Cuts From The Offensive Playbook – Flow (Continuity Ball Screen)

Hello everyone! This is the last of the three dives I’ve done on the three main core offenses that we used last season. My previous two pieces on this featuring Sides and the Inside Triangle can be found using those respective links.

Continuity Ball Screen offenses are some of the most common in all of basketball and there are a lot of different ways you can run them. We have many adaptations that we’ll look at below. At their core, though, they’re designed to play through the pick and roll on the perimeter, coupled with some motions off of the ball either to add wrinkles to keep the defense on their toes or to help reverse/reset the flow of the offense if the original screening action doesn’t yield a good look. We used this offense most heavily during the championship season and have kept it in rotation ever since, but much more sparingly. Last year, we used it more than many realized, but it was still by far our least utilized of the three core offenses. It can be hard to identify at times because, especially last year, we’d often start in it and then switch into one of our other base offenses if we didn’t initially get a look we wanted or sometimes we’d be in one of our other offenses and switch to this mid-possession either to change things up or to exploit a mismatch that was created. There are also some screening actions off the ball that resemble our other offenses, at times. It can also be confused with, but is different than, the pure “5-Out” offense that we ran in the 2020-2021 season when all of our best shooting options were big men. That team ran this offense, too, but had its own unique spread offense as well, and this is not that. We run Continuity Ball Screen or, as those within the program call it, “Flow” which most normally starts with 5 men on the perimeter – but our post players can still post up out of the action, after the action, or after slipping a ball screen, and sometimes we’ll also have a baseline runner who will either clear out or become the ball screener. Occasionally, we’ll also have one of our post players who isn’t the ball screener (especially if they aren’t an outside threat) closer to the paint – but that doesn’t change the core principles of the offense, just how their availability comes into play. We’ll take a look at many of these variations in a bit.

The offense, described at its most simple, is really, “a lot of ball screens and drive off of that.” The team provides spacing, most normally in a shell around the perimeter with all 5 players so that driving actions toward the rim can either go all the way uncontested or can leave some major openings if help side does come. Sometimes this action will happen with 4 around the outside and a post player inside working to post up and then making himself available on the drive if his man helps. Generally speaking, the actions are designed to set up a two-on-two pick and roll game either on a cleared-out wing or down the middle of the floor with the action revolving to seamlessly allow for a new point of attack with a reset offensive structure if the first one doesn’t work out. This past season, the most common instance where we saw this offense was as a quick probe at the beginning of an offensive set. Our PG (normally Kihei) would bring the ball up one side (usually the right) of the floor and the other four players would hang back on the perimeter. The PG would take this opportunity either to take his many off of the dribble one-on-one, or to use a ball screen to do so. If that didn’t work, we’d often reset into a different offense entirely. We did, however, still run this offense some as a base set throughout the entirety of a possession, and sometimes we’d even go to it at the end of a possession when the main offense hadn’t yielded anything after running it through. So that’s another big reason it’s been somewhat of an afterthought these past couple of years – not only is it used more sparingly, but it’s also the most commonly intertwined with the other systems. We’ll take a look at all of these variations below, so let’s go ahead and jump into the tape, starting with the full offensive flow so that we can illustrate the principles:

As A Core Offense

This first clip, below, is at its most simple execution but, pick and roll basketball is very difficult to defend well. It forces a mismatch where, theoretically, a bigger and slower player is forced to guard a primary ball handler, because his initial man is caught behind our screening post player. On the other side of the ball, our team has a whole system dedicated to helping defend this through core defensive actions, from the post player hard hedging to stop ball penetration, to back side rotations designed to defend the screener should he roll to the hoop. This system is core to our defensive identity, which should give a sense of how exacting it is to defend well. Here is our version of Continuity Ball Screen, I’m going to use Flow from here on out, against Duke. This is one of the main variations – with Franklin and BVP in either corner, Beekman extended on the far wing, and Clark working the pick and roll with Gardner on the near wing, but attacking the middle of the floor. This is designed to create space with the three shooters and attack down the heart of the lane. Sometimes that nearside corner we’ll run through to the opposite side for a full clear out, but here he stays home. Gardner sets a good screen on Jeremy Roach (#3), such that Clark is able to clear him and when Gardner starts to roll, it’s basically a two on one vs. Ryan Young (#15). Young tries to drop and give as much space as possible while contesting with his height, but Clark has a lot of space to operate and uses his quickness to fake a dribble down the near side of the lane only to explode far side where he’s able to finish the layup over Young. This play worked so well he also had Gardner open, if he’d needed him.

