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Criss Cross Offense for use against Zones

Offered by Cory Lewis Questions about this offense can be sent to Cory Lewis at cory@havenport.com

This offense takes advantage of the usual zone habit that a player responsible for the top court position on one side of the court does not rotate into the low court position on the other side of the court. Likewise a player responsible for the low court position on one side of the court does not rotate into the top court position on the other side of the court. By having our players cut from the upper left to the lower right, lower right to upper left, upper right to lower left, and lower left to upper right, we cause most zone defenders to have to attempt numerous switches to maintain coverage of our players during and after the cuts. Every time defenders must switch there are potential scoring opportunities.

Cc1 We approach with a guard tandem and three interior players to let the defensive players assume traditional zone responsibilities for the people in their areas.

Cc2 We move one of our two perimeter shooters 2 into a corner. Because in most zones the small 2 defender does not cross the floor and play the baseline, this causes the defense to have to make several switches to maintain coverage of our players throughout our player’s cut. Notice for instance that the usually smaller defender 2 formerly responsible for our 2 player has now switched to our bigger 5 player. We place the 4 defender in the difficult position of choosing when to leave our 4 player to pick up our 2 player. If their 4 leaves too early, then our 4 will be left open near the hoop until their 3 or 5 rotate to pick up our 4. If their 4 leaves to late, then our 2 could be in position to receive a pass for an open shot. Notice also that we may have positioning advantages as the 3 or 5 defender attempts to rotate to pick up our 4 interior player.

Cc3 We pass the ball to 2 in the corner. This forces the usually taller slower baseline defender to move out to guard our 2 player. The defenders usually assume the shown positions. At this point if 2 did not have an open shot we usually run an inside rotation play permitting the three interior players to provide themselves with scoring opportunities (This inside rotation play is shown on the Inside Rotation offense explanation.). There is often a size mismatch in our favor because their smaller 2 defender is guarding our 5 interior player throughout the inside rotation.

Cc4 We begin to reverse the ball by 2 passing to 1. As soon as the ball leaves 2’s hands 2 cuts toward the upper off side shooting position at the free throw line extended position. This requires the defenders to undue the switches they did when 2 cut to the corner.

Cc5 We reverse the ball through the high post position 5. If the ball gets to the high post before the defenders have completed their switching, we have a size mismatch with our big high post player 5 being guarded by a smaller guard. As soon as the ball leaves 1’s hands 1 cuts to the off side corner which causes the defenders to make several switches to maintain coverage of our players as our player cuts. Our 5 may find an open path to the hoop if their 2 defender leaves our 5 too early to pick up our 2 cutter or if their 1 defender leaves our 1 player too slowly to switch onto our 5. If their 3 defender moves out too early on our 1 cutter, then our 3 may be open near the basket. If our 4 player can maintain inside position on their 4 defender while their 4 defender attempts to switch back onto our 4 player, then our 4 player receives a lay up or inside rebounding position when their 5 defender rotates away from our 4 player.

Cc6 If our 5 has no scoring opportunity and neither 4 nor 3 have created an inside opportunity to receive a pass, then 5 passes to 2 who looks for the shot or a pass to 1 or someone who has become open because of the defenders switching to maintain coverage while 1 cuts. This leaves us in the same position as we were in when our 2 player cut to the corner except that now our 2 player is free throw extended and our 1 player is in the corner. When the ball reaches our 1 player in the corner we have competed the reversal and can simply repeat the process until the defenders make a mistake providing us with a desirable scoring opportunity.

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