Motion offense - Seeing the light

Coaching 5th grade girls travel. I had them last year in 4th grade. We also played a 3on3 tourney this summer and most of them played together this fall in a preseason league against really good competition. We practiced once a week for almost 3 months for that fall league.

After all that, and after 12 practices this season I think the vast majority of them have finally had it burned into their brains......PASS AND CUT! It's a sight to behold. We have been scrimmaging our 6th grade girls team once a week for the past couple weeks and we're actually starting to score off the pass and cut.

The past couple practices we've started to really drill using backcuts when we are overplayed. Last night we ran shell drill and progressed to no dribble scrimmage and a couple girls were starting to score off the backcut.

I even started to show them pass and screen away last night. That will continue to be a huge work in progress, but most of them are starting to see how basketball can be played. There are some that are further along, mentally, than others and when they are on the court together it's a thing of beauty. The ball movement, unselfishness and crispness of the offense are great.

I've been using the pass and cut drills that are in the read and react and attack and react manuals. The 3 player, continuous pass and cut where a player throws out the point, follows their pass and becomes defense, the point then passes to the wing, cuts and gets the pass back for a layup. next player passes to wing, follows as dummy defense and the pass and cut rinses and repeats. We go both sides at the same time for about 5 minutes early in every practice and it's just about automatic now for all of the girls when we go live.

Nice job! The pass and cut motion offense at that age is an excellent base and allows the players to learn key fundamentals. It pretty much forces every player to pass, move and figure out spacing, all keys to a successful offense. Heck, I watched a high school varsity team run that and just crush their opponent. They really understood sprinting their cuts, going all the way to the basket and keeping the flow going.

Good on you! Look forward to hearing how the season progresses.

I agree with Rob.... pass & cut to the hole... keep the spacing and all should be well...... just tell your players that if the get too close..... look and find te open space on the floor and gett to it....... happens at all levels.

I am coaching 5th grade boys this year and have 7 players back from last year where we first started introducing this offense. I am hoping we see similar strides.

Coach Rob, I saw a team win a state championship with that offense. I also so St. John's upset Duke a few years back by using the offense.

We had our first game this weekend, and it was a fun battle of two teams running pretty similar offenses.

We run what is generally the 5-out, and our opponent ran something similar, but slightly different. They would pass the ball to a wing and then their cuts would come not from the passer, but from the week-side wing.

I called timeout to specifically emphasize that we needed our weak-side defenders to be sagging into the lane to cut off that cut fro the weak side, but we continued to struggle with that. We'll definitely be running some shell drill at practices this week. I still have guys playing tight denial defense on the weak side.

Our 5 out was decent, not great. It started well, with nice cuts leading to layup attempts on maybe 3 of our first 5 possessions, but then it deteriorated as the game progressed. I'm not sure if they get nervous and stop thinking or what, but we definitely loose the structure as the game progresses.

The other thing I need to work on is running this O to kill the clock. We were up 3 with a couple minutes to go and then up 1 with a minute to go. During a timeout, I told them the only acceptable shot was an uncontested layup. We ended up turning it over the first time on a lazy pass and they cut it to one. Then up one, we did get an uncontested layup but missed it.

We are 5-2 on the season. Our two losses have been to a 6th grade team of giants. We played them in pool play in a preseason tournament and lost 29-28, missing a jumpshot at the buzzer. Played them the next day in the semifinals and lost by 7. A couple weeks ago we played a local rec "all-star" team and beat them 34-5. We play them again this coming weekend. Not looking forward to it.

Yesterday we finally pulled off the "improbable" and defeated an older team. We beat our rival town's 6th grade team by 10. It's the best we've played in these two years. Really good offense, spacing, patience. It was a good balance of patience and attacking. Six of our eight players scored, nobody scoring more than 6 points. We are super balanced. We have three girls that can all score in double figures in any given game, but it's rarely needed because we get balanced scoring across the board.

There are still little things to be worked out, but for the first time in my life, I think I can say that our passing and cutting has become automatic, for sure. Not just the action of pass and cut, but we are now starting to look to get the ball to the cutter to score.

I love this game!

quatroch wrote:We had our first game this weekend, and it was a fun battle of two teams running pretty similar offenses.

