Why Every NBA Team Runs the Same Offense: Five Out Delay

Modern NBA offense explained: the five-out delay front, the away trigger, Ram, Spain, zero cuts and zoom, the two outcomes each action hunts, and the history.

Modern NBA offense starts from a five-out delay front with the center at the top of the key and runs fast three-man actions in the middle of the floor, and this guide explains the claim that every team runs it, the actions, the history and what a high school coach can borrow.

The five-out delay claim, made about the 2025 NBA preseason, is that every team in the league was running the same offense. That NBA offense starts in a five-out front called delay, with the center high at the top of the key, the guards on either side as the playmakers and two shooters waiting in the corners. From there the team runs a fast three-man game in the middle third of the floor inside the first 8 to 10 seconds of the clock, reacting to the defense instead of running plays. This guide treats it as a claim to check and sets it beside what else is on record: a 2019 clinic history of 20 years of league offense, pro and international set sheets, a college delay catalogue and clinic notes. It covers the delay front, the away trigger, the main action families, the two outcomes every action is after, the history behind the shift, how pace fits, how the same names mean different things, and what a high school or college coach can borrow.

Every action in the five-out delay is after one of two outcomes: one defender stuck guarding two players, or an early switch that leaves a speed or size mismatch.

The Claim: One NBA Offense

The case is that NBA teams no longer differ much in how they start possessions. They share an alignment, a set of action names and a goal for each action. The offense is not running plays, it is reacting to what the defense gives. The actions happen in the first 8 to 10 seconds and the ball never sticks, which the claim calls lag-free. It ends by saying America is waking up to what Europe has known for a long time about ball and player movement.

Two cautions come with the claim. It is a reading of game film, not a statement by the coaches whose teams appear in it, and some action names are spelled as heard. It is also dated to one preseason, so it needs checking against a later season. The rest of this guide sets the vocabulary beside other records. How the parts of an offense fit together, systems, actions and sets, is on the basketball offense guide.

The Five-Out Delay Front

Modern NBA offense five-out delay front with the center at the top of the key, a guard in each slot and shooters in both corners

Five-out delay front. 5 is high at the top of the key, 1 and 2 are the playmakers in the slots and 3 and 4 sit in the corners as catch-and-shoot players.

In the delay front all five players are spread to the arc. The center sits high at the top of the key. The guards on either side of him are the main playmakers. The two corners are called dead: those players catch and shoot, and they do not start actions. A college catalogue of delay sets from 29 programs draws the same front, five players spread to the arc with the center receiving up top. The spacing itself is the 5 out offense shape.

Not every pro library starts here. The 2022-23 Lakers book uses a 4-out 1-in flow offense as its base, with the center at the dunker spot, and labels its sets by alignment: about 35 horns sets, 28 4-out 1-in sets and 8 five-out sets.

The Away Trigger

Modern NBA offense away screen from the center at the top of the key for the guard in the opposite slot

Away. 1 has the ball in the right slot. 5 comes from the top of the key and screens away for 2, who is in the left slot, and 2 comes over the top of the screen toward the middle.

The away screen is the number one way into early action in the delay. The trailing center screens away for the guard at the opposite top spot, and several of the families below grow out of it. It is the most common entry, not the only one. The others are a throw straight to the center, a stack, a Ram and horns. When a defense blows up the away screen, the guard cuts through the paint and a big turns into a ball screen.

The Action Families

The actions fall into eight families. The grouping into eight is this guide's own count.

Family	How it runs
77, or double drag	The guard cuts over the top of the away screen and the team gets into two drag ball screens. In one wrinkle the first screener slips out or ghosts the screen, and the second screen creates a double gap for the guard.
Touch	The guard comes over the top of the away screen, gets the ball from the point guard and gets it back off a touch action. A switch gives a speed and a size mismatch. If the defense rotates fully, the ball is skipped to the dead corner for a three.
Twist or flip into step-up	The guard catches coming off the away screen, and the center twists back into a step-up ball screen. The handler reads how the other center covers it.
Gut zoom	When the away screen is taken away, the guard rejects it and cuts into the paint, the ball goes to the center, and the team runs zoom, a down screen into a handoff, in the middle of the floor instead of on the side.
Zoom with a zero cut	The ball goes straight to the center and a player cuts over the top of him into zoom. If the defender chases over the top, the cutter goes straight to the rim.
Stack into veer	The guard and the center set up at the free-throw line. The guard comes off a down screen either way. In veer, the center fakes a step-up ball screen and then sets the down screen.
Ram into Spain	A guard down-screens for the center, who sprints into a ball screen. After the center sets it and rolls, a shooter back-screens the other center and then pops.
Horns into a handoff	From horns, a back screen for a layup, or the back screener sprints off an uphill handoff. The second option is called Peja, spelled as heard.

