A few years ago I started seeing the same three-man action on every level of film I watched. A shooter in the corner, a pin-down from the wing, a handoff from the big at the top, and a guard turning the corner at full speed with a defender two steps behind him. The NBA called it zoom. College called it Chicago. My high school assistant called it "that thing Golden State does."
It's all the same idea, and it has become the most-installed family of actions in high school basketball. This guide walks through ten of them with the read and the counter, plus the four coverages a defense uses against them. Every one is animated.
Why the handoff works
A dribble handoff is a pass and a screen at once. The receiver catches the ball already running, so he never has to beat his man from a standstill. His defender has to fight over a screen he didn't see being set, because the screen is the body of the player handing the ball off. And the reads are the ball screen reads your players already know: defender trails, turn the corner; defender goes under, shoot; the big's defender shows, hit the roll.
Zoom adds a second screen one count before the handoff, and that's what makes it unguardable at the high school level. Breakthrough Basketball's Coach Steege calls the moment the three players meet a convergence. Three defenders get dragged into one spot, and the other two offensive players are standing alone.
Zoom
The base action
Five-out with the big as the hub. The big takes a dribble toward a slot, the slot pins down for the corner, the corner sprints over the screen and takes the handoff at the wing, the big rolls, and the screener lifts to the vacated slot. The handler's reads: attack if the defender trails, shoot if he goes under, hit the roller if his man helps, kick to the lifting screener if his man tags the roll.
The counter is for a defense that switches the pin-down: the screener slips to the rim before the screen is set, because the defender stepping up to switch has left the block.
Reject and keep
The second read in zoom belongs to the corner player. When his defender cheats over the top of the pin-down to beat him to the handoff, he rejects the screen and back cuts, and the big keeps the ball and attacks the gap the back cut opened.
Zoom in transition
The same action as a secondary break: the trailing big catches at the top, the wing pins down for the corner, and the handoff happens before the defense has matched up. The counter is the screener slip when the defense switches the pin-down early.
Chicago
Chicago is zoom with a ball screen on the end. The receiver comes off the handoff and straight into a pick and roll, usually a step-up from the big who just handed it off or from the other big. From Horns, the pin-down comes from the elbow and the step-up is already waiting.
Miami
Miami is the handoff followed by a lift ball screen from the other side of the floor. The receiver takes the handoff going one way and immediately has a second screen coming at him from the opposite direction, which punishes a defense that loaded up on the handoff side.
Spain pick and roll
The ball screen with a back screen on the roller. As the big rolls, a shooter from the weak side back screens the roller's defender and pops to the three-point line. Three things to guard at once: the drive, the roll, and the pop. The timing is the hard part. The back screener waits for the roll to start or he screens air.
The step-up
A step-up is a ball screen set with the screener's back to the baseline, so the handler comes off it toward the baseline instead of the middle. It's the answer to ice coverage, where the defender forces the handler away from the screen: the step-up puts the screen exactly where ice is sending him.
The ghost screen
The screener sprints at the handler like he's going to screen, then slips to the perimeter before contact. Defenses that call their coverage on the screener's approach, switching or hedging early, end up guarding a screen that never happened. The handler attacks the gap and the ghost screener is open behind the play.
Drag and double drag
The drag is a ball screen set in transition by the trailing big, just inside the three-point line, at an angle that makes the defender go over. The double drag adds the second big: the first screener pops, the second rolls, and a switching defense ends up with the wrong big on the wrong man.
Delay
Delay is what you run when the five has the ball at the top of a five-out floor. The nearest guard sprints into a get for the handoff, or back cuts if he's overplayed. The flip version has the big hand off and immediately flip the screen to the other side, which catches a defense that jumped the first direction.
The four coverages, and what each one concedes
Every action above meets one of four coverages, and the handler's read is the coverage. I wrote each one as its own play from the defense's side, with what the coverage gives up on purpose and how it answers the offense's counter, in the pick and roll coverages guide. The short version:
- Drop. The big sits back. It concedes the pull-up and the pop. The handler's read is the shot or the snake dribble.
- Hedge. The big jumps out to slow the handler. It concedes the roll and the slip. The read is the pocket pass.
- Switch. The defenders trade. It concedes the mismatch. The read is the seal at the nail or the slip before contact.
- Ice. The on-ball defender forces the handler away from the screen. It concedes the baseline drive and the step-up. The read is the reject.
Teaching it
The whole family teaches from one drill: 3-on-3 zoom from the corner, wing, and top. The corner learns the pin-down read, curl or reject. The handoff receiver learns the four coverage reads. The big learns to hand off while dribbling at the receiver, not standing still, which Coach's Clipboard calls the most common mistake.
Install zoom first, then Chicago, then one coverage counter per week. The names will sort themselves out once the players can feel the screens.
Wrapping Up
The handoff family spread because it's simple to teach and hard to guard, and because the reads never change no matter which version you run. Start with zoom, add the ball screen on the end when your players are ready, and let the defense's coverage tell you which counter to call.
Every play here is live in Elite Hoops. Open one, step through the convergence, and tap Save to put it in your playbook. For the screens themselves, the guide to 37 types of basketball screens has animated examples of every screen in this family.
