{"id":432,"date":"2015-03-20T07:13:59","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T12:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/?p=432"},"modified":"2016-10-21T09:46:30","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T14:46:30","slug":"should-you-use-the-popular-high-ball-screen-play-for-your-youth-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/should-you-use-the-popular-high-ball-screen-play-for-your-youth-team","title":{"rendered":"Should You Use the Popular “High Ball Screen Play” For Your Youth Team?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HighI’d like to share my opinion on a popular ball screen play that I see all the time.<\/p>\n

While coaching my daughter’s 4th grade team, the high ball screen for the point guard\u00a0is the most common play I see. \u00a0Seems like almost half of the teams run a variation of this play.<\/p>\n

I hope I don\u2019t offend anyone but I’ll be honest.<\/p>\n

I think this play is a waste of time and does very little\u00a0for player development…<\/p>\n

Most teams use a high\u00a0ball screen to free up their point guard and get something going to the basket.<\/p>\n

I believe there are better ways to solve this problem.<\/p>\n

Now if you have the court spread and two players are applying good pick and roll fundamentals, that\u2019s another story. But I\u2019m not even sure 4th graders can\u00a0execute pick and roll fundamentals and the basic reads.<\/p>\n

If they are able to, the rest of the team is missing out on touching the ball and developing. That is why I like our 5 out motion offense<\/a> (all the positions are interchangeable and everyone touches the ball).<\/p>\n

More issues with this ball screen play…<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. \u00a0It’s predictable. \u00a0Teams would set this screen constantly against us and get nothing from it. You see it once and then you know it\u2019s coming. Even when they set the second ball screen inside the 3pt line, it still didn’t work. \u00a0They might get a shot the first time running it. \u00a0But never the third or fourth time.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0The ball screen is occurring 30 feet from the basket. \u00a0If you want to actually score off the ball screen and play some “fundamental” basketball, the screen should occur near the 3pt line or closer.<\/p>\n

3. The\u00a0point guard is not learning anything or developing skill by using this screen near half court. \u00a0If you’re going to set a ball screen, the point guard needs the ballhandling skill to set up the screen and advance the ball near the 3pt line. \u00a0Then they can use the screen properly and utilize some pick and roll fundamentals.<\/p>\n

4. Other players on the team rarely get to touch the ball. \u00a0The play is dominated by the point guard and maybe one other player. \u00a0How are the other players on the team supposed to develop if they are not involved?<\/p>\n

Better Solution to the problem – teach players \u201chow to play\u201d…<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry. But if your PG can\u2019t beat a defender 1on1, there is a problem. You need to spend time working with these players teaching them how to beat a defender 1on1 in the open court. \u00a0Work on ballhandling skill, changing speed, changing direction, protecting the ball, retreating out of trouble, etc. \u00a0That is a much better solution to the problem. \u00a0It can be done…<\/p>\n

Every single player on our 4th grade team can break down their defender off the dribble at the PG spot. That\u2019s because we practice and teach those fundamentals. It was not easy and required lots of practice. \u00a0But even if you only practice once a week, it can be done. \u00a0In my opinion, this is \u201cstep one\u201d<\/strong> in learning how to play basketball. For whatever reason, lots of coaches skip\u00a0that step.<\/p>\n

I see a lot of poor fundamentals out there and this\u00a0is one example.<\/p>\n

When you run into problems with youth players, instead of creating a “play” to solve the problem, I believe you should almost\u00a0always use “fundamentals” to solve the problem. \u00a0To me that is great youth coaching.<\/p>\n

Food for thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d like to share my opinion on a popular ball screen play that I see all the time. While coaching my daughter’s 4th grade team, the high ball screen for the point guard\u00a0is the most common play I see. \u00a0Seems like almost half of the teams run a variation of this play. I hope I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,17,21,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-4th-grade-basketball","7":"category-offense","8":"category-player-development","9":"category-practice-strategy","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1177,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/1177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}