5-Out Motion Offense: The Rules, the Actions, and the Drive Reactions (With Animated Plays)

I wrote about the pros and cons of five-out for youth teams a while back, and the most common follow-up question was some version of "okay, but how do you actually run it?" This is that post.

5-out is the offense most of my players learned first, and it's the one I keep coming back to because it teaches basketball instead of a play. Everything below is a rule or an action I've used, and every one of them is an animated play you can step through.

The five spots

All five players start outside the arc: the top, the two wings at the free throw line extended, and the two corners. Fifteen to eighteen feet apart, a step behind the three-point line. The paint is empty.

That spacing is the whole idea. When two teammates drift together, one defender guards both of them. When they stay fifteen feet apart, no defender can help and recover, every cut has room, and every drive has a lane. Coach Jeff Huber at Breakthrough Basketball calls the area between the arc and the lane the lava, and tells his youth players never to catch in it. I've stolen that line.

The rules

Five rules, taught in this order. Don't add the next one until the last one is automatic.

1. Pass and basket cut. Every pass is followed by a hard cut to the rim. Face cut in front of your defender if you can; back cut if he jumps to the ball. Finish the cut at the rim, then fill the farthest open spot.
2. Fill the open spot. When a cutter leaves, the next player fills toward the ball. A top-to-wing pass sends the passer through to the opposite corner, the far wing fills the top, the far corner fills the wing.
3. If you're denied, back cut. One pass away, defender in the lane, passer looking at you: go, without a hesitation.
4. If you're dribbled at, back cut or take the handoff. A dribble at you is a signal. Plant, go backdoor, and finish the cut to the rim. If your defender is waiting in the lane for it, come to the ball and take the handoff instead.
5. The ball never stops. Catch ready to shoot, drive, or pass. Two seconds without a decision and the next player moves.

Pass and basket cut

The base possession. Watch what happens when the defense denies the fill at the top: the filler back cuts, because a denied fill is a back cut by rule.

The back cut on denial

The read that keeps a defense honest. When the wing is denied, he V-cuts a step to the ball and sprints to the rim. When the defense sags to take the back cut away, he pops out and shoots, or drives the short closeout.

The dribble-at and the handoff

The one trigger that doesn't need a defensive mistake. The ball handler dribbles at the wing, the wing back cuts, and the fills follow. When the defender drops under to wait for it, the handler turns his back and the corner comes up for the handoff.

The actions coaches layer on

Once cutting is clean, the offense gets its second layer. Each of these is a named action that starts from the same five spots, which means a defense can't tell from the alignment what's coming.

The get

The ball handler passes to the trailing big at the top and sprints right back to take the handoff. The big's body is a ball screen nobody had to set. The reads are the ball screen reads: defender trails, turn the corner and the big rolls; defender goes under, shoot the catch or let the big re-screen the other way.

Pass and screen away

Instead of cutting, the passer screens for the far wing. The cutter reads his defender: trailing, curl; going under, come off straight; shooting the gap to the ball side, fade. The screener goes the opposite way from the cutter, so two players are open off one screen.

The weak-side flare

After the ball goes to one wing, the far side is where the help lives. A flare screen set on the blind side of the passer's defender turns that help into a shooter running away from the ball for a skip. When the defense switches it, the screener slips to the rim.

Delay

Delay came down from the NBA: the five takes the ball at the top of a 5-out floor and the guards in the slots read him. The closest guard sprints into the get or back cuts if he's overplayed; the five rolls after the handoff. Against a drop coverage, the five pops instead.

The spread drag

The most used early-offense action at every level: a ball screen set in transition by the trailing five, just inside the three-point line, at an angle that makes the defender go over. As the handler comes off, the strong-side corner lifts to the wing so his defender has to choose between the roller and the shooter.

What the other four do when the ball is driven

This is the part most youth 5-out teams skip, and it's the reason their drives die. Five players on the perimeter means every gap is a single gap, and a defender one pass away can stunt at the drive and recover. The fix is that the four players without the ball move to open the lane. Read and React calls it circle movement.

• Everyone slides one spot in the direction of the drive. Drive left, slide left. The driver always has a pass behind him and a corner ahead of him.
• On a baseline drive, the ball-side corner lifts behind the drive as the safety valve and the weak corner stays deep for the natural pitch.
• On a middle drive, the drive-side wing shakes up to the slot, the drive-side corner drifts deeper, and the weak wing makes a 45 cut to the rim if his defender turns to help.
• One more. When the kick-out shooter's defender closes long, the extra pass finds the next man. Ross McMains's phrase for it is good to great.

Baseline drive and circle movement

Middle drive, the 45 cut, and the kick-up

The post inside 5-out

A post in 5-out is a cutter, not a station. A player who finishes his basket cut with a mismatch may seal on the ball-side block for one or two counts. If the ball doesn't come, he clears, and the exit rule from the open post offense is to back screen the wing on the way out. When the defense fronts him, the ball reverses to the top and the lob comes over the front.

5-out against a zone

The five spots don't change against a 2-3. What changes is the flash: when the ball goes to a wing, the opposite wing flashes into the high post, and that pass is open far more often than it should be, because the zone has nobody to guard at the free throw line. Ball in the high post, the ball-side corner cuts inside and the far corner fills the wing. Ball in the corner, the high post cutter goes through to the block.

The mistakes I see most

• Standing after the pass. Coach Lee DeForest calls it the cardinal sin, and it's the first thing I correct in every practice.
• Filling too early. The filler leaves before the cutter reaches the rim, and now two players are in the same lane.
• Cutting into the drive. A baseline drive with the corner cutting into it is a turnover.
• Drifting into the lava. Spacing shrinks a foot at a time until one defender guards two.
• Adding screens before the cutting is clean. The second layer only works if the first one is automatic.

How I'd install it

1. 3-on-0 pass, cut, fill. Cones on the five spots. Until it's boring.
2. Add the back cut and the dribble-at, 4-on-0, with a coach as the denying defender.
3. 5-on-5 no dribble. Each pass is a point, so the defense denies everything and your players back cut all day.
4. Circle movement, 5-on-4. The offense has to drive on the catch and the other four move.
5. One action per week. The get first, then the screen away, then the rest.

Wrapping Up

5-out is easy to start and takes a season to run well, which is exactly what you want from a teaching offense. Hold the spacing, pass and cut until it's automatic, and let the actions and the drive reactions grow out of the rules.

Every play here is live in Elite Hoops. Open one, step through the cuts, and tap Save to add it to your playbook. If you want to draw your own layer, the play designer is where I drew all twelve.