Horns, the starting picture for a dozen plays
Basketball · Attack · 5 of your players
Perfect symmetry on purpose: a big on each elbow, a shooter in each corner, and the ball at the top of the key. Nothing about the alignment tells the defence which side the play is going.
Opens on a basketball pitch with the shape already drawn. Free, no signup.
Two elbows, two corners, one ball
The point guard has the ball at the top of the key. A big stands on each elbow, where the free-throw line meets the edge of the lane. A shooter waits in each deep corner. Five players, and the lane between them is empty from the free-throw line to the rim.
The symmetry is the value. Both elbow players are a legal screen for the ball, both corners are a catch-and-shoot away from the pass out, and neither side of the floor has been declared yet, so the defence cannot load up before the first action. Everything about this shape is a question the defence has to answer after the play has begun rather than before.
The actions it opens
Two bigs at the elbows means two screens available on the same dribble, which is the double drag: the handler takes the first, the second steps up behind it, and the second screener either rolls or spaces out behind the arc. Pass to one elbow instead and you have an elbow entry, with the other big cutting off the catch or screening away for the corner shooter. Refuse both and there is still the flare, where the corner comes up and one elbow big sets a screen across the top for a shot the defence has already turned away from.
Use horns when you need a set that gives you three options from one entry, which is what a timeout should buy you. Use something with more movement when the elbows are guarded by players quick enough to reach the corners.
What to put on the practice plan
- Which big screens first, and why. Draw the double drag both ways. The order matters: the second screener is the one who ends up open above the arc.
- The corner does not stand there. Give the ball-side shooter a lift as the ball comes toward him. The corner is a starting spot, not a place to spend a possession.
- The counter on a switch. Draw the second picture — everyone where they are when the first screen has been switched. A set play with no counter is a set play that works once.
Start from horns in the designer and draw the one entry your team actually runs well, then add the counter underneath it.
Also known as
- horns
- elbows
- ball screen
- set play
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Put the Horns on a pitch
It opens with the shape already drawn. Move the players your team does differently, drag the runs, and send your squad a link that animates.
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