Massey Basketball: X/O’s- False Action into Zone Lob

All of us probably have some kind of “trick play” that we love to set up. It can be a backdoor, a fake handoff, a lob, or backscreen. The problem is that if we use these “trick plays” too often, no one is ever tricked. And often if we just go down the floor and go right into this play, the defense sees it coming.

A great idea is to run one of your regular sets as a “false action.” Pick out something that you use a lot. You run this action again for maybe the 15th time in a game, but in the middle of it or at the end of it, you go into your “trick play.” Often the defense is caught off guard- they are busy defending your false action.

In 2003, Amanda Gunther was a 5’8” All-State post player. We lost to Fenwick in the Elite. On our run to State, Gunther was averaging close to 25ppg and we as a team were scoring only 55ppg. Amanda had a knack of catching the lob and either scoring over some 6’2” posts or drawing fouls. Vs. Fenwick, we wanted to slow the game down, so we might run our basic zone reversal action 4-5 times and then run this lob action for Gunther. She had a big game and kept us close but eventually we lost.

I am not saying to use my false action, pick out something in your playbook to use. Draw it out and then see how you add one of your tricks at the end.

Against zone, we would run a simple action where dribbled at a wing, they cleared out, and we reversed the ball to them. The posts also rotated with one flashing to the ball and the other going underneath.

This was an effective zone action for us vs both 1-2-2 and 2-3. If the defense didn’t cover #4 in the middle, we would go right there. In the meantime on the reverse, there was a lot of pressure on the weakside baseline defender. If they flew out to cover #2, it often left #5 open. If they stayed back with #5, then #2 was wide open.