Q: Consider a 4 OUT set. The ball at strong side left corner. The strong corner drives baseline; the post slides up to the left side elbow to become the 90 degree pass; the right corner drops to the right low corner to become the Natural Pitch; the left point rotates to the left corner to become the Safety Valve; and finally, the right point rotates to fill left point’s recently vacated spot. Who fills the 45 degree pitch spot?

A: I believe I’ve answered this one before on the Blog, but it might be hard to find; so here it is again:

You have noticed the one problem that I have with baseline drives and I’m not surprised. I tried everything for two years to work this “bug” out of the overall plan, but I couldn’t do it. It drove me crazy for a while.

My solution: create Layer 2 Baseline Drives as a separate layer.

Here’s what I mean: I originally taught baseline drives as part of the first layer, Dribble Penetration Circle Movement. My second layer was Pass & Cut.

But, there were two problems occurring with baseline drives: the opposite corner is vacated if the player obeys the Circle Movement rule and this problem with the “off” guard in a 4 OUT set (that you noticed). Because of these two problems, I decided to make Baseline Drives a layer unto itself.

I taught it like this: “Consider a baseline drive as a completely different Layer of Reads & Reactions - that is, separate it in your mind from the N-S drives in Layer 1. Whenever perimeter players see a baseline drive occur, filling baseline-drive-windows SUPERCEDES what’s been taught in Layer 1 Circle Movement. In other words, think of it as a “scramble” to fill the Natural Pitch, 45 and 90 degree windows, and the Safety Valve.”

Ultimately, I made baseline drives a separate layer for two reasons:

1. The opposite corner or wing must NOT circle move like they were taught in Layer 1

2. The case of a 4 OUT formation: the off-side guard will start to Circle Move (by habit), but seeing that the post has already filled the 90 degree window, the guard will stop Circle Movement and stay in the 45 degree window.

As much as I hate to admit it, this is not a very elegant solution. But, a few gray hairs later, I found that the players could adjust to this quicker than I thought. It’s just a matter of making the baseline drive a completely different “animal”: READ: baseline drive - REACTION: fill the opposite corner, 45, 90, and Safety Valve. (If you’re in the post, then you don’t have to worry about it; just slide up to your FT line elbow.)

Thankfully, the problem you described doesn’t arise when playing 5 OUT or 3 OUT.