X’s & O’s of Basketball

Mental Focus Ideas to Start Practices

2012-01-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

One of the things I haven't talked that much about overall on this blog has been how to prepare and plan practices. As an assistant the past 6 years or so, I haven't had to really think too much about it, as the head coach was the one responsible for putting it all together, I just did whatever the head coach wanted me to do.

Probably the most important part of being a head coach is how you put your practices together. For me, I find that it is important that practices start out with something where the players really need to focus and concentrate, to set the right tone for the rest of the practice. Because, I seen it where if you start off practice on the wrong track, it's extremely hard to get the players back on track.

I've used a bunch of different drills. I like doing 2 ball dribbling or tennis ball drills, as it forces players to really concentrate on the task (or they lose their ball). I also like doing team passing as again, it forces players to concentrate hard on the task, or they mess it up for everyone else. I've used this 4 corners passing drill from Bobby Knight before as well:

The real key to running any of these drills is coaching the details. If a player makes a mistake, stop and correct it right away. Now, you can argue that these drills aren't very game relevant, Hubie Brown's philosophy is that you never do anything in practice that you won't use in a game. I agree to some extent, but mental concentration is a skill that is highly relevant, and cannot always be practiced in a "game-like" scenario. I explain to players that what I'm looking for in them right now is whether they can maintain focus and discipline to do it right, because in the game the players have to maintain the same focus and discipline to help and recover on defense, or to break the other team's press.

Anyways, hopefully that gives you all some ideas on starting out your practices the right way. The season is just about halfway done. We've been adding a couple of wrinkles here and there, but basically from here on out, it's all about execution and attention to the details.

Having the time of my life, Happy New Year to All

2011-12-29T19:44:00.000-08:00

We all have so much to be thankful for as we look back at another year's past. I am thankful for being given the opportunity to teach and coach at what I consider the best place on earth.

I hope you are all having as much fun coaching basketball as I am having this season. For me, just having the chance to call the shots has been exhilarating enough. After an early stint as a head coach 7 years ago, and then assisting in various capacities at various levels for the past 7 years -- to be finally back at the helm this time around feels so much better. I often look back at that first stint and obviously I was too young and inexperienced, but I really needed to get my butt kicked (for lack of a better expression), then go and observe some other coaches (some better than others) do their thing, before knowing how to and how not to do things.

Do I still have doubts about the decisions that I make as a head coach now? Absolutely, but I make the decisions having experienced so much more this time around. As for how our team is doing so far this season? We're still inconsistent, but we've certainly had our moments. Such as the game-tying-send-it-to-OT then win it in OT win on the road, against Steve Nash's old high school coach to boot. And then there was the 30 point come from behind almost win (lost by 2 points with the ref calling an illegal screen on our game-tying possession) last week. It hasn't all been sunshine and roses though, for example I've also had to deal with multiple discipline issues with players on the team, academic and social. But overall, it's been a fantastic ride, and I'm not only looking forward to how we finish in March, when it counts -- but most importantly how these boys develop into the fine upstanding men that I know they can be.

I want to wish all the readers a very happy holidays. And for you coaches out there, be sure to thank your family members for putting up with our random mood swings, grumpy misdemeanor after losing, and for just being there when we need you. May all of your coaching dreams come true in 2012.

P.S. A big shout out to my current mentor, head varsity coach and athletic director, Rich Goulet who notched his 1000th career win last week.

To Leak or To Rebound Down on Wing Jumpers

2011-12-26T16:39:00.000-08:00

I was watching the Lakers vs Bulls last night and one of the key plays at the end of the game came on an offensive rebound by Luol Deng who got an and1 play to bring the Bulls to within 1 with less than a minute to go in the game.

It was a weird bounce as Deng shot a 3ptr and the ball came right back at him.

I went back and looked at the highlights and replay of the play and I could see why the Lakers couldn't come up with the ball.

