SQ14 #28 Motion Offense Anyone?

The 2007-08 and 08-09 Celtics played, IIMHO, the best basketball in 35 years--and everybody loved it.  It won, the bandwagon gang were happy.  The ball moved and hit the open shooter almost every time, the basketball purists were gleeful.  Ubuntu was in, the basketball of the Celtics Way was reborn, and possibly the only negative was that Red wasn’t there to see it.

Ball movement is an inherently beautiful thing--to watch, to play, to coach, to teach, almost everything but to defend.  Combine it with intelligent player movement and you get a devastating attack.  Basketball at its best is a dynamic ballet--graceful, powerful, artistic, and murderously effective.  The combination of ball and player movement takes everything the defense is doing and turns it against them.

Aikido is a school of martial arts that is essentially defensive in nature.  It uses the opponents own energy to gain control of them, placing great emphasis on motion and the dynamics of movement.  Each movement or attack by an opponent creates an imbalance or an inertia that can be exploited.  The best basketball employs many of the same principles. 

A one-on-one player tries, through feints and fakes, to get his defender to “bite,” to react or follow one of the ball-handler’s misdirection moves.  A good motion offense, ball and player movement, does the same thing on a system level.  Although set plays can be run within a motion offense, more typically it involves players adhering to a loose set of rules while watching for the defense to make a misstep. 

The “rules” might be as simple and few as never stop moving for more than 2 seconds; try to pass within two seconds to a teammate who has all three options open (shoot, drive, pass); never waste your dribble and lose the triple option threat; and always move to screen, use a screen, or create space.  Which directions players cut, screen, or pass will usually depend on how the defense is reacting.  The effectiveness is predicated on using defensive alignment, positioning, and adjustments against them.

Even the more structured offense Doc ran with the New Big Three used elements of these motion tenets.  Think about Ray running around a pick on the side--if the defender trailed he curled toward the basket, if the defense went below the pick Ray faded to the corner, if the defender tried to overplay the pass Allen cut back door.  Whatever the defender did, it was wrong.  Think of all five players leveraging their and their teammates movement creating dozens of opportunities for the defense to be a little slow, a little out of position, a little late recognizing the developing direction/misdirection. 

The motion offense requires, or at least works far better, if all players on the court are aware of their teammates, their teammates movements, the defense as a whole, the individual defenders of each teammate, and the movement of each defender.  In addition each teammate should be a willing and capable passer, as well as willing to do the legwork required for the near constant motion.  It is certainly not the norm for an NBA five to possess, or at least be willing to exercise, all of these characteristics, much less for the primary substitutes to also excel in those areas.  This is part of the reason for my rising excitement about the ongoing rebuild

It seems that for three years Ainge has been choosing additions (well, perhaps not Fab;>) with the BBIQ to execute such an unselfish and demanding approach.  Certainly Danny’s choice of coach augers well, and I think Captain Rondo can adjust perfectly (and it will be an adjustment to the hold-until-development days of PGA).  I am slightly less optimistic about the ability of Bradley and Green to make the precision passes or even have the awareness to see the whole court developing, but I remain hopeful. 

In case there was some slight possibility of misunderstanding, the motion offense would be about the exact opposite of the isolation play (which would hopefully be reserved for three or fewer seconds remaining on the clock).

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