Why Cutters Should Read the Mark, Too
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Loading ...Just think about the times you’ve had the disc and SEEN the gaping holes in the mark–Somebody CUT here so I can throw it!–but had nothing coming.
This is in part a problem of experience; cutters need to learn what their throwers can and can’t do (and what they want to do–these are all things you can communicate to one another). It’s also a matter of recognition; a cutter that can tell what a mark is giving and set up cuts to that space will ALWAYS be a threat.
All cutters do this to some extent already–cutting to the open side while shirking the break side is this notion applied at a basic level.
The nuance comes in reading how the mark is set up. Is the mark shading on the around, leaving an opening for an IO break? Is she more straight-up, leaving space laterally? The more a cutter can adjust her cut to make the throw easier, the more effective a cutter she is.
Think of the dump, or a force middle. It’s often the case that the mark will be shifting to take away what you originally thought was open–in a force middle, a cutter can adjust his cut from directly behind the mark to angle towards mid-field (or wider to the sideline for a break around the mark); a dump cutter can change from an aggressive cut to space to one coming closer to the thrower, allowing for an easier throw.
Of course good throwers will be able to force a mark to move and create holes to exploit–and again, experience comes in to play here to avoid miscues. Offense is a team effort; it’s never just the cutter or the thrower who does it all. The more you can leverage your two (cutter and thrower) against their one (marker), the greater your advantage. (And if you plan on having multiple options at multiple angles, your 2 on 1 becomes a 3 on 1. And so on).
I will now make the arguably necessary disclaimer to not over-read the mark. That is, it does not follow that a thrower cannot throw to a space solely because if you were the thrower you would not be able to throw to that same space given the mark+other factors.
That is, yes, adjust cuts to the mark to make the completion easier, but don't adjust to the mark to determine which space on the field you should cut to.
To put it another way: You must trust your thrower to know which throws to take and which throws to leave. You must still give every thrower the full array of options in your offense or you are insidiously but fundamentally undermining your offense.
Or: Don't not cut to the breakside.
Or, to relate to the article at hand: Don't shirk the breakside. That's just what they want you to do. Unless you're just making them think that they're forcing you to do something they want you to do while screaming "Not the briar patch against a Sicilian in a land war in Asia!"
I need regionals to happen already so that I can go back to overtraining to deal with this excess energy rather than overtyping.
A very necessary disclaimer indeed. I didn't want to digress too far down the path of team offensive strategy as a whole.
To flesh out your notion a bit more: You should cut to the breakside. But when cutting to the breakside, you pick your line–the narrow cut for the inside-out on one side of the mark, the wider cut looking for the around. You're neither ignoring the mark nor letting it dictate your Decision to cut, but working around it.
"To put it another way: You must trust your thrower to know which throws to take and which throws to leave. You must still give every thrower the full array of options in your offense or you are insidiously but fundamentally undermining your offense."
I've tried to explain this to high school rookies, and wound up using the phrase "make strong cuts, and trust the handler to get you the disc" repeatedly (this provided, of course, within a larger general framework regarding flow and offensive strategy). The thought is that ideally they'll learn good cutting mechanics – hard sprinting, sharp angles, body positioning – and figure out which cuts work (i.e. 10 out and back under) and which don't (horizontal strikes from the 3 spot in a vert) as they go. The clever ones figure out how to read things like biased marks and poachy deep d, and use that available on-field information to become more effective cutters.
From my limited club open experience, however, it seems like this mentality starts to take 2nd chair to more esoteric offensive information. For example, if I know Handler A has a stellar high release break mark flick, I may give that throw a cut despite a more straight up mark. My D, believing the mark has that angle shut down, doesn't fully bite on my cut, and bam – score in the break corner. Or if I happen to know the 5' nothing guy on our squad has a 30" vert, I'll send one long despite his slightly taller defender and watch the little dude sky.