We have many drills that we work on to incorporate the offense starting with 1 on 1 drills and building to 2 on 2, then 3 on 3, 4 on 4, and then ultimately 5 on 5. Here are 9 rules that we believe are important in running our "motion" offense.
1. Talk - players have to communicate. This is probably the least used and most needed skill for almost every aspect of basketball. I have found that players want to talk in the classroom all day, and talk trash when they do something well, but don't want to talk in getting a teammate open or in making a cut.
2. Unselfishness - Players must be unselfish in a motion offense. If they force what they are doing, it is easy to guard. I have often told our guards especially that the best way to get the ball to score is to pass it and go away from the ball. This goes against everything they have ever done. But you must give it up to get it back in a position to score.
3. Know what a great shot is for you - 3 out, 2 in allows for everyone to touch the basketball and allows then for everyone to take a shot. You must know what a great shot is for you. Often the 3-5th options on offense will be open in motion and there is usually a good reason for that.
4. Be able to pass and shoot in different ways - In shooting, you must be able to catch and shoot, but you must also be able to shoot off the bounce. Post players need to be able to make a move in the low block area and shoot the high post shot. Hook and soccer passes must be used often in trying to get the ball in the post or on the wing.
5. Spacing - you must have good spacing in motion offense. If two players are just standing next to each other, it is much easier to guard. 10-12 feet is the best distance.
6. There are no bad reads - just bad shots and bad spacing. In reading what the offensive player you are working with at any given time and if you are communicating, you will flow off what they do. There is no, go here, then go here, then go there and open up. There are no bad reads, only bad shots and bad spacing.
7. Feed the post - Post players are working to get the ball, get it to them. I believe that post players have to get open 5 times to get it once. In practice, we over exaggerate getting the ball inside. It keeps the post players happy, but by throwing it inside, it is actually opening up the perimeter. In the post, we teach to catch and look opposite elbow for a shooter or a guy re locating.
8. Post to post screen - the only thing we have forced in our motion offense is off the first pass from point to wing, we want the ball side post to screen away. The weak side post will come to the block or to the high post and the screening post will flash opposite of his counterpart. After that, we are working more on one side of the court, possibly picking and rolling with the post and the wing.
9. Sets should flow easily into motion - We have a few sets we run and we want them to flow easily into our motion.
In labeling these here, if I asked our kids to take a quiz over our rules for motion, they probably would flunk, but if you started asking them specifics...well, they would probably still flunk, but it would make more sense to them. The 9 things I have posted are what they hear...a lot when working on our motion offense.
