I've told my kids the best way to beat a press (or zone) is get the ball in quickly and don't give them time to set up. Let's say the other team is quick about setting up their full court press. I'd rather not waste a time-out to tell my kids to run our press breaker. What indicator can I use to let them know to set up our press breaker before they get it out of the net and start going?

Another question, it seems that you won't have enough time to set-up a press breaker with specific kids in specific places. Do most teams just have designated spots and the player that arrives first is in that spot?

Thanks!

Since I run a numbered transition break, I just design our press breaker to fit in with that. In our numbered break, I always have a 4 bringing in the ball (sometimes I change this to 3 depending on my personnel for that season). This player should be a good ballhandler. 2 sprints the right lane going to corner, 3 sprints left lane going to corner, 5 runs down the middle going to strong side block. 1 picks a side of the floor (usually the right) and 4 trails the opposite side of floor.

If the kids notice a zone press, they are already to their spot and make a few small adjustments. Pretty simple. They know what to do so we don't have an indicator and in most cases we don't take a time out.

Like Jeff said, it all depends on your personnel. I always felt that we handled presses better with our press offense IF we got our players where I wanted them to be. It only takes a few seconds for them to get where they were supposed to be. We were very patient and 10 seconds is a lifetime.... and IF we got the ball in the middle quickly, we usually broke it for a basket..... other than that - we took our time and got into our offfense once we got across half court.

Presses are designed to make you play faster and make bad decisions. I lost a game early in my Varsity coaching career that I felt was my fault, we weren't prepared very well. (in my opinion) I told the kids that after the game and I also told them that it was NOT going to happen again. From that day on, we worked on our Press Offense 10 minutes every day.... they could run it in their sleep. We didn't panic, not to say that at times we didn't make mistakes but we didn't panic and we never allowed anyone to make us play out of control.

So, for me, this all depends on your philosophy. Do whatever you are comfortable with, practice it until your kids are very comfortable with it. JMO

Appreciate the replies. It sounds like both of you didn't run different press breakers for different presses? Did you run the same press breaker for full court M2M as you did against a full court zone press?

Just one press breaker for us. Our half court motion offense, transition offense, and press breaker were all complimentary and very similar. Makes it easy to teach.

No matter what zone press we faced, it was always the same.
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/offense/press-breaker.html

When facing a M2M press, we very rarely do anything different. I teach my point guard how to get open and he brings it up running our transition offense. Even when we faced double teams on the inbounds pass this past year, our PG was athletic enough and knew a simple technique to get open, so it wasn't an issue. He was all on his own. Then we just ran our transition offense and usually scored because of an advantage situation. It also helps we do a lot of competitive ballhandling 1vs2. So it was just like practice for him. Here are some of the techniques I teach all players.
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/fundamentals/everything-good-ball-handler.html

We ran 4 across vs all presses... if it was m2m we got the ball ot our guard, last guy would cross his face to take the double team away and if they did he could see it coming.

Good stuff in the press break info Jeff. Thanks!

Practiced last night again and decided to use a 3 up for M2M presses and another press breaker for zones. Assigning one person (with a back-up) to be my in-bounder will help tremendously. Having random kids grab it out of the net each time and throwing it in wasn't a wise move. I also assigned the other players positions on the press breakers. Nothing complicated, 1's and 2's go here, 3's go here, 4 throw's it in, and 5 goes here.

We also decided if there's a press at all, we will run our press breakers instead of rushing to get the ball in. I'm thinking if the kids know where to go each time and what their options are from their assigned positions, we should get better at breaking presses. I'd rather be patient and in control than worry about "making them pay" for pressing us.

My goal:

Repitions Rob.... practice - practice - practice.

You wont be perfect but your kids wont panic.

Update: We installed two press breakers, one for M2M, one for zone presses. I've assigned one main player to inbound the ball and everyone else knows where to go. The inbounder is responsible for recognizing the press and calling out the correct press break.

We practice our press break at least 10 min every practice and it's paid off. The players are beginning to realize that a press is a great opportunity to add points. They also seem to be a lot calmer when faced with pressure.

Appreciate everyone's input above, it definitely helped.

Hey guys! Mark again. :-)

I was wondering while looking through all the press break plays that I never saw a play that took advantage of this rule;

Art. 6. After a successful goal or goaltending/basket interference violation as
listed in Rule 7-3.1.c,

“ any player of the throw-in team may make a direct
throw-in or may pass the ball along the end line to a teammate(s) who is
also out of bounds.

Any ideas, suggestions?

Thanks again!
Mark
Mark C Johnson
Coach
12UB Nuggets