The Ultimate Guide to Spacing (How to Always Be in the Right Spot)

If your goal is to be an elite offensive player, the most important thing you need to understand is good spacing. You can be the most skilled player of all time and be a great athlete, but if your spacing is off, you're going to constantly clog the offense, frustrate your coach and your teammates, and miss easy opportunities to score. Understanding great spacing is one of the main separators between average players and high IQ players who have great success on the court. In this video, I'm going to break down everything you need to know about spacing so you're always in the right place at the right time. You, your coaches love you, and your teammates love playing with you and so that you start to score easy points way more consistently. So let's talk about what spacing actually does. At its core, it creates lanes and it creates opportunities. It helps your teammates to be able to score more easily, and it makes you way harder to guard because it creates opportunities for you to score even without having the ball in your hands. Coaches don't just want shot makers, they want problem solvers. And when you understand spacing at a high level, you're going to be an elite problem solver, meaning you're going to be so much more successful and have way better results in games. First, I'm going to break down the four most important concepts that you need to understand when it comes to spacing. And if you understand these things, you're going to start to play like a natural on the court. The first concept is that you need to look to fill empty space. A lot of times you might be in a four out, you could be in a five out. If it's a five out, then you're going to have someone at the top of the key as well. And then if you're a big, you want to understand that if the ball is in the corners, you want to be low in the short corner by the block. Or if the ball is up top or on the wings or in the slots, you want to be in the high post by the elbows. Now that leads into the second important concept you need to understand, and that's that we want to create single or double gaps at all times. A single gap just means that your next closest teammate is one pass away. So maybe you're in the slot and your teammates in the corner. That would mean there's a single gap right there. Or if you're on the wing, your teammates at the top of the key, then that would be a single gap as well. At minimum, we want to make sure we're creating single gaps. So that's why, going back to the first point, you want to make sure that you're filling the empty space so that you always have an opportunity to be able to drive either way. And then the other thing that we love are double gaps. This just means that the next closest teammate to you would be two passes away. So for example, you might be in the slot and your teammates on the opposite wing or opposite slot, and that drive towards the middle is going to be a double gap, meaning it's really hard for the defense to be able to help in and it's going to be a way easier driving lane. The goal needs to be that you not only recognize single gaps and double gaps, but you also were able to create them for your teammates. And you're able to recognize when you have a double gap that you can attack, which we'll talk about later on. The third concept that's super important to understand about spacing is that you can do anything but stand after you pass the ball. A lot of times I'll watch players on offense and they'll have the ball, they'll make a pass and they'll just kind of stand there and watch. But you're not creating anything. For example, if you make that pass, let's say you're on the wing, you pass to the corner and you go set an away screen. You just created a double gap for your teammate who's in the corner, and now they're going to have a better opportunity to drive. But if you just stand still, you, you don't create anything. Even if you were to pass the ball from the top of the key over to the wing and then go set a ball screen, you're creating an action which is going to force the defense to do something and help your team create an advantage. So a super simple rule to understand is that when you pass the ball, you can either go away from the ball or you can go to the ball, but you can't stand still. And the fourth concept that's super important to understand is that you don't want to get stuck on the perimeter the whole time. And you want to understand basket cut triggers. Another huge mistake I see from players is that they'll be on the perimeter and they'll never leave the perimeter unless they're driving. So they become very one dimensional and easy to guard. And a lot of times there's opportunities to cut and score easy points or create opportunities for your teammates, but players just get stuck hanging on the outside. So we Want to understand basket cut triggers. And these, these are just things that you're going to see and it immediately is going to signal to you that you should cut to the basket. A really simple basket cut trigger is, let's say you're on the left wing and the ball gets down to the right low post or to the short corner. That's when you want to do what's called a 45 cut, which just means cutting from the wing right to the basket. This is because the entire defense shifts to either help over on that drive or that post up, or at a minimum, they turn and they look at it. So a lot of times the attention is away from you and if you cut to the basket, you're going to be wide open for a layup. If you internalize and really understand these four spacing concepts, you're going to be a way better offensive player. So let's talk about the six situations that you need to master when it comes to understanding spacing. The first one is driving kick spacing. You need to understand what you should do and how you should move depending on how your teammate drives. Whenever your teammate drives, especially from the opposite side, your defender is going to be in help and their job is to play both of you. So they're supposed to be able to slide over and stop a drive, but also stay in the passing lane so that they can't kick the ball out to you. This is why it's really important that when your teammate drives, you relocate. Usually the easiest way to do this is that let's say your teammate drives towards the baseline. You want to relocate down towards the baseline to create that driving angle for them. And if your teammate drives up towards the middle, then you want to relocate up towards the middle to create that kick out angle for them. The second situation where it's important to master spacing is inside of ball screens. So a lot of times people think about the ball handler and the screener as the only people who are involved. But actually, if you understand spacing, you can make yourself open and make yourself a good target out of these situations as well. So if we start on the same side of the ball screen, we have what's called a shake player or somebody who's going to be lifting. So if your teammate comes off the ball screen, your defender is going to step over and tag that role. What you want to do is lift up to create a passing angle for your teammate. And now it forces your defender to either tag in and take away the role or stay with you. And if they make the decision to tag the role. You're going to be wide open for a pass in either a shot or a close out to attack. The third situation where you need to master spacing is with off ball movement. So this goes back to the idea of basket cut triggers. So like we talked about, when that ball is in the opposite low post or if there's an opposite side drive, cutting to the basket with a 45 cut is a great way for you to be able to maintain spacing and take advantage of what the defense is doing. We also want to look for opportunities to do backdoor cuts. So this is especially effective when your defender turns to look at the basketball and can't see you on a quick cut to the basket is great. The other time where it's really important to back cut is if you are being denied the ball. A lot of players will not be open and they'll just start drifting up towards half court hoping that they get the basketball. When in reality that kills spacing and takes away from what you can do if you actually even get the ball. So if you're being denied, you can't get the ball. You want to just backdoor cut to clear space. You're either going to be open or you're going to open up a double gap for your teammate to be able to attack. Regardless, you want to look for those opportunities. Here's Steph Curry explaining this a little bit.