Modern NBA offense zero cut with a guard cutting over the top of the center and going straight to the rim when his defender chases

Zero cut. 1 passes straight to 5 at the top of the key. 2 cuts over the top of 5, and when X2 chases him over the top, 2 goes straight to the rim.

Location matters. Zoom used to be a three-man action on one side with two players spaced away. In the delay it has moved into the middle third, inside the lane lines extended, and in the zero-cut version the two corner players leave the paint clear. Handoffs are covered on DHO basketball and down screens on down screen basketball.

Modern NBA offense Ram action with a guard screening down for the center on the block, who sprints up into a ball screen

Ram. 2 comes down from the left wing and screens for 5 on the left block. 5 sprints up into a ball screen for 1 at the top of the key.

Modern NBA offense Spain action with a shooter back-screening the defender of the rolling center and popping out

Spain. 5 comes up from the left elbow, sets the ball screen at the top of the key and rolls as 1 dribbles left. 2 comes down from the right slot, back-screens X5 and then pops back out to the arc.

Slips are reads inside these actions, not separate sets. Two defenders covering a flare screen are very open to a slip, and a screener can slip to the rim as soon as he has the angle on his man during an away screen. The zero cut works the same way. Neither needs a new play. Ball screen actions that recycle into each other, Spain, Ram and double drag among them, are laid out on ball screen continuity offense.

Two Outcomes Every Action Hunts

Every action in the delay is built to force one of two things.

One defender guards two. The quick action leaves one defender trying to cover two players, and the advantage shows up on the back side.
An early switch. A switch gives a speed mismatch, where the guard drives the big, help comes and the ball goes out for a three, or a size mismatch, where the offense goes right at the smaller defender or wins the offensive rebound.

The shots it hunts are rhythm catch-and-shoot threes, drives against bad closeouts and layups. Two other records state the same aim. Alvin Gentry's 2015 notes call it a single side bump: make one defender guard two, and time the shooter's lift to the moment his defender pulls in to tag the roller. The off-ball form of the rule: the moment one defender can guard two, the offense reacts with a cut, a perimeter slide, a pin away or a flare. How offenses attack each ball screen coverage is on how to attack every ball screen coverage.

How the NBA Got Here

A 2019 clinic history of NBA offense traces 20 years through four head coaches.

Coach	How the offense played
Paul Silas (2000-01)	A UCLA half-court grind where everybody posts up
Don Nelson	Horn screens at the three-point line for downhill driving, early pick and roll, slices and pin downs, and playing off the elbow, attacking a switch from there instead of in the post, which is too easy to double
Steve Clifford	Post Al Jefferson and run Kemba Walker in the high pick and roll
Rick Carlisle	Full five-out spaced to 30 feet to free a drive-and-kick game

Shot value drove the change. Carlisle's staff called the post-up one of the worst shots in the league and the mid-range a poor one, and named rim finishes, free throws and rhythm threes as the targets. Carlisle's three ways into drive-and-kick coming up the floor were to pass ahead and rip to the baseline if there is an advantage, to skip the ball in transition when the defense loads to the ball, and to slip the screen to the rim to open the driving gap. The same history's pistol rule is that every screener is a receiver first.

The NBA added the three-point line for the 1979-80 season, and the 2010s to today run on high-volume threes, driving lanes, switching defenses and more use of statistics. That arc is told in full on basketball offense evolution, and shot choice on basketball shot selection.

The post-up question is not settled. The 2019 clinic calls it one of the worst NBA shots. Dan Hurley wants to start a half with something at the paint and goes to a deep post-up against a smaller switch. Gentry's notes split the post to give more room for one-on-one post play. In 2013, one NBA team's first play of the game looked for a post touch for its center.

Pace, Drag and the Open Floor

The time window differs. The delay claim puts the action in the first 8 to 10 seconds. Gentry's notes push on a five-second count instead of eight. Hurley's three-on-three transition drill gives seven seconds on the shot clock, threes and layups only.

Whether the break should lean on a drag screen is a real split.

Drag as the base. In 2013, one NBA team called the drag more than any other action, 9 to 14 times a game, and ran 58 pick-and-roll possessions in one game. Gentry's notes say drag screens in transition were 60 percent of Golden State's offense the year before, set at an angle so the handler comes downhill. Against an iced drag, they flip it into a step-up and snake the dribble back to the middle, which Golden State called Ginobili. Spain's national team opens its early offense with double drag and drag-slip.
No ball screen on a miss. In Hurley's drill there is no ball screen at all off a miss or a turnover. He says guards lean on the drag as a crutch and stop winning one-on-one ahead of the ball, so they blast it ahead, attack the paint and drive and kick. On a made basket they get structure: a pistol, a wide pin, a key catch, then a handoff game.

Gentry's notes also say the wings must run deep to the corners, because stopping at the wing blocks the point guard's drive. Early offense as a whole is on early offense basketball and the drag itself on pick and roll.

