3.13: Late Clock, Offense

Chapter 3: Offense

When the clock, not the defense, is the constraint: the late-clock possession and the 2-for-1.

New terms introduced (2): 2-for-1, Late clock. Diagrams: 1.

This chapter has treated the defense as the thing an offense is working against. In the last seconds of a shot clock or a quarter, it is not. The constraint is the clock, and the clock changes which shot is a good shot. A contested mid-range jumper with two seconds left is not a bad decision; it is the best remaining option, and judging it against the shot an offense could have had with eighteen seconds left is a category error.

This lecture is short by design. It has two entries and no diagrams of actions, because nothing new happens on the floor: the actions are the ones already taught, run faster and with fewer options. What changes is the arithmetic.

1 The late-clock possession

Late clock is the state, not an action: the shot clock is under about seven seconds and the offense has to produce a shot rather than an advantage. Three things follow.

The order of preference inverts. For most of a possession an offense passes up a contested two to find an open three or a layup. Late, a contested two taken with two seconds left is worth more than a better shot that does not get taken, because a shot-clock violation is worth nothing at all.

The actions shrink. There is no time for the motion offense of lecture 3.11 to produce anything, so teams run a ball screen or an isolation: one action, one read, a shot. The snake and the step-up screen of lecture 3.3 are common here because each produces a shot from one dribble.

The offensive rebound is worth more. A missed shot with one second on the shot clock and fifteen on the game clock is a live ball with a fresh fourteen if it is tipped out, which is why teams send more players to the glass late than they would otherwise. That is the other half of the crash or get back decision of lecture 4.1.

Setup

Under about seven seconds on the shot clock, the ball in the hands of the player the team wants shooting, the floor spaced so one action can be run without a second pass.

Trigger

The clock, not the defense.

Read

One action and one read. If the first read is covered, the second is a shot rather than another action. The passer’s rule inverts too: a pass that takes two seconds off the clock to create a marginally better shot is a bad pass late and a good one early.

Payoff

A shot, taken, with a player on the glass.

Beaten by

A defense that switches everything and concedes nothing quickly, which is exactly what defenses do late; and by a defense that simply runs the clock out by not fouling and not gambling. Lecture 4.9.

Action 1: Late clock: one action, one read, and take the shot.

2 The 2-for-1

The 2-for-1 is arithmetic rather than tactics, as in Figure 1. Near the end of a quarter, if the offense shoots early enough, it will get the ball back for a second possession before the period ends; if it does not, the opponent gets the last shot and the offense gets one. The rule of thumb is that with about thirty-five seconds left, a shot taken by about twenty-eight seconds leaves time for the opponent’s possession and a final one of your own.

Figure 1: The 2-for-1. With about thirty seconds left in the quarter, the shot goes up early, one player crashes the glass and the rest get back, so the possession that follows still leaves time for one more.

Setup

The end of a quarter, roughly thirty to thirty-eight seconds on the game clock, the offense with the ball.

Trigger

The game clock, read by the point guard as the possession starts.

Read

Shoot by about twenty-eight seconds. The shot itself is chosen the way any late-clock shot is: quickly, from one action. The rest of the team splits, one or two to the offensive glass and the others to floor balance, because the second possession only exists if the opponent’s is not a layup.

Payoff

Two possessions to the opponent’s one, which is worth roughly one point of expected value at average efficiency, and more if the extra shot is a good one.

Beaten by

A defense that holds the ball itself on the possession in between, shooting with two or three seconds left, so the offense’s extra possession is a heave; and by a rushed shot so bad that the 2-for-1 costs more than it gains, which is the common failure.

Action 2: The 2-for-1: shoot early so the period ends with your possession, not theirs.

That is the end of the offense. Chapter 4 takes the same possession from the other side, in the same order: transition defense first, then defending early offense, then the coverages built for the ball screens of lectures 3.3 and 3.4, the help and rotations that answer the drives and cuts of lectures 3.7 and 3.10, the switching schemes that answer the screens of lectures 3.5 and 3.6, zones, presses, and the defensive halves of the special situations and the late clock. Every “beaten by” slot in this chapter names the lecture in Chapter 4 where its coverage is taught.