use?  Do you run drills that you think are expected of you (such as three-man weave) that really have no purpose — or do you select drills that have relevance to your team?

TIP:  I believe that the best way to construct basketball drills for your team is to take pieces of your offense and turn those one or two passes and one or two cuts and make them drills. If you are running the “Flex,” the back screen is one drill, the lane duck-in is another drill, and the weakside down screen is another drill. You can work these every day. It will not only make your players’ skills better but it will help them recognize situations.

Progressions

Before you run, you have to know how to walk. Before you walk, you have to know how to crawl. Those are progressions. As you construct your drills as pieces of your offense you drill first cut, second cut, third cut. Once you are comfortable with how your team runs the drills, start putting the drills together. Your first drill is now first cut, second cut. The next drill is third cut, fourth cut. When you are comfortable with that. Your first drill becomes first cut, second cut, and third cut. Before you know it, you’ve practiced your offense.

That doesn’t mean you can’t run single cut drills as well, but players learn better in pieces.

Dummy

No, I don’t mean your players. Dummy refers to running your offense without defense. Again I ask you, “what do you do to get your players warmed up?” Do you just run up and down in a useless drill or do you do something relevant?

TIP:  Might I suggest that you run “dummy offense” as a warm-up drill instead of 3-man weave and lay-up drills? And I don’t mean just the half court stuff either. Dummy your fastbreak and your press breakers as well. You will work up a sweat, get in some relevant shooting, some ball handling, conditioning and most importantly, you will be running your offense and reinforcing its principles and philosophy over and over again.

I am a firm believer that you have to remove competition from teaching. When in competition, players’ thoughts are to perform and survive, not learn. Remove the competition, people learn better. Once you are comfortable that your players know what is expected of them, you can introduce competition. They can then go back to their drills, progressions and dummy for reinforcement.

In order to learn more about teaching the motion offense, Don Kelbick also authored Basketball Motion Offense - How to Develop a High Scoring Motion Offense.

Cynical Thoughts on the Dribble Drive Motion Offense

By Don Kelbick

Just a couple of cynical thoughts as I watched Memphis wipe the floor with Texas. As, they run their “Dribble Drive Motion,” you can’t tell me that the type of offense they run will make any difference with how good they are. They are great athletes with terrific skills and any offense they run will not only be successful but due to their skills set, no matter what they run, it will turn into a “Dribble Drive” because they are all very good at that. Somewhere, in northern New Hampshire or western Idaho, or eastern Montana, some coach is sitting in his living room, taking notes and planning to install it with his program of 5′10″ rural farmers and will be genuinely surprised when he doesn’t get the same results as Memphis. Once again, it’s not the x’s and the o’s, it’s the Jimmys and the Joes.

Picture by shundaroni

Way back when, in the 70’s and early 80’s, there was no shot clock in college basketball. Dean Smith had an offense called the “4 Corners.” He used it to isolate his great guards (Larry Brown, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, etc) and to run the clock. One of the games that precipitated the use of the shot clock was a UNC game against Virginia with Ralph Sampson. UNC held the ball with the 4 Corners and the half-time score was 7-0. I believe the final score was something like 16-9. After that game, people started calling for the shot clock.

My first real job was at a Div. III school called Longwood College (now a Div. I school). Our Head Coach ran the same 4 Corners as UNC, except we called it “4 to Score.” We ran it with exactly the same rotations and cuts, except to we tried to get the ball handler to penetrate instead hold the ball. The result was that the same exact offense that produ ced the 7-0 half-time score allowed us to average 91 ppg. You know what? It looked EXACTLY like the “Dribble, Drive, Motion.” That was 30 years ago. We just called it something else. And in reality, it wasn’t new even when we ran, we took it from someone else. Old coaching saying, “Nothing new has been invented in basketball since the jump shot.”