3.12: Special Situations, Offense

Chapter 3: Offense

Possessions that do not start with a live ball or a set defense: BLOB and SLOB, the box and stack sets they run from, the ATO, the press break and zone offense.

New terms introduced (7): ATO, BLOB, Box set, Press break, SLOB, Stack, Zone offense. Diagrams: 7.

Every lecture so far has assumed a possession that began with a rebound or a made basket and a defense that got back. This one covers the possessions that begin otherwise: a ball handed to a player standing out of bounds, a whistle and a huddle, a defense that starts guarding at the far baseline, and a defense that guards areas instead of players. In each, something the offense normally has is missing, and something else is available instead.

Section 1 is the two inbounds situations, BLOB and SLOB, and the two sets they are usually run from, the box and the stack. Section 2 is the ATO, the after-timeout possession. Section 3 is the press break. Section 4 is zone offense.

1 Inbounding

A BLOB is a baseline out of bounds play: the ball is inbounded from under the offense’s own basket, as in Figure 1. What the offense loses is a dribble and a passer on the floor. What it gains is that the inbounder can see all nine other players at once, the defense cannot guard both the rim and the perimeter from that distance, and there are five seconds in which the defense must guard cuts it cannot watch and the ball at the same time.

A baseline out-of-bounds play. The inbounder 1 stands out of bounds behind the baseline, right of the basket, with the ball, labeled inbounder; his defender, x1, is on the court in front of him, just inside the right lane line. Four attackers form a box: 2 at the left elbow, 3 at the right elbow, 4 on the left block and 5 on the right block. On the left, 4 steps up and sets a screen, drawn as a short bar, just under x2, the defender of 2, and 2 cuts diagonally down the lane toward the rim. On the right, 3 comes down just outside the right lane line and sets a slanted screen below and outside x5, the defender of 5, between x5 and the corner. 5 cuts out along the baseline toward the right corner, labeled corner, so x5 has to get round the screen to follow him. x4 stands low on the left side of the basket and x3 inside the lane below the right elbow. Two dashed passes leave the inbounder: one to the end of the rim cut, and one toward the right corner, ending just below the end of 5's cut. The label first option sits under the basket. — Figure 1: BLOB. A box set: two elbows, two blocks. One screen down for the corner, one back screen for the rim cut, and the inbounder reads which is open.

Setup: The inbounder out of bounds under the basket. Four attackers in a box (two elbows, two blocks) or a stack (two on each block).
Trigger: The referee hands the ball over; the inbounder slaps it or calls the play.
Read: The inbounder reads in the order the play gives him: the rim cutter first, because it is a layup; the shooter coming off the second screen; then the safety, a guard who has come high so the ball can be entered without a five-second violation. What makes BLOBs score is that the defenders nearest the rim have to watch both their man and a ball they cannot see behind them.
Payoff: A layup or an open shot, from a possession that began with no dribble and no advantage.
Beaten by: Switching every screen, so no cutter is ever free, and a defender on the ball with his hands up to shrink the passing angles; or a zone under the basket, which guards the areas the cuts go to rather than the cutters. Lecture 4.8.

Action 1: BLOB: five seconds, four cutters, and an inbounder who can see everything.

A SLOB is a sideline out of bounds play, inbounded from the sideline in the front court, as in Figure 2. It is the harder of the two, because the inbounder is level with the play rather than behind it and the pass has to travel across the defense rather than into it. Most SLOBs therefore have a safety valve first and a scoring action second, and many are designed simply to get the ball in and flow into the offense of the earlier lectures.

A sideline out-of-bounds play. The inbounder 1 stands out of bounds on the right sideline, level with the free-throw line, with the ball, labeled inbounder; his defender stands several feet in front of him, between the two passes. Three attackers stack in a line up the middle of the lane, 2 at the bottom, 3 in the middle and 4 at the top, with their defenders on the ball side; 3's defender plays above him, between him and the inbounder. 5 waits in the far left corner with his defender a few steps off him toward the lane. 2 sets a screen, drawn as a short bar just above him, in the path of 3's defender, then cuts out to the right corner. 3 cuts down past the screen toward the rim, labeled rim cut. 4 pops up to the top of the key, labeled safety. One dashed pass from the inbounder ends just to the right of 3's cut, above the screen bar, leading him toward the rim, and a second goes to the safety. — Figure 2: SLOB. Three attackers stacked up the lane with one in the far corner. The bottom cuts to the ball-side corner, the middle cuts to the rim off a screen, and the top pops out as the safety.

