Team France Over Dribbles in Loss to Turkey

With all the craze over the dribble drive offense, I tend to see a creep of some of my pet peeves as a coach, over dribbling. Don't get me wrong, I think the dribble is a fundamental part of basketball, but when you can move the ball much quicker with the pass, when you should be able to get to the basket on 1 dribble, I think there is a lot to be said for minimizing the amount of dribbles you make as a team.

I caught some Euro 2009 qualifying action the other day between France and Turkey and it really stuck out from watching the game in the second half. France relied way to much on Tony Parker dribble penetration. The Turkish defense was in a pack, matchup zone, whatever you want to call it, and Parker just kept dribbling into a crowd. I don't understand a lot of French, but I can hear the commentators say something like, "trop de complicateur" and "tres difficile". France made things way more complicated than it should be, just reverse the ball, and shoot the open shot. Take a look,




No Need to Dribble:

Turkey was playing a switching M2M pack, or a packed in matchup zone, whichever you look at it. Instead of trying to dribble drive and kick so much, what probably would've been easier to execute was simply a backpick on the weakside, then swing the ball either through the high post or up top,


Shoot When Open:

When you're open, you must shoot the ball. Drive and kick, endlessly won't result in anything good. If you don't have confidence in your players ability to shoot, then drive and kick simply won't work. You can't drive and kick for the sake of driving some more. Drive and kick works because it will give you an open shot, which you must take,


Summary:

Of course, it's easy to sit hear and pick a few clips and show some pictures of how things ought to be. But as coaches, we all know things are much different in reality. But we can adapt and change, we must. I think by looking at your team and your coaching critically, only then will you improve and reach your ultimate goals, so you don't repeat mistakes over and over again.

From one of the great basketball coaches in the game, check out Don Meyer's brand new DVD on Best Things He Learned in Coaching. I was very saddened to hear that Coach Meyer has been hospitalized due to a recent auto accident and now has learned he has cancer. My thoughts go out to Coach Meyer and his family and I truly hope he will recover soon so that he can do what he was born to do, coach basketball. Be sure to check out the X's and O's Basketball forum to discuss your favorite coaching topics.