Here’s another good look from the same game, below. This time Ryan Dunn is on the floor instead of Gardner, Isaac McKneely instead of Franklin. We inbound the ball to Clark and then watch as McKneely cuts through the baseline to open up the nearside of the floor entirely with Dunn in the opposite corner and Beekman far extended on the opposite wing. The goal here is to play a two-man game with BVP and Clark in the pick and roll on the perimeter. BVP fakes the screen and goes to slide down into the post, which is another common option from this set outside of the pick and roll – the post players feigning the action to establish post position. But, instead of posting up (it wouldn’t have been a good matchup with the 7’1″ Dereck Lively II if he had) BVP fakes going into the post and comes back up to set the screen on Roach again, skewing toward the lane. Meanwhile, Ryan Dunn cuts baseline and replaces IMK at the bottom of the screen, re-establishing the players in either corner and extended wing formation that we saw in the clip above. I’d like you to pause at around 9 seconds into the clip below because there’s a lot of option and nuance happening here. If Dunn had stayed on the far wing, BVP’s screen likely would have been on Roach’s opposite shoulder, with Clark driving toward the cleared-out side of the court rather than down the middle of the lane. But with Dunn balancing the sides of the floor, the screen is set for Clark to exploit the middle. Also note how cagey BVP is about setting this screen – they don’t want Roach to anticipate it well – where it’s coming from, etc. So, he fakes the screen initially, makes it look like he’s going to head into the post, comes back up, and briefly looks like he could be screening the other direction before switching to the top side to set the ball screen. Now, we all know BVP isn’t likely to be a great post up threat vs. Lively, but I do want to call it out as an option for the offense we’re likely to use some down the road. From here, BVP sets the screen on Roach but Proctor sags off of Beekman on the opposite wing to delay Clark’s drive. Perhaps an option would have been for Clark to dish it to the wing for a three, but that would have still been a well-contested shot and, instead, he keeps the ball and continues to probe down the lane after looking Proctor back out to his man. At this point Roach is still slightly behind him trying to get into the play, and Lively has to slide to stop the easy bucket, so Clark has drawn both defenders to his drive. BVP is all alone and, being the style of player he is, he pops out to the three-point line (which is almost certainly correct as Lively probably has the range to get back into the play and block the shot if BVP tried to drop down near the rim). Clark identifies that he’s drawn two, takes his dribble deep, and then stops and looks back out around the perimeter for BVP, who has made himself available and takes the pass. Here’s where the fun happens, though, as BVP could have likely taken this shot, but both Lively AND Dunn’s man, Jacob Grandison (#13) go flying out to contest. Dunn, seeing this, cuts baseline (From The Corner!) and BVP finds him for the authoritative dunk!

The ideal rotation there would probably have been for Duke to send Grandison, for Lively to stay home and/or rotate to Dunn (who could have also stayed outside if he fancied his shot), but either of those options still likely result in a clean look from three for either BVP or Dunn. Alternatively, Duke could have switched and left Lively on Clark with Roach retreating to take BVP, but now you have a significant quickness mismatch on one end and size mismatch on the other. Either way, you can see the strain put on the defense having to make a lot of choices in quick succession with challenging mismatches and difficult rotations to identify. The result was a very easy bucket.

