Give Your Offense A Helping Handoff

Give Your Offense A Helping Handoff

by Steve Sutton

originally published in The National Association of Basketball Coaches- Time-Out Magazine

We had a dilemma one season in that our center was not a conventional scoring threat (we liked it so much we kept using it), so we began to use him as a handoff man in our UCLA offensive set. Since his defender was always sagging to help defend our duck in low post man, we decided to let him handoff to the guard who made the shuffle cut. After checking the duck in man, he dribble handoffs to our point guard coming off the wing's downscreen. Our point guard has the ball on the wing well inside the 3 point line and he attacks the paint to pressure the defense. The high post defender who was sagging is caught in no man's land and our point guard could then have the option of:

Duck in man again low - drop stepping back the way he came or bury defender under rim

Penetrate and Pitch if weakside guard helped too much - Shooter reads his defender's head

Attack the paint and to rim - if defenders fight the duck in man top side hard - ride them up the lane and the guard driving gets to the rim

Shoot a mid-range jumper - VERY effective as duck in man's defender was up and denying and the high post man's defender either helped up or was drawn away so the high post could rebound - you now have inside position for your best rebounders

Throw back to wing who had received a pin down screen from the high post after handing off

You can change the handoff man if you wanted your wing to take the handoff and if teams are switching the guard and wing you can slip the downscreen.

Another effective handoff action is on the Secondary Fastbreak. The reversal trail man simply dribbles towards the wing for the handoff. Now you have an attacking wing who can do everything we covered previously and throw back to the trail for a 3 pointer or isolation action. With the skill level of bigger players increasing, this quick handoff allows you to get the ball back to scorers facing or get to the paint on the drive.

Handoffs are hard to defend as they are like ball screens, but located on the court in areas which change the angles of the defense and come from the flow of your offense. Most teams handle ball screens by hard hedging, trapping, going under or switching. Handoff defense tries to run the offensive player off the handoff or step back to let the defensive guard through. Savy offensive players read the defense and attack the paint or shoot if defenders go under the handoff.

Good luck and I hope handoffs can give you an assist!