Setup: The inbounder on the sideline at the free-throw line extended. Three attackers stacked in a line up the lane, one in the far corner.
Trigger: The ball is handed over.
Read: The inbounder reads the rim cut first, then the corner, then the safety popping to the top. If nothing is open, the ball goes to the safety and the possession becomes an ordinary half-court possession with four seconds gone.
Payoff: A layup if the defense sleeps, and a clean entry into the offense otherwise.
Beaten by: Denying the first pass and forcing a timeout or a five-second call; switching the stack screens. Lecture 4.8.

Action 2: SLOB: get it in first, score second.

Both are run from named shapes. The box set is four players in a square at the elbows and blocks, as in Figure 3: symmetrical, so the same play can be run to either side, and every player is one screen away from every other. The stack is two players on each block, one above the other, as in Figure 4: the two in a stack can screen for each other or split in opposite directions, and their defenders cannot watch both.

Four attackers stand in a square: 2 at the left elbow, 3 at the right elbow, 4 on the left block and 5 on the right block. The ball-handler 1 is at the top of the key with the ball and his defender just below him. The other four defenders stand on the lane lines, one below each elbow player and one above each block player, so the defense is a mirror image too. Under the basket the label reads symmetrical: either side. — Figure 3: The box set. Four players in a square at the elbows and blocks. The shape is symmetrical, so one call runs to either side.

Two attackers stand on each block, one directly above the other: 3 above 2 on the left, 5 above 4 on the right. 1 is at the top of the key with the ball, and his defender, x1, is just below him. The four other defenders crowd the two stacks: x2 and x4, on the lower players, stand low and inside, between them and the basket, and x3 and x5, on the upper players, stand just outside them. The left stack splits: 3 cuts up and out toward the left wing, and 2 cuts out toward the left corner. The label they split or screen sits in the lane between the stacks. — Figure 4: The stack. Two players on each block. They screen for each other or split, and the defenders crowded around them cannot see both.

2 The ATO

An ATO is an after-timeout possession, as in Figure 5. It is the one moment in a game when a coach can guarantee that all five of his players know the next four seconds and the defense has not seen this sequence today, which is why it is where the best set plays are spent. The cost is the same as any set play’s, and the other cost is information: every ATO a team runs this season is on video for every opponent, so the good ones are variations on a shape the opponent has already seen.

Figure 5: An ATO from a box. The back screen for the block player is the first option; if it is covered, the screener pops to the wing. A script with an enumerated second option, which is what separates a good ATO from a hope.

Setup: A named set, five players who have just been told the play, and a defense that has also just been coached but cannot know which play is coming.
Trigger: The inbound or the first pass after the timeout.
Read: The first option is scripted; the second and third are enumerated in advance. What a good ATO does that a bad one does not is give the ball-handler an answer for the two most likely coverages, so the possession does not collapse into an isolation with eight seconds left.
Payoff: The shot the coach chose, for the player he chose, against a defense that could not prepare for it specifically.
Beaten by: Scouting: the same shape run twice in a season is guarded the second time. And by switching, which takes the screens out of any script. Lecture 4.8.

Action 3: The ATO: the one possession where the offense knows more than the defense.

3 The press break

A press guards the offense full court, and the press break is the answer, as in Figure 6. The principle is one sentence: the middle beats the press. A ball moved up a sideline has a sideline and a half-court line acting as extra defenders and can be trapped against them; a ball moved through the middle of the floor cannot be trapped, because there is no line to trap it against and the pass out has two directions.

Full court. The offense inbounds under the far basket against a press. The inbounder, 1, stands out of bounds behind the far baseline, just left of the basket, with the ball, and one defender, x1, stands on him just inside the line. Two guards stand open to receive, one either side of the lane just below the far free-throw line, with their defenders a step behind them and toward the sidelines, waiting to trap after the catch. One player stands in the middle at half court and one stands deep near the near three-point arc as the safety. Passes are shown from the inbounder to the left guard, labeled inbound, then from that guard to the middle player at half court, labeled the middle is the answer, then ahead to the deep player, labeled safety ahead, each stopping just short of its receiver, so the ball moves up the middle of the floor rather than the sideline. — Figure 6: The press break. Four spots: two guards to receive the inbounds, one in the middle at half court, one deep ahead as the safety. The ball goes inbounds, to the middle, and ahead, and the press has been broken with a pass rather than a dribble.

