Usually, I don’t write much about offenses at this level because it’s difficult enough trying to learn the fundamentals. Learning plays just takes away from the development of the player’s ability to master the basics.
With that said, my premise is before you teach offense, your players must learn how to play defense. Thus, your first basic offense is a solid defense. Play solid man-2-man defense and you will be able to steal the ball for easy layups. Maybe, I shouldn’t say easy, but it is a better shot than most shots in a set offense. Also, don’t forget rebounding as the final piece in the defensive puzzle.
What if you can’t fast break? How happens when your team has to slow down the ball?
If you are forced to run a set offense because of timeouts, turnovers, or other stoppages or slowdowns, here’s what you can do.
Each of these are very simple and require no extraordinary amount of time to learn; therefore, I don’t refer to them as plays.
Here’s what I mean:
1) Teach your players to pass and move/cut. The ultimate youth basketball give and go offense. The point guard is the player to start the offense, you can have almost any set up you wish, but I prefer to spread the floor and have the point pass to the wings and cut to the basket while facing the person to whom he/she passes.
The wing player passes the ball (if no open shot is available) to the next open player and performs the same cut towards the basket. If the wing player on the opposite site has not received the ball, they stay where there are until the ball is passed to them. Also, this creates floor balance against a fast break.
This keeps the players from staring at one player and being a spectator on the offensive end.
This offense will be covered in detail in an upcoming article written by Ed Riley.
2) Screen and roll aka pick and roll.
This takes a bit of practice, but will free up a player more open shots. Defenses at the youth level aren’t equipped to handle this just yet, primarily because they lack communication.
3) Spread offense.
This keeps the point guard from over dribbling and gets everyone involved. Works best against a zone defense where the ball is passed around the perimeter and moved til the player has and open drive to the lane for a layup.
I tried this offense a couple years ago when coaching a U-9 team. We were up by 20 points in the 4th quarter and didn’t want to run up the score. So we went to basically a “four corners” offense. Those of you who are old enough should remember the old University of North Carolina’s offense run by Phil Ford.
What I found is by passing the ball around the perimeter, the zone defense they were playing, couldn’t shift fast enough to keep up with the ball, and lanes were wide open. Actually, this is how a couple of players who hadn’t scored all year garnered their first points of the season.
Side note: What to see a confidence builder? Wait til you have a player to finally score their first points of the season. You will notice the increased enthusiasm and confidence.
This offense works well against teams who allows a defensive player to freelance or spy while the rest play zone. Eventually, the player gets tired of chasing the ball and result is open lanes.
Usually, teams allow their best offensive player to roam because most of their points scored are layups from steals.
My experience is these are the 3 simple offenses you can run without sacrificing time for fundamental drills.
Each of these will be covered in detail in subsequent articles.
Enjoy and share with a fellow coach.
