Magic and Larry reminiscing about old times. I've just finished teaching a unit about people coming together to make great things happen in social studies. To me, nothing exemplifies that more than Magic and Larry. Bitter rivals, fierce competitors, and friends forever...


My favorite part of the clip, when Magic talked about the Newsweek cover during the 1992 Dream Team. Magic said, if Larry isn't on the cover, I'm not doin' it. That's what it's all about.

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Trying to catch as many games as possible these days. From a couple of nights ago, the Villanova Wildcats won a thriller over the always tough George Mason Patriots. The game went down to the wire, with Nova hitting some clutch 3-pointers. A coach emailed me the other day asking for a quick hitter for a 3-pointer and I responded with a dribble drive to the weakside corner 3-pointer. I love that play because the weakside corner 3-pointer is probably the most difficult to guard in basketball. Take a look at how Nova executed it out of their 4-out 1-in offense:



Weakside Corner 3-pointer:

Here's the thing. How many teams prepare defensively on how they will take away the weakside corner 3-pointer?? Most teams focus on ball pressure, stopping penetration, and closing out. With proper spacing on offense, it is impossible for the defense to do all those 3 things. That's what the weakside corner does, it stretches out the defense and makes it really hard for a sound defense to cover all the bases.

The play is quite simple, the Wildcats are in their 4-out 1-in motion offense. After a few handoff exchanges, the forward comes up from the block to the top of the key to set a screen for one of the guards on the opposite side. The guard with the ball here decides not to use the screen and drives the wing towards the hoop,

O1 is able to blow by his defender, and X5. X3 is too worried about O3 to help. That leaves X2 to drop down from the weakside. Well, its a decision really, to help or not to help. As coaches, we always teach to stop the ball first so help is always the first option. O2, shuffles down to the weakside corner and O1 finds him for the open 3-pointer,


I think this play would work even if you didn't have a break your ankles point guard. Because with O5 setting the screen, O1 really should be able to penetrate the lane. Now if the defense decides to hedge hard, then you can run screen-roll and have O2 still shuffle to the corner as X2 will probably still drop down to cover the rolling forward.

Now, the only other assumption here is that you have good shooters. But if you're designing a play for the 3-pointer, you better be sure you have a player that is a knockdown shooter.

For more quick hitters out of 4-out 1-in motion, check out Jay Wright's DVD on 15 Great 4-Out 1-In Motion Offense Plays. Jaw Wright is in his 8th season as head coach of the Villanova Wildcats.

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I think my brain is on the verge of short-circuiting after a weekend of football watching, basketball practice, college basketball watching, and preparing lessons for next week. I haven't gone through recorded stuff on the DVR, but I did get a chance to browse through some notes earlier today. I found some really great tips from Ralph Willard, former head coach of Holy Cross. I've talked about having an identity before, your team can't be everything at the same time, it needs to have a particular focus. For Coach Willard, he calls his team focus, the "Circle of Opportunity."

If we do execute these 8 things, we will 95% of our games and have a chance to win the other 5%:

1. Deflections: our goal is 40 a game. 40+ deflections a game = .900 winning percentage.
2. Blockouts: we go back through tape and chart everyone on this.
3. Shot Contest: Every shot the opponent takes need to be contested on the ballside of their shot. If it is a righty shooting, we are flying directly at his right shoulder with 2 hands up as you can. There is a 4-5% difference between contesting on the player’s shooting side to his non-shooting side.
4. Offensive Rebounding: If you have an opportunity to go to the glass, you better get there. From the corner, Willard teaches his players to go baseline-out (meaning a player runs along the baseline to underneath the rim before jumping back into play). After the shooter shoots the defender runs along the baseline before jumping in front of the basket to get a hand on the missed shot. Teaches bigs to do the same.
5. Charges: Chart the number of times your guys step up to take a charge when they have an opportunity. This is a sign of sacrifice—giving yourself up for the team.
6. Bull Pursuit: Loose balls are OURS. All great rebounders/ rebounding teams do 2 things: They get great position and they pursue the ball. Use the stat “Out of Area Rebounds” and really emphasize it to your team.
7. Confidence & Emotion: Players must be confident going into every game that they can win.
8. Transition Defense: Take away easy baskets.

There’s nothing in this circle of 8 that we can’t do. We’re not asking you to do anything which you’re not capable of doing. It comes down to execution and effort.

Being the underdog most of the time at Holy Cross, it is not surprising that Willard would adopt a philosophy based on half-court defense, centered around hustle and physicality. If you want to learn more, check out Ralph Willard's DVD on Man Defense to equalize talent. Coach Willard is currently an assistant under Rick Pitino at Louisville.

