Quote:
Originally Posted by AremRed
Great learning clip JRut.
Couple things on Lead: you should typically never run across the lane as Lead, especially at the High School level. At the HS level refs are slower to pick up on rotations and you might leave the crew unbalanced which is worse overall than the advantage you gain from Lead being able to pick up that play across the paint more quickly. Walk with a steady and brisk pace refereeing over your shoulder until you get all the way across the lane and then open up to accept the action in front of you. This will let the Slot official know when you are on ball and they can move on to another matchup. That said, I'm actually ok in this specific instance that the Lead got over there quickly. Multiple defender doubleteams like that are very difficult for one referee (the Slot) to officiate and the Lead coming over quickly receives that pressure.
Slot positioning. The Old Trail moves to new Slot and goes very low, in fact too low. I'm all in favor of the Slot going underneath players on the wing but we mustn't go too low. We need to anticipate not just the next play but also the play after that which is often times an entry pass to the post. Pause the video at 10 seconds -- if the defender was behind the post player on ball side and there was an entry pass the Slot would have have a closed look on that defender. I would much prefer the Slot to be straddling the coaches box line on the near sideline which is 3-4 feet from where the referee ends up. Straddling that line allows the referee perfect position on the wing player and defender should the ball make it there and also leaves him more open to referee a post entry pass.
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I think the lead was way too late to start moving, forcing him to run. Once he was late, he had to get over there as he really needed to be there to cover the play that was happening.
On the slot, I see why he ended up there. The closest competitive matchup was on the far lane line with the next competitive matchups were on the far side of the court outside the 3-point arc (with the ball being covered by the trail and the other off-ball matchups covered by the lead). If he had stopped at the FT line, he would have been straight-lined to pretty much anything worth looking at and staying high wouldn't have fixed it. So, he went under. Just as he got to a reasonable spot, the players shifted, taking away is open look he had and driving him lower still. It was a tough spot to be in and he maintained an open look at the expense of getting a bit too low. Better would been to reverse at 5 seconds and get back to the FT line as that angle opened back up.
Once the skip pass occurs, the L is slow to react. I'd like to see the L move immediately to closedown when the skip pass is thrown. The L doesn't move until after the skip pass is caught and a new post is formed on the opposite side of the lane. If there was an immediate entry into the post, he couldn't get there to see it. He needs to be rotating across as the post matchup moves across the lane, not after they get there and are set up to receive the entry pass.