Setup: Four spots rather than four players: two receivers near the inbounds, one in the middle of the floor at or above half court, one deep ahead as the safety. The best passer inbounds.
Trigger: The inbounds pass, or the first trap.
Read: The receiver catches and turns to face the whole floor before he dribbles. If two defenders come, the pass goes to the middle, because a trap on the sideline leaves the middle by definition. The middle player catches facing up and looks ahead first: the deep player is often alone, because a press commits defenders in front of the ball. If nothing is ahead, he reverses the ball and the press has still been beaten, because the defense has to reset.
Payoff: A four-on-three or a layup at the far end, since a press that fails has committed players behind the ball.
Beaten by: A press that denies the inbounds pass rather than trapping after it, which attacks the five-second count instead of the dribble; or a defense that takes away the middle first and lets the ball go up a sideline into a trap. Lecture 4.7.

Action 4: The press break: catch, face the floor, and pass through the middle.

4 Zone offense

Zone offense is what an offense does when defenders guard areas rather than players, as in Figure 7. Screens matter less, because a zone defender does not follow a man into one; what matters is where the seams are. Three principles cover most of it, and each has appeared earlier in this chapter under another name.

Overload. Put more attackers on one side than the zone has defenders for. A 2-3 zone has two defenders on the ball side above the free-throw line and one below; four attackers on that side make somebody guard two.

Flash the middle. Every zone has a soft spot where its rows meet, usually the free-throw line. The flash of lecture 3.7 puts a player in it facing the basket, and from there he is looking at the back row from behind.

Skip it. A zone shifts as the ball moves; the skip pass of lecture 3.10 moves the ball faster than the zone can shift, and the closeout that results is the longest one available.

A 2-3 zone, labeled 2-3 zone: two defenders up top, x2 out on the ball and x1 near the left elbow, and three across the back, x3, x4 and x5. Four attackers overload the right side: 1 with the ball at the right slot, 2 on the right wing, 3 in the right corner and 5 on the right block. One attacker, 4, is alone on the left wing. 5 flashes from the block up into the gap just below the free-throw line, labeled flash the gap, and 1's entry pass goes to him there. A second pass, the skip, goes from 1 across the top of the key to 4 on the weak side, labeled skip to the weak side. — Figure 7: Zone offense against a 2-3. Four attackers overload one side, a big flashes into the free-throw line gap, and the skip pass goes to the weak side where the zone is thinnest.

Setup: Attackers in the gaps of the zone rather than in front of its defenders: for a 2-3, one at the top, two at the wings or slots, one in each corner, with a big able to flash to the free-throw line.
Trigger: The zone shifts to the ball.
Read: Ball reversal first, because a zone that is shifting cannot also close out. Then the three principles in order: is somebody overloaded; is the middle open; is the far side open for a skip. A shot from the corner against a 2-3 draws the bottom defender out, which opens the short corner and the offensive glass behind him.
Payoff: An open shot from a seam, or a catch in the middle of the zone facing the rim with the back row behind.
Beaten by: A zone that closes out under control and matches up to cutters, which is the match-up zone of lecture 4.6; and by an offense’s own impatience, since one pass short of the open shot is the usual failure.

Action 5: Zone offense: overload a side, flash the middle, skip to the other.

5 Names heard for which there is no entry yet

Four more names are given by one publisher each, so under this site’s rule none of them has an entry until a second independent source names it. The descriptions are here so the word is not a mystery when it is heard; the rule and the dated diff are in the plan (plan/PLAN.md, section 8.4) and data/sources/glossary_diff_2026-09-22.md.

Diamond. A four-player formation with two at the elbows, one at the top of the key and one under the rim, which makes it a starting shape like the box set and the stack of Section 1 rather than an action. It is not the diamond press of lecture 4.7 or the diamond-and-one of lecture 4.6, which are defenses named for the shape their own players stand in.
Runner. A player who runs the baseline from one side of the floor to the other and finishes at the far wing or in the far corner. The glossary that names it says runners are used to attack zones and to create overloads, which puts the word with the zone offense of Section 4 and not with the rim runner of lecture 3.1.
Flood. Two or more players moving quickly to one side of the floor so that more attackers are on that side than the defense has defenders for. That is the overload of Section 4, named for the movement that makes it rather than for the shape it ends in.
Double stack. Two stacks, one on each side of the lane, so four players start in two pairs near the blocks and each pair can split in either direction. It is a starting shape like the box, and the glossary that names it lists plays from it against man-to-man, against a zone and from out of bounds.

The idea to carry into lecture 3.13 is that these possessions each have their own clock. An inbounds play has five seconds, an ATO has a full possession but one chance, a press break has ten seconds to cross half court. The last lecture of this chapter is about the clock itself.