Kobe is trying to leak out for the run out off of the defensive rebound. Problem is, Deng is the one that comes up with the ball and then the Bulls are essentially playing 5 on 4 with Kobe way out of position.

As a run and gun team, you have to weight the pros and cons of leaking out vs rebounding down. I got the idea mostly from Billy Donovan's DVD on Transition Offense and decided that for our team, leaking out on a long wing or top shot was worth it as our halfcourt offense isn't very good and we needed something to get easy baskets. The idea is that the majority (80%) of rebounds go to the weak side, so we will leak out against the shooter and the rebounder will look for the easy lob off the run out. It's been tremendous for us and it has caused offenses to adjust as they need to send less players to the offensive glass and send someone back to cover the deep pass.

However, be aware, this is a gamble. Because if the offense comes up with the rebound, you are playing with 4 defenders against their 5. For us, it's usually a gamble we're willing to live with. But, on at least one occasion this season so far, we have adjusted to have our guards rebound down instead of leaking out. It's an adjustment we will make game to game depending on whether we need more rebounding help.

Winning the Mental Match

2011-12-11T13:30:00.001-08:00

I know this is a blog that is supposed to talk about the X's and O's, but I don't think as a coach you can ever dismiss the fact that games are won and lost mentally just as much as they are physically.

The team that I coach is 3-1 so far and this past weekend we went up against the #3 ranked team. We were inconsistent most of the first half but managed to even up the score at halftime. We came out flat to start the 3rd and couldn't execute down the stretch when it mattered the most. In other words, our team choked and couldn't close out the game.

I recently read a terrific book the other day that talks about sports psychology from the perspective of performance anxiety. I usually don't read these kinds of books, because I find them mostly to be pretentious and written by people who call themselves doctors but have no real world experience working with athletes. This book is different. It is called "Tennis: Winning the Mental Match" and it is written by Dr. Allen Fox. Although it is written specifically with Tennis in mind, many of it's tenets and arguments can be directly applied to just about any sport where high competition is involved.

There are 14 chapters, but the 3 main points of emphasis that I took away from it are:

1. Sport matches are inherently emotional affairs. And how you manage your emotions will largely determine your success in the game.
2. You must accept the fact that there are things that are out of your control. Stress comes largely from the attempt to control the uncontrollable.
3. Never do anything that doesn't help you win. Eliminate all the unnecessary elements of your game which cloud your objective and maintain an efficiency of purpose.

I'd say right now that our team is having the hardest time with the first point. We are an emotional group, and we wear our emotions on our sleeves. It's good to be emotionally involved, because it means that our players really care about the team, about what we are doing, and about where we want to go. But we are susceptible to wild swings in our play as a result. We are too high with the highs, and too low with the lows. We have to get to a place where we can just "play ball".

"Control is an illusion you infantile egomaniac" as so famously quoted from the movie Days of Thunder. As players, and as coaches, it's sometimes hard to accept that there are things that you can't control. That even if you played a perfect game, you may still lose. You can't control the refs, you can't control the slippery floors, and you can't control the heckler in row 2 who keeps taunting you. As mentioned, you just have to "play ball".

Finally, there is something to be said for being able to concentrate on the task at hand. Teams that are easily distracted by a bad call, or something said by an opponent will have a have a hard time when "the game is on the line" because they are no longer focused on the goal -- to win the game. Everything is a distraction unless it has a hand in the singular goal of winning the game.

With most of you still early in your seasons, it is a good time to sit back and think about the mental state of your players, and of yourself. Do they have all of their emotions in check? How have your players reacted in certain situations so far this season? Are they stressed before/during big games? What distractions can you eliminate from their game to help them have better clarity?

2-on-1 Fast Break Dribble with Inside Hand

2011-11-26T22:11:00.001-08:00

Getting more into basketball mode as our first official game of the year is coming up on Monday Nov 28. Here is a great coaching tip on the fast break. In a 2-on-1 situation, the player with the ball should dribble with the ball with the inside hand (right if on the left side, left if on the right side). The reasoning being that it is easier to push bounce pass if the defender comes at you without changing hands, and if the defender keeps going back, you can swipe to the outside and go by the defender easier as well. Here is video explaining it some more (fast forward to 3:20).

