Thoughts on Playing Faster

Every year you see coaches preaching about playing faster…but when you check their stats, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

You can say the same thing for every level.

You’ll see the familiar quotes:

• “We’re going to be in attack mode for 32/40 minutes”
• “We’re going to push the pace and play a fun brand of basketball”
• “We are going to run on makes and misses; you won’t see us set it up or walk it up this season”

But again, the film tells a different story.

So, HOW do you get your team to start playing faster?

1. Understand that playing uptempo is a way of life — it’s not something you just turn on one day. It needs to be drilled, emphasized, and rewarded every single day.
2. Until everyone buys into what you’re doing with your transition attack, take away their playing time. It’s the biggest motivator. Either play fast/in our style or don’t play at all.
3. Emphasize your way of life in practice — your drills must be in the full court, your scrimmaging must be in the full court, you must work on advantage drills in the full court, etc. Practice how you want to play.
4. Show your team film of other teams that play fast — a lot of times, I feel like our players don’t truly understand just how fast we want them to play. If you see a clip (or a team) playing the way you want to play — SHOW THEM!
5. Also, send your players clips of YOUR team doing it the right way. You get what you emphasize/reward.
6. In the beginning, reward the effort of playing fast over the result — it might be shaky at times and you’ll probably be tempted to quit. This is something you have to commit to even when it’s not pretty. The reward awaits on the other end if you stick to it.
7. Understand it’s an accumulated process. It’s similar to offensive rebounding. You aren’t going to get every single offensive rebound…but if you go after every offensive rebound, you’ll grab a significant amount over the course of the season. The same goes with RUNNING in transition every time.

Along with that, I’ve compiled a short list of transition offense ideas, concepts, and phrases that might make a little difference with your team.

Browse through them, see if any stick, steal them/adapt them, and use them how you please. Or ignore them if you don’t like them.

Hopefully, you can take 1–2 things from this, easily add it to your team, and get some easy buckets in transition.

Here are some ideas:

• Win the first 3 steps
• preach to your team about winning the first 3 steps from defense to offense
• if your players can switch from defense to offense…faster than your opponent can switch from offense to defense…you’ll have more advantages in transition

Have an assigned “leak out” player

• this might be a little risky, but instruct one of your players (or more than one) to read when it’s obvious your team is about to get a defensive rebound
• when this player sees that your team is likely to grab the rebound/come up with a turnover, have him leak out for a deep outlet pass/touchdown pass for a layup

Ditch the secondary break

• if you want to really play fast, you probably need to drop your secondary break…just scrap it
• instead, go “jail break” on it — everyone runs their lanes but you’re not flowing into any specific actions — just get it and go and make plays
• if you ARE going to run anything in transition, I recommend playing through the trailer with simple actions that go right into drive and kick basketball concepts

Reward throwing ahead and crossing the ball

• emphasize throwing the ball ahead to open players down the floor; if you can develop a culture of “throwing ahead”, you’ll get easy scores all season
• on top of that, if there is no throw ahead option, teach your ball handlers to “cross” the ball in transition; the defense will be loaded on one side of the floor and crossing it “flips” it

Get wide and then deep

• this is a teaching point for your guards/wings
• the wider they can get, the more they will put pressure on the defense…and the more you can put pressure on the defense by spreading them out, the more offensive advantages you’ll find yourself in

Let players besides the point guard bring the ball up

• if you have abled players, just let them bring it up the floor
• if your rebounders have to look for a point guard every time they grab a board, your offense will slow down

Outlet as deep as possible

• this is Transition Offense 101 — the ball moves faster than the dribble so if you can throw a nice outlet down the floor, you’ll save seconds on your attack

Change what you do defensively

• if you want to run, you might want to change your defensive philosophy
• some teams pull it off and can play conservative defense that flows into fast break offense…but most can’t
• apply some type of trapping, speed the offense up, force quick shots, cause more scrambling situations…and you’ll likely be able to push the pace offensively more often

Drill the little things

• Your players need to be able to catch at full speed and finish. They need to be able to throw accurate deep passes to moving players. They need to be able to make a quick read on the catch and finish. They need to get to certain spots on the floor very quickly.
• You need to drill this just like everything else!

Let. Your. Players. Go.

• if your players feel shackled, they can’t play fast — I just don’t think it’s possible
• it’s not an excuse to turn it over, take bad shots, or play recklessly…but you’re going to have to live with some of your offense being a little bit out of your control

What are some other ideas, teaching points, or concepts that you use to get your team to play faster?