When I was on Dale Brown's staff I enjoyed conversations with Bob Boyd who was on our staff as well. In talking about screening he made the comment that he thought no one taught screening better than Bob Knight yet everyone he talked to Coach Knight he was always talking about how his teams needed to screen better. Now I took this in part about the slippage in screen execution but also as an indicator of how important Coach Knight thought screening was to his team's offensive performance.
One year, my friend Jim Boone (now the head coach at Tusculum College) and I spent a day with Jim Crews who was currently coaching at Evansville. He spoke also of the constant battle of getting players to properly execute screening principles. He also made the comment that if you every wanted to get on a player you could always complain about his screening.
If screening is part of your offense, whether you run motion, continuity or quick hitters, make sure you constantly take the time to break it down and teach the principles. Create good screening habits and your will get a better quality shot for your team.
Here are a few screening principles that were good to us at LSU:
LSU Screening Sequence:
#1 Communicate: call out the name of the teammate you are screening for and point towards her.
#2 Find the Defender: “Smart Bomb” mentality
#3 Sprint to Screen: “Headhunt” - get there!
#4 Come to a Stop: good stance, knees bent, head up, arms crossed at chest
#5 Read the Cutter: don’t worry about the ball — what cut was used
#6 Initiate 2nd cut: HUGE!!!!
