France U20 Team Secondary vs. Zone

We've been lucky enough to have FIBA put so many games up on Youtube lately. I've been spending some time watching these games, with great enjoyment. As with my last post, I enjoy watching the French team play. The French U20 team runs this secondary against Turkey's zone defense, and I loved it. Haven't seen a lot of good secondaries to use against zone but this was a very nice entry.

The secondary starts with a perimeter (2) inbounding it to the point guard. The 5 rim runs and the 4 gets on the ball side wing. Another perimeter (3) is opposite the point guard in the slot. The point guard dribbles it down the sideline. The 4 runs a shallow cut and gets the ball at the ball side slot. The inbounder basket cuts and fills to the back corner. The point guard hits the 4 cutting up on the shallow cut.

The point immediately cuts through to the opposite corner on the pass. The 4 reverses to the other guard (3) who dribbles to the top of the key, back in the direction of the pass. The 4 spaces away to the wing and the perimeter in the corner spaces up with the dribble over.

The 3 throws back to the 2 in the wing/slot area. They received it in both places from what I saw.

 The 2 dribbles back to the top, the 3 spaces to the wing. The 4 kind of screened the guard in the zone and then came to the middle pretending to set a ball screen for 2.

The 2 swings to the 3 on the wing immediately. The 4 slipped the fake ball screen, catches the ball wide open mid lane, and then make a play.

Here is a quick video clip of them running it. 

What I like about this action is that it's an immediate look in the middle of a zone coming off a break. As you see in the clip, it's pretty wide open. You could add some counters or continuations to give it more dimension. Not sure if it is a super simple break, as there is a lot of movement, but I do like the overall action. Would have to weigh teaching time efficiency if I were to run this with a group of high school guys. 

The one road block for a lot of coaches is that they like to have their 4 take the ball out on the break. I think you could easily modify this and make it work with the 4 taking it out. The 2 and 4 could just switch places. Instead of the player on the 2 shallow cutting, he cuts through to the backside corner and ends up in the same place. The 4 trails in the 2's spot in the ball side slot. The point guard throw back to the 4 in the ball side slot as he fills and you can run the same action.