A universal press-breaker: it can score against any press.

Many coaches spend a lot of practice time on the two or three different press-breakers in their offense, which puts the high school coach at a disadvantage. With the limited time he has for practice, where does he find the time to include a broad assortment of press-breakers?

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What an advantage it would be to have a single press-breaker, one that will work against any full court, 1/4 court, or 1/2 court alignment! An offense that would not be content with merely getting the ball across half-court, but would aggressively attack the defense.

My philosophy has always been: "If you want to press up, we are going to attack you and score."

Being a big proponent of the "Kansas" secondary break, we designed our press break to be run out of that set. That meant that on a made basket (against us), we'd be going to the same spots, whether the opponents were pressing or not. If they were pressing, they'd be easy to spot because we'd be looking while we ran and could easily make the necessary adjustments.

FULL-COURT LIVE BALL BREAK:

Diag. 1 shows the set we would go into after a made basket. As you can see, this break fills all the lanes and creates excellent spacing.

#1 gets high (above the free-throw line extended) and wide (outside the 3-point line) and comes back to the ball as a deep outlet.

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Upon catching the inbounds pass, he turns and reads the floor. He looks at his options in this order: sideline (#2), middle (#5), reversal (#4).

#4, after passing inbounds, steps in outside the free-throw lane for a possible reversal pass (from #1). He must stay behind the ball. If the ball is reversed through him, he will follow his pass outside the free-throw lane to the other side for another reversal.

This will accomplish two very important things:

1. It will shorten the reversal pass.

2. If any reversal pass is intercepted, the #4 man will have good basket coverage to protect against the layup.

As you can see in Diag. 1, #2 and #3 run wide to the side and look over their inside shoulder to maintain the ball vision in transition.

As soon as they recognize that we are being pressed, the opposite wing (#3) will flash to the middle of the floor.

#5, just as in our secondary break, sprints down the middle, looking over his inside shoulder.

As soon as a press is recognized, #5 will sprint to the opposite sideline, as shown in Diag. 2.

As mentioned before, #1's first look is toward the sideline. That may result in a pass over the top of the full-court press and result in a 2-on-1 fast break with #2 and #5.

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#1's second look is to the middle and may result in a pass to #3 and lead to a 3-on-2 fast break with #3, #5, and #2.

Like most up-tempo teams, these are the fast breaks we practice every day. We feel that we can get one of these two fast breaks against the press every time. We teach the players what each pass will lead to and that we want to attack the other hoop with a speed dribble after either of these catches.

#1's last option is the reversal pass to #4 (Diag. 2). We can have multiple reversals on a single trip, but the actions will remain the same. Timing is extremely important on reversals.

Upon the reversal pass from #1 to #4 (as shown in Diag. 2), #5 is sprinting down the sideline for a pass from #4. #3 must wait until #5 catches the ball before cutting for the sideline. #1 must wait until #3 begins his cut before cutting into the middle.

#5's pass priorities are sideline to #3, middle to #1, opposite to #2, or reversal to #4. If the ball is reversed again (Diag. 3), #2 will sprint down the sideline; #1, upon #2's catch, will cut to the sideline, and #5 will cut into the middle.

Believe me, if you can have a second reversal, the defense will be so stretched out that you will definitely be able to make an attacking pass ahead well under the 10-second count.

FULL-COURT DEAD BALL BREAK:

Against a full-court press in a dead-ball situation, we line up in a 1-3-1 set with a tight #1 and #2 stack. If a defender is back as a safety, our inbounder will yell "5!" and we will break out accordingly (Diag. 4).

After getting the ball in, we will fill our press-break spots with the nearest players (Diag. 5). We line up in this order on the stack because our quickest and most athletic player is usually our #2 guard.

If the defense doesn't have a player deep (which usually happens late in a game when the defense is behind and face-guarding in the hope of a 5-second call or interception), our inbounder will yell "2!" and we will bring our #5, #1, and #3 hard to the ball and "fly" our #2 guard deep for a lay-up (Diag. 6).

3/4 OR 1/2 COURT PRESS BREAKS:

We use the same press break in these situations; we just move it up the floor. This is done by #1 walking the ball up the floor to a spot just in front of where the defense would like to trap (Diag. 7).

In the 1/2 court press breaks, we will look diagonal opposite first, then sideline, middle, reversal. We will also use a dribble to shorten our reversal pass from #4 to #5 because we want #5 in the short corner, not on the sideline, for #1 to make the diagonal opposite pass.

Again, as in the full-court press, you will get a 2-on-1 attack with a sideline pass and a 3-on-2 attack with a middle pass.

This is an excellent press break for the following reasons:

1. Simple and easy to learn.

2. Flows right out of our secondary set.

3. Provides excellent spacing, timing, cutting, and floor balance both offensively and defensively.

4. Attacks the defense and leads to fast-break scoring opportunities.

5. Allows each of the five players to do a little instead of relying on one or two players to do a lot.

6. Can be run against any press.

7. Can be run against a full-court press or against a 3/4 or 1/2 court trap.

Like most coaches, I like to keep it simple. Instead of having three or four press breaks, I prefer to have just one--"that works all the time."

Head Men's Basketball Coach

Saint Martin's College, Lacey, WA