Movement is Offense

"Movement is Offense" is a pretty simple concept. I'm not sure why so many people struggle with it. If you are moving you are playing basketball, if you are stationary you are not. That being said the world is full of ball stoppers, over dribblers, and players standing in spots. Its partially coaching/tactics, partially bad defense and mostly a lack of focus/will to make people defend movement or at least defend constantly.

One of the odd things I notice about basketball is that 90% of the defensive drills and practices I see have kids in a low wide stance sliding or chopping. Yet unless you are a superior athlete to your opponent if they sprint and you slide there is no way to can maintain position. So either coaches believe: A) that defensively they will always have superior athletes that can out work, out speed and out athlete the opponent (ask my OKC Thunder how that is working out against old men like Parker, Ginobli and Duncan) B) that offense will never execute skills or play at top speed.

On our teams we try to address both. We play rotational m2m and work on defensive footwork to allow our kids sprint almost all the time. On offense we want our kids to play at pace and force defense to defend movement. We use a  pivot foot theory and concept based offense built on ball movement, player movement and anticipatory reads so that every player should be able to constantly move at their top speed.

Keys to establishing and maintaining offensive movement:

- You must establish clear guidelines for spacing and action/reaction in all phases of offense/the shot clock.
- Your fast break, transition, half court and late clock offenses must flow seamlessly one into the next.
- Your pivot foot theory, offensive movements, and action/reactions must allow for the game to be play without stop - start or waiting for specific action.
- Players who can execute skills at speed and make anticipatory reads instead of making reads post catch and pivot.
- Players must be able to make shots. To maintain spacing and freedom of movement players need to be able to play facing the basket away from the rim effectively.
- Players must not be ball stoppers. They must catch and make their next action trying to maintain the pace of the ball and play. Maintain a 1 second advantage over defense.
- Simultaneous actions. Everyone must be reading and attacking on the move at the same time, not series of action or movement.
- Players must be in condition (or you must have great enough depth) to maintain pace of play.
- Players must trust each other and the movement to generate chances. They cannot force or overplay.
- Quality passes must take place to allow players to make the next action not be focused on making a clean catch.
- Have reactions and guidelines to situations trained and in place so there is no question or confusion about what should be happening even in break downs.