Eric Flannery: Zone Offense Sets and Ball Screen Continuity

Beating a zone defense often comes down to deflecting shots from the perimeter. So if your team is struggling with their shot, you need strategies in place to get higher percentage shots. St. Edward High School Head Coach Eric Flannery shares the strategies you need in his highly successful zone offensive package. Coach Flannery takes to the court to explain his coaching philosophy, and the principles to dismantle any zone defense, including an array of set plays and inbound plays to adapt into your program. Easily learned and quickly taught, each play is an effective tool to get a basket for you team.

Coach Flannery begins the session with insights on practice planning, as well as working with players on the court. He not only has had years of experience teaching on the court, but has also learned from some of the best coaches in the country while working for USA basketball. Coach Flannery offers his take on "mind candy" and how it can be used to reach today's players. He continues by explaining the seven principles common to attacking any zone defense.

Moving to the court, Coach Flannery breaks down his seven principles for attacking zones. By following these principles, your team will be able to dismantle any zone defense with smart passes, screens and drives. The biggest idea, however, is the concept of "attacking" the zone. Getting the ball inside, attacking the gaps and playing behind the zone are just a few of the concepts Coach Flannery shares.

Coach Flannery introduces the "ball screen continuity" offensive attack used by the USA Men's Developmental National Team to claim gold this past season at the FIBA World Championships. While many ball screen offenses require multiple passes to get great looks, this system uses spacing the floor to set up quick offensive strikes. This 1-4 high motion is easy to implement, effective against both man and zone defenses and includes four different entry passes to start the offense. To help you teach this to your players, Coach Flannery shares two breakdown drills to improve not only your players' skill sets, but also help them to better understand the play.

No offensive package is complete without a series of baseline and sideline out-of -bounds plays. Coach Flannery and his two assistants demonstrate four baseline out-of-bounds plays along with two sideline out-of-bounds plays. Each is simple, yet effective, and strives at placing zone defenders in an indecisive state of who to guard, thereby opening either a 3-point attempt or layup on the ball-side block.

Coach Flannery also shares insights into the game and working with players at all levels.

If you're looking for effective, proven ways to score against a zone, this presentation is for you. Whether it's from a set offense, set plays or inbound plays, Coach Flannery and his staff give you the tools to have success against the zone defense.

Produced at the Fall 2014 Cleveland (OH) Clinic.

79 minutes. 2015.