We run what is generally the 5-out, and our opponent ran something similar, but slightly different. They would pass the ball to a wing and then their cuts would come not from the passer, but from the week-side wing.

I called timeout to specifically emphasize that we needed our weak-side defenders to be sagging into the lane to cut off that cut fro the weak side, but we continued to struggle with that. We'll definitely be running some shell drill at practices this week. I still have guys playing tight denial defense on the weak side.

Our 5 out was decent, not great. It started well, with nice cuts leading to layup attempts on maybe 3 of our first 5 possessions, but then it deteriorated as the game progressed. I'm not sure if they get nervous and stop thinking or what, but we definitely loose the structure as the game progresses.

The other thing I need to work on is running this O to kill the clock. We were up 3 with a couple minutes to go and then up 1 with a minute to go. During a timeout, I told them the only acceptable shot was an uncontested layup. We ended up turning it over the first time on a lazy pass and they cut it to one. Then up one, we did get an uncontested layup but missed it.

Closing out games is just a matter of experience. In past games I've called timeouts when we're up with a minute or two to go and talked about how we can run the clock and not rush things. We've also done a lot of time and score scrimmages in practice so the girls get an understanding of both sides of the coin: how to protect a lead and how to make a comeback.

Our last two games: we had to use our press to score 4 points in the final 43 seconds to win by 1 point. Then this weekend we led by 10 with a minute to go and all I had to do was tell them "slow it down, pass and cut, let's use some clock" and the light must have gone off for them because we were almost able to run out the clock completely until my daughter got too casual, thinking they weren't going to defend hard anymore and she turned it over with a few seconds left.

So in the 5 out that I installed with my kids (5th grade boys), I instructed that the baseline spots are about halfway between the block and the 3 point line. I wanted these spots to be a little bit closer to the basket for rebounding opportunities.

In our games, the boys end up squeezing in right on the block instead of spaced out a bit further. This leads to their defenders being in a much better position to help on our cutters. But we do also get a decent number of very good looks on kick outs when baseline defender helps on the cutter/driver.

Should I re-think this and change to having those baseline positions be out at the 3 point line? It would certainly be helpful for opening the lane, but I do worry about having no offensive rebounding.

Anyone experimented with how you play those baseline spots?

Now that pass and cut is pretty much automatic, we've been stressing how to recognize the opportunity for a backcut. It will be a work in progress, but it's coming along.

I'm wondering if we should also move on to working on pass and screen away? I think using some screen away action and utilizing curl cuts into the lane might really work well for us.

Coach quatroch,

I have always taught the 3-point line for spacing reasons, as you mentioned. I also teach my two corner rebounders to sprint to the block or first hash marker depending on where the shot came from. This puts them in a primary spot to rebound the ball.

Coach MT,

That's the next progression that I do with teams that I coach.

We go from 5 out pass and cut... to 5 out pass and screen away.

At first, I teach it as two separate offenses.

Then, eventually I teach motion and let them decide between the two.

As for the pass and screen away, start with teaching only the curl cut. You want that to become automatic. All of the other options you teach are set up off of the curl cut. I've even found that even if the player technically makes the wrong read off the screen, by aggressively curling off the cut, you still get scoring opportunities.

As Don Kelbick says, you should think ... "Curl. Curl. Curl." around the screen.

After a few weeks or even longer depending on how your players progress, I teach the backdoor cut as the 2nd option.

Then a few weeks later, I will teach the straight cut.

I don't like teaching the flare cut at the younger ages.. I feel that it is a waste of time. I do teach it to high school teams, though.

JoeHaefner wrote:Coach MT,

That's the next progression that I do with teams that I coach.

We go from 5 out pass and cut... to 5 out pass and screen away.

At first, I teach it as two separate offenses.

Then, eventually I teach motion and let them decide between the two.

As for the pass and screen away, start with teaching only the curl cut. You want that to become automatic. All of the other options you teach are set up off of the curl cut. I've even found that even if the player technically makes the wrong read off the screen, by aggressively curling off the cut, you still get scoring opportunities.

As Don Kelbick says, you should think ... "Curl. Curl. Curl." around the screen.

After a few weeks or even longer depending on how your players progress, I teach the backdoor cut as the 2nd option.

Then a few weeks later, I will teach the straight cut.

I don't like teaching the flare cut at the younger ages.. I feel that it is a waste of time. I do teach it to high school teams, though.

