In yesterday’s post, we mentioned the simplicity of the Escape Hatch for a dribble penetrator who can’t make it all the way to the rim or just doesn’t like what he sees. Today, let’s take it one step further.
What if that ball handler (1 in this case) drove right, bounced off to the Escape Hatch, then immediately crossed over and attacked again – this time to the left? What would that do to the defense? Let’s take a look at it.
With 1 driving right, every other offensive player Circle Moves to the right. This forces every defensive player to rotate as well. Most likely, x2 has helped on the drive and now must recover to his man in the corner.
If 1 bounces off to the Escape Hatch, quickly crosses over, and attacks left, the defense may be in enough disarray from the extreme rotation that he has a clear path to the goal. Or, maybe a helping defender leaves the Natural Pitch or the Baseline Cutter open.
But, let’s say the defense is solid and can recover well enough to stop the second drive.
The ball handler can still easily bounce off and drift back to the Escape Hatch. At this point, anything is possible. With the defense having helped and rotated twice in a row (in opposite directions), who knows what break downs may have occurred. Perhaps another drive is open, or a quick Pass & Cut, or a Pin & Skip.
The point is that the defense has been sufficiently moved with only two actions and the ball never changing hands. Hopefully, it’s been moved enough to shake a scoring opportunity loose. If not, a good Read & React team will simply continue to hunt until one is.
And, this Bounce Off Escape Attack could be used in practice as a diagnostic tool for both your defense and offense. Is your defense capable of handling the stress of all of that movement and still remain intact? Is the Circle Movement habit ingrained deeply enough so that your players will Circle Move correctly on both dribble attacks?
The above diagrams were powered by FastDraw.
