Loyola Marymount successfully used the system in 1990 when they advanced to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, beating the defending champion Michigan 149–115 along the way. Generally, the team is willing to gamble on giving away easy baskets for the sake of maintaining a high tempo. Defensively, the team applies constant full-court pressure. The aim is to shoot before the defense is able to get set. Westhead's teams try to shoot the ball in less than seven seconds. Offensively, the team moves the ball forward as quickly as possible and takes the first available shot, often a three-pointer.
While run and gun basketball is often thought of as a system of offense, Westhead's system uses a combined offensive and defensive philosophy. Paul Westhead coached the Loyola Marymount men's team in the late 1980s using a version of the run and gun. Though his offensive strategy led to high scores, Moe's Denver teams were never adept at running fast breaks. Still, his teams sometimes appeared to give up baskets in order to score one. Ĭoach Doug Moe, who ran the run and gun with the Denver Nuggets in the 1980s, believed the high scores surrendered were more indicative of the fast pace of the game than a low level of defense.
Although the run and gun is believed by many to de-emphasize defense, the Celtics of the '60s had Bill Russell, and the Lakers of the '80s had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as defensive stoppers. The Boston Celtics were a run-and-gun team in the 1950s and 1960s while winning 11 NBA championships, as were the five-time champion Los Angeles Lakers during their Showtime era in the 1980s. Around 2003, the average had dropped to 95. In the National Basketball Association (NBA), the run and gun was at its peak in the 1960s when teams scored an average of 115 points a game. A run-and-gun team typically allows many points on defense as well. The offense typically relies on fast breaks while placing less emphasis on set plays. In basketball, run and gun is a fast, freewheeling style of play that features a high number of field goal attempts, resulting in high-scoring games.
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