This tip comes via The Tribe, which is the blog setup by Rick Torbett and the ones behind the Read and React system.

Happy Thanksgiving to All

2011-11-23T19:17:00.001-08:00

I want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all the American readers and contributors out there. It's easy to think about all the "things" that you don't have, the "things" that you want, and the "things" that you wish you had. Like all of people out there, I also fret a lot about "things", but all I know is that when I get out there in practice on the football field, or the basketball court, with our team, I'm at a place where I never want to leave. For me as a coach, its easy, I love doing what I do and as I long as I am able to keep doing it, I'll be happy.

Remember to cherish what you have, and to be thankful that we as coaches have the opportunity to coach the sport that we love, and to have a positive impact in the lives of others.

I leave you with a short video montage from CBS Sports and all the college football coaches giving thanks...

Authentic Transition Offense Drills

2011-11-06T14:44:00.000-08:00

One teaching term that I've been thinking about alot lately as it pertains to coaching is "authenticity". Specifically, I've been reflecting about the drills that I use and how effective they are at in teaching skills in game-like situations.

Take for example, transition offense. We all have our favorite drills that we use, 3-on-2 to 2-on-1, or 3-on-2 continuous, or team fast break, etc... the list goes on. I use them as well, but when I look back at those drills, I think to myself that somehow these drills lack "authenticity". I think these drills are good at teaching players how to make very specific reads in a highly controlled environment, but when was the last time you've seen in an actual game where you had a 3-on-2 situation that played out like you would see in a Blood 33 drill (for those that run DDM or R&R). That's the problem I'm having, coming up with situations "drills" where I can simulate as much as possible what happens in the game.

I was watching a Bobby Knight teaching toughness DVD recently, and Coach Knight was talking about repping transition defense (conversion he calls it) by having the team go 5v5 without the ball and then coach throws the ball to the defense (which becomes the new offense) and the new defensive players have to get back on D. Then the idea came to me that I could do the same thing except for transition offense.

When you go to your team offensive period, how many of you go 5v5 starting at halfcourt with the ball in the PG's hands, coach calls the play, the PG echos, they run it, you yell 'freeze', do some teaching, then run it again? Yes, we all do that. But how authentic is that? If the ball is inbounded at halfline after a timeout or a foul for example, but we all know that 80% of the game is played in transition. Question becomes, how do we incorporate the transition and half-court phases together so that they are game-like?

So what we do now in team offense, is we always start on defense. The first part of offense, is securing the rebound. That's where we start, on defense and I throw the ball up to rim. They secure the rebound, outlet, look to push the ball up the floor with numbers. We don't have a secondary break, so once we have the ball across half without a numbers advantage, we're into half-court offense (motion, flex, or set play). It's more game-like, and since we are a running team, I always want our players thinking to push the ball up the floor first before running any kind of set offense. We also run it out of a FT setup, and also after a made basket. So all 3 different transition situations.

So in team, we're trying to work those phases together and to help the players understand how to transition from one phase to the other more seamlessly. It's a work in progress, but players need to recognize when to push the ball in transition, and when to slow down and run the set offense. As a coach, it always seems easy, we have all the right answers, but it's a hard concept for players to get, when does the break end, and when are we into half-court offense.

Authenticity is important. One of the things I hate is repping things in practice that never happen in the game. I always look back and find a few things that we did in practice and I tell myself, "why the heck did we spend all that time practice xyz when we didn't even use it in the game, what a waste of time." I certainly would like to hear what you all think.

3 Great Ideas to Speed up Practices

2011-10-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

Most of you are probably getting ready or have already started your practices/tryouts for the upcoming season like we are here as well.