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One of the teams that is just a joy for me to watch are the Pitt Panthers, coached by Jamie Dixon. Like UCLA (no coincidence that Coach Dixon was a former assistant under UCLA head coach Ben Howland), the Panthers play a tough physical M2M half-court defense.

In this clip between Pitt and Eastern Kentucky, I like how Pitt was keeping it physical, especially on defense. You can say there are a couple of fouls here, but if the refs are allowing contact, it behooves you to use that to your advantage. Definitely bump cutters, don't let them get an open cut to the basket:



In this first screenshot, the forward is making a basket cut after a pass and cut away. The weakside defender slides down and sets his feet, the offensive forward runs into him, and thus his momentum is disrupted,


In this second screenshot, the guard passes into the post with the intention of getting a handoff with the post screening right after. However, the wing defender bumps the wing trying to cut to receive the handoff, resulting in a botched handoff and the turnover,


You have to see how the game is being reffed. I've been in some games where refs called all the tic-tac stuff, and others when it would be 3-2 in team fouls after a half. If the refs are holding their whistles, definitely use that to your advantage. But keeping in mind that your players need to know the line between an obvious foul and just hard physical contact.

If you're thinking of upping the intensity of your practices, then take a look at, Jamie Dixon's DVD on Drills for Competitive Practices.

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College basketball madness has begun today with ESPN's 24 hour marathon of college hoops. Part of their great coverage is all of their great all-access features. I watched a bunch of them today and yesterday and I'm embedding the one from Coach Bill Self of Kansas here. The following quote by Coach Self stuck out for me,

The only things you should be judged by as a coach are:
- how hard you get your players to play
- how unselfish your players want to play



Enjoy these other great all-access clips:

Roy Williams of UNC
Jay Wright of Villanova
Tom Izzo of Michigan State
West Pointers: Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Parcells

If you've read this blog for the past year or so, you've probably figured out that I'm a huge Bill Self fan. If you like Coach Self and the way Kansas plays, then check out Bill Self's DVD on Breaking Presses. It is one of the best videos out there on the topic of press break.

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The start of college basketball is upon us and it was great to take in a bunch of games. On friday night, I was able to watch a bunch of games and I took in the Baylor game against Norfolk State. It wasn't a particularly great game but I did catch this inbounds play that Baylor ran against the 2-3 zone.

I've been seeing this a lot recently, teams using a 2-3 zone on the inbounds. Generally, it does a good job in the paint as you don't have to worry about switching or how to deal with screens. But every zone has its drawbacks, and here, you see Baylor run a nice give and go play to the most dangerous player on the inbounds, the inbounder, for a nice 3-pointer:



In this screenshot, you can see Norfolk State in that zone. The forward who receives the pass and hands back to the inbounder is basically screening the low defender in the 2-3 zone. The high defender on the 2-3 is in no man's land, and basically watches the 3-pointer go in, because in the 2-3, the high defender is taught not to go below the free-throw line extended,


Here is the breakdown of the inbounds play again. Really, they just get the ball into the forward in the middle,

O1, the inbounder bolts for the corner, O4 hands back the ball and screens the low defender on the 2-3, and its an open 3-pointer,


For more simple ways against zone defenses, take a look at Jerry Petitgoue's new DVD on Attacking Zone Defenses. I like Petitgoue's approach because he doesn't complicate the problem, he simplifies things and makes it easy to understand what he's trying to accomplish.

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Watching the first half of the UNC game tonight because you figured it would get away from NC Central and indeed the score is 72-30 right now with 8:00 left in the second half.

I just like this sequence from UNC because I think that if you play a half-court M2M pressure, much like the way Duke plays their M2M, the assumption is that you will give up backdoor layups. Yes, the chances are higher, but that doesn't mean you can't teach and drill your players to counter those tendencies. With good footwork and active hands, a good defender can still put a ton of pressure on the wing pass AND still recover against the backdoor as shown in the following video clip:



In the picture, you can clearly see that Justin Watts has both hands in the air, not on his hips. With great lateral foot movement, he's able to adjust to the backdoor cut.


Also notice that he doesn't attempt to turn and face the ball, instead he just focuses on getting back on his man with his arms up and hands in the passing lane, and getting the steal. I see a lot of young players in that situation pivot towards the ball, back facing their check, then try to make the play when their check is already at the rim.

And the Tar Heels finish it in typical fashion, on the fast break.

For more info on the Carolina M2M defensive system, check out Roy Williams' DVD on The Carolina Defensive Numbering System & Drills. With so many new faces, its hard to imagine the Tar Heels repeating as champions, but if Coach Roy Williams is able to groom the younguns he has on this team, they could do some real damage in 1 or 2 years.

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