I have a very inexperienced Middle School team with a decent point guard who can handle the ball. I need a simple Man to Man offense that takes advantage of overplay on the wings. What do you have for me?
Thanks,
Dave

Good morning, Coach Jim McGannon here of Basketball Basics.

Before we get going, we believe at the middle school level (and really all the way through JV in High School) that EVERYTHING these kids do is developmental. The wins and losses are purely secondary. This is easy to say and tough to do. Of course you want to win when the game's on, but the kids have no chance really unless their skills are being worked on and developed. If this is NOT the case, the game is purely a measure of athleticism. So I would highly encourage you to work hard at the basic skills in practice: foot skills, vision skills and hand skills. I would be happy to describe how these skills can be addressed in an age appropriate manner.


Having now said this, we can address a simple man to man offense but remember, it's almost a waste of time until these basic skills are at least somewhat developed.


1. Work on a back door drill from both wings. Ball handler either crosses over or spin dribbles at the point and heads to the wing. This change of direction is important, otherwsie the defender will be able to over play himself and deny that wing pass. (This of course goes to the basic change of direction dribble drills that should be part of every practrice).

Try and teach the wing players that there are NO STRAIGHT LINES IN BASKETBALL. The kid on the wing can not just stand there and wait for the pass before he goes back door. He must set his player up with a jab cut toward the baseline/lane area and then pop out. At the 5th/6th grade level this should be relatively easy to do and get open on the wing.

If the wing player is open, your ball handler will then execute the OLDEST play in the game, the give and go. REMEMBER, no straight lines. He hits this wing player, jab cuts either toward the wing or toward the lane and then explodes in the opposite direction, looking for the pass from the wing. This cutter should be able to read his defender and know which way to cut based on the defender's position.

The guys on the oither side of the floor MUST KEEP THEIR SPACING. Do not crowd the ball, in fact, move away from the play, creating as much space as possible.

If the pass is made from the wing to the cutter, hopfully he can score. GREAT opportunity to teach RECOGNITION SKILLS (to SEE and UNDERSTAND). If the cutter gets the ball, are his feet in a good position to score, or are his feet messed up and in an awkward position? Only he will know, we now can teach the kids to understand their balance and either score or start over again. THERE IS NO SHOT CLOCK.


If he does not get the pass, he can now set a low or mid post screen for a player on the opposite side of the floor. All screens are jump stops. At this age, 99% of the screens are moving and incorrectly executed. Find the defender and execute a long and strong jump stop, feet at LEAST shoulder width.The cutter must find the defender and execute a solid and wide jump stop right next to the defender. The opposite player now jab cuts (NO STRAIGHT LINES) and goes off the pick looking for the pass from the wing. If this cutter does not get the pass, it is very simple for him to continue out to the wing, and set a pick on the ball (BASELINE SIDE IS BEST, allowing for ther ball handler to try and take the baseline). Of course this is now the 2nd OLDEST play in the game, the pick and roll. To give you an idea of how this play is executed at the high school level, only about 10% of the high school players can execute a decent pick and roll consistently. This is a GREAT age to teach these kids the proper way to do this. You can see from my descriptions here that attempting to implement any offense at this age is very difficult. It is a game of PRECISION and TIMING. Kids improve in practice and apply what they learn into games. Then they practice some more.


If this Post Flash or ball side pick is not there, at this age, I would start all over again. Reverse the ball to the decent ball handler and start over. There are a myriad of options within this offense, it is the beginning of the Motion Offense probabaly best executed these days by Duke. I would video tape a Duke game and watch that as an instructional tool.

Coach Jim,

Thanks for the help. I have been out of coaching for 7 years. I think I have forgotten more than I ever knew. I used a pass and screen away pattern offense last year. I used it at the high school level and it worked well. My MS kids struggled with the timing of it last year. I taught the pick and roll and give and go but not in a motion manner that you have lent to me. It sounds good.

Thanks,
Dave

I definitely recommend using on the ball and off the ball screens. Maybe even consider a play usualy termed as "horns". You bring two posts to each elbow and let your PG run off of them.