Here’s a look from earlier in the season against Michigan with Beekman at the point, which, you may be encouraged to hear, we were running more often and he was the primary ball handler much more often before his injury. It’s his explosion off of these advantages that’s huge, as we’ll see. Shedrick is hanging out there around the opposite block as I mentioned in the intro. When we have multiple post players who we don’t play as shooting threats this is often the positioning rather than having the player hang out in the corner, so they can be there to either post, if necessary, or be available for a dump off/lob, etc. This is really the same offense as the two plays above, just with the far corner collapsed closer to the lane. Beekman takes the ball screen from Gardner on the far wing, angled toward the center of the floor since there isn’t a clear out, and just flies down the middle of the lane for the dunk insanity.

This next clip, below is from the same game is a much more methodical version of that ball screen drive. This time BVP is in the game instead of Shedrick and he’s actually at the opposite wing while Clark and McKneely are in either corner. This is something that’s fine to do since BVP was able to shoot if there was an opening or Beekman could have come over and used him as a screen and had Gardner slide down into the lane, if he’d preferred. Michigan has a lot of size on this play as that’s 7’1″ Hunter Dickinson (#1) on the 6’6″ Jayden Gardner and 6’8″ Jett Howard (#13) guarding the 6’3″ Beekman. The quickness advantage and the explosiveness and confidence with which Beekman was playing was on full display here and the offense suited this well. Dickinson plays this set sagging back off into the lane but Beekman just methodically sets up Howard off of the Gardner screen by first starting to go to the low side and then flipping and going off of the ball screen again to the high side, the other direction. Initially, Dickinson is in decent help position to attempt to block a shot on the drive while Beekman has Howard on his hip, but Beekman savvily uses the hesitation dribble to get Dickinson to relocate and go back out to Gardner. Beekman then, maintaining the advantage he has on Howard, finishes the drive (and gets fouled without a call)!

Beekman is so well suited for this offense. When he was at the height of his powers last year and fully healthy, against Baylor, Illinois, and in the first half against Michigan, many of the most memorable moments of him taking the game over were out of Flow. Put the ball in his hands, set a ball screen, and let him work/surround him with shooters. In an offense where you have an increasing number of confident ball handlers looking to take their man off the bounce – which we should this year, the personnel seems very well suited for the system (I’ll elaborate in the closing).

Okay, back to some more Flow looks. This one, below, is against Houston and you can see how the offense rotates the ball when some of the initial drives stall out. It’s also what we had to do a little more often in this game because Beekman was still very limited, which is also why we ran so little of this compared to our other offenses throughout the year post-injury. Jay Bilas sets this one up perfectly for me in the commentary, but we see a team with our original starting lineup at the beginning of the year in the game – Kihei Clark, Reece Beekman, Jayden Gardner, Kadin Shedrick, and Armaan Franklin. Armaan camps the corner for the entirety of this possession, and we rotate through a series of different ball screens. Initially Beekman and Gardner attempt to create some confusion by Beekman screening Gardner’s man off of the ball, but then Gardner sets a ball screen for Kihei, who utilizes it but quickly passes back out to Beekman at the point. Gardner attempts to slip the screen and dive to the hoop on the back side, but there’s too much traffic for Beekman to hit him with the pass (or maybe he doesn’t see him). Beekman then dribbles across the point to take a ball screen from Shedrick, which Houston defends by sending two men toward Beekman. He passes over to Shedrick who then dribbles over and engages Kihei. Gardner has cleared through by this point and is set up on the nearside block to Beekman, so we can see again how this Flow offense can have that 5-out look or the 4-around-1 depending on the action and personnel. As Shedrick gets the ball back to Kihei, Gardner has floated up to the opposite elbow so now Clark and Shedrick have a cleared-out top side for another two-man game. Shedrick hands the ball to Clark and immediately sets a ball screen for him, which Clark uses, forcing Shedrick’s man to step up to stop the drive and allowing Shedrick to roll to the hoop, unguarded, for the easy dunk.

