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Q. oach Nicholson, I coach our 7th and 8th grade boys teams. This time of the year always keeps me up at night as I worry about attacking man to man defenses. We play in a league in which, to say the least, we are undermanned. I've had many of the local high school coaches say that I need to run a motion offense because it's hard to defend. However, since we have limited practice time and each team only plays 10 games, our kids invariably end up with a "deer in the headlights" look. We are not permitted to have required practices in the summer. Quite honestly, in this area, basketball comes in fifth in popularity behind soccer, lacrosse, baseball, and football. Still, I feel obligated to try and give our kids an opportunity to be successful. Could you suggest a structured offensive system (other than the flex) that our kids could run versus man to man defenses? We have a couple of pretty good guards, but no real big man to speak of. I'd appreciate any advice you could offer. Kind regards, Dave A. I would run things from a 1-4 set at your level. Are you set on a continuity offense or a couple of set plays? If you have two kids who can dribble and score I would concentrate toe offense on them and use the others to set screens, keep the weak side defense busy to take away the help. Are your kids able to run pick and rolls? Take a look at these plays. They look complicated at first glance, but they are not. With limited practice time, I would pick just one or two that seem to fit your player strenghts and work on them. http://www.winnetkabullets.com/EdingerPlays/	Dave asked: 11-Jun-11
Q. We are coming up against an opponent that runs a 2-2-1 1/2 court trap. They position their two front people in the center circle and force the pass to the side. When the ball is brought across half court, they trap with the front and back line players as in a regular 2-2-1 full court press. Any ideas on how to attack this? This is Varsity HS Girls. A. This is how some coaches on my coaching network answered this question, Coach N-- Brad, i'd attack it with a 2-1-2 look. It'll end up looking like a 1-3-1 after the trap won't it? If you keep a player, preferibly a post who is big enough to catch a tough middle pass, and who could then turn and find the open baseline player, in the middle it should wreck any 1/2 court trap. Assuming your girls don't panic and have some average dribbling and passing skills, this is how we break all 1/2 court traps. By the way I think, and would be interested in hearing others thoughts on this, aren't all zone presses whether full or 1/2 pretty much the same press after the first trap. We approach them that way and have just average kids handling the ball and have little difficulty if we can get them not to panic. Fred--- A. I have always run a 3-1-1 look against a 2-2-1 press. I try to put my three best ball handlers up against it in order to take advantage of the gaps in the zone and give the wing guards a short pass back if they do get trapped. I put a guy in the middle of the floor and one very deep on the blocks in order to stretch the zone. Rich--- A. I've run a 2-1-2 against it with success. We played a team that mixed a 2-2-1 and 1-2-2 with just a 2-1-2 breaker and did just fine. Kept things simple for the kids too. Lou	Brad asked: 08-Feb-10
Q. How do you attack a 2-3 Zone defense? A. My basic Zone philosophy is to move the ball and the players to make the zone shift and force the defenders to make unusual decisions about who to guard. You must penetrate the zone with both the dribble drive and the pass. To do this you need to force defenders into a situation where two defenders have to help guard the ball or one defender has to guard two offensive players. If the offense is properly spaced one defender can't guard two players. This happens on Gap penetration, overloads and screening the zone. In a 2-3 zone attack I like to attack from the short corners and by flashing the weak side wing into the natural hole that the 2-3 leaves in the lane around the high post.	Coach Jim asked: 08-Jan-10\|

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