Ball Screen Offense Essentials: Creating Mismatches with Pick-and-Roll & Other Ball Screen Strategies

with Mike Rhoades,
Penn State Head Coach;
VCU Head Coach from 2017 to 2023;
2x Atlantic10 Regular Season Champions;
2023 Atlantic 10 Tournament Champions;
2019 A-10 Coach of the Year;
Rice University Head Coach from 2014 to 2017;
VCU Associate Head Coach (with Shaka Smart) from 2009 to 2014;
2010 College Basketball Invitational Champions;
2011 Final Four;
Randolph-Macon Head Coach from 1999 to 2009;
played collegiately at Lebanon Valley;
on the 1994 D III NCAA National Championship team;
2x All-American

Pick-and-Roll Offense has become a dominant factor in today’s style of basketball. Dominating the NBA, the pick-and-roll game is used to isolate a mismatch or create a scoring opportunity for another teammate.
In this video, Mike Rhoades demonstrates the best practices for teaching pick-and-roll offense while using a simple, yet effective approach to teaching and installing into your team’s attack.

As a coach who has learned directly from the likes of Shaka Smart and Billy Donovan, you will learn the concepts you’ll need to help your players read and react to a variety of ball-screen defensive tactics and immediately recognize where to take advantage of each coverage. 

Setting Ball-Screens, Ball-Screen Reads & Progressions

Most players, even if they’re familiar with ball-screen offense, struggle to understand the necessary techniques and concepts for how to use a ball screen effectively. Using NBA terminology such as ‘reading the tagger,’ ‘throw ahead screen,’ and ‘throw back’ – players will feel as if they are learning how to break-down screening actions just like the pros do.

Coach Rhoades uses a simple, but proven approach to teaching a wide variety of ball-screen techniques, including, how to set a ball screen, rolling off of the ball screen and attacking the defense to get a high-quality paint touch.

By slowing things down into 2-on-0 and 2-on1 scenarios, Rhoades shows you a step-by-step approach for teaching critical ball-screen skills. After watching this fully-loaded video, you’ll learn how to efficiently teach players to approach a ball screen with change-of-speed movements designed to take their defender out of play and create a paint touch opportunity for a high-percentage shot. 

Ball-Screen Build-Up Plan, Ball-Screen Set Plays

Understanding how to use the ball screen is just one element of the entire offense. Coach Rhoades explains that offensive players must learn how to read both defenders – the on-the-ball defender and screener’s defender – to fully take advantage of the situation.

Using a 2-on-2, 3-on-3 and 5-on-5 build-up, Coach Rhoades shows you how players learn to read each defender to create the perfect scoring opportunity using tactics he teaches such as the over-the-top pass, a throw-back pass and wrap-around passes. Each of these tactics create a different scoring opportunity and paint touches that put pressure on opposing defenses. 

In the 5-on-5 buildup, Rhoades demonstrates how to read the help-side defenders and create long closeouts that work to offer a 2-on-1 advantage. This action helps your players to become dynamic passers and make decisions as they come off the ball screen. 

Rounding out this loaded coaching video, Coach Rhoades uses the on-the-court setting to help demonstrate some of his favorite set plays! 

Every offense loves to take advantage of a defense by using a well-executed ball screen. Coach Rhoades takes you through various wrinkles and twists that you can use out of his ball screen offense.

Using the spread pick-and-roll concepts, Coach Rhoades shows off the secrets for using a wing ball-screen and how you can create a Ghost Screen opportunity on the weak side of the floor as your players set secondary ball screens. 

In a play called ‘Gator,’ Coach Rhoades shows how your guards look to attack the paint coming off a flipped ball-screen to create scoring opportunities either at the rim or for a kickout 3-point shot. Using ‘ROB Action,’ the coach demonstrates how players can create a replace-out, back-action that clears the way for your post players to get a throwback pass.  

Ball screens are a major offensive concept in today’s game. Coach Rhoades demonstrates how to teach your players to become highly skilled and knowledgeable in this aspect of basketball and arms coaches with valuable teaching information you’ll be able to use right away in your program. 

All coaches must consider adding this video to their library of instructional coaching materials!

Coach Rating: 5 Out of 5 Stars.‘Love it! Very detailed breakdown of ball-screen offense and reads. Coach Rhoades’ easy-to-learn approach shows you how to break down the concepts down and teach players the most-effective methods for setting and using ball screens.’  

79 minutes. 2023.