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind from that last play is how much variability there was within an offense that’s basically trying to get a similar look each time. Initially, they set some off-ball screens just to give the defense something to think about, and started with that two-man game on a cleared out side, with the post attempting to slip. When that didn’t work, they attempted a center ball-screen on a balanced floor, had Gardner in the post, and then reset and had another ball screen on the cleared out top side again. Where as, in the previous clips, we saw either Beekman or Clark attacking that initial screen almost right away, here there was consistent rotation but allowing for similar attack patterns and variation off of that (i.e. “continuity”). In this case, rather than the ball handler attacking the rim, we had multiple dives on a cleared out top side, eventually ending with a wide open bucket off of the “roll” in the pick and roll.

Here’s another look, below, with so many guards + BVP. We’ve got Beekman, Franklin, IMK, Clark and BVP on the floor and our chief focus throughout this look is to put 7’4″ Naheem McCleod (#24) in tension, having to defend the perimeter against BVP’s shooting ability or to hang in space vs. one of our guards. The play starts with a Franklin ball screen for Beekman who swings it over to BVP who is out near the FSU logo (look at how far this has McLeod from the basket – he averaged 13 minutes per game and played 8 in this one as a result of not being the right defensive fit). The ball goes over to IMK on the near wing and BVP sets an off-ball screen to get Beekman free to receive the ball at the point again – this is a fairly standard action in the offense to reset the ball with a primary ball handler. As he comes out to get it, FSU switches the screen for some reason and McLeod takes Beekman creating a huge mismatch. Now, at this point, I think we’d have been better off just fanning wide and isolating Beekman on McLeod, allowing him to get downhill toward the rim – and we’ll see a different look where we do something similar next. BVP, who has attempted to post his own mismatch for a while, comes up and fakes the ball screen in one direction for Beekman and immediately flares outside to the three-point line. FSU, focusing on Beekman’s threat to drive, leaves BVP all alone. When Beekman finds BVP with the return pass, both FSU players attempt to contest the shot because the switch back has not been communicated clearly, and so Beekman simply returns outside of the three-point line for the return pass and the wide-open look. All of this forced a lot of chasing and change of direction in space for a taller, slower-footed player like McLeod and the result was a clean shot.

Okay, here’s the clip I was just talking about, below, from the ACC Tournament against UNC. It’s Clark, Beekman, Franklin, Gardner and Shedrick on the floor, and we start off in the look we first showed with two players in either corner, a ball screener, and a player extended on the far wing. The problem here is that one of those players in the corner, Gardner, is not a three-point threat, so his man, the 6’11” Pete Nance (#32) is sagging into the lane with a foot on the line. Also, after the first ball screen from Shedrick for Clark, you can see that Shedrick’s man, Armando Bacot, also sags way down into the lane. If you pause the clip 4 seconds in, UNC has four defenders in a square all sagged in between Kihei Clark in the basket, immediately deterring any thought of driving. Shedrick then sets a wide pin down screen for Franklin on the wing. We’ll show more of this action soon, but this is often confused with the Sides pin down screens. It’s not; it’s just a way that we get a man open on the perimeter when we need to rotate the ball. Franklin starts to drive the lane and Shedrick dives off of the roll, but Bacot is still sagging, Franklin’s defender is still in good position, and despite Gardner being out just inside the three-point line, Nance is still fully in the lane to help on the drive. This is where it starts to get interesting, and we start to adapt. Gardner sets a back screen now for Clark who drops to the corner and Franklin finds him with the bounce pass. This, effectively, just worked as its own pick and roll between Clark and Gardner, as Clark drives baseline with the advantage on his man and Nance has to recover to shut the drive down with Gardner diving toward the rim. Gardner stops in that midrange area so as not to get so far into the bigger Nance, but Franklin has unintentionally run his own man into Gardner to allow for the help. As a result, Gardner has to pass it back out to Franklin outside. In a perfect world, Franklin would have stayed out at the point there and Gardner would have taken that little jumper. Instead, another ball screen – Gardner for Franklin – and this time it forces the switch where Nance is on Franklin. What I love about this play is that Franklin immediately recognizes this and backs up outside the three-point line both to pull and isolate Nance. Everyone clears out with two in the corners, and Shedrick offering an off-ball screen to Beekman just to occupy the attention of the defenders. It’s just straight isolation basketball from here by a perimeter player on a post defender and Franklin blows by Nance for the running left-handed scoop.

