Bogut Doesn't Chin the Ball and Has it Poked Away

Still have kind of a hangover from the great NCAA Championship game last night. I watched a couple of NBA games tonight but I admit that didn't have a chance to really do much capture and analysis. I watched the first half of the the Celtics game against the Bucks and it looked to be over early. Until I found out later on Sportscenter that Rivers kept the subs in thru the 4th quarter (and lost the lead) and had the subs tough it out to win it in OT.

I caught this clip in the second quarter mainly to show why we teach big forwards out there to keep that ball up at the chin or higher. Andrew Bogut receives the inbounds but drops the ball to his waist where Glen 'Big Baby' Davis pokes it out of his hands and the eventual fast break score by Tony Allen,



The concept we as coaches refer to is, "chin the ball". We tell our players that they should catch the ball with 2 hands, then chin the ball. Keep it squeezed between your 2 hands, close to the chest underneath the chin. From this screenshot, Bogut drops the ball to his waist where it's poked away,


I was browsing pictures and I found this picture from the same game with ironically Glen Davis "chinning the ball" with Bogut guarding him (well sort of, it's not textbook but it's better than Bogut),


I thought it was a bold move by Doc Rivers to stay with the subs late in the game. That's how they learn how to win, by being in those situations. There's no better way to learn than to be actually playing rather than sitting on the bench watching. For the Bucks, there are no moral victories knowing they got beat by the Celtics subs.

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