It's one of those things that no matter how well you seem to plan your practices, there are always times where practice seems to get bogged down, or the the tempo grinds to a halt. Players are doggin' it, and it just isn't moving as quickly and smoothly as it should.

I was re-watching a Don Meyer DVD yesterday on practice planning and he had 3 great ideas to help speed up practices:

1. Countdown
2. Change ends
3. Echo yells

Players respond to a clock. If you just tell them to get to the baseline, they always seem to take their sweet ass time doing it, even if you yell at them. Give them a countdown, 5-4-3-2-1. If they don't get there before 1, then they all run. Stimulus-response.

If you're doing a shooting drill and the players are just going through the motions, make them change ends and give them a countdown. By forcing players to switch and hustle to the other side of the floor, it makes them refocus their attention.

Finally, instead of you yelling at the players, have a policy of echo yells. You tell 1 player, 'free-throws'. That player yells 'free-throws', everyone yells 'free-throws', and you're off to doing free-throws.

How Bad Do You Want It?

2011-09-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

I've been teaching a pre-season strength and conditioning class every morning at 7am. All of the basketball players freshman to seniors are in the class and I've been progressively making the workouts harder and harder each week. I use motivational quotes every day and I'm always looking for ways to push them. There are some great quotes to use from the clips below. The one I'm using on Monday:

"All men are created equal, some just work harder in the preseason." -- Emmitt Smith

If you haven't seen the original Eric Thomas, the hip hop preacher, secret to success motivational speech then take a look here,

Most recently, some people have put together a video montage of NBA players working out with Eric Thomas' words in the background,

Open Gym Ideas

2011-09-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

I know that it has been forever since my last post. It's been crazy since I was officially hired several weeks ago. Our football season has been in full swing and so far we are undefeated, picked to finish dead last in the entire province/state and we just went toe to toe with the number 4 ranked team and we came from behind to win the game.

Our basketball teams have been running open gyms the past several weeks and the topic of open gyms came up on the X's and O's forum the other day. Like many of you, open gyms are necessary to get players into the gym playing basketball. The first hour or so is generally pretty good, but then the second hour typically goes downhill and guys are mostly goofing off taking NBA 3-pointers and trying ridiculous circus shots.

Here is a summary of some of the ideas to add some more competitiveness to your open gyms and to make them more effective and relevant:

- play doubles, double the points for offensive board putbacks to emphasize rebounding (off and def).
- add points for taking charges, minus points for turnovers, etc...
- play to 3, but must win by 2 to emphasize defensive stops
- have a round-robin tournament, or king of the hill
- "validate" wins by having the player who scored the winning shot make a FT. Made FT winning team stays, missed FT and its live to next threshold. FTs again to validate, a made FT then winning team stays, a missed FT then both teams off.

Go Mauraders Go!!!

2011-09-04T00:25:00.000-07:00

Coaches, just a quick update for you all. I haven't had a chance to put anything together this past week as I've been gearing up for my new teaching job at the school that I am coaching at. I just got the job earlier in the week and it has been quite the whirlwind of preparing our football team for our first game, helping organize open gyms with the basketball teams, and planing and preparing for 7 classes I have never taught before.

I had no idea after I left my previous teaching job in June when or if I would find myself a teaching job aligned to a coaching position at the same school, and 3 months later I am there. Coaches, I am here to tell you that if you are patient, and that if you put your head down and just take care of the things that are in your control, good things will happen.

So, the good news is, I can't imagine being anywhere else in the world, doing exactly what I love to do. The not so good news is, I'll be working harder than I could ever imagine over the next 8 months with football, school, then basketball, school. But I wouldn't have it any other way...

School is about to begin in a few days, cherish the last few days of summer, and I'll be sure to post something basketball related as I breakaway from the madness. I've watched a ton of videos over the summer that I've backlogged and been waiting to see, and I have a ton of fresh ideas in my head I'd like to hash out. Also, I will be going to the Basketball BC Superconference, where Alan Stein, the guru of basketball S+C will be one of the keynote speakers. I will be looking forward to meeting Coach Stein in person after following his stuff online for many years now.