One thing I really like about this offense is that, while ideally you do have four perimeter shooters on the floor, you don’t have to have them. This offense didn’t work perfectly for the first part of the possession mostly because Pete Nance didn’t respect Jayden Gardner’s outside shot. Then Clark and Gardner got innovative and it created a quality look, but Franklin ran his man into the play and cluttered it up. Undeterred, they just kept grinding ball screens until they got a switch and then forced that issue. Contrast this where, say, the Inside Triangle requires so many shooting threats because most of the screening action is off the ball and in the middle of the floor, players like McLeod and Nance can mostly just switch/camp the middle. By contrast, Flow just keeps creating varying two-man basketball matchups over and over again until we find a weakness in the defense.

Now let’s look at a few variations of the offense – where it’s not just attacking that primary ball screen. This is at the end of the Illinois game where they’re up 5 and trying to salt things away with a big bucket. Beekman has been feasting this game, quite a bit out of this offense. Clark sets the ball up with Beekman and we go to that same formation, with Clark and Franklin in either corner and BVP on the low side wing. Gardner is the ball screener for Beekman. At first, Beekman probes to see if he can get an advantage on the drive, but then comes back for the ball screen. On the back end, Franklin’s man sags into the lane to defend Gardner’s roll, so Franklin rotates up to the opposite wing. Beekman finds him while his man still has depth in the lane and as he tries to recover to contest a potential shot, Franklin uses his momentum against him for the blow by drive to the hoop.

There’s never a better time to try to take your man to the hoop than when he’s running at you because it’s so hard to change your momentum and direction quickly enough to stay between your man and the hoop. This shows how the corner can get involved if his man gets a little too aggressive with the help in the two-man game. Franklin saw the opportunity and presented himself for a pass in an area where he could have either shot or taken it off of the bounce.

This next Cut against Duke illustrates some of the wires it crosses when you force teams to switch. Here Duke is trying to defend the ball screen action between BVP and Clark with Beekman, Dunn and McKneely in those standard baseline/far wing positions. Clark forces the guard/post switch, but Dariq Whitehead (#0), who has switched onto BVP, loses track of him on the perimeter, I think preparing for another ball screen or it could just be a mental lapse after the switch. BVP seizes the moment to run up as if he’s going to ball screen and instead cuts back door for the and-1.

Here’s a nice little wrinkle, below, where we have the same standard formation with Shedrick setting a ball screen for Clark, Dunn and McKneely in the corners, and Franklin at the wing. Clark rejects the ball screen and dribbles into three men as Dunn’s man is comfortable leaving him with a little space in the corner and Shedrick’s man has sagged off. Shedrick rolls to the high post where Clark finds him and as Franklin rotates up to the point, his man swipes at the ball/bothers Kadin. He turns and fires a continuation pass out to McKneely who has rotated up a little from the corner. IMK takes the pass, takes two dribbles toward the baseline, and finds Franklin who has replaced back on the wing for the three-point look as Shedrick slides down to the box. This one’s a good example of the ball screen initiating the play and the advantage, but it being the continuation passes and off-ball players who finish the opportunity.

Here’s a look, below, at our guys getting into Flow after Inside Triangle doesn’t yield a good look. Watch initially, you have the two-wing set that we talked about in my last piece about the Inside Triangle with Dunn and Clark on the wings and BVP, Franklin, and Beekman in the interior. BVP is attempting to post, and Franklin sets a screen to free Beekman out up top – but then they all just fan wide as Beekman attempts to take his man off of the dribble and, when that doesn’t work, then they shift seamlessly to Flow. Dunn passes down to Franklin and sets a ball screen for him (or kind of feigns one). Franklin passes out to Beekman, BVP sets that back screen on the wing for Clark that we saw earlier in that UNC clip, and then as Clark drives to the hoop after taking the flare pass, Franklin dives the lane to present an option. As soon as Franklin takes the pass, Dunn crashes in as well and he’s able to finish the put back with authority.

