Drive And Space Tips

Posted byRadiusAthletics

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite coaches:

Watching Coach Jay Wright’s Villanova teams space the floor, drive it and score at the rim or beyond the three-point line is always an enjoyable experience. The Wildcats exemplify rare and beautiful simplicity.

In the tweet above, note the usage of the capital “O” in the word Offense. This is intentional.

In many offenses, a player taking off into a drive is them abandoning the X’s & O’s of The Play™ or The Offense™ to make something happen. This can sometimes work out fine for the driver even though The Offense™ is designed to score another way. But at times, the driver can beat his man and the overall floor conditions are not set up to accommodate a drive. This can lead to trouble.

For a team like Villanova, the conditions are favorable for driving and driving the ball is both offense and The Offense™.

Villanova’s offense is mostly about spacing. It features some ball and player movement and a few ball screens to create an advantage, but it’s not until a penetration occurs that the magic happens. The possession really starts when they drive the ball and the offense on paper is all about creating conditions advantageous for the drive.

In this piece, we’ll share some #DriveAndSpaceTips which keep the offense in an advantageous state when a player drives the ball. It is not an examination of Villanova’s offense; I’ve done plenty of those!

Rather, these are concepts that could be used in many different offenses (or become an Offense™ themselves). These concepts can exist “behind” your current offense whatever it is so that when a player mounts a drive we have principles in place to help the drive and the possession have a successful end.

Headlights and Taillights

Our first tip, get a player in the headlights and taillights of the driver. Let’s take a look at what that means.

Our first objective: when a player is driving the ball they will know exactly where their four teammates will be. This situation is rehearsed and repped until it becomes second nature. Two of those outlets on a baseline drive are depicted above. Player 3 is in the headlights of the driver and Player 1 cuts into the taillights of the driver.

Player 2 above may drive into a help defender. Knowing they have a teammate filling behind, they can stride stop, pivot and hit the teammate in their taillights.

If Player 2 were to draw help from Player 3’s man, it is possible the drift pass is open in the headlights. We want the player in the headlights of the drive to stay in the headlights of the drive.

 

Using the headlights and taillights analogy makes it simple. Two outlets, one in front and one behind the driver.

No Consecutive Drives

The lifeblood of a drive and space attack is the catch-and-shoot three. Sure, the goal is to drive it to the rim and score there, but most drives don’t make it home. Most teams will collapse on the drive. In so doing, they leave themselves exposed to the kickout three.

However, players sometimes make the mistake of driving it on the catch when receiving that kickout. Our preference is to have no consecutive drives.

 

Why? As you see in Frame 1 above, Player 1 drives it and collapses the defense then kicks to Player 2. This is what we want when the drive does not make it home – a drive-and-kick three-point attempt on the first pass.

However, in Frame 2 you see Player 2 drive it immediately on the catch (consecutive drives). The first drive collapsed the defense. The second drive heads right into a crowded paint. The result is often negative in these situations.

Instead we prefer either a shot on the catch or a second pass. Penetrate-Pass-Pass or by another name, Drive-Kick-Swing.

The offense did not drive back into a crowded paint. Instead they moved the advantage along and made the defense make multiple efforts to reorganize. A drive is acceptable after a second pass as now the defense has likely expanded again.

Drive Opposite the Catch

This principle addresses the drive part of the drive-and-space game. Let’s look at the diagram below.

 

Frame 1 shows a pass across the top. The grey bubbles represent space. As you can see, there is one large bubble and one smaller bubble. Ripping through and driving the ball opposite the catch allows Player 2 to attack the larger real estate.

The drive sets in motion movement from Player 2’s teammates. Note Player 1 filling behind into the taillights of the drive.

There are so many buzzwords in coaching and whether you want to call it drive-and-space, pace-and-space or dribble drive, attacking off the bounce is part of the game. Often it is an “uncoached” or under-coached part of the game. Players are encouraged to drive, but left to fend for themselves.

Not only are there spacing and positioning considerations, but footwork around starting and stopping plays a key role. When we are not coaching this part of the game, a well-intentioned drive ends up in a mess.

Coaching the drive-and-space game will be a part of the future of basketball. Whether you make it your Offense™ or let it exist behind your offense, protecting the conditions favorable to driving the ball will serve your team and players well.

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