Shake It Up: Basketball and Boggle

"Run to the fire hydrant, button hook, I'll fake it to you." We've drawn up plays since childhood. 

Combine spacing and concepts, with a splash of freedom and what do we get? 

These aren't new or creative, just a few ways to space the floor. We don't have a dominant post player, so I prefer to open the middle and see if magic happens. 

So, we've started with four 'rows' (horns, two guard front, spread, and 1-3-1, and we add letters. Let's call our letters:

Pick-and-roll (on ball screens), screen away (off ball screens), back door, and dribble handoff. We can add rules like pass and cut away, ball reversal and screen down, or cut to the basket if your defender 'loses' sight of you. It's our game. 

For example, we can run backdoor plays from any of these.

As long as we have capable passers, cutters, and finishers, we can find opportunity. 

Similarly, we can run off-ball screens from any set...using staggers, back screens, reverse action.

When players improve, we can mix it up, with horns into a Spain pick-and-roll (screen the roller, not shown) or horns pick-and-pop into screen the passer (shown above). 

DHO into a second screen presents a thorny challenge for young defenses. 

With basketball Boggle, combining sets for spacing, and common actions (on and off ball screens, DHO, and back cuts) fashions a boggling set of defensive challenges. Getting youngsters to SEE THE GAME will present the Orange School test. 

Lagniappe:

NBA teams have run "Loop" since Chuck Daly and his Bad Boys. The Spurs raised it to art. Last night, the Celtics opened with Terry Rozier III running Loop and it morphed into Jaylen Brown (JB) coming off the Horford screen for an opening trey.