There are a couple of things that I like about that clip above that illustrate the offense. For one, it’s hard to pick up that it’s changed and they can get into it pretty effortlessly because it doesn’t require a ton of coordination other than spacing and ball screens. Wake’s been defending lots of interior screening action with the Inside Triangle. Clearing out the middle entirely and attempting to isolate through the point is within the options of that offense and seemed to organically happen when Beekman got the ball up top. It’s when that fails that you see the transition between the offenses, though. Dunn starts the ball screening action and BVP pops that back screening motion on the wing. Additionally, this concept of diving and presenting is one we haven’t discussed a lot once a teammate creates an advantage off of the bounce. We’ve seen it a little when post players naturally present, but when we are in that shell look around the perimeter and a ball handler goes to the rack, we’ll send a diver or two to look for cracks in the help and/or crash the glass, as in this case with Dunn.

We’re starting to get into some of the more subtle variations now, but in this clip below we start with Gardner roaming the baseline, and then he runs up to set the ball screen. As he does, notice we’re, again, in that same formation with two players in the corners and one on the extended wing, with Gardner and Beekman playing the two-man game. Beekman uses the pick and gets all the way to the rack. We’ll use the baseline runner from time to time and, especially historically, sometimes that will be a guard and then they’ll clear out one side of the court for the screen action. In this case, though, the baseline runner is the post player who appears to be a decoy and/or lurking and then springs into the play. It helps to both disguise where the screen is coming from for the on-ball defender and to lull the post defender a little bit thinking he’s away from the play and is now suddenly right into pick and roll defense.

I’ve mentioned a few times how post players will often post out of this set, especially if they’ve gotten a mismatch through the screening action. The next two clips are examples of this. In this first one, Wake Forest switches the ball screen immediately, leaving the 6’0″ Tyree Appleby (#1) on BVP. We have McKneely and Dunn on either wing with Franklin sliding down into the corner. BVP takes this mismatch and looks for a lob pass before settling down in the mid-post when the ball goes over to McKneely. McKneely passes it into him, and Wake’s post player tasked with guarding Clark after the switch starts to drift down to help. Rather than posting up, though, BVP catches the pass with one hand and immediately whips it out to Clark at the point. Notice how far Hildreth (#2), who is guarding Franklin, has sunk into the lane to help on the BVP mismatch – he’s all the way across the lane and between BVP and the hoop. This is why BVP doesn’t pause and whips the pass out – very smart. Clark snaps it to Dunn and Dunn immediately kicks it down to Franklin in the corner who is able to drain the open look because of how far Hildreth has to go to recover. Again, a situation where the off-the-ball players punish the advantage created by a mismatch from that initial screen action.

And here’s one against N.C. State where we actually score out of the post-up game. This really wasn’t a strength of ours this past year, nor do I think it will be this coming year, but Gardner was effective with it when he wasn’t guarded by too much length. This starts out as the variant where we clear out the side, with Shedrick setting the ball screen for Beekman. Interestingly, and I like this, rather than reversing the ball through Clark who is still by the logo at the point, Beekman skips the pass to Gardner just outside of the high post. Shedrick dives after the screen and Gardner could hit that pass, but N.C. State defends it well so instead he reverses it over to McKneely and then sets a ball screen for him toward the middle. We’re now cleared out for their two-man game on that side of the floor. McKneely was not a huge threat to drive at this point in his career and Gardner rolls, but N.C. State doesn’t have much of a problem defending it. But here’s the variation – as Shedrick comes over to set the screen for Clark at the point, rather than cutting through to the corner to create balance, Gardner just stops at the blockk and posts up his man. Clark sees this and feeds him which gives Gardner an opportunity to go to a one-on-one post move. Shedrick’s man has to back out because Shedrick dives the opposite side, and there’s no one really around to help as Gardner goes to his turnaround jumper about half-way down the lane.

