Breaking Down the Princeton Offense

Over a few weeks, I’m going to do a series of threads breaking down different types of offenses and defenses ran in the NBA. Today, we will focus on the Princeton offense.

The Princeton Offense, named rightfully so after the offensive genius of Pete Carril (renowned Princeton head coach), is an offense focused on breaking down an opponents defensive set. The reason the Princeton Offense is so difficult for teams to prepare for is because all 5 players on offense are constantly in motion.

There are four parts to the Princeton Offense set.

Part One:

A Princeton Offense usually starts with a high post entry and a cut at the top of the key on the strong side. The strong side is whatever side the ball is on.

Orange is the movement of the ball. Blue is the movement of the player(s). Excuse the terrible artwork. I’m doing this on MS Paint.

Clockwise, from the bottom left, the players are the G, F, C, F, G. Once the PG makes the high post entry pass, he’ll cut to the basket either to a) Get the ball back and go for a layup or b) if the layup isn’t there, to go to the opposite corner and everyone rotates clockwise. So now the setup looks like this:

Part Two:

Part two is ball screening, although ninety percent of the time the guy with the ball will try and break his cheating defender down by faking towards the screen and going the opposite direction. The goal of this tactic is to either lead to an open lay-up or cross-court kick out for an open three pointer. A key point is that there are no dribble drives and a very small amount of the mid-range game in the Princeton offense.

So the F now dumps the ball into the center, and he and the other G meet at the elbow. The F sets a screen for the G. If the defense comes over the top of the F, the G goes backdoor for a cut and a lay up. If the defense comes under, the G comes around the top of the F to the perimeter, and the C hits him with the pass. For the following image, we’ll say the defender goes under, and is screened. The G comes around top and gets a pass from the C on the perimeter.

Now, the G is controlling the ball. He can do a few things. 1) He could take the 3. 2) If the shot isn’t there, he looks back down low to the C as the F rolls out of his screen to the top of the key. 3) If the C can post up and take it to the hoop, then the G passes it down low. If that’s too risky, he passes it back up top to the F.

Part Three:

Part three of the Princeton offense involves the guards and forwards posting up on other guards and forwards, as Carril and his staff believed that guards in the NCAA are not coached on how to defend a guard who posts up. All guards in the Princeton offense are taught to shoot hook shots off the post.

Let’s assume the strong side options haven’t worked out, and we cannot get a shot off. Now the F, controlling the ball, will look for other options on the weakside. The other forward will make a backdoor cut towards the hoop. If possible, the ballhandler will pass him the ball for the basket. However, if that doesn’t work out, the F that just made the cut will stay inside and backdown his defender. The ballhandling F comes around the perimeter and passes the ball to the PG who looks inside to the F for the post-up.

The F who gave up the ball to the PG now cuts inside towards the C to set a pick for the C.

Part Four:

Also, speaking of something each player in the Princeton offense must be capable of, part four is simply the following: Every player on the floor is able to shoot three pointers or capable of making shots from distance.

The PG will hit the C with the pass as he goes above the pick and ends up at the top of the FT line. The C must be capable of making that shot.

Now let’s assume there is no shot for the Center. The Guards on each side will drop down low and pin-down for each of the forwards. The C goes left as the F curls off the screen. The C hands the ball off to the F and follows the G.

The G curls outside the 3-point line as the C curls in while the F and G on the weakside spread the floor to pull their defenders out of the paint. The F at the top of the key passes the ball to the G on the strong side, who then passes it inside to the C for the bucket.

BASKET!

So as you can see, the Princeton Offense requires everyone to never stop moving or rotating, and plays off of a lot of ballscreens and backdoor cuts. The objective is to have so many available options that the defense will not know how to react in each situation.

I hope you enjoyed reading this! This was my first time trying to draw diagrams like this on MS Paint, so I apologize if it gets confusing! Give me some feedback, if you think I should do it differently, if there’s things I can improve on (which I’m sure there are), or if I messed up somewhere, etc.