On another thread there was some discussion of the FLAT FOUR observed in the WUGs, as if it were something new to understand.
Interestingly, the FLAT FOUR, i.e., four across the baseline and a point guard out front, is the original starting formation for Iba's High Low way back in 1964 and for Dean's and Larry's elaboration of it at UNC into the Carolina passing offense in 1965.
Think of the Flat Four as the ancient symmetric I-formation of High Low Basketball offense before the Flat Four shifts into one of several possible less balanced formations (e.g., in football the I-Formation shifts into the split T, the wing t, the power I formation, the slot I, wing I, the shot gun, and so on--note also that the shot gun is the latest base formation in many football offenses and they shift out of it, too).
In the High Low, the FLAT FOUR shifts into a variety of formations with three combos and 2 posts positioned variously.
The method of the high low offense is to do mostly the same things out of different looks, though as common sense suggests, various spots on the floor occupied by different types of players enable certain kinds of advantage more than others.
The FLAT FOUR is where UNC under Dean always lined up and started from for quite a few years. By lining up in the FLAT FOUR, your guys get to run to their spots and hopefully beat their defenders to those spots. Where the spots are that they run to (the shift formations) depends on the match-ups they have and wish to exploit versus another team.
Alternatively, your players can stay in their FLAT FOUR and a point guard out front can drive to the rim and which ever defender comes to help, then the point guard can dish to that teammate left unattended. This stunningly simple action out of this FLAT FOUR is surprisingly, almost maddeningly effective, IF your point guard can usually get by the man defending him out front.
The most familiar "shift" out of the FLAT FOUR is into two high wings to go with the point guard out front in the familiar three man perimeter. Along with this the two post men run to high and low blocks, or to a low block and a high post out between the free throw line and the top of the free throw circle. The post men can also line up low on opposite sides of the lane, or overload one side of the lane, or set up high on opposite sides of the lane.
Another shift might see the four out and one in formation, where a 4 and 2 park on one side of the perimeter around the trey stripe, and a 3 and a 1 park on the other side of the perimeter at the trey stripe. This is essentially two guards out front, and a stretch 4 and a 3 as "low wings." The 5 might set up at the FT, or on a low block.
Another shift might see the 2, 3, 4 and 5 spread fully to four corners while the 1 starts out front but quickly moves toward the free throw line and passes out to one of the four corners, then runs back out to the front to receive a pass to repeat and so stall. This is Dean's formation for his classic four corners stall. Again, maddeningly simple and effective.
Further, one can start out in any of these "shift" formations, and then shift into any of the other formations, or even back into the FLAT FOUR, as circumstances and match-ups encourage.
The idea is two fold: use shifts to give your guys an advantage in getting to the spots before their defender can, and keep your opponents from getting too familiar with what you are about to do.
Put another way, all of these "starting" formations, and all of the "shift" formations are just ways of getting your players to the spots on the floor where you have think you hold greatest "on-the-spot" advantage, if you can get their first. Also, its easier to pass to some one coming to a spot, rather than to someone that has been standing on it for 10 seconds with a defender hanging on him.
Whether one starts and stays in the a formation, or starts in one and shifts to another, then just one of three things happen:
a.) you pass the ball to try to over shift the defense so as to create an impact space; or
b.) you run action, usually some kind of pick away, or a ball screen, etc.; or
c.) you let someone go one on one and create their own shot.
Self likes to do A first.
Then Self likes to vary doing B, or C, if A does not get someone open.
Doing A, i.e., passing the ball to overshift a defense is actually the heart and soul of the High Low Offense that Iba invented and that Dean and Larry (and Bill Guthridge, too) developed into a widely copied offense.
Not that the two posts, and the formations are NOT the distinguishing characteristics of the High Low Offense aka as the Carolina Passing Offense.
The distinguishing characteristic is the primary reliance on passing to create open looks, and the conscious, systematic division of passing (aka ball movement) into perimeter passing and in-out passing as the two means of overshifting defenses into leaving open looks.