Recall earlier when Gardner was roaming the baseline and then came up to set the ball screen. This time he takes the duck-in option while Shedrick is setting the ball screen. I like this because, even though they haven’t gotten a switch, it creates an unpredictable post up situation where the defense isn’t as prepared to help. You’ll often see this from the ball screener as well, after setting screens regularly, eventually they’ll slip one entirely and either have a wide-open cut toward the rim or be able to post up out of the action.

To Start The Possession

Most of the examples above are of Flow as the core offensive set of the possession (one as the second half after a failed Triangle). Most commonly last year we’d get into that base offense with that corner/corner/wing set with the ball screen taking place at the point and the driver attacking the middle of the lane. Occasionally, we’d have the offset formation with three players extended center to opposite side of the court and the ball screen playing on off of a cleared-out wing. We talked a little about how we could jump into this offense from another to close the possession; but one thing that we haven’t touched on yet that we commonly did this past season was as an early offense attack option prior to getting into one of our other offenses. This was actually the most common way the Flow base was worked into our offense. Specifically, one of our primary ball handlers (usually Kihei) would bring the ball up near the (usually right) sideline after a made bucket or after a slow break-out rebound. The rest of the four guys would kind of take their time getting up the floor, eventually getting into that arc formation. The primary ball handler was given the option to try to catch his man off guard to explode toward the rim, or to use a ball screen just like we would in that offset formation. This is Flow; just a truncated version where if the initial attack didn’t work, we’d then reset the offense into one of our other two core offenses.

Here’s a couple of looks at this action – the first coming against FSU. These are uncharacteristic looks very early in the shot clock for us, but we are willing to take those when it’s a clean layup. Kihei brings the ball up the floor and notice how wide he gets with Gardner, BVP, Franklin and Beekman fanned around the arc (at about 1 second in you get a great look at this). Clark just lulls his man to sleep and explodes by him to start the possession, something he isn’t expecting or used to.

Here’s the same look, below, against Virginia Tech only you can see us consciously setting it up with Dunn clearing out baseline to vacate the space and Clark utilizing the blowby.

The isolation element to these sets was fair game and the ball handler would capitalize on it if the opportunity was there but, make no mistake, it’s the same offense. Note here where we’re doing this thing but where the guard uses the ball screen instead – here:

And here, in the clip below, you see the full logic where Kihei fakes using the ball screen with Gardner, then attempts the blowby, which he doesn’t utilize but gets enough space that then he utilizes the ball screen again and takes it all the way to the rack.

If you pay close enough attention to the clip above, you’ll notice that since Kihei’s initial probe was a little more drawn out, the rest of the guys were already starting to form up in Inside Triangle positions, with Dunn and McKneely on either wing and Gardner and Franklin ready to man the inside with Clark if the drive abated.

And just a couple more nuances/plays off of this – you’ll notice FSU is expecting the Clark drive at this point in the clip below, but the off ball defenders are not as alert, so BVP makes a good back door cut on his man and Clark finds him:

And then, finally, one more in that transition set where Clark rejects a ball screen from Shedrick and turns to the blowby. In this situation, UNC is alert and drops a lot of men into the paint to help, but Clark is able to locate the proper kick out to BVP for the open three:

So, all of these were just a good change of pace to mix up the point of attack and keep the opposing defense on its toes early in the possession. These were clips that were successful, but often if that initial probe wasn’t there or the defense was better set, we’d just set up Sides or Inside Triangle and go from there.

I imagine we’ll use Flow more this coming season than we have recently as a base offense, which means that these early possession points of attack will simply just be starting the base offense, so the defense will be on its toes early more frequently. Still, someone like Dante Harris or Beekman could really benefit from these kinds of looks in games where we might be running one of our other offenses with more frequency and they aren’t expecting the early attack off of the bounce.

In Conclusion

Flow was our least utilized core offense last season, but I feel like this could be the year we start to see it with more regularity again. I think CTB actually planned to use it more last year until Beekman’s injury and then our shift to Small and Smaller Ball along with Beekman’s hamstring flaring up from time to time coincided with leaning more heavily on Inside Triangle. It was still something within our repertoire that we integrated into, and between, our other sets as you can see above.