The last thing we can do out here, the last thing we can do is try to get open. And then I don't get it. Begging, begging, begging for the ball. All right? I don't care where you are on the court. That's the last thing we can do. Every other decision is the right one. You got plenty to choose from. Every decision. Screen away, front cut, back cut, space away from the ball. The last thing we can do is just do this. It's the most, it's the weakest move in basketball.

The next situation where it's super important to understand spacing is in transition. The most important things to understand is if you're not the one with the basketball so your teammate pulls a defensive rebound, you want to sprint out wide in transition in order to keep the middle of the floor open. By doing this, you force the defense to widen out as well. So now it presents more opportunities and a lot of times your teammate will come down the court and, and whoever's back is going to have to take them in the middle and you're going to be wide open in on the sideline. For either a driving kick or for another opportunity to attack a closeout. In general, you want to think about sprinting to the corners. The next situation is going to be post entry spacing. So this goes back to what I mentioned earlier about the 45 cuts. When that ball gets into the opposite low post and you're on the wing, you want to look for an opportunity to 45 cut right there. You also can look to cut from the same side whenever you enter that ball on the post. Because sometimes you'll enter the ball and your defender is going to turn to look at the post guy and cutting either way right there. It's another great opportunity to steal a couple free points. And then the last situation that's so important for you to understand is double gap drives. Like we mentioned, a double gap is the best time for you to drive because there's no gap defender to be able to stop you so your teammate passes you the ball and then they cut away to create a double gap. You want to look to attack in those situations because you have the best chance of getting yourself a paint touch. Either getting to the rim for a finish or drawing in help to be able to kick out to create a shot or a close up to attack for your teammate. So let's talk a little bit about how you can become better with spacing, how you can practice it, how you can make it a part of you. The first thing you want to do is whenever you're watching your own film back, you want to look for those six different spacing situations and see what you do in those situations. So maybe you notice that on post touches you're just kind of standing, hanging on the perimeter, not taking advantage of those 45 cuts. Maybe you notice that when your teammate drives, you're not relocating to create a kick out angle for them. Maybe you notice that in ball screens you're just kind of stagnant or in transition, you're not getting out wide enough enough when you're sprinting lanes. But you basically want to do an audit of your own game and see where are you not taking advantage of spacing? Where are you not creating great spacing because it's probably killing your ability to score consistently. And the second thing that you want to do is you want to watch a lot of high level basketball, watch the NBA, watch college basketball and see how guys are moving without the basketball in their hands. When are they relocating, when are they cut into the basket, what do they do in transition, how are they moving to make sure that they're creating single gaps, double gaps, consistently watching players like Klay Thompson or Derrick White especially are some of the best off ball movers from the perimeter and you really want to take note of what they do and then emulate it in your own games. Now if you want to master this and you want to master everything that goes along with being a high IQ elite offensive player, I have a free basketball IQ masterclass linked down below that you're going to want to check out. Like I said, we talked about not only this stuff but also what to do when you catch the basketball. Making the decision to shoot, drive or pass, learning how to use different off ball actions. The stuff that you're going to learn is going to help you to instantly start scoring more points, creating more for your yourself, for your teammates, playing with way more confidence and consistency and overall just seeing way better results on the court. That's completely free top link down below. Make sure you check that out. If you have any questions, make sure you let me know. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.