HOF Insights- Adjustments to Make with Shot Clock

This week’s question for the coaches has to with adjustments they would make to the shot clock. What adjustments would you make to accommodate the shot clock? Would you make any changes in your offensive or defensive strategies? Would you plan to do specific things in your practices.

Thom Sigel- Rock Island

With the shot clock coming in next year, I am sure it has given coaches some things to study in the college games and planning to do.  I think the teams who have been able to play in events using the shot clock have a decent head start on how it may or may not impact the game.

If I were in coaching or getting back into it, I believe there are some things I would look at changing or implementing.  Here are some thoughts I have:

Practices:  We used to always work on situational strategies, but the shot clock brings in more strategies to work on.  Defensively, I think we would work on when and how we might foul or play out a possession based on time and score because they might not be able to run the entire clock out.  Offensively, we would work on late shot clock actions a lot so we wouldn't waste possessions that get to 10 seconds.  I believe there is a time for the high ball screen depending on personnel, but I think we would want to have a couple of quick hitting actions to go to.  I also think if you might believe in 2 for 1 possessions late in a quarter, it is something that needs to be worked on a lot in practice.

   

Game Strategies:  Offensively, I mentioned a couple things previously as situations to work on in practice.  In addition, we might not use as much of the motion we used or adjust it some.  In place, we might get into more actions sooner but still allow players to make plays.  Defensively, I have thought that using some token zone pressure would run some time off the shot clock and leave teams less time as they get into their offense.  Another thought I had was possibly switching defenses when the clock gets down to 10 seconds (man to zone or vice-versa).  That would of course depend on what our players were good at and the opponent's strengths

Mike Cooper- Ottawa

With the addition of the shot clock for the 2026-27 season I would change a couple of things during practice.

I would try to change our mindset defensively. In practice, we would work on mentally and physically defending for 35 seconds in practice. Without the shot clock sometimes you would go a minute without a shot and players would relax on defense not knowing how long they would have to defend. They need to have a goal of defending for 35 seconds and then they will get rewarded.

Defensively I would try to put full court token pressure without letting the offense run by us. Hopefully this would cut down on the amount of time a team has on half court offense. 

I would get my bench players involved by having a key word or phrase they would yell once the shot clock gets below 10 seconds so the offense knows they need to get a shot up or the defense just needs to defend for a couple of more seconds. Sometimes while playing you lose track of how much time is on the shot clock, especially when it is first implemented and you are not used to it.

 

The shot clock will be a positive addition for high school basketball. 

Greg Bennett- Lewistown

In both college and the pros, the installation of the shot clock eliminated stall tactics and increased the overall pace of the game. As it enters the high school level next season,  we can expect the same changes to take place.

If I were still coaching, I don’t think that I would make any major changes to my overall offensive and defensive strategy. I tended to prefer a fast breaking style of offense, and a pressure defense, both of which would fit in well with the pace of a shot clock regulated game.

The primary change I would make during practices, would be to utilize a shot clock during all scrimmage activities, and while practicing offensive and defensive sets. I would do this to better prepare my players  for the time limited possessions they would face during actual contests.

Evan Massey- Galesburg

In general, I would be concerned about changing my basic offensive and defensive philosophies dramatically to adjust to the shot clock. I would be concerned if I wanted to play uptempo style that if I might make adjustments designed to slow the game down. 

For example, there is some merit to the idea of putting in a 2-2-1 3/4 court press or 1-2-2 3/4 press to slow the game down and cut the other teams shot clock to just 20 seconds, but that would not probably fit my style of play. Or throwing in a zone defense for 15 seconds of a possession, then switching to a mm defense at the end of the shot clock. These could be strategies that I might on occasion choose to use but they would all be designed to slow the game down, which I would not want. 

Both the 3/4 court press and the zone into mm might be a nice adjustment to throw out in the second half in certain spots, to catch the other team by surprise. 

Jokic Inbounding- I hesitate to start delaying too soon as it might make our team not as effective scoring. If up with four minutes to go, I would try to have our players be slow to inbounds the ball. In the NBA, Jokic is famous for taking 5 or more seconds to get to the ball to inbound the ball. The clock is still running but the shot clock doesn’t start. If you are up with 4 minutes to go, and discreetly let the ball bounce out of bounds and have 5 seconds tick off the clock, you may cut the game by 30 seconds. 

Practice- College practices that I have watched will do half-court scrimmaging with just 10 or 15 seconds tick off shot clocks. This way the team is constantly having to deal with end of clock situations. In full court, I might set the clock for 20-25 seconds. The more the clock is used in practice, the more likely players will develop a better internal shot clock. 

End of Clock Play- Offensively, I would develop a couple MM actions and couple zone actions for end of clock situations. I would need to decide what time was “end of clock”- 12 seconds, 10 seconds, 8 seconds. Vs MM I would want one action that was a ball screen action with my point guard and another action that would be just one of our set plays. I would like a set play to finish with our best “creator” with the ball. If they don’t get an open, they can just go. 

Practicing Specials- There would need to be a lot of offensive and defensive practice with baseline ob’s, with 10 or less seconds on the shot clock. 

Delay Then Shot- Work on delay offense for 20 seconds then get into an offense for a shot.