At its core, it’s a very simple offense that’s just designed to maintain spacing for either a ball screen in the center of the court or on an offset wing, and then everyone plays off of that. But, while it’s simple in its design, ball screens are hard to defend well consistently, especially when paired with good spacing and shooting, and this is our only offense that utilizes them in such a featured way (Sides will run them with the wing and the respective post from time to time). Given our abundance of players who like to attack the basket off of the bounce (Beekman, Harris, Rohde), our quality shooters (McKneely, Rohde, Groves), solid pick and roll options (Minor (best part of his game) and Buchanan), and guys who have the versatility to really play any role within (Dunn and maybe Bond), there are a lot of pros to making it a much higher volume set.

If we do, one wrinkle I’d love to see us add is the “Spain” pick and roll which has become an NBA staple and, in reality, is very similar to our current center screen action; just with an extra element to defend. For a more detailed breakdown of this action, here’s a good clip. The gist is that you still have players spaced into either corner and you still have a ball screen in the middle of the court, but instead of having that far side wing cleared out as another available shooter, that player sets a back screen for the ball screener while/after that player has set the ball screen, and then pops outside of the arc. This adds quite a few more elements to defend and much more difficult communication between not two, but three players. Since I don’t have footage of us doing this, I’ll defer to that clip which showcases it well. If we do start running Flow with more regularity, I believe it could be an effective wrinkle to add on occasion so that the defense doesn’t get into as much of a rhythm, especially since most of our post guys are likely to be more effective scoring off of the roll or pop action rather than in a straight post up. There are certainly other deviations that we could layer into it, and I would expect that we would as we normally continuously add new actions into our base offenses over the course of a season as our guys get more and more comfortable running them. I call out the Spain screen, specifically, because of how our core center Flow offense already has a structure that’s so close, but also because I believe it’s something we could switch into from a different offense more easily without the defense easily recognizing the change. Consider: we’ve just run Sides through a few times and the ball is at the point with Beekman. McKneely and Rohde have been running off of screens by Dunn and Minor. The opponent has defended this set through an action or two and all of our offensive players are behind the ball defender. Now, quickly, McKneely and Dunn fan out to either corner, Minor leaves the high post to set a ball screen for Beekman, and Rohde comes in behind to set a back screen for Minor, then flaring to the wing. That is a very confusing and dramatic change to offensive concept and requires a very prepared/cohesive level of communication across the defenders. It’s a twist that is difficult to coordinate and defend at any level of play, but that isn’t very complicated to execute by the offensive players.

Alright, well that puts a wrap on my dive into our three core offenses last season, many of their variations, and some of the different ways in which we utilized them. Personally, I think our personnel for the coming season is more of a “Flow”/”Sides” team than an “Inside Triangle” team – at least in terms of where we should be investing most of our repetitions; but there are lineups that could run any of them well. That’s one of the most exciting things about this roster – the positional flexibility and athleticism which is more than we’ve had in a while. Thanks for following along these three pieces to those of you who did, especially if this was mostly review! Continuity ball screen offenses are some of the most commonly utilized at high levels of basketball, and for a reason; they’re hard to defend well! But when watching our games, it can be easy to lose sight of when we’re mixing and matching them within our other motion offenses. This is by design; we’re trying to catch our opponents off guard as well!

General Blog Update

I had planned on doing a piece on the Pack Line, but I think I’m going to push that until next offseason as a way to highlight the work of this coming team. I won’t do these kinds of pieces very often so they will likely live on for a while as my staple illustrations of our systems, and I think this year’s team is going to be better on that end of the floor than we’ve had since 2020.

We’re less than two months away from the tipoff of the upcoming season against Tarleton State on November 6th! It’s possible I’ll have another piece before then, although there’s quite a lot of preview content here and also within the incoming transfer breakdowns – so we’ll see if there’s anything that comes up that would be new content. Either way, just like last year, I’ll be doing reviews after as many games as I can this coming season with thoughts and video break down, so don’t hesitate to check in or follow @cutsfromcorner on Twitter to catch those, if interested!