Sharing the Ball

Broke out of my shooting slump last night, at least in a small way: swished two good looks at open "J's" - one from the short corner on the right baseline, and the other (a game winner) from the right elbow - and had a break-away lay-up off a steal as well. But I missed at least four other driving shots too: a reverse lay-up (that should've been automatic); a tough left-handed finger-roll on the right baseline (when I got caught too far under the backboard); another easy right-handed lay-up where I had to hang in the air a little to avoid a defender (and just took my eye off the rim); and finally a little bunny in the lane that I just flat-out missed. Oh gosh - and then a HORRIBLE brick from beyond the arc that I don't think I even bothered to aim. But the point is that I got to the gym early, took the time to stretch and warm up properly, didn't try to force anything that wasn't really there, but instead stayed focused on doing a lot more of the "little things" and trying to get into the flow of the game itself. Which is why, in addition to these meager six points, I also had half-a-dozen rebounds, half-a-dozen assists, a handful of steals, and even a couple of blocked shots (at one point one of my teammates even called me "the Enforcer"). Oh, and a handful of turnovers too. But turnovers are a dime-a-dozen in this league: hardly even worthy of a mention.

Organized teams with actual coaches who regularly play (and practice) together not only have set plays and defenses, they also communicate in a systematic way. In a pick-up game, this is all mostly catch as catch can. Calling for the ball is pretty much a matter of volume ("Gimmie the ROCK!"), and beyond that typically it's every man for himself. If you're lucky your teammates will at least call out the screens ("see it" or "pick left") and maybe even the switches ("get mine"/"got yours"), although actually asking for "Help!" is sometimes considered lacking in manliness. I guess some guys feel it's better to give up a lay-up than to admit out loud that they've lost their man. I don't agree with this philosophy, BTW, and am constantly both giving and asking for help. The one big advantage defenders have over their opponents is that there are five of them and only one ball.

Of course, the best way to overcome that advantage is for the team which has possession of the ball to share it. But often this becomes difficult in pick-up games because teammates don't really know or trust one another, and they don't really communicate all that well either. So rather than balancing the floor and let good ball movement create good scoring opportunities, pick-up games too often degenerate into four guys calling loudly for the ball with the fifth trying to avoid the distraction of people shouting at him while creating a shot for himself off the dribble. This works best when the players are at least smart enough to let their most talented player do the majority of the ballhandling, and their opponents are too stupid to trap him and rotate back.

Teams who make the effort to balance the floor, who routinely move well WITHOUT the ball (attacking the basket, screening away and filling back), and who aren't afraid to look for the open man and make the extra pass will generally have a lot more success than teams that don't. Even just calling for the ball by location ("look left," "trailer") or calling out a teammate's name ("give it to Jeff!") is a big improvement. I tend to call for the ball visually rather than verbally -- raising both of my hands above my head with outstretched palms when I'm open, and keeping my hands down while pointing to the open player (if I can see him) when I'm not. A hand raised as a target while posting up or cutting through the lane is another common signal. I also try to signal that I'm available to set a screen by raising my left hand in a clenched fist to shoulder height (which was how I was taught), and will occasionally call for a pick (or try to move players around on the floor) by pointing to wherever I want it (or them) with the index finger of my off hand. Not everyone understands or appreciates my finger-wagging though, so I try not to do it very often.

Of course, the eleven "scoring spots" I mentioned in an earlier post all have proper names as well. "Point!" "Corner!" "Elbow!" and the like on the ball side; "Skip!" (for the far wing) or "Cross!" (for the far corner) on the help side. The weakside elbow is sometimes called "Pig!" (after a play called the "Blind Pig" in Tex Winter's triangle offense), while I like to call the weakside block "the Wormhole" (or simply "Worm!") in honor of Dennis Rodman, who made his living there. It's amazing how quickly guys will pick-up terms like this in a pick-up game, if you simply keep saying them often enough.

Ironically, the teams which share the ball best either know one another well enough to trust that when they give the ball up they are likely to get it back, or don't know their teammates well enough NOT to trust them, and share the ball out of habit because that's the way they've learned to play. One of the proudest moments I've ever had in a pick-up game came almost a decade ago now, in a very competitive gym where the winners kept the court as long as they kept winning, and often 30 or 40 guys would be sitting around waiting for "next." So obviously the best players tried to stack their teams with as much talent as they could, since losing typically meant sitting for an hour or more.

The rest of us were left to fend for ourselves. One night I got on a team which consisted of myself, another guy about my age (forty-ish), his fifteen-year-old son, and a couple of fairly athletic twenty-somethings with lots of hop but only modest skills. We were up against a team of very talented players who had already won five or six games in a row, and by that point were playing very well together even if they were getting a little tired. We took advantage of our fresh legs to run them a little harder than they really liked, spread the floor to create space for our two twenty-something "slashers," trapped hard on defense, switched and rotated, and used our good inside position (and wide butts) to force their shooters to shoot over the top, and to screen their rebounders off the boards.

Finally won the game (to everyone's amazement) when one of our slashers kicked the ball out to me on the left wing.... I immediately reversed the ball to the father at the point, who made the quick extra pass to his son on the opposite wing, who drained a wide-open three in rhythm to send our opponants to the showers. None of us had ever seen one another before, and after losing the next game we never played together again. But for that brief moment, we were the best team in the gym. All because we knew how to share the ball....