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In my game tonight, I chose to play motion offense, having been training jump shots for a while and got my players shooting better from mid-range than inside. Their range is not so good, so I figured motion offense was the best bet, given that the rules describe it as: "outside/mid range jump shot focus" - in comparison to princeton, which has an outside/inside focus (fewer 2 point jump shots).

Yet watching the game - (2417735), my guys hardly put a "mid-range" 2pt jump shot up all night. They shot lots of 3s, and missed many of them, as I knew they would, and they shot lots inside and missed them to. The one thing they didn't do was make mid-range shots. This isn't 'sour grapes' since I didn't expect to win the game, and I'm amazed that it's just about to go into overtime... I just want to understand why the tactics I chose didn't work as expected.

If you look at the floor plan at the end of the game there's clear floor in a perfect arc around the basket in the precise range I expected them to shoot best from.

Have I misunderstood the motion offense? Or has my coach over-ruled me and played Princeton instead? I just don't get these tactics at all. Every time I try to use one, the results are unexpected and I just end up reverting to 'base offense'.

If my whining about tactics doesn't pursuade anyone to review the match I've mentioned above, perhaps I can tempt you with... a goal tending call in the dying seconds leading to not one, but two periods of overtime and an eventual outcome settled with a final six second possession with the sides just one point apart... amazing match, even if I didn't get the tactics right!

Just a quick review of your stats show a couple things to me.

You took 15 more shots than your opponent and made 1 less. The quantity of shots helped you. (fast paced motion offense)

You converted only 7 of 41 3pt shots, but those were the difference in the game as you opponent only converted 3 of their 3pt attempts. (FT's made were 12-11 in his favor).

Those 4 extra 3pt buckets gave you just enough of a cushion to win by the 1 point margin you did win by. *applause*

I think, in theory, outside shooting is always going to be less dependable, percentage-wise, than inside shooting, just from the fact of increasing the range of the shots attempted. But it can have just enough of a boost from 3's to put you over the top.

I have a follow up question. If I anticipate my opponent playing 2-3 zone and stacking the lane, which is the better strategy to "shoot over them?" I want to take some 3s and some jumpers but still have a down low offense because that is my strength. Will the comp. automatically adjust the low post/look inside offense to account for the increased defense and shoot more from outside or should I try to adjust my strategy to motion/princeton/run and gun?