The offensive process in basketball – a study in high performance junior teams

By defining the main performance indicators that correlate with success in a sport, analysts can determine how teams can achieve their potential by focusing their training and practices on these important factors. The purpose of this study is to describe and compare the offensive process in Basketball, the subject population were high performance level junior men teams based on the qualitative and quantitative technical and tactical variables. The sample comprises four teams, Spain (N=5), United States of America (N=3), Croatia (N=5) and Brazil (N=8), observed during the 6th World Championship of Men Juniors, Portugal 1999.From a total of 21 games we analysed the set offence and fast break and we recorded their frequency, duration and outcome actions. Descriptive and non-parametric statistics were used for data analysis techniques.The results of our study allow the following conclusions: (1) the main game method of all teams is set offense (74,6%), while fast-break is the second game method (25,4%); (2) about ¾ of set offenses have duration between 13 and 18 seconds; (3) the duration of the fast-break is in 70% between 4 and 6 seconds; (4) the shooting area with better performance is the painted area (zone 9); (5) 1x1 is the tactical structure more applied for all teams; (6) the game performance indicators that differentiated the teams are: mean points scored, percent of success of free-throws, number of fouls made on, number of suffered fouls and offensive rating.