It has been almost exactly one month since the Read and React offense made its way into my playbook. I have a lot of things to say about it, but only one statement sums it up. I'm never looking back. This is the most dynamic offense I've been able to teach. And the thing that I'm going to discuss in this post is something I was never expecting.
The RnR is the most coach-friendly offense I've used. No contest.
Most of my offensive game-planning consists of finding the weakest defender on the court, or the most important offensive weapon for the opposition, and attacking it. But the attacking part was always the same speech. 'Get the ball inside against #20.' 'Drive to the hoop against #3.' Some of you may recognize this as the extent of your offensive gameplan as well. It sucks. I feel like I have no control, no plan, nothing. Sure, I would tell my team to run motion (or flex) against their man defense, but is that a real plan? It never felt like it to me. In fact, in order to attack different defenses or teams effectively I needed more offenses! And then you just end up with an enormous playbook you have no chance of teaching new players. Bad, bad, bad.
That is no longer an issue. Conceptually I've zoomed past my high school players, but that has helped me project the kind of versatility that the RnR offense provides. Recently we played a team with a Division I-bound 6'3" senior who blocks shots the way other varsity athletes breathe air - with no effort at all. Our offensive gameplan consisted of 2 concepts. When the opponent went man we ran the 4 out offense with our center out in order to draw her away from the basket. When the opponent went to their 1-2-2 zone, we decided to stay with the matchup so we ran 3 out with our post players occupying the mid-post. When we went to this formation, we actually entered the ball directly to their shot blocker, but ran our Laker cuts high and had safety valve in shooting position on the wing. This forces the elbow defender to guard against the outside shot or inside cut, but not both. Basically, we wanted to draw them into mistakes. The good news: It worked. We got open shots against their zone, and we were able to attack the basket against their man without fear of getting blocked. In addition, we out-rebounded them as well. The bad news: We missed most of those shots.
The loss and poor shooting performance aside I was ecstatic. It felt like I had actually stumbled on something I can look for when I'm watching film of the other team's defense. We can pull good help defenders away from the basket, or we can aim our offensive attacks directly at them. We can matchup against a zone, or go opposite of it, depending on its strengths. If the zone traps, we can run an offense that keeps the ball out of the trapping zones, or creates passing windows to neutralize it. Unfortunately, my team hasn't quite got there. We are still working on mastering Layers 1-6 (after all, it has only been a month), and some players are progressing slower than others. But everyone is learning, and I'm actually coaching offense now.
And one more thing. My modified program is teaching Layers 1-3 this season. My youth program will be teaching Layers 1-3 next year. This is an offense you can actually create a foundation for early, and build on as the players learn and grow. Like I said: no looking back now.
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