Want Great Spacing, Screening & Ball Movement? Take a Look at the Fusion Offense by Jamie Angeli

About the Fusion Offense

The Fusion Offense is a combination of the three very popular and well know offenses: Ralph Miler's 1-4 High Offense, Tex Winter's and Phil Jackson's Triangle Offense, and Pete Carril's Princeton Offense. By mixing these three offenses, Coach Jamie Angeli created a perfect offense which utilize great spacing, ball movement, efficient use of the pass and dribble, screening and floor balance. Quick ball movement gives you ability to  attack from side to side, from inside and out ,with fluid continuity in each entry available. Perfectly suits the pressure of the defense, zoning, and other defensive variations.

Set up and Spacing 

The Fusion Offense starts with the 1-4 formation, where you have your four players positioned at the level of free-throw line. 

Position Number 1 is your point guard with the ball, and which one of many set ups will be played depends on his first pass. A pass can go to any player, both wings or any of two high posts. 

Position 2 is your shooting guard, and he can be interchangeable with the Position 3(your athletic slasher). 

Position 4 and 5 are also interchangeable with each other, and they are your big players.

Wing Entry 

Since there is several entries in the Fusion Offense, we would like to demonstrate one of the most common cases: Wing Entry. 

The ball goes to the Position 3. After the pass, Position 4 cuts to the basket and tries to create a good position to receive the ball and attack the basket. Since all the players are still at the level of the free-throw line, Position 4 has a great spacing to play one-on-one, without the help side and with wide open key. 

So the first option for the Position 3 would be a pass to a low post. The second option is a back screen for our point guard (Position 1). Position 5 makes a strong back screen at the middle of the court for Position 1.

After the screen, Position 5 pops out, and Position 1 goes to an opposite corner. With this set up we still have a great spacing. 

After looking for a low post (Position 4) and back-screen cut (Position 1), Position 3 passes to Position 5 to reverse the ball to another side. Before reversing a ball, Position 5 is looking for Position 4, who is changing a side and following the ball. This pass is very effective because there is no help side at this moment. High-Low option is very common and can give you lot of easy points from the key. 

If there is no chance to do a High-Low option, Position 5 reverses the ball to Position 2, and Position 4 continues movement to a low post. With that ball and players movement, we are creating  a Triangle on a ball side,and a Pinch-Post on a weak side between Position 3 and 5.

Strengths of the Fusion Offense 

• Gives you lots of solutions in offense to score, from low post,high post, three-point line, of Pick & Roll game, isolation etc.
• Defense cannot completely prepare for this type of offense. In case that defense players close one segment( for example low post), they must leave open another one (three point shot), so it works perfectly with teams who can read defensive reactions.
• This is a team play and makes all five players involved. Therefore, whole defense has to work hard and each player has to take care of his player so it's very hard to help or trap on the ball. 

Weaknesses of the Fusion Offense

• If you like playing in transition, this is not highly recommended play for your team. The Fusion Offense requires time for a set up and gives time to defense to come back from offense. 
• The Fusion Offense is not easy to learn, there is a lot of solutions and variations that your players must be aware of, so it's not something that you can draw during a time-out. It takes time to master in running this offense.  

Who Might Use Fusion Offense

The Fusion Offense is an offense for any basketball level, high school, college or professional teams. Make sure that your team is disciplined, patient and well organised while running this offense. Also, coaches who don't have a dominant individual player in the team could run this offense as a primary set up, because it gives a lot of open shots with the team effort. 

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