Using 3 on 3 to Develop Your Team’s Offense

Now in the basketball training field, I got my start as a high school basketball coach and was the former the head basketball coach at Metuchen High School in Metuchen, NJ. We had some great success over the seven seasons I was there and I was fortunate enough to coach some great basketball players during that time. One of those players, Marqus Blakely, has had stints with the Los Angeles Clippers and is currently playing professionally in the Philippines. While still coaching, I remember watching him in a summer league game where he looked like the best player on the floor for the Clippers posting 14 points and 6 rebounds. The members of my Metuchen team were so proud and excited to talk about Blakely’s game as most of them got the chance to see it on tv. So we spent the better part of our warmup that day talking about his performance, and then we got into actually playing some basketball, bringing me to my title, “Using 3 on 3 to Develop Your Team’s Offense.” This topic has come up on my site before in the post 3 on 3: The Key to Teaching Team Basketball, but using three on three drills in my practices throughout my coaching career resulted in so many good results for us in our games because players were able to develop their skills in a competitive situation that resembles components of your team’s offense. With that in mind, I decided to break this topic down even further into two more segments, offensive and defensive development.

Altering 3 on 3 to Fit Philosophy

Three on three basketball can and should be used to develop your team’s offense because the games can be altered in many ways in order to fit your offensive philosophy. During practice, you can work on multiple variations of three on three basketball in order to help develop your team offense and defense (which will be covered in the next post). You can run these as competitive games to one point and the loser will rotate off while the winner stays and plays the next team. Use as many baskets on the court that you can so that players and teams will not be standing for a long period of time. Put a time limit on each block of games (preferably 10 minutes) and designate certain variables for each segment that need to be followed and worked on based on your team’s offensive principles. For example, when I coached Metuchen, we ran the dribble drive but with more movement off the ball and some added pick and roll sets. Consequently, we worked on all of these concepts during our three on three play, setting parameters like the score must come off of a side pick and roll or the ball must be entered into the offense out of a dribble drive and kick up.

One action that we worked on while I was coaching and something we incorporate a ton into our basketball training sessions is moving without the ball. This seems to be a lost art in the new age, one player dribbles around while the others stand and watch era of basketball. However, ball movement which requires cutting and screening was imperative the success of the offense that we ran when I coached and is a large reason why the San Antonio Spurs won the 2014 NBA Championship. In order to teach moving without the basketball effectively in a three on three setting, restrict the players from dribbling at all during this prescribed time period. As previously mentioned, players get caught dribbling too much and the other players tend to stand around and watch that player. By eliminating the player’s dribbles it forces them to rely on cutting and screening in order to get an open look at the basket.

During the second block of games, allow the players to use one dribble per touch. Once again, this forces them to really move without the basketball in order to get open looks but at the same time, they were now working on using their dribble for a purpose. Players can do more than they think with one dribble provided they use their dribble to attack a gap and force a teammate’s defender to help or attack the basket and score. By limiting the number of dribbles a player has, they are forced to use their dribble properly or they will waste an opportunity to score.

As you progress into the next block of games, allow each player three dribbles on each touch. With this guideline the three on three become more like the actual game and similar to your team’s offensive concepts. Once again, the players are limited by their number of dribbles, and they have to learn to attack the defense efficiently with their dribble in order to be productive. At the same time they were still forced to rely on moving without the basketball and set screens in order to keep their spacing and create driving lanes for the man with the ball.

The final variable that you can add is to designate how the players must score, for example, designating that the score has to come off the pick and roll. Continue to limit each player to only three dribbles per touch in order to work on attacking the pick and roll effectively and not excessively with an inordinate number of dribbles. Drill the players to go by screener tight with their shoulder low enough that they actually hit the screener’s hip. It is preferable that they use two dribbles while coming off the pick and roll with the second dribble being the one to clear them from the pick and attack the space that is being created by the action. The player with the ball should also attack the pick and should not go sideways, all the while reading the hedge defender and your own defender. Attacking while coming off the pick will put the defenders at a disadvantage when trying to help and recover and should lead to better scoring opportunities. On the other hand, coming of the pick and attacking laterally creates an easy help and recover opportunity for the defenders.

Anything Goes 3 on 3

Once you have worked on all your offensive variables, incorporate an, “anything goes” session of three on three. This is meant to work on all of the concepts we had worked on in the previous four sessions while allowing the players to use their own creativity within the offense. This is an important concept because players are too often confined to what their coaches want them to do that it actually limits their capabilities as a player. A player’s creativity can sometimes be the best part of their game and it should be cultivated in order to make your team better.

Making the team better is the goal of every practice and game and three on three basketball can go a long way towards accomplishing this goal. Using three on three basketball can be a highly efficient way of developing your team offense. The games can be short, competitive, and altered in a way that fits your team’s offensive concepts. By adding rules to the games, the players are able to work on those concepts more effectively. Since there are fewer players per team than in a regular game, each player will get more opportunities to work on the designated concept. Also, because the games are short (only one point games) it forces the players to compete harder in order to win and stay on the court. Consequently, they will try to execute the concepts better, more often, and more efficiently in their attempts to win. Overall, three on three basketball is an excellent way to develop your basketball team’s offensive concepts and improve in a game like setting.