5-Out play
5-Out: Baseline Drive and Circle Movement
- Court
- Half court
- Length
- 8 steps
About this play
What the other four do when the ball is driven, the Read and React foundation that fixes 5-out's single gaps. Why: in five-out a defender one pass away can stunt at the drive and recover, so the players around the drive move to open the lanes: circle movement, everyone slides one spot in the direction of the drive, with the baseline adjustment that the ball-side corner lifts behind the drive as the safety valve and the weak corner stays deep for the natural pitch. The driver's reads at the rim are the layup, the natural pitch to the far corner, the ninety-degree pass to the elbow, and the safety valve behind him. Counter shown: the scouted defense x-outs early to the drift corner, so the shooter makes one more pass to the top and the next player attacks the long closeout, because the extra pass beats a defense that is already rotating. Rule: after a kick-out, the passer basket cuts or fills out at once. Circle movement is Rick Torbett's Read and React, which I learned from the Better Basketball glossary and Wesley Brooks's layer-four video, and Teach Hoops has the drift and lift drills; they'll take you deeper.
