Cheryl Reeve: Corner Offense, Set Plays and Practice Drills

A key principle to winning basketball is the culture you establish. Cheryl Reeve, head coach of the 2x WNBA Champion Minnesota Lynx, shows you the practice drills she runs every day in practice. While the drills in this video are aimed at helping players develop skills, the true benefit is how they develop team culture.

Practice Drills

Coach Reeve shares her take on classic layup drills and full court drills to prepare players for up tempo style offense. These drills emphasize conditioning, competition and efficiency. Through a series of four drills, your players will work on changing their direction and pace to effectively attack the basket off the dribble.

Coach Reeve's version of the "Three Man Weave" will eliminate bad passes and missed layups while training your players to spread the court and fire the ball ahead in transition.

The "Speed Drill" is a continuous fast break drill that will promote quick outlets and advance passes to a player flying down the court.

In the "Secondary Drill," you will learn how to use early ball screens in your secondary break and how to teach them to your players in practice.

Corner Offense

The Corner Offense is a great alternative to the popular Triangle Offense in that it creates multiple options for teams with good shooters, big guards that can post, or teams without a dominant post player. By spacing posts out to the perimeter, you will open up the rim for cuts and guard post up opportunities.

Coach Reeve breaks down multiple options in her Corner Offense, demonstrating how to use ball movement in addition to split screens, flare screens, and dribble hand-offs to create open 3-point shots and easy layups.

You'll also get multiple options for relieving pressure such as back doors, pressure cuts, corner passes, and reversals into two-man actions on the weak side. This offense will create scoring opportunities no matter what the defense tries to take away.

Set Plays

Coach Reeve demonstrates a number of set plays she has used with great success. These include three set plays using the Corner alignment, two variations of spread ball screens, and a great end-of-game play to get an open 3-point shot. Examples of the plays include:

• Cheek - This is a great play that uses a back screen to post up teams with smaller guards or get an open corner 3-point shot.
• Thumbs Up - This is a play can get you a layup or 3-point shot. Using misdirection with a screen the screener action on the perimeter, a player will either be free on the slip to the rim or open off of a flare screen.
• Punch - This play will help you involve your weak side players in the Corner Offense and get an open look at the elbow for your best shooter coming off a screen.

Coach Reeve delivers a terrific presentation on an offensive philosophy that has been used with great success at the pro level. However, coaches of all levels will benefit from learning the drills and plays taught in this video.

Produced at the Spring 2015 Minneapolis (MN) clinic.

66 minutes. 2015.