Thanks!

When you teach the 5 out pass and screen away, do you have them screen one spot away and then pop back to the ball, since you're also teaching the curl cut off the screen? Or do you have them screen both the wing and then for the corner player?

I teach them to pop back towards the ball after the screen.

However, that's where the Cutting rules are so helpful. If the screener is overplayed on the cut back, they simply go backdoor and you can run a version of cutters/hybrid with the pass and screen away.

When you teaching the offense in practice, the screener can get in a cycle of pass, screen away, pass, screen away, pass screen away... make sure to tell them go backdoor so he can also practice the curl in the offense.

What, if any, kind of drills do you use to teach setting screens?

We worked on pass and screen away the other night and I am seeing an issue of how to set the screen because once the ball is passed to a wing, the opposite wing defender begins moving into help position. That makes it hard for us to set a screen and curl cut into the lane.

I was having the opposite wing (the one getting the screen) take a couple steps toward the baseline to walk their defender down and set up the screen better, but we still ran into some issues.

I know the alternative is to read that defender and if they overplay towards the basket then just use the screen to free yourself up top for a jumpshot, but I'm thinking it might take some time for us to get to that point. I plan to spend more time on it tonight.

Well, that's good.... that means your players are practicing good defensive habits!

I think either walking towards the defense or having the opposite wing try to make contact with their defender first will help.

As you progress to the other options, a lot of the issues you see will disappear.

However, I prefer to do that later. Others will teach them right away.

Here's the drill I used to work on the screen away and reading the screen:

Offensive players at the point, and each wing, with just a single defender on one wing. So it's essentially 3v1. We pass to the undefended wing and screen away. Defense is allowed to play it anyway they want, with the goals of defeating the screen and not allowing a basket. This gave our screener and screenee the opportunity to see if they should be curl cutting the screen, popping to the free throw line for a jumper, or just straight backcutting a severe overplay. It worked out pretty well. We played some live 3on3 afterwards to fully incorporate it.

We called the play yesterday in our game for the first time ever and we get a beautiful curl cut and a layup. Next time down the floor, different girl getting the screen and she backcuts an overplay, we get her the ball wide open, but she missed the layup. But it was absolutely beautiful both times. I was amazed.

On a side note, we were playing a rival opponent that we played a month ago and had to score 4 points in the final minute for a 1 point win back then. Yesterday we beat them by 27. It was never in doubt. Our ball movement, player movement, unselfishness and hard nosed, disciplined defense were all on display. I couldn't be prouder. During a break in action, one of the refs commented to me that he refs a lot of games: travel, aau, and all the upper level stuff and he wanted to compliment our team on how fundamentally sound they were. I was humbled and proud.

Fast forward to tonight and we have to face this same team in our first pool game of a holiday tournament. Hopefully we show up strong again.

Our girls are playing at an incredibly high level right now. We just finished a holiday tournament against 7 of the top teams in our area and we came out on top. FIRST PLACE. Our pool seemed stacked against us, we finished 2-1 in pool play and through the point differential tiebreaker, we earned the #1 seed in our pool.

The pressure of the tournament play seemed to get us a little too out of control at times, but we were able to find a groove and outplay our competition. There were 3 teams in this tournament that we played once each last season and lost each time back then. We were able to get our payback this year by beating all 3 of them!

Although our offense played solid and we had some clutch free throw shooting in the semifinals and finals, it was our defense that impressed me the most. In the semifinals we forced at least one 5-second call with the "closely guarded" rule against their best player. Then we forced one 10 second call in the backcourt with pesky defense, again on their best player and we almost had another. In the finals we forced another 10 second call and also a 5 second call on an out of bounds play. Our girls definitely brought it yesterday. Our fans were really loud all week and watching the game film, I noticed a boys team that had the game after us stand up and cheer on one of our 10 second calls. Great support.

I was thinking last week that we don't focus on defensive drills too much in practice, but we run a lot of scrimmage type stuff, whether it's 1v1, 5v5 or anywhere in between, so I guess we must be doing something right!

We won't play in another tournament for about a month, which I'm kind of happy about because our girls have been playing so intense that I think a little break and back to playing one regular season game each weekend will be good, so we can just get back to practice and really work on fundamentals and not feel the pressure of having to win games.

Nice work, coach!