Hi there,

I have used the 5-out motion offence for one of my teams last season, but am thinking about using the 4 out - 1 in with them this season. Are there any reasons that I should or should not change my offence style? The reason i am changing is that my main point guard and small forward playmakers are leaving and although I have some replacements, they aren't skilled enough to yet to get the team working as well as they did. I have given the replacements skills and drills to work on over the summer break, so hopefully they will be near enough up to scratch, so that I can help them improve before the season starts again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I would also like to say that your site, the forum and what you do in general are fantastic and have helped me a heap! I am going for my England Basketball Level 2 coaching cert and got through the first two sections with your help! So thanks heaps!

Coach Henderson

Without knowing more about your situations such as your personnel and competition, it's hard to give a good answer to your question.

Why do you think a 4-out, 1-in would better than a 5-out because your players are not as skilled as the previous year? A good post player? Less players handling the ball on the perimeter? Going to miss more shots, so you want to have a rebounder down low? Want to set more back screens and up screens? Other reasons?

We are in a small U18 league of about 7 teams but the skill level not as high as the equivalent US age groupings. My team numbers are inconsistent as they are also involved in other sports in my school, and basketball is the minority sport that students come to when the weather outside is poor, so that makes things hard, especially when we only have 1 hour of training on a Thursday from5 to 6pm for my two teams.
I have a core of players who turn up each week who get the most game time and are the better players as they are more focused upon basketball, but a lot of my players will not be as skilled as the previous year.

Personnel wise I do know that i have a 6'8" post player who is coming through from my U16 team, (but doesn't like to get into contact and wants to be a point guard), a 6'2" power forward who doesn't like getting into the paint (even though he is built like a brick proverbial!) and a couple of good 5'9"-5'10" ballhandlers. The reason to change is mainly because I want to use my tall and big guys to be the rebounders/back screeners/rollers- and I found that we lost a number of possessions through poor shot selection, and inadequate rebounding.

When school starts up I am going to give them their season stats sheets and I have started to use Danny Miles value points system with them and hopefully that will help motivate the team, by showing them how they can improve.
Then we can have a retrospective look back at them with the kids to get them thinking about how we as a team can improve, highlighting the rebounding, both offensive and defensive, shot selection and turnovers, go through some targets that I want them to achieve, both for the team and for each individual player.

From that, start running drills that include the sort of motion rules that I started with last season (e.g. passer cuts to basket or screens away, any basket cuts made from the corners then back screen and fill space made, keep spacing and don't crowd each other etc..) and then using the ideas and drills set out in the motion offense drill book- 2v0, pass and basket cut and shot; corner cut and lay-up; pass and ball screen; then pick and roll; pick and pop; pick and drive; then add defense, and increase it from there to 3v0 similar set of drills with a post and add defense and build it from there to 4v0 with post and then add defense. I have got the rebounding e-book from you as well so I will get some work in with my bigs to help them get more of an understanding of what they need to do.

If I had more time available on court, then it would help, but as we have one sports hall in school which is used on a regular basis by the rugby teams, netball teams, badminton teams, we kind of get the last look in. But from our site and from what people have said on forums, the motion offense system is ideal for short-of-time practices, so hopefully it will work!!

It sounds to me like you're on the right path. 1hr a week? I feel spoiled compared to you. For our 13u team, we get two 1 1/2 hour practices per week.

Yeah it's one of those things where we are shoe-horned into the only available time for the sports hall... I am trying to get another 1/2 hour or so during a lunchtime, but the bigger sports do take up most of the time available, even at lunch... I have been harrassing the head of sport for another slot, and hopefully he is slowly breaking under my pressure, but I have only been coaching there for 3 seasons...

Tough job with the amount of practice time you have.... Make things as simple as you can while improving fundamentals...... I have a lot of respect for coaches that don't get to practice every day you are not playing... there is so much to teach.

Thanks Coach- I try my best and hopefully with the work that Joe, Jeff and others like yourself do for this site to provide excellent multi-faceted activities and drills my team and I will improve- especially since I have just secured another 1 and a 1/4 hours of practice on a Friday after school!! The Head of Sport has relented and given me some more court time! I should be able to make a lot more progress now. 8-)

Plan your time wisely .... I honestly don't know what I would have done in your situations without being able to practice every day we weren't playing for 2 hours.

You need to do a selling job to your BIGS... maybe set up a play for the 6'8 kid to make him feel important ..... maybe the same for your power forward ... maybe something like a hi low set for the two big kids?

A big part of the coaching is selling your philosophy to your players.... make them all feel important and part of the big picture.
Good luck

Hey there,

had my first match using the 4 out 1 in motion and unfortunately we had a loss 61-36 against good opposition. I am proud of the team though as they we lost our starting point guard to a dislocated thumb, our starting 3 to a thigh injury and our starting 4 to injury, so we were down 3 before we had started! however, in the same fixture last year, we were beaten by 45 points- so to reduce the deficit by 20 points in their sports hall means we are on the right track. The work we had been doing in training did help and the motion was working well, but need to get them working on their shooting accuracy some more. I have the Breakthrough Basketball shooting guide and will be using that to get them working harder and hopefully getting more shots made!

Thanks for the advice and support- the high-low play worked well, Coach Sar!! But, my 6'8" 5 is still too shy to get amongst it under the basket so any advice on how to get him more physical/aggressive under the rim? he was bossed about by a 6'4" but heavier player. (I have looked at Ed Madec's teaching toughness app for iphone, and slapping the lads with rugby pads is a bit extreme and I am not sure whether the Headmaster will allow it!!) so any ideas to help him become more aggressive would be great.

Coach H

Its early and you have a long season ahead of you... so be patient... as far as slapping the kids with ruby pads, you don't have to go that far..... just start out by a little bumping so they get used to contact down low.... after awhile... you can always increase the intensity of the bump... we used hand held football blocking pads and that worked well for me.
Practice your high low game and give him a little bump every time he touches the ball.... you don't have to blast the kid.. :-) I had a 6'7 kid one year that wanted to shoot threes... sure, tallest kid on the team (and only tall one) wants to be above the arc ... so I put in a play one day for him to step out and shoot a three.. he was happy as a pig in slop.... practiced it every day and never used it in a game (unless we were down 20)... its all about perception.... giving the kid what he wants but not really??
Keep working on your game... you have to be a saint ( you and Joe) to only be able to practice for that length of time...... we practiced every day (except Saturday and Sundays) when we weren't playing... Sat. were JV games so I didn't want to practice them after a game unless it was a walk through.
What is your game schedule like? Full set of games allowed? IF not, set up a few practice games where you and the other coach are in agreement that you can stop from time to time to use it as a teaching tool.
Hope things get better for you.... let us know how things are going.