2 gameplay questions

[markprior22]

1) What % do you use for running set plays as opposed to NONE?

2) What are some keys to cutting down on turnovers? Faster pace/slower pace, etc. I assume if you have a young team or a team of not good ball handlers, there will be only so much you can do.

[PointGuard]

A big factor for both of these questions is how familiar your players are with the offensive sets you are running. The more familiar the more structured your team's play (less offensive freedom) and the fewer turnovers.

[CoachC]

Here is what I do, and what I find to be effective in maximizing offense, and it's not nearly as cumbersome as it sounds:

take the top 7-10 players in your depth chart. Just the ones that are going to play significant minutes, the guys you trust on the floor. For just those guys, add up the numbers of their familiarity with each set. I just round to single digits here (i.e. 46 becomes a 5). Get the figures for each set, add them up, divide by the number of sets, and the number of players you are looking at. The result is my offensive usage percentage in strategy. Works best if you are running each set about the same % of the time. For me that's normally 2 sets used equally. I'll adjust up and down in 5% increments during games, and I'll recalculate the default % several times during the season. If I'm spending enough time practicing the offensive sets, I usually find my default set usage percentage goes up about 5% every 8 or 9 games or so.

You could do the same for each of your zone sets, so you know where to optimize against individual zones during games, but so far I haven't bothered.

I know that's probably going to be too much of a bother for most players, but it's what works for me.

[CoachC]

As far as cutting down turnovers, the obvious answer is to recruit better ball-handlers, but I know that's not what you're asking.

For Pace I like to find a good trade-off number somewhere between the teams current Athleticism and Ball-handling numbers. If my key guys current Athleticism averages around 6, but their ball-handling only averages around 4, I'll set pace at 5. With younger teams I find I have to adjust it up and down frequently in games, with more experienced teams not as much. If most of your turnovers are forced (i.e. steals) you should try running a faster pace. If most of your turnovers are un-forced, you should adjust to a slower pace, until you find the number that produces a number of turnovers you can live with. It tends to work pretty well. My current team is only averaging 7.9 to/g. I HATE turnovers!

One dilemna that always rares it's ugly head, especially with younger teams, is when one of your best scorers is also committing a high number of turnovers. Sometimes you simply have to give more minutes to a better ball-handler who may not be as much of a scoring threat. This is one area, along with defense, where I think the +/- stat can be really helpful for looking at the guys you are giving a lot of minutes to.

The actual sets you are running makes a difference too. Some sets just inherently require better ball-handlers with more experience to run successfully. Motion and Shuffle especially have always seemed like turnover magnets to me, so I tend to avoid installing them in my new system.

[markprior22]

Good info there. Thanks for the feedback.

[Wayne23]

Plays depend. I go to my best scorer with one of the plays. CoachC is right on regarding turnovers. But I go quicker not slower when it's an issue.