Saturday, October 11, 2008

OFFENSIVELY: YOU WIN IN THE PAINT

Dick Matta once said "you win getting the ball inside." I believe that is a great deal of truth to that theory. Often coaches will look at their team, see no dominate post player on their roster so the begin thinking of ways to win from the perimeter. I think regardless of your personnel you must find ways to score inside.

At LSU offensive philosophy is simple — GET THE BALL INSIDE! Now there are a variety of ways we can do this, such as:

Beat the other team down the floor in transition.
Pass the ball inside to one of our post players.
Pass the ball inside to one of our perimeter players that may be posting.
Pass the ball to a player cutting to the basket.
Take the ball to the basket off the dribble.
Grab an offensive rebound.

To make sure we properly emphasize this, we keep track of all six categories in both practice and games. We emphasis to our team the importance of "paint points." We also will specifically demand paint points out of them at times in practice. Please don't misunderstand that we don't shoot the ball from the perimeter because we do -- it is part of the necessary balance to open up the paint. But it is easier to get the quick jumper and, especially against good defensive teams, takes time, effort and patience to get quality shots in the paint.