Set Libraries From Europe, the NBA and College

Set sheets show the same names in use and show how big a library can get.

Library	What it shows
2017 EuroBasket, 24 national teams	Horns-titled sets in 22 of the 24 team sections, Spain action across many teams, double drag for Spain, Slovenia, Latvia and Finland. Most teams draw on the same action names, common but not universal.
Slovenia, 2017 champion	About 40 titled sets
Lithuania	An away-then-ball-screen series: an away screen frees the point guard, then an Iverson cut leads into a ball screen, in at least six variants
Serbia	A slice series, a base and four variants, and one zone set
Spain	Built on horns and rip, with a rip series in four variants (base, slip, get, lob)
CSKA Moscow 2018-19	69 named sets, 23 of them horns sets that each name a counter (ghost, gut, flare, lift, Nash, twist, backdoor). Its sideline and baseline inbounds sets end in a zipper into Spain.
2022-23 Lakers	83-plus half-court sets labeled by alignment. Thirteen snap sets all open with an elbow cross-screen from horns and flow into a named action.
Minnesota Timberwolves sheet	A handoff before the ball screen in nearly every jungle and horns set, and suffixes for horns counters
College delay catalogue	86 entries from 29 programs off one five-out front. The most repeated finish, at 11 entries, is a UCLA cut, a flex screen and then a pin-down or handoff. An 8-entry backdoor group answers denial of the high player.

Library size runs from one horns entry with a named counter for each coverage, to about 40 titled sets, to more than 80 across several alignments. International actions are collected on international basketball offense actions.

Same Name, Different Action

The same word can mean different movements to different teams. Check the meaning before a name goes on a whiteboard.

Term	Versions on record
Ram	A guard down-screens for the center, who comes up into a ball screen. Or a guard appears to be screened first and then set the ball screen himself.
Spain	The center screens and rolls and a shooter back-screens the other center and pops. Or a third player screens the screener's defender from behind as the handler attacks. A set the college delay catalogue calls Kansas appears to use the same screen-the-screener idea. The Lakers book has the shape in two sets but never uses the word.
Gut	A down screen into a handoff in the middle (gut zoom). Or the center slips the screen instead of setting it (horns-gut). Or a down screen after a hand-back.
Pistol	Every screener a receiver first, with the wing reading over, under or stuck. Or horns into a point-to-wing handoff that triggers a downhill ball screen. Or an early-offense call with pistol action and a pass ahead.
Step-up	The center flips back off the away screen. Or the screener slips out as he arrives and the ball attacks the gap. Or the answer to an iced drag.
Delay	Five-out with the center high. Or one of Nate Oats's family calls at Alabama, not defined in his practice recording.

What a High School or College Coach Can Borrow

What travels below the pro level, by the records above:

The front. Five out with the center high at the top of the key and shooters in the corners, the same front the college delay catalogue draws for 29 programs.
Reads inside actions. The slip against two defenders on a flare and the zero cut over the top of the center both come off actions a team already runs.
A transition entry. Gentry's floor spots with an angled drag, Hurley's no-screen blast on misses, or Carlisle's pass ahead, skip or slip.
Simple numbers. Effective field goal percentage, 1 point for a made two and 1.5 for a made three, divided by attempts, with 51 percent or better reported as decent among NBA evaluators.

The same vocabulary shows up in college. Nate Oats teaches Alabama's half-court offense as named families and calls which family a group plays, and Hurley names pistol, wide pin, key catch and handoff as made-basket actions. Neither coach ties his actions to the NBA trend. The college form of playing fast with five out is on the 5 out offense page, and how to study film of any of it is on how to use game film effectively.

Questions Coaches Ask About Modern NBA Offense

Do all NBA teams run the same offense?

The five-out delay claim, made about the 2025 preseason, is that every team ran a five-out delay front with a fast three-man game in the middle of the floor. Set sheets show many shared action names, but not every library starts from five out, so treat it as a claim to check.

What is the five-out delay offense?

An alignment with all five players spread to the arc, the center at the top of the key, guards on either side as playmakers and shooters in both corners.

What is the away screen in basketball?

A screen set away from the ball. In the delay front, the trailing center screens for the guard at the opposite top spot, and several actions start from it.

What is Spain pick and roll?

A ball screen in which, as the screener rolls, a shooter back-screens the screener's defender and then pops. Teams also use the name for a few related screen-the-screener actions.

What is a zero cut in basketball?

A cut over the top of the center after the ball goes to him. If the cutter's defender chases over the top, the cutter goes straight to the rim.

Why did the NBA stop posting up?

A 2019 clinic history of NBA offense, quoting Rick Carlisle's staff, called the post-up one of the worst shots in the league and named rim finishes, free throws and rhythm threes as the targets. Some coaches still post up against a smaller switch.

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