An out-of-bounds play is the only possession in basketball where you start with the ball, a stopped clock, a defense that has to declare itself, and five players who know exactly what is about to happen. Teams that treat it seriously score two or three extra baskets a game. Teams that do not give the ball away under their own basket.
The difference is rarely the play. It is knowing the rules, having an alignment your team can line up in without being told, and always having somewhere to throw it.
The rules that actually change what you can run
Not a rulebook summary. These four things change your play design.
Five seconds to release the pass. Universal. The count starts when the ball is at the thrower’s disposal, not when the official hands it over. Every set you own needs an option that is available at two and a half seconds, not just the one you drew.
Running the baseline. After a made field goal or a made final free throw, the inbounder may move along the endline. After most other dead balls — a violation, a foul, a ball out of bounds, a held ball — it is a spot throw-in and the thrower may only pivot. This is the single biggest design constraint in baseline sets, because a play that needs the passer to slide six feet does not exist on a spot throw-in.
What happens after a timeout that follows a made basket is a real difference between rulesets, and it is worth knowing yours exactly rather than approximately.
The boundary plane. A defender is not allowed to reach across the line to bother the pass. The penalty for doing it differs between rulesets — a warning, a violation, a technical foul — so know which one applies, because it is a free point you can ask for.
Advancing the ball after a late timeout. Several rulesets let a team move the throw-in into the frontcourt inside the last minute or two of a game. The trigger and the timing differ, and some rulesets have no such rule at all. If your competition has it, half your late-game inbounds package is a sideline set rather than a baseline one.
The four alignments
Box
Two players around the elbows, two around the blocks. The most flexible alignment there is, because it gives you a screening angle in every direction: across, down, up and back. Nearly every screen-the-screener action lives here. If a team is only going to learn one BLOB alignment, this is it.
Stack
All four players in a single line in front of the rim, one behind the other. No defender can see the ball and his own man at the same time, which is the whole point. Good for lobs, good for slips, good against man-to-man, weak against a zone that simply ignores the stack and sits in the lane.
Line
Four players spread across the floor facing the inbounder. The easiest alignment to teach and the hardest to switch cleanly, because everybody is at the same depth and a switch does not obviously help anyone. A good choice for a young team.
1-4 low
Four along the baseline, outside the lane. This is the alignment for baseline runners — a shooter starting on the ball-side block, running behind the rim and coming off screens on the far side while his defender fights through traffic under the basket. It is also the friendliest of the four against a zone.
Two BLOBs every team should own
The layup: box cross
Out of a box, the strong-side big screens across low for the weak-side big, who cuts to the ball-side block. The cutter should walk his man up first and then cut underneath the screen, not around it.
The half most teams leave out is what happens next. The player who set that cross screen is himself screened and pops out as the safety valve. That is the difference between a play with one option and a play you can call at any point in a game.
If they switch it: the cutter seals immediately. A switch on a cross screen almost always puts a defender on the wrong side of a post player who has already established position. Throw it over the top before the help arrives.
The lob: stack
Four in a line in front of the rim. The front two peel off to the corners and drag their defenders out of the lane with them. The back man screens the man in front of him out to the top of the key, and then slips straight down the middle.
Throw it high off the glass. The slip is the play.
If they switch it: the man who popped to the top is standing alone at the top of the key with nobody within ten feet of him. Take the open shot; a switch on this action is a worse outcome for them than the lob they were trying to prevent.
Two SLOBs every team should own
The entry: box zipper
From a box on the sideline, the ball-side big runs up the lane line off an elbow screen and catches facing the floor in the slot. That solves your first problem, which is getting the ball in against a team that denies.
Then the screener follows him down, dives to the block and seals. The entry pass and the post-up come out of the same action, and the sealer’s defender is still trailing the screen when the ball arrives.
If they switch it: you get exactly what you wanted a moment earlier. The defender who switches onto the diving screener is usually the smaller of the two, and he is behind the play.
The score: stack hammer
The ball goes in to the wing, he drives the baseline hard, and a shooter is flared out of the weak-side low stack to the far corner. The defender who slides across to stop the layup is the one who then has to close out the length of the baseline, and he cannot do both.
Timing is the whole thing: the flare screen must be set before the driver reaches the block. A hammer that arrives late is a wide-open corner three that nobody threw.
Rules of thumb for every out-of-bounds set
Get it in first. A clean entry and a normal possession beats a beautiful set that produces a five-second call.
- Name a safety in every play. One player whose job is to be catchable when nothing else is. Say his name in the huddle.
- The inbounder is a player. Once the ball is in, he steps in and becomes your fifth attacker. Most teams let him stand there and watch, which is playing four-on-five on purpose.
- Screen the man on the ball. The defender guarding your inbounder is the one nobody ever screens, and he is usually the one who breaks up the play.
- Against a zone, screen the zone. Zone defenders do not switch, they cover an area — so put a body on the defender whose area you want and take it. Overloading one side and sealing the bottom defender is worth more against a zone than any cut you can draw.
- Have one counter per play, not five plays. The counter to a switch and the counter to a deny are the two you need. Everything else is a new play in disguise.
How to get these into your team by October
Two alignments. Two plays from each. Ten minutes on the first Tuesday of the season, then two reps a week forever.
The reason inbounds plays fail is almost never complexity. It is that the last time the team ran it was in September and the safety valve does not remember he is the safety valve. If you want to check that without spending practice time on it, send the play as a link — it opens in a browser with no account — and let each player watch it focused on his own number rather than on all five at once.
Fragen
What does BLOB mean in basketball?
Baseline out of bounds. It is the inbounds play you run from under your own basket. SLOB is the sideline version.
How many seconds do you have to inbound the ball?
Five seconds to release the pass, in every major ruleset. The count starts when the thrower has the ball at his disposal.
When can the inbounder run the baseline?
After a made field goal or a made final free throw, the thrower may move along the endline. After most other dead balls it is a spot throw-in and he may only pivot. What happens after a timeout following a made basket differs between rulesets, so check yours.
What is the best BLOB alignment for a young team?
A line or a box. Both are easy to line up in and easy to fix when somebody stands in the wrong place, and both give you a screen-the-screener action that produces a layup without asking anyone to make a read.