VILLES BLOG: BEARS TRANSITION OFFENSE

Ville Tuominen har skrevet sin anden blog om livet i Bakken Bears. Denne gang handler det om Bakken Bears’ transition offense.

I den anden del af min blog skal jeg skrive om vores basic angreb koncept. Det også fortæller lidt om min opfattelse om angrebsfilosofi i almindelighed. Jeg håber at det hjælper med at forstå hvad i al verden vi laver med bolden.

Our goal is always to attack an unorganized defense.

We look to run the floor every time. Most teams look to run off steals and uncontested defensive rebounds, but we will look to do that even after the opponent scores. I feel that with the 24s shot clock and FIBA adjusting the rules to speed up the game even more (for example with the new offensive rebound shot clock rule) there is an even greater value to attacking a defense before it gets set. Well coached team defenses are extremely difficult to break down in less than 24 seconds and that’s why we look to avoid that 5v5 situation and attack before the other team is ’ready’. In general most of the so called ’easy baskets’ occur in transition situations and are often used as a metric to a team’s success. For our team the goal is to get a paint touch (= ball inside the 3s area) or an uncontested 3pt shot in every possession.

From fast break to half court offense

The defensive mandate from most coaches is to ”force the opponent to play 5v5” so naturally we can’t score in transition enough to win a game. Our offense is built to allow a smooth transition from a fast break situation to a half court situation (=5v5). All our options (or sets or entries or plays…) start from the same alignment to make sure we don’t waste seconds off the shot clock. The other main point to this is to maintain the flow of the offense – as opposed to a point guard holding up the ball and calling a play. Also in our system positions 1-3 & 4-5 are interchangeable, meaning that guards (1-3) bring the ball up and fill the wings and bigs (4-5) run the middle lane.

This means that all players must be able to execute the offense from at least 2 positions and versatile players like Kaido Saks & Jacob Meller need to learn 4 different positions. Because of this our systems are relatively simple and the actions are logical to make them more natural to execute.

Options: what & when & why

Our basic offense will have 5-8 entries depending on the counting logic. The goal is to be able to run these as ’read & react’ -offense where no ”calls” or ”signals” are needed. This way we’ll be able to maximize the offensive flow and minimize the value of opponent’s scouting efforts. We try to put maximum pressure on an opposing defense by giving them minimal information and reaction time to our intentions. The structure to our offense is to first have a vertical action (towards the basket) to get ”inside” the defense, second to create an easy scoring opportunity through off the ball actions and 3rd to create a desirable pick & roll or 1v1 isolation -situation. 24 seconds is a very limited time frame and that’s shy a similar structure can be found with most high level european teams.

In conclusion

To some our style can look as uncontrolled or ”run & gun”, but personally I think our system is actually fairly complex. Due to the high speed, lack of signals and the need to play multiple

positions the players need to understand the purpose of the offense more than just going through the motions of a more traditional system. Personally I like watching high-speed, high-intensity -offenses where the focus is on ball movement & flow and that’s what we’re trying to build here with the Bears as well.

Forhåbentlig giver denne tirade en bedre forståelse af vores mål i angreb, og mindst én person (igen, udover min mor) mener, at det var værd at læse!

Mange tak!