Dusty May: Mastering Offensive Spacing & Creating Advantages

with Dusty May,
Dallas Mavericks Head Coach;
University of Michigan Head Men's Coach from 2024 to 2026;
2026 NCAA National Champions;
2026 Big Ten Regular Season Champions;
2026 Big Ten Coach of the Year;
2026 Henry Iba Award;
2025 Sweet Sixteen;
2025 Big Ten Tournament Champions;
Florida Atlantic University Head Men's Coach from 2018 to 2024;
2023 Final Four;
2023 CBS Sports Coach of the Year;
2023 C-USA Coach of the Year;
2023 C-USA Tournament Champions;
2023 C-USA Regular Season Champions;
Coached as an Assistant for Mike White from 2015-2018 (Florida) and at Louisiana Tech (2009 - 2015);
Assistant coach for Mike Davis at UAB from 2007 to 2009;
at Indiana (his alma mater) - was student manager for Bob Knight from (1996 - 2000)

Basketball at all levels is evolving from knowing ‘how to run plays’ to knowing ‘how to play’. To be able to do this effectively and consistently, players need to have some base principles and concepts to build on throughout the season.

In this video, Dusty May demonstrates some of the key basketball concepts that have brought him success:

• Transition read
• Early actions
• Half court concepts
• Concept build up

Introduction
Coach May talks about his journey and philosophy in coaching and style of play. From the time he began learning under legendary coach Bob Knight to his successes at FAU, Coach May has learned and adopted different concepts from many coaches and programs and combined them into his own unique version.

May discusses the importance of being elite rebounders and not letting a defense get set. From there he talks about how his teams approach transition offense - by pushing the ball - along with concepts that will keep the defense on its heels such as using his 5-man as the “trigger” for the different actions in his offensive scheme.

Early Offense and Half-Court Offense
Offense is about creating an advantage and playing off the ball. Coach May outlines the early actions his teams have used to keep the flow going. Actions like “Trips” which works an empty side ball screen to different ways to chase the basketball into get and DHO sequences.

Build Up and Ball Screens
An effective way to build up your offense while teaching the concepts is to do a lot of 3 on 3. Putting players in various scenarios not only expands their decision-making IQ but helps present many game-like reps with lots of touches. Coach May talks about the importance of back cuts to get teammates open and create space to attack. He also discusses the importance of getting to the next action, whether that is a mismatch or to get the ball from one to two sides for higher percentage shots.

Lastly, you will see how Coach May has simplified their approach to making reads against ball screen coverages.

The game is constantly evolving. This video, with the help of Coach Dusty May, will give you a leg up on the competition and prepare your team to excel this season!

53 minutes. 2025.