Ball movement is the key to a successful offense.
When looking to score in basketball, the main objective is to move the defense. Somehow, the offense needs to find a way to get its opposition rotating and shifting, thus opening up space on the floor for drives, passes and shots.
That’s where ball movement comes in.
The ball moves faster than you. It always has, and it always will. For similar reasons as to why straight-line drives are how you should go to the hole in basketball, which we covered in Thursday’s crossover skills article, speed and efficiency are important here. If you need to get the defense moving and confused, utilize whatever exploits human reaction times the most, and it sure it’s other humans.
When the rock runs around the perimeter rather than humans, it can go from side to side much quicker, forcing the defense to react in that much less time. If you can ping the orange around the outside, and especially if you can go inside-out to suck the defense in, you can manipulate the space on the floor to create holes.
The more the ball moves around the court, the harder it is to defend. You can see what I mean from the examples in this video.
This concept is not unique to basketball, though. In other sports, moving the ball quickly is a staple of great offense, with one of the best examples coming from lacrosse, where fracturing the shape of the defense to generate space for passes, drives and shots are equally as vital.
And for the same reasons, too. A human couldn’t beat a lacrosse ball in a race, so why try? If you can constantly alter the point of attack, also known as where the ball is, thus making it difficult for the defense to keep up, you will create better opportunities to score, and more often.
