You have a small team with no big post players. What is your game plan? You decide to run the 5-Out Motion Offense (also known as Open Post Offense).

The 5-Out Motion Offense works well against any defense because if executed correctly its positionless for your team, creates movement, and has continuity for the entire offensive possession.

In this article, you will learn the strengths and weaknesses of implementing the 5-Out Motion Offense along with the basics of the offense to discover if it’s the right offense for your team.

The 5-Out Motion Offense is best suited for a team where every player on the floor excels at the basics: dribbling, passing, cutting, screening, and scoring. This is extremely important to the success of the offense because it’s what allows the offense to be positionless and players to develop their skills.

If your team lacks height and wants to run a fast-paced offense then this offense is a solid option. There is a ton of movement that goes into running the 5-Out and that would play to your advantage with a shorter, quick team.

The 5-Out Offense creates constant movement from all players on the court until they have found an open teammate for a scoring opportunity - and if it’s a team full of players who excel at scoring then you’ll easily put points on the scoreboard.

These 5 rules are what players must follow in order for the offense to run smoothly. Keep these in mind and be sure to emphasize them as you’re teaching and learning the 5-Out Motion Offense.

1. If you’re one pass away, being denied by your defender, and make eye contact with the passer, back cut immediately. Don’t hesitate - just back cut and be watching for a possible pass coming your way.

2. If you feel you can attack the rim and score, attack as soon as you catch the ball. Players will know if beating their defender is a possibility and if they feel confident they can do it then encourage them to be aggressive.

3. Players must square up to the goal in a triple threat stance when they have the ball in their hands. You don’t want your players to signal to the defense what they’re going to do when they have the basketball. By squaring up in triple threat, players can shoot, pass, or dribble - and the defense will not be able to tell what they’re going to do.

4. Every action must be executed with purpose. Any action you’re doing in the 5-Out Motion Offense, do it to the best of your ability and with full effort. Cut hard, screen strong, pass crisp, dribble confidently.

5. Spacing is always the key to the offense. The only way to be successful is to keep the right amount of space at all times during your offensive possession.

Getting Started

The easiest way to get started teaching the 5-Out motion offense is to break it down into progressions. By using progressions, you make the offense easier to understand for your team. Once they have a solid understanding of the progression and are able to complete it with little to no mistakes then you can advance to the next progression.

The 4 progressions are:

• Progression 1: Basic Cutting

• Progression 2: Screening Away

• Progression 3: On-Ball Screen

• Progression 4: Dribble At

Read on to learn more about the 4 progressions of the 5-Out Motion Offense!

To give you the best examples of the progressions we're going to use Lason Perkins' Open Post Offense DVD.

The easiest way to introduce the 5-Out Offense is starting with the basic actions of passing and cutting. Start by setting markers at each of the 5 spots on the court. Let your team know that when they're not cutting, they must be in one of these 5 spots.

There are four passes and cuts that can be made:

• Top to Wing Pass
• Wing to Corner Pass
• Corner to Wing Pass
• Wing to Top Pass

Practice these pass and cuts without defense at first and once you see the 5 spots are filled at all times add in defense to go against.

Top to Wing Pass

• 1 passes to 3 on the wing then makes a hard basket cut.
• 3 catches the passes and faces the basket.
• 2 and 5 move to fill the spots closest to the ball.
• 4 stays in the corner.
• After cutting, 1 fills the opposite corner.

Wing to Corner Pass

• 3 passes to 4 in the corner then makes a hard basket cut.
• 4 catches the passes and faces the basket.
• 2 fill the spot on the wing.
• 5 and 1 move to fill the spots closest to the ball.
• After cutting, 3 fills the opposite corner.

Corner to Wing Pass

• 4 passes to 2 on the wing then makes a hard basket cut.
• To fill the open spot, 4 replaces themselves back in the corner.
• Rest of the players wait in their spot for the next action.

Wing to Top Pass

• 2 passes to 5 at the top then makes a hard basket cut.
• 5 catches the passes and faces the basket.
• 4 moves to fill the spots closest to the ball.
• After cutting, 3 fills the corner spot replacing 4.
• Other players wait in their spot for the next action.

Once your team is confident with passing and cutting, it's time to add in screening away after a pass as another option.

This action can be executed on any top to wing, wing to corner, or wing to top pass. The only pass it can’t be performed on is the corner to wing pass.

Before teaching the screen away, you need to decide whether your players will always come off the screen curling, or if you're going to give them the option of cutting to the top or curling depending on what they see the defense doing.

Lets take a look at both options...

Screened Player Curls

Here's what curling on a screen away looks like from a top to the wing pass:

• 1 passes to 3 on the wing. Instead of cutting, 1 goes to set an away screen.
• Teaching Point – It’s essential for 3 to wait while the screen is being set.
• 1 screens for 2 making sure they set the screen at the right angle for 2 to curl and cut to the rim.
• 2 comes off the screen curling and looking for the ball.
• After 2 has used the screen, 1 pops back out to the same spot that they set a screen from and may have an open shot at the top of the key if their defender tries to help on the curl.
• After the cut, 2 fills the opposite corner spot since 4 has filled 2’s previous spot on the wing.

Screened Player Pops Out

The main difference when using this option is: the screener must go the opposite direction of the cutter.

If the cutter decides to pop out to the perimeter, the screener will cut to the rim and then fill the corner.

Here's what curling on a screen away looks like from a top to the wing pass:

• 1 passes to 3 on the wing. Instead of cutting, 1 goes to set an away screen.
• Teaching Point – It’s essential for 3 to wait while the screen is being set.
• 1 screens for 2 making sure they set the screen at the right angle for 2 to curl and cut to the rim.
• 2 sees their defender cheating under the screen so 2 comes off the screen and pops out to the top of the key to catch and possibly have an open shot.
• Reading the action by 2, 1 cuts to the rim because they must go the opposite direction of the cutter.
• 1 then fills the corner position as 4 has filled 2’s previous spot on the wing.

Once your players understand cutting and screening away, the next action to teach is setting on-ball screens (also known as pick and rolls).

The on-ball screen can be used after any pass in 5-Out Motion Offense and can be very effective to use because of the spacing with this offense.

Here are two examples of setting an on-ball screen:

The final action to add to the 5-Out motion offense is the ‘dribble at’ action.

This action can be used when a player is being heavily guarded and has no options to pass the basketball. In this situation, the player with the basketball may decide to dribble towards another player at a different spot.

When this happens, these two offensive players have two options:

Back Cut

• The player with the basketball dribble towards another player.
• If the player without the basketball is being denied, they can back cut and look to receive the basketball for a chance to score.
• If they don’t receive the pass, they fill the weak side corner, the other players rotate towards the basketball, and the next action begins.

Hand Off

• The player with the basketball dribble towards another player.
• The player without the basketball reads their defender and receives a handoff.
• The player that receives the hand-off should attack the rim and kick out to shooters if the defense slides over to help.

The above progressions are all the pieces you need to make the 5-Out Motion Offense your go-to game plan. As your team spends more time with the offense they will develop a basketball IQ and continue to solidify the base offense you have implemented and allow you to add advanced progressions in the future

If you want to dive deeper with Perkins about the Open Post Offense, check out the DVD we used in this article to find out more. You can find Lason Perkins' Open Post Offense DVD at this link.

In this DVD, Perkins takes you through an incredible collection of plays step-by-step on the whiteboard then follows it up with excellent demonstrations to help you instruct your players on the court correctly. You can't go wrong with this DVD!

If you want to learn even more about the 5-Out Motion Offense check out HoopsKing.com for DVDs you can download or rent.