Blog Posting #82, October 18, 2009

Coach Hank Part VII, Detour: Use Alternate Route

Before Hank learned from Coach Wooden, against the better coached teams, his offense struggled to score points. In fact, it struggled to run the offense as practiced. In any league where scouting is a means of preparation and game strategy, there are no secrets. The other team will be well aware of, and therefore well-prepared for, what your team likes to do best. The Firebirds had a difficult time getting into their offense. 

A very common strategy used to put the monkey wrench in an opponent’s offense is to deny its favorite entry pass. The “entry pass” is the first pass made to initiate the offense. Often, it is the pass made from the guard (just beyond the top of the key) to the forward (at the side of the key about 15 to 20 feet from the basket). A team that relies on starting their offensive play by moving the ball from the guard to the forward, will be forced to do something different if that guard-to-forward pass is denied by the defense. For example, that forward may need to receive the ball much farther away from the basket than ideal, eliminating any possibility of a scoring threat and making the next pass longer than practiced, a sure way to walk right into a turnover such as a steal. When this happens, the planned play is very difficult to execute. 

In Hank’s early days of coaching, he faced this exact challenge. In his attempt to find the ideal offense for his players, he tried many, sometimes more than one during a season. But no matter what offense he implemented, he always ended up with the same problem; the opponents would throw that monkey wrench in the predetermined entry pass. When the other team took that away, his players scrambled to move the basketball, often farther away from the basket than planned, making it difficult to penetrate the defense. In many games, the score would be close until the end when things often fell apart. What Hank didn’t know was, it was not the offense that was to blame. The cause of the problem was, he had not taught his players to read the defense and he had not taught his players to play basketball by using “options” rather than “planned plays.”  

After his visit to Coach Wooden, Hank began to gain an interest in the UCLA High-Post Offense, the system Wooden had exclusively used throughout his entire coaching career. He liked it for several reasons: It was flexible, It had good spacing, and he could design multiple plays using its basic set (player positioning). But was this going to be just another offense he was going to try and borrow elements from?

At first, that is exactly the road he took because he used a couple of plays from the High Post Offense. The first was the “UCLA Cut.”

However, like most of his previous offenses, the “UCLA Cut” was dependent on the guard-to-forward pass to initiate it. That pass was dependent on the guard-to-guard pass being completed. To stop the play, all opponents had to do was deny that guard-to-guard pass and they did. Hank’s players didn’t know what to do.

Hank called me and he explained the situation. I explained, when the guard-to-guard pass is denied, the player that is overplaying the guard, is susceptible to the backdoor. As Hank drew the Xs and Os, I explained, over the phone, the “Guard Reverse” option, part of the UCLA High-Post Offense.

Hank flew me in and I taught his team the option. That evening they had a summer league game. At the first opportunity, the players executed the play perfectly and the guard scored. The humorous thing about it all was, they like it so much, they began using it as their primary play, regardless whether it was necessary or not. But Hank’s players still didn’t “get it.” They were used to running plays, not options. Basketball is a game of counters and that means, basketball is a game of options where players think on their feet. 

The players may not have understood, but Hank did. He was beginning to see, offensive basketball is not a collection of plays; it is a system of options that are available to counter defensive strategy. A team that “executes” offensively reads the opponent’s defense and uses its aggressiveness and disruptive plan against it. In other words, it finds an alternative way to initiate the offense that often takes advantage of an immediate opening. What Hank saw was, now he had two options to initiate the offense. He needed one more to complete, what he calls, his “Core Options.”

Up to this point in Hank’s implementation of the UCLA High-Post Offense, the guard with the ball had two options: Pass the ball to the other guard to initiate the UCLA Cut, and Pass the ball to the opposite forward to initiate the Guard Reverse. If he would have stopped there, opponents would have denied to guard-to-guard pass and denied the weak side forward from receiving the ball. In other words, all players would have been denied the pass except the center, located at the freethrow line. This was a perfect time for the third Core Option: the Guard to Center option which reverses the overplayed forwards directly to the basket.

While the forwards reverse (backdoor), drawing the defense in, the guards split above the center and go wherever they needed to in order to get open. Usually, they cut straight to the basket, followed by coming around the forwards for the shot.

Conclusion
Much has been said about the LA freeway system. It can be a real congested mess during rush hour. But those of us that know it can get to work or home much faster than those that don’t. When we hear on the radio traffic has stopped in one area, we use alternate routes, sometimes even surface streets. Those that don’t know those detours, get home late.

The UCLA High-Post Offense is s system, much like the LA freeway system. When one option is blocked, quick thinking and a detour can lead to success. In Hank’s case, he needed to give his players three ways to initiate the offense. When they began to read the defense quickly and react with detours, scoring was much easier. Teams that, before, used pressure defense to throw in the monkey wrench, later got burned. In fact, the Firebirds became so offensively proficient, most teams aborted playing man-to-man defense and resorted to a zone.