The Pattern Offense - A Look From The Other Side

You remember yesterday we talked about how one team was running a pattern offense and nothing else? And they couldn't make plays from it? Now let's talk about what the other team did. We'll call them Other.

So Other was able to predict the pattern that Pattern was running - stands to reason, right? I mean, that's the advantage of ANY pattern, it's predictability - and defend it well. But Pattern did something else that kind of forced Other into playing real basketball.

Pattern played this aggressive 2/3 zone and they extended it way out. The ran it very well. They helped, rotated, forced to the baseline (some of you may want to just influence baseline). But here's the problem they ran in to. They played it so well that Other was forced to try and run their offense from too far away from the basket. Rather than playing their zone to an objective, thereby sucking it back in when they achieved their objective, they just played it as they had been taught. Other got really frustrated and only scored 22 points in the first half. Every one of those points was a struggle.

Finally, out of frustration, Other went to the basket. What they should have been doing from the beginning. Suddenly, new passing lanes opened up, angles to the basket became wide open, and they began to get some cheap, easy baskets. But pattern was determined to stick with their zone - as if what they ran, and not it's execution, would make them successful. So they doggedly stuck to their zone and they forgot to just play.

Give Other credit, though. They went to the basket and meant it. It won the game for them. But the lesson here is this. First, teach your team the skills and the basketball I.Q. necessary to play the game. Then, when you run your zone or your pattern or what ever you wish, they will have the basketball skill and knowledge to make plays out of whatever you run. Then you can tailor your offenses and defenses to address a particular player, or spot on the floor, or shot. You become a lot more dangerous this way.