Read React Offense

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Edelmira Bendorf

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Aug 4, 2024, 11:15:25 PM8/4/24

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Imet recently with the head coach of the Central Catholic girls varsity basketball program Casey Grange. Coach Grange talked to me about the intricacies of their read and react motion offense and why it works for their team. She also shared one simple drill that makes a big difference in the success of this offense.

As the players get used to that layer of the offense, Coach Grange gradually introduced more complex ideas. Another principle Central Catholic follows is a cue on when to back cut. If a team is up the line denying the pass to the perimeter, Central Catholic players will cut backdoor. Again that player making the cut will have three options if the pass is not there.

A third principle of the read and react is that Central Catholic can set a screen away from the ball on the outside defender for any team that is showing significant help toward the ball. Screening the outside gives assurance that a skip pass will arrive to its target and make a close out one step slower.

The primary benefit Coach Grange cited is that unlike set plays, the defense cannot cheat. Bob Hurley Sr. and Bobby Knight were always advocates for working on two hours of offense and two hours of defense during a two-hour practice. After the initial nuts and bolts are in place, the read and react, and whatever type of defense the team employs can be put in place. Defenses get in better habits since they do not know what the offense might try. Players must learn to contain the offense rather than gamble and go for hero plays.

With sets every part of the offense has to be compartmentalized. And if one player gets thrown into a position they are unfamiliar with the whole offense suffers. To a degree, the read and react offense does need to be broken down piece by piece as well. Coach Grange told me that the team has to grow in how they set back screens out of it. That said, once it is broken down piece by piece the offensive players are not robotic. They exploit defensive mistakes, which forces defenses to think and work harder than they would against a play they have memorized.

For simplicity, the offence is often initially taught in a 5 Out alignment, which emphasizes that all players must be able to play on the perimeter. Below is an overview of the foundations of the read and react offence. There are DVDs and other materials available for coaches wanting further information about the offence.

The rule applies regardless of where the pass was made from. Here, the pass is made from the point to the wing, and players from the opposite side of the floor lift and rotate, with 1 moving out to the corner (which is the vacant spot).

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I am coaching at a large school girls' basketball program in Iowa. I am a varsity assistant and the entire coaching staff is new this year. We knew we wanted to run an attacking offense and narrowed it down to Read & React and Dribble Drive. I had previously run Read & React at an AAU club with high-level players. After watching videos on both offenses, talking with other coaches, using personal experience, and checking coaching message boards we decided to go with the Dribble Drive Offense instead of Read & React. Here is why.

In doing our research and from past experience, the verdict seemed to be that developing the habit of circle movement in Read & React would just take too much time to build as a habit and that coaches typically could run dribble drives in a few days. Not master it but have some good semblance of the offense. The bottom line was that circle movement was going to take a long time and dribble drive could be up and running within a week or so. Now we have been practicing for about a week and the girls are getting the basics of it and we will have to continue to work on it.

In my past experience with the circle movement in Read & React at the AAU club, the girls somewhat got it but never did we have true coordination of the 4 players. We ran a 4 out of 1 in the version of Read & React. Now in fairness, we practiced twice a week and we did not always get a chance to work on it as practices were run by the director or lead trainer working on fundamental skills. We were the only group out of all grades (4-12) that was running Read & React. We tended to be a pass & cut heavy team on offense. The pass & cut is easier for kids to learn but simply doesn't create the attack of the drive.

My thoughts to this point (2nd week in) are that I think we've made the right decision to use Dribble Drive instead of the Read & React circle movement. The reason is that in Dribble Drive we will get more drives to the middle of the floor and more multiple drives to the middle of the floor. Circle movement always pushes players away from the ball which would result in more baseline drives I believe.

I also believe we will get more shots from the wing vs. the corner. In a 4-out set, for example, the top player on the right drives to their right. In Read & React the wing player who is driven at would slide to the corner for the shot. In Dribble Drive the wing player (who starts in the corner) would lift up to the wing and get a shot from the wing. The wing shot is scientifically the best shot you can take in basketball. So we would rather have the majority of our 3-pointers be taken from the place we have the best odds of making it from. The corner is the worst spot to take a shot from.

Now Read & React will allow you to start a player in the corner as well which will increase the gaps between offensive players allowing for more drives. The problem in Read & React is that in the same drive above, the player in the corner would have to cut through along the baseline instead of lifting up like in Dribble Drive. This would likely bring the help defense to the drive. Rick Torbett, the creator of Read & React, will tell you that you must drill this so that that wing player will get through before that is a problem. I just think that it would take an incredible amount of time in practice to make this one movement a habit. I look at the fact that the Iowa Hawkeye women's team has run Read & React but NEVER does a player in the corner cut through on a drive towards them. They stay put. This tells me that if a high-level Division 1 program can't accomplish this, no high school team, probably girls or boys will be able to accomplish this reaction.

I mentioned the gaps before. The natural starting points in Dribble Drive create great space for drives, single, double, and occasionally triple gaps. Read & React typically only has single gaps in its typical 4 out 1 in the set. Since you have circle movement the wing would go to the corner on a drive towards them so you likely wouldn't want to have to deal with starting in the corner and then having to cut through.

So in my opinion Dribble Drive seems to be the better choice vs. Read & React circle movement. I would also factor in the fact that you see Dribble Drive run at major college programs through youth and Read & React at smaller colleges to youth. Dribble Drive seems to be the choice over Read & React circle movement. The Read & React is a great offensive system but I believe the Dribble Drive will suit our team better. I will keep you posted on our dribble drive development throughout the year and see how we progress.

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When new head coaches are hired they often use buzzwords to foreshadow the style of offense they will install. When Fred Hoiberg took over the Bulls last summer he talked about running the Pace and Space. When Brad Stevens took over the Celtics he spoke about wanting his team to look like the Spurs and be a Read and React team.

The Spurs use pick and roll, have great spacing and pace to their play, and are known for motion in their offense. But in many of the plays we've looked at so far in this Spurs Playbook series, it is clear that offensive players are making reads which are causing automatic reactions.

a flexible offense that utilizes player movement, correct floor spacing, passing and cutting, and setting screens. The origin of "motion offense" is usually credited to coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma State. It was further developed and popularized by coach Bob Knight at Indiana, who utilized screening as a key part of the offense.

The Motion Offense gives players the freedom to utilize a set of principles (pass and cut, screen away, weave, etc) to maintain great ball movement until a defensive mismatch or coverage can be taken advantage of.

The Read and React is an offense developed by Rick Torbett. If you have never examined this type of offense and have some time on your hands, check out this linked video. Essentially, the Read and React is a system similar to the Motion Offense in that there are no set plays called from the sideline (except of course at end of shot clock situations and out of bounds situations, etc.) However, unlike the Motion Offense, it has more direct accountability. When the person with the ball makes a read (passing to the wing, passing to the post, etc.), all four other players take automatic reactions. So for example, when a player passes to the wing, his or her automatic reaction is to make a basket cut and the other players must fill the open spots on the floor. There is no choice for the player making a basket cut, this is a reaction that is a rule of the offense. Here's an example: