Coaching Youth Basketball Offense

Youth basketball offense made easy.

With free, easy basketball plays for kids and tons of basketball drills and games, turn every player into an offensive threat and your team into a scoring machine!

Ask any basketball player which they'd rather play, offense or defense, and I guarantee I know what answer you'll get 9 out of 10 times.

Hands down - Players LOVE offense!

As a player, I felt exactly the same way.

It's a lot of fun running basketball plays and moving the ball around the court with your teammates to create good scoring opportunities.

In fact, I used to love offense so much that just the idea of getting another chance to shoot the ball was all the motivation I needed to work hard on defense to get the ball back!

When coaching basketball for kids, there are a lot of pieces that have to fit together to create a team basketball offense that can score:

• First, you need five players on the floor, one at each basketball position, who understand what their unique roles and responsibilities are. No position is more important than the other, and it takes all five working together as one unit to make a good offensive team.
• Next, you need to know how to play basketball with and without the ball.

Coaching Youth Basketball Offense

Responsibilities for Players WITH the Ball

Only one person on the court can handle the ball at a time, so when you get your hands on it, you need to to make something good happen.

You need to learn all of the different basketball offense moves, so you can create openings for yourself and your teammates.

A good basketball move requires you to be able to:

Dribble the ball under pressure,

Make a good pass to a teammate, or

Sink the open shot.

Coaching Youth Basketball Offense

Responsibilities for Players WITHOUT the Ball

So what are the other 4 players supposed to do while the ball handler is doing his thing?

They have a really important job.

• It's up to them to keep the offense running by moving without the ball.

By cutting to get open and setting screens on defensive players, the players without the ball can cause the defense to break down and open up great scoring opportunities for themselves or teammates.

Cutting and screening are 2 important keys to running a good motion offense.

Unfortunately, most players don't do a good job of moving without the ball...

As a result, their team has a hard time running the offense and scoring.

A team's offense is only as good as the movement of the players without the ball.

• Another key to a good offense is rebounding.
  

On a good shooting team, half of the shots are going to be missed. With basketball for kids, that number is closer to 60-70%.

Teams that have their players attacking the boards and jumping high for rebounds have a chance to get the ball back and set up their offense again.

• Good physical conditioning is also really important.
  

If you're tired, you'll use your time without the ball to stand and catch your breath instead of cutting to get open.

It's also hard to execute quick moves, make good passes, or hit shots when you're exhausted, and it's not likely you'll chase down rebounds.

There's a wide variety of basketball offenses a team can play, but they all fall under two main categories: zone and motion offense.

The type of offense a team chooses to run will depend on the skills and physical characteristics of both teams on the floor.

It's common for a coach to mix up the offenses throughout a ball game in hopes of catching the defense off guard or capitalizing on their weaknesses.

I really suggest when coaching basketball for kids, you keep the basketball offenses simple.

There are basic principles players need to learn that are important for all types of offensive sets.

To work on these skills, check out our youth basketball plays, which are drills designed for 2-3 players.

Fun team practice drills

Follow the links below for drills designed for 1-3 players guaranteed to help you improve all phases of your game:

Ball Handling
Dribbling
Scoring
Passing & Catching
Rebounding
Playing defense
Quickness
Jumping