Charity Donation Link Update

It has come to my attention that the CJ Foundation page is a broken link. If you find the content of this page helpful - please consider donating to the Ronald McDonald House Charities. They are highly rated by Charity Navigator and provide an essential service for families battling childhood illnesses.

CJ Foundation for SIDS

I have added links to the CJ Foundation for SIDS along the top banner and sides. Please consider donating to this cause. Also, please see the fundraising contest on reddit.com (link to announcement) that runs until November 25, 2012.

The End

Unfortunately, I will no longer continue this blog. It has been fun sharing what information I could provide on basketball strategy but it's time to move on to other things. What I added here is only a small part of who I am as a person and my other personal pursuits require more of my attention. As Magic Johnson said, "Magic is who I am on the basketball court. Earvin is who I am."

Thank you for reading.

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 5 - Read and React Systems

Introduction

Last time we looked at two categories of offensive systems - set and patterned. Those systems relied upon heavy instruction of its players on where, when, and how to move to create offensive opportunities. Today we'll look at another category of offensive systems called read and react. Read and react systems stress spacing and letting the defense inform the offense on how to move within the space. The first of these systems we're going to look at is the Dribble Drive Motion Offense. Second, we'll look at the Princeton Offense. Finally, we're going to try to apply everything we've learned so far and spend considerable time looking at the Triangle Offense.

Let's get started.

Dwight Howard's Role in the Princeton Offense

Introduction

For those of you that visit the subreddit /r/nba, you may remember about a week ago I put together some plays out of the Princeton Offense designed primarily for the PG called the Chin Series. In light of the Dwight Howard trade, I thought there would be some interest in plays in the Princeton Offense designed primarily for the C - the Princeton Low Series.

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 4 - Set and Patterned Offensive Systems

Introduction


Today we're going to start looking at different offensive systems. Due to the wide variety of systems out there I'm going to have to limit this section to the systems most commonly found in the NBA. Even then, there are so many systems that I've decided to break this discussion into three categories - set, patterned, and read and react systems. Set systems run their offense through a specific formation of the offense called a set. Patterned systems carry a signature pattern of movement or cuts to them. Read and react systems typically stress a particular spacing and decision making.

In this post, we're going to look at two set offenses, Horns and UCLA, and two patterned offenses, Flex and Shuffle. Next time, we'll look at three read and react systems, the Triangle, Princeton, and Dribble Drive.

Let's get started.

Mens_Rea Teaches You Things About Basketball pt. 3 - Play Development and Analysis

Introduction


In part 1, we examined how offensive players move on the court and how that movement impacts other players on the court. In part 2, we looked at the options defenses have available to make scoring difficult and the consequences of the choices it makes. Now we're going to try to put the fundamentals we've learned into a more complex system that takes into account both elements - the full basketball play.

A successful basketball play contains three elements: (1) appropriate and realistic identification of the rosters strengths and weaknesses, (2) efficient application of those strengths while minimizing the weaknesses in our play, and (3) proper execution by the players on the court of the play.

We're going to begin by discussing those three elements then we'll take a look at some sample plays and critique them.