As I watch high school and college games, I am amazed how many teams choose not to use After Time Out plays. Lot’s of teams just keep running their same “stuff” after time outs, after dead balls, and after free throws. If they are a five out team, they just run five out coming out of a time out.
As I look back on my coaching career, I was not as good as I should have been after time outs and after dead ball. If someone were to ask me to list 5 things I would do differently if I went back to coaching, one of the things would be to improve in this area.
On a college level, with “TV time outs” and the start of periods, there are always going to be 10 “ATO’s” in each game. Then when you add in FT’s, coaches’ time outs, and the ball out of bounds, it is easy to see that there is an opportunity for probably another 20 “AFT’s” and After Deadballs.” So potentially there are 30 opportunities to take advantage of.
In high school games with the start of quarters, time outs, free throws, and deadballs- there are going to be probably at least 20 opportunities.
I am not advocating that a coach needs to run a set after all the deadballs, FT’s, and ATO’s- but it should be part of each coach’s plan to use some sets in these situations. Effective use of ATO’s that I have seen this season…
1- Jump start the offense to start the game with a set to get the ball to your best shooter.
2- In second half after seeing how the other teams plays your favorite sets, run counters to how they are defending.
3- Use sets to get your top players more opportunities. The best teams take a different approach in the non-conference, then the conference, and finally in the post-season. Maybe in non-conference season the best player is getting 10-12 shots per game. In the conference schedule by using the ATO’s, the best teams elevate the best player to get 14-16 shots. Using ATO’s effectively can allow you to impact the shot distribution of your team.
4- Use ATO’s to get the ball inside and get your team to the foul line.
Last week a team ran two sets to start the game, they got a three and a two for a 5-0 run. At the start of the second half, they again ran two sets to start, they got a 4-0 run off those two sets.
So with discipline and execution, the team used sets to start each half to get a 9-0 run.
A good idea for a coach would be to chart what their success is in ATO’s and Deadball plays. How many points are you getting from these sets?
Coach Anderson was always very good about doing something special out of a timeout, especially close to his basket
ReplyDelete