The Art of the Entry Pass

In that we are 5-2, it would be amiss to suggest that something is 'killing' us, but certainly there are elements of our progress thus far which have been less than desired, and even some which betoken obstacles in the path of development. One...allow me to repeat for those who need it ( )...one of these is the entry pass, in particular as it relates to Yao Ming.

In theory the entry pass is a simple procedure, but as we have witnessed, in pratice it is often much more diffcult than defending a 5-2 switch. The entry pass is designed to get the ball from the perimiter to the player in the post without necessitating the post player relinquishing his established base to receive the ball. If the post player has to re-establish his base, or regain post position after receiving the ball, the defense has the battle half won. Let's look at the reponsibility of the players involved in an entry pass to the post;

The post player: First and foremost the post player has to establish his base. This involves getting himself into position in relation to the basket that upon recieving the ball he is in position to do as many positive things as possible among the options available to a post player; a lean and go, a curl, a shake ( or Dreamshake, if you prefer) a back-in, a turn around, a hook, fake variants of same, a pass out,etc. To do all of these except pass, it is optimum for him to have the freedom to go back to the left or right, but not necessary. How a post player does this varies, but the ususal method is to get his man on his hip or butt, if he's playing behind, or seal him with his shoulder/side if he's fronting. What a post player always wants when he gets the ball is for there to be the Body-Body-Ball relationship, in other words, that his body is entirely between the defender and the ball.

To accomplish this against a traditional defender ( behind), the ost player usually tries to form a split F with his body; legs spread apart, hip or but into the defender leaning usually to one side or the other, the arm nearer the defender warding off the defender, the far arm arced out to receive the ball. Some players like to get the near arm hooked up and under the defenders arm so that at the moment of delivery he can lift the defender and thus remove his power base, or ability to push on the post player.


The next responsibility of a post player is, if possible, to seal off a lane. This is largely dependant on how the defense as a whole is playing, although f the entry pass is coming from the corner a post player can often use the baseline; seal off the defender outside and receive the pass with his atch zone being between his body and the baseline. If the defender is fronting him, angle yourself so that the behind is as far from help rotation as possible, seal him off, and wave your hand so the passer can see where the pass has to drop.

This is harder to do, and is ususally the reason for post players reestablishing position. However as long as he's being played straight up, once he establishes a good base, there is a greater responsibility upon the passer to find a lane than the post player in most offenses.

The passer It partly depends on whether the entry passer has given up his dribble. If he hasn't, he can move and try and re-establish a pssing lane. If he has, he can pass out if there's no safe lane, or he can wait for the post player to establish another position. The best entry passers don't give up their dribble until they are sure of the lane, or else they use a lot of fakes to move defenders and create an artificial lane.

But the primary responsibility of the entry passer is to deliever a catchable ball in the post player's catch zone...and again, it is essential that the post player doesn't have to abandon his base to catch it. Think of it this way...two 250 lb guys are acting as contrary forces against one another, pushing about equally to create a relative standstill. The defender is trying to keep the post player as far from the basket as possible, the post player wants to get as 'deep' as possible. In order to maintain that position and face the ball, the post player has to use his ceneter of gravity base, ie his hips, butt, and legs. To do this he has to stay low. If he has to straighten up to get the ball, the defender is immediately able to move him out of his position, not to mention thr post player is now trying to make a one handed catch on the move. As such, the advantage goes to the defender, who can content himself with pushing the straightened player out, or come around or over the player to try and dislodge the one handed moving catch.

If the defender is fronting, the passer has to use fakes,and get the defender to extend early or too late, or get comfortable enough witht he post player that they can co-ordinate a break to the basket with a lob pass.


I have gone over a few games lately, and we have real problems with this. Now, again, to clarify my position before any confusion, yes there are times when the defense is sagging on Yao, making any entry pass prone to error...yes, there are other factors. But there are also many times, as we saw last night, where the defense is leaving it largely natural, and we still have real problems. There were at least 5 times last night where Yao and a passer had at home defeders ( 1 on 1 or zoned into iso post defense) where we had hige trouble making contact. On most of those that I went over the problem was that the pass was too high, and Yao had to decide to either abandon his base or let the defender, usually Bradley, have an angle on the ball.

Yao still isn't experienced enough to know when you have to sacrifice base to protect the ball and when you can cheat it, but the problem still orgiinated with the pass. Yao had established good postion on these particular plays, but the pass was lazy, soft, and high. It's a fine art; if you come too hard with the pass, if you snap it, most post players can't receive it well, as they are usually trying to ward off the defender with one arm. If it comes too slow the defense can collapse, or the defender can come around. If the pass is too low, the post player will lose his balance leaning down for it, or merely not nake the catch. If it's too high, the post player will have to leave his base or hope to get to the ball before the defender can make a swipe.

Does Yao have trouble establishing postion? Yes...but actually, from the games I've gone over, not as much as I'd have thought. He's still raw, and they play with him with on-off pressure sometimes, but he's a lot better than many think. Where he has shown significant weakness in the games I have seen is his initial footwork after he gets the ball. He often get's 'middled', ie not high enough to simply dunk it, not low wnough to get the base to power up, so he ends up trying to bring it up through traffic with only upper body strength behind it. He needs to eith catch and go...ie use his height and the momentum of getting the ball to simply go over the defender, or he needs to stay low, use fakes to get defenders off their feet, or gather himself and power up. At 300 lbs +, he should be able to do this with ease against most once he learns to use all of his body going to the hoop instead of just his arms. This is what comes from making the conversion from a non-dunker, who tried to stay middle ( at his height) so he could shoot over people in the Asian League into a dunker in the NBA.


But that will come; Yao is a work in progress, as we knew he was when we drafted him. What has to progress as a faster rate is the learning curve of those who've been in the league a few years with regards to the entry pass. One thing my coach used to do,and I have done when I'vve coached, is to get your smalls to pratice a lot playing the post themselves. Once a passer understands what it's like to be playing with your back to the basket, they will often 'get' what a post player needs out of an entry pass. But we definitely need to do something. From the games I saw, most of our perimeter players showed poor delivery on entry passes with the exception of Cuttino, who didn't try it , so I can't comment on his ability in this area...

Over the next few games (that I can see up here) I am going to try and break down the individual entry passers when the defense is at home, to see who is doing what,and I suggest others as interested do the same. We are going to see a lot of zone until we can beat it, and when you have a true low post offensvie player as we do, that's the easiest way; break the zone down by getting it inside, and allow the post player to go to the hoop or passout if the zone sags. A true post player is probably the best counter to most of the zones NBA teams are running right now, so we'd better learn to use ours.