The game of basketball is moving more towards having 4 players or all 5 players on the court who can dribble and play on the outside. Defenses can have trouble guarding a pick and roll. An offense who has a big(4) who can attack the basket off the dribble can create a lot of problems for a defense in a pick and roll scenario. This is for 2 reasons.
The first reason is the big(4) defender is probably not used to guarding the ball in a pick and roll. The defender does not know how to go over or under the ball screen. This gives the offense a chance to attack the defense by putting defenders in positions they are not used to guarding.
The 2nd reason is the hedge defender is usually going to be a guard defender meaning they are not used to being the hedge defender. They may underplay or overplay the pick and roll leaving space for the offense to attack.
An offense that can put the defense in uncomfortable positions is usually going to have favorable outcomes. That leads us to this BLOB play.
This Baseline Out of Bounds play starts in a 1-4 low setup.
The forward(3) throws the entry pass into the big(4) that is flashing up and away from the ball. To make the pick and roll effective the big(4) needs to catch the ball somewhere above the free throw line. This gives the offense enough room to space the defense apart to open up driving lanes. This will cause the defense to have to make decisions on if and where to help.
If the catch is below the free throw line, then there will be too many players, offense and defense, standing in the lane to make the pick and roll work.
Once the big(4) catches the inbounds pass, the second part of the play begins.
On the catch the center(5) sprints up to a ball screen for the big(4). The center(5) can pick and pop and stay at the free throw line. Or the center(5) can roll to the basket and the forward(3) can cut up the lane to clear out space around the basket for the roll.
The point(1) can slide up the sideline to get in position for a kick out 3.
The guard(2) can read the drive by the big(4) and stay in the corner for a kick out or the guard(2) can move up the sideline for a wing kickout 3. Or the guard(2) can loop behind the big(4) for a potential back pass to either a shot or a drive into the middle of the lane by the guard(2).
Conclusion
This BLOB play can be paired for the flex blob play to start both plays the same but the center(5) is doing 2 different actions. These two plays can be paired together to take advantage of a defense that gets lazy or starts to overplay one of the actions.
I have a series of plays using this same setup that can be used together to keep the defense off-balance and guessing what is coming from the offense.
