The Play Action Screen

One of my favorite themes in the game of basketball is 'unpredictability'.

Right now we are working a lot on buliding a plan as you play the game of basketball. It's one of the game's invisible skills that is crucial to your success. Building a plan is used offensively and defensively to make you think about what your team's strengths are and what your opponents' strengths are. An example would be if you are defending a great shooter, then your plan would involve not giving them much room when they catch it, trailing them on down screens and flare screens, etc.

Well what you'll find when you play against really good defensive teams is that they are very good at taking your strengths away. If they know that you're going to pass the ball to the wing and have your post step out and set a pick, they will be very good at defending it. Where you have to catch them is by being unpredictable.

A play action screen would be , for example, a point guard passing to the wing, and going to screen away. The girl coming off the screen, if she's not open, would come set a pick on the wing. This action is extremely hard to defend. Sometimes the way you defend the first screen will get you out of position for the second screen. Sometimes players are caught off guard by the action.

One of my big beliefs is that you've always got to be putting the wrong ideas in your opponents heads. I've always looked at it from an individual perspective, but this is doing it as a team in the same way.

Tyler