Screens

I am a coach who coaches at all levels and would like to request information on read and react on SCREENS.

Thank you,
Rodney

Coach: I have always taught my players to expect screens, feel for them and react accordingly. For example. Sometimes you have to "skinny up" and fight through them and other times you have to step behind the screener to stay with your man. If you are setting a screen for your point guard have your point guard take a couple of dribbles back in order to create more room to react in a one on one situation with the man hedging on the screen. As far as on the ball screens set on your team are concerned, there are times you need to "hedge", drive the ball player high and then react back to your man. However, when being screened, there are many things to do. You can curl if your man follows you and fade for a shot if he doesn't. Remember, if you are teaching coming off screens to tell your players to use the screens effectively, don't banana off the set screen rather use the screener to free yourself up by rubbing the screen off your man's shoulder. Set the screener up with a misdirection move. Another important feature is to tell your players to wait for the screen to be set before reacting. If you move BEFORE the screen is set, you are simply telegraphing to the defender that a screen is coming and where its coming from. Coach Mac

Coach Mac gave some great tips. I would like to add some key points as well. Screening must be practiced just like ball handling or shooting. I teach players to jumpstop into a screen and communicate a players name that is receiving the screen. You also want to tell players screening that this doesn't mean they won't score. Often screening is considered not to be a scoring threat but I disagree. Players must screen, pivots towards the ball and expect to receive a pass. Communicate that this is a vital part of the offense and create easy baskets.

One of the things we had our players do from time to time when screening was to raise a fist, that way the player looking for a screen knew where it was coming from... and we sold our players on setting good screens be letting them know that players that set great screens and then open to the ball were more often to get a good shot than the person receiving the screen. Just a selling point.