A scout is not a report. It is four or five decisions you want your players to make faster than they otherwise would. Everything you write down that does not turn into one of those decisions is work you did for nobody.
So the order is backwards from how most people do it. Do not start by watching film and writing down what you see. Start with the list of questions you need answered, then watch only long enough to answer them.
Twenty minutes is enough
You are not building a profile of everything they do. You are finding their defaults — what they do on the first ball screen of a possession, before anybody has adjusted.
Fifteen ball screens is usually plenty. If they are still doing the same thing on the fifteenth, that is the default. If they have done three different things, that is the finding: they mix it, and your counters need to be reads rather than calls.
Watch the game with the ball at the top of the screen, if the angle allows it, and watch the two defenders in the screen — not the ball. Most people watch the ball and end up with a report full of who scored.
The seven questions
Write these seven on a card. Answer them, and you have a scout.
1. What do they do on the first ball screen? Drop, at the level, hedge, switch, ICE, under, blitz. Pick one word. If you cannot pick one, write “mixed” and move on — that is an answer too.
2. How deep is the drop, if they drop? At the level of the screen with the big’s chest on the handler’s shoulder, or at the front of the rim. These are different coverages that share a name, and they give up completely different shots.
3. Do they switch everything, or only like sizes? One-through-five switching is a different opponent from a team that switches guard-to-guard and plays the big screens straight. Watch what happens when your five sets a screen for your one.
4. Do they help one pass away? Are the off-ball defenders in the passing lane, a step into the gap, or sagging toward the paint? This decides whether your entries are safe and whether a backdoor cut is available.
5. Who is the low man? Find the defender on the weak side who takes the rim on a drive and who tags the roller. Then find out whether the same player has to close out to the corner afterward. That player is where most possessions get decided.
6. Do they top-lock your shooter? Watch what happens to your best off-ball scorer on a pin-down. If a defender is standing between him and the screen, that is a top-lock, and it is the single most useful thing on this card, because the counter is automatic.
7. What do they do out of a timeout? Teams save their switch, their blitz or their zone for after a timeout. If they have one, you want to know it before the fourth quarter.
Turning each answer into one counter
One counter per answer. Not three.
| What they do | What you run | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Deep drop | Pull-up, pocket pass, or a re-screen | The big is not out at the ball, so the space between the screen and the rim is yours |
| Hedge or hard hedge | Screen the screener’s defender first | Your big arrives at the screen free and the hedge is late |
| Switch everything | Slip, ghost, or attack the mismatch immediately | A switch is only bad for them if you use it before they settle |
| ICE the side screen | Reject the screen, or re-screen back to the middle | ICE commits the on-ball defender to one side of the floor |
| Guard goes under | Re-screen, or shoot it | Under says they do not respect the shot; make them wrong once |
| Blitz | Short roll and play four on three | Two on the ball means somebody behind is guarding two players |
| Low man tags hard | Lift the weak-side guard behind the screen | The tag costs them the man they came from |
| Top-lock your shooter | Back cut, or flare him the other way | He cannot top-lock and stay on the correct side of a flare |
Here is what three of those look like on the floor.
Against a hedge or a switch, screen the screener’s defender before the ball screen happens.
The big gets screened above, sprints into the ball screen a step ahead of his man, and the defense is late to everything. A hedge that arrives late is not a hedge, and a switch that happens with one defender already beaten is a mismatch.
Against a guard who keeps going under, re-screen him going the other way.
The first screen bends the defense one direction. The second catches the on-ball defender still recovering and the big still retreating, and the roller dives into an empty lane.
Against a top-lock, give the shooter two chances on the same possession.
He runs a stagger up the sideline. If the defender stands on the top side to take it away, the last screener turns and flares him straight back down to the corner instead. Somebody has to guess wrong, and the skip pass is waiting either way.
Against a low man who tags the roller hard, do not leave your shooter standing in the corner.
The roll pulls the low man in. The weak-side guard shakes up to the slot behind the ball instead of waiting in the corner, and the pass to him is shorter and arrives before the closeout can.
The one-page scout
Copy this. One side of one page, and nothing on it that is not a decision.
- Ball screen default: one word
- Drop depth: level / rim
- Switching: everything / like sizes / none
- One pass away: deny / gap / sag
- Low man: number, and whether he also has the corner
- Our shooter is: chased / top-locked / switched
- Out of a timeout: what changes
- Our four counters: one line each
- Their best defender: number, and what he takes away
- Anything unusual: zone looks, a press, a box-and-1
If it does not fit on the page, it is not going to fit in a player’s head either.
Three minutes with the team
Show two clips, not twelve. The first is them doing the thing. The second is them doing it again, so nobody thinks it was a one-off.
Then one diagram per counter, run twice. Say the read out loud in the words the player will use in the game: “he is going under — re-screen him”. Not “we will adjust our ball screen entries”.
If you want to show the same set against two different coverages, you can set the defense in a drawing tool and replay it — the simulated defense in SlongeHoops is Beta and it does not predict what happens, but it does put five defenders where the coverage you picked would put them, and you can save a preset per opponent and reuse it on every play in the book.
What a scout cannot do
They will change it. Good teams change it at the first timeout, and the coverage you prepared for is gone by the second quarter.
That is not a reason to skip the scout. It is the reason the counters above are all reads. A player who knows what a hedge looks like and what to do about it is prepared for any team that hedges. A player who was told “they hedge” and nothing else is lost the moment they drop instead.
Scout the coverage, teach the read. The scout is for you. The read is for them.
Fragen
How much film do I need to scout a coverage?
Twenty minutes, or about fifteen ball screens. You are not looking for tendencies in every situation, you are looking for what they do by default on the first screen of a possession.
What if they change coverage during the game?
Most teams do, usually after a timeout or after they have given up two straight scores. That is why you teach the read rather than the call, and why every counter below is a decision a player makes, not a play you shout.
Should I show players the scout on video or on a diagram?
Both, briefly. Film proves it is real, a diagram shows what to do about it. Three minutes total is the right budget for a team meeting.
Is it worth scouting a youth opponent?
Scouting the coverage, rarely. Scouting whether they press and whether they play zone, always, because those two answers change what you prepare.