7 Ways to Use Your Post
“The only thing that is required of Post Players in the Read & React Offense is that they react correctly to Dribble Penetration. Otherwise, the coach can do anything in terms of where they are positioned or how they are used. This enables the Read & React Coach to have all kinds of flexibility and freedom. With only a few adjustments to Post Player(s), almost any major basketball action can be created using only one system of play: the Read & React.”
– Rick Torbett –
Clip 1: The first way to use your post: As a Back-to-the-Basket Scorer. #50 Gabby Machado begins as a high post passer and screener. Then she uses the actions of the Read & React to post up at the low post when least expected and when help defense is following cutters out of the lane.
Clip 2: The second way to use your post is as a Drive & Pitch Target. #50 Gabby reacts correctly to Baseline Dribble Penetration (90 degree window), but instead of catching and shooting, she catches and re-drives.
Clip 3: The third way to use your post: As a Short Corner Hunter behind the zone. Remember, any pass to the short corner is to be treated as a Baseline Drive. Her windows must be filled as if she were a perimeter player driving baseline; Natural Pitch, 90 degree, 45 degree, and Safety Valve. In this case, #24 Printy fills her Natural Pitch.
Clip 4: The fourth way to use your post is as a Passer & Screener in the High Post. If you’re wondering, this clip is nothing more than the first action from The Post Passing Layer; feed the post and Laker Cut to the basket. The cutter vacates a spot that must be filled by #24 Printy. However, instead of simply filling the spot, Printy sets up the cut in order to use the post as a screen.
Clip 5: The fifth way to use your post just like it’s shown and drilled on DVD in The Post Passing Layer: As a Mid-Post Passer. #12 Morgan is in the traditional mid-post with her defender playing directly behind her; #2 Kamille feeds her and chooses Laker-Cut-High and then makes the Natural Pitch as if she had driven into the lane. Nice linkage of two basic Layers.
Clip 6: The sixth way to use your post: As a Ball Screener. Note the simplicity of #50 Machado’s action. She works the high post on both sides and looks for chances to set a screen and roll. If she doesn’t get the ball, she flashes back to the high post elbow and tries again. The perimeter players are just Passing & Cutting, etc – working their perimeter action as if they were 5out. But the high post screening action changes the Offense and how it must be guarded. One little adjustment with the post and you have (what looks like) a different offense. It is still the same habits, but different actions create different opportunities.
Clip 7: This is another illustration of the second way to use your post: as a target when dribble penetrating. The Basic Post Slide (when the ball is driven above the post player) is down and away from the ball into the short corner to create space. However, if your post can shoot the 3 and if she can cover the ground, then extending this slide to the perimeter makes it tough for defensive recovery. #22 Kelsey misses this one, but she can make them – that’s why she extended her slide. This means her defender (typically a post player) must be able to defend inside and outside!
Clip 8: This looks like a repeat of the previous clip. It’s the same Basic Post Reaction to drives above the post. #12 Morgan sticks to mid-range jumper – just like it’s shown on DVD. I put these two clips back-to-back to make this point: This is the same drive with the same post reaction, but it’s slightly different due to a coaching adjustment based on personnel.
Clip 9: This one has nothing to do with Post Play. I just like the hunting aspect of the possession. This possession illustrates what I tried to explain on the DVDs and have written about numerous times; once each individual player can react correctly to the ball (remember: no decisions – one simple reaction for every action of the ball), the next step of development is to trust the system. I designed the system so that each individual reaction by the players without the ball will fit together in such a way that the team can flow from one basketball action to another without losing five-player-coordination; and they can do it as long as they need to in order to find their scoring opportunity. No single player is required to understand the whole system in order to play in it. The system coordinates them. The players just have to trust the reactions that have been drilled into them.
Can you spot the following actions in this one possession?
- Pass & Rear Cut
- Use a teammate’s cut as a Down-Screen
- Pass & Front Cut
- Pass & Rear Cut
- Defender Over the Read-Line Rear Cut
- Power Dribble (minus the roll to the basket – darn it!)
- North-South Dribble Penetration
- Shot from the Safety Valve (OK, OK; she missed the Circle Movement to the Safety Valve position, but the penetrator still found her!)
One last thing: Every time I teach Dribble Penetration Circle Movement in a clinic, coaches ask me about offensive rebounding. I always answer that the penetrator will either be in the lane or heading into the lane and is a natural for offensive rebounding position. Look who scores with the Put-Back in this clip: #21 Kachine is the dribble penetrator who passed to the perimeter. And she’s the one who scores with the offensive rebound. Yes, yes… it’s the little things in life.
Clip 10: The seventh way to use your post: As a Brush-Screener. In this clip, #12 Morgan changes angles for her teammates like a pro at the high post. But even if your post is not aware of what he or she is doing, you can teach your cutters to use the post to brush-off their defenders when cutting – and it doesn’t matter where the post is located: high, low, short corner, ball-side or weak-side.
