Robert Jones: The Attacker's Playbook for Dissecting Man-To-Man Defense

with Robert Jones, Norfolk State University Head Men's Basketball Coach;
2022 Hugh Durham National Coach of the Year Award;
2022 MEAC Coach of the Year;
2019 Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award;
2019 & 2022 Regular Season MEAC Champions;
2019 MEAC Coach of the Year;
2021 & 2022 MEAC Tournament Champions;
2021 Northern Division Co-Champs regular season;
.742 win percentage in MEAC (5th in the nation among coaches with at least 100 games coached);

An effective Man-To-Man Offense – one that keeps defender’s guessing and creates multiple scoring opportunities within the same actions – is the type of offensive attack that all coaches dream of!  If your set plays and continuity offense can also provide numerous wrinkles within the same looking set, then it has the potential to become an outstanding and explosive offense. 

In this instructional coaching video, Norfolk State’s Robert Jones gives you a plethora of highly valuable strategies for attacking and dissecting man-to-man defenses.

Using on-the-court demonstrations performed by players from both 5-on-0 and 5-on-5 setups, Coach Jones walks you through each of his favorite sets – explosive plays that are designed to exploit man-to-man defense – freeing up players for high-percentage shots.  

Spain Continuity Offense, Horns Set 

Coach Jones begins this offensive presentation, by demonstrating his effective Spain Continuity Offense, which relies on ball screens and back cuts to break down a man-to-man defense. 

Coach Jones breaks down the basics of this offense and its set up – including four different wrinkles that you can use off the main ball-screen action. In a play called ‘Bulldog,’ Jones brings the on-the-court players into a 1-4 setup to start and uses UCLA actions that flow seamlessly into this ball screen offense. 

Next up is a demonstration of a play called ‘Flow’ that works off double down-screens. Coach Jones shows how you can keep the ball in your best player’s hands as they come off down screen and move into a ball screen. Adding in little wrinkles like these allows you to grow your playbook, while reinforcing confidence as your players learn the system.

Coach Jones then covers why ‘Horns’ has become so popular and demonstrates more several actions/sets you can utilize out of the ‘Horns’ set up.  In ‘Horns Shallow,’ Coach Jones explains how to utilize a shallow cut and create an isolation pick-and-roll for your point guard to get into the paint.

In ‘Horns Down,’ offensive players utilize a dribble handoff and flex action to create a scoring opportunity for your best post player, who can shoot it from the outside.Using these multiple actions is guaranteed to create chaos for your opponents and excitement for your own players within the offense!

BLOBS – Baseline Out of Bounds Series 

Coach Jones highlights 4 baseline sets that you can add to your playbook that are designed to get easy buckets. The ‘1 Series’ showcases 3 different actions you can use out of ‘1’ setup. In an action called ‘Regular,’ your post players set screens for one another and look for a lob pass at the rim as the defenders are pinned down on the baseline.

In ‘Brooklyn,’ Jones takes a page out of the Nets playbook and uses ‘pick-the-picker actions’ that a utilize two different types of back screens.  

Effective offenses that create scoring opportunities at the rim, while featuring designed actions to free up your best shooters, are the types of things that every coach is looking to add to their playbook.  By using the proven actions and setups such as Horns and Spain Continuity Offense, Coach Jones provides you with a wide variety of tactics that are designed to get your best players the ball.

This must-own video is a virtual playbook that’s perfect for basketball coaches at all levels. You’ll be able to follow Jones' methods for implementing these plays – by using 5-on-0 demonstrations to teach your players and then 5-on-5 demonstrations to show them how effective they are against man-to-man defense.  

Customer Review: 5 Out of 5 Stars.‘What a great video! Jones explains these plays using an easy-to-follow presentation -filled with detail and demonstrations how the plays are performed on the court. It shows you how to teach these plays to your team. I loved how he walks you through a variety of scoring options built into each set.’

77 minutes. 2023.