The principle is simple: a defender cannot move as fast as a passed ball.
The corollary is: a defender sliding side ways may be able to cut off a passed ball one direction, but he cannot possibly recover on ball reversal, unless he hedges way out into the passing lane to force the pass far deeper, in which case the next pass can go inside, which forces all players to fall back, which leaves a man open for a kick out. It is maddeningly simple. And can be maddeningly effective with highly athletic players that can pass well.
Note also, and perhaps most importantly in the sense of Grand Strategy, that deforming defenses with passing is the low effort way to create open shots, and being the low effort way to do it, leaves one to expend lots more energy on defense, rather than offense.
Think about this for a moment, for it is vital to understand because it reveals why the High Low Offense aka the Carolina Passing Offense will always over time be the most desirable and enduring offense, whether or not it is played with two post men, or two power forwards, or just one in and four out, or whatever.
Pay attention now.
Iba realized that no matter how much energy one expends on offense, one still only gets the points of a basket and/or a FT.
It seems so simple.
But its simplicity obscures the brilliant depth of the insight.
If you only get a basket no matter how much effort you put into scoring, then what you ought to do is put the least energy into getting that basket you can. If you put in one more ounce of effort than is absolutely necessary, you are essentially wasting your energy budget.
Now think about this: where on the court can increasing expenditures of effort buy you more scoring, or at least more chances to score?
Answer: on defense.
Now do you see why Self believes in expending maximum energy on defense...why he says offense starts with defense, why Self is constantly exhorting his players to play harder on defense, when the team struggles? For a given ounce of energy, one can lower an opponent's FG percentage more than one can raise one's own FG percentage.
In fact, the more you pass the ball around the perimeter and in and out of the paint, the less you run around and bang around, and so the more energy you have for defense.
All offenses running lots of constant motion and action, especially the Princeton, are bound to lose the energy budget game to the High Low Offense. Self will tend to be able to expend more of his energy budget on defense than a Princeton team can expend on its defense. A good passing team beats a good action team, if the defenses are equal. It is so brutally stochastically biased in favor of the High Low Offense that one wonders how folks ever got off the beaten path into "high action" offenses in the first place.
The more energy you expend on defense, the more you reduce the FG percentage of the other team and so the more stops you get. The more stops you get, the more chances you get to score. Elementary my dear Watsons.
If you could raise your offensive FG percentage (or PPP) more by expending more energy than you can lower your opponent's FG percentage by expending more energy on defense, then of course you would expend more energy on offensive action. But playing conventionally, i.e., shooting about the same percentage of treys and twos as your opponent, you are a damned fool to run anything but the high low passing offense, and its many variations. Over time, given equal talent, you will prevail by expending more energy on defense than your action running opponent can afford to expend.
Self will not rely so heavily on BAD BALL in the future (unless injury and lack of talent were to force him to again), because there is an underlying energy budget problem with BAD BALL. It expends too much energy on offense, unless one holds the ball most of the shot clock to hold down the trips, so that 4 out of 5 of your best guys can rest on the court before one attacks. But that really messes with players' minds and gets them out of attack mode.
Self will go back to a passing offense as surely as night follows day in a 30 second clock.
Never the less he did learn some important lessons in the WUGs about the positive psychological benefits (scoring confidence) of letting players get on with attacking and with limiting the amount of reads they have to make.
Frankly, if I were Self, I would rely on passing EVEN MORE and action even less under the 30 second clock with the widened lanes.
And I would rely more on players creating shots almost entirely and use designed action EVEN MORE SPARINGLY THAN IN THE PAST. Maybe only use action after time outs, or after a made FT, or what have you.
KU's players played and shot confidently under the 24 second with few reads and almost no action.
Thus, Self should use the passing offense to create a 24 second possession and then play it like they did under WUG rules and see how it works.
I suspect it will work great.
But old habits die hard, as I indicated yesterday in another post.
All for now.