Most Important Part of the Scouting Report

2011-08-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

Watched a few more videos the last day or so with coaches Bob Knight, Bo Ryan, and Sherri Coale. One of the things they said was the most important thing they look for in a scouting report was to identify the player on the opposing team that was the worst percentage outside shooter. That is the player that they want to cheat on for help defense.

Seems pretty obvious, but it's a crucial point. You don't want to spend a whole game trying to figure out which players are the ones that can hurt you from beyond the arc. Not to mention the fact that in High School, most teams will have 2, maybe 3, really good shooters. Find the worst shooter out of the starting lineup, and you will know where your help defense should be coming from.

Call for the ball with your outside hand

2011-08-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

It's the calm before the storm, football training camp begins on Monday for us, and my girlfriend is going away to Europe for 2 weeks. So I decided with my last day of nothing really to do, I went downtown and caught some live 3-on-3 action at the annual NBA Jam Session 3-on-3 tourney. It is a cross country tournament held every year for players of all ages and skill. I was watching this one team in particular and there was a post player who being guarded by a guy with long arms. Every time he tried to call for the ball inside, it was getting poked away or even stolen. He looked pretty frustrated both with himself and with his teammates whom he thought were late in seeing him open.

Being the coach that I am, when he subbed out, I decided to approach him and I asked him if I could give him a quick coaching point. He said sure why not. I told him one of the reasons why he was having problems with Mr. long arms defender was that his teammates were either bouncing passing the ball towards him where it was getting poked away, or they were passing it to his body where his hands were.

I advised him instead to use an arm bar with his inside arm, and extend his outside arm out in an L with fingers pointed towards the sky (also known as a Pro Stance). In other words, give your teammates an outside hand as a target. They will most likely throw it a little outside, so you'll have to hop to receive the pass with the outside hand, chin it, then get into your on-ball post moves. He said alright, he would try it when he got back on the flor.

In the next series he subbed in, he tried it against Mr. long arms. He caught the ball successfully with the outside arm, chinned it, reverse pivoted, swept the ball low, blew by Mr. long arms underneath and finished with a reverse layup on the other side of the hoop, away from Mr. long arms attempted block. Needless to say, that just about made my day.

It's a great tip not just for post players though. It's also something you can use for perimeter players. As they come off a downscreen, exploding up past the 3-point line, make sure they are calling for the ball with their outside hand. Cutting towards the basket, the opposite is true, they need to call for the ball with their inside hand.

I got this tip from watching Mark Few's Flex for Success DVD. In it, he keeps telling his guards to call for the ball with the outside hand coming off the downscreen. Off the flex screen, he keeps telling his guards to call for the ball with the inside hand cutting to the basket. Seems so simple a concept, but players don't know these things instinctively, it has to be taught, and reinforced. Anyways, the season is approaching fast, the question you have to ask yourself coaches is, what are you doing this offseason to best prepare yourself for the upcoming season?

Fake Trap = Hedge and Recover

2011-08-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

I think every coach has had the situation happen before where we use a lot of coachspeak and the players look at you with that puzzled look. And then you use a different word and then it instantly clicks.

For years, in teaching M2M defense, I've always used the term "hedge and recover". To me, it seems natural, I've been around coaching long enough and I always thought it was a universal term. But I can remember the many times that I've tried to teach it to players and some of them got it, but from others I would get the puzzled look. They problem is that they really don't understand what that means, what does it really mean to "hedge"??

Old School Coach K

I was watching an old school Mike Krzyzewski DVD on M2M defense (I converted it from VHS and isn't available anymore, but this Coach K DVD on Defense is basically an updated one) and in it he talks all the time about the "fake trap". After hearing that, I instantly thought to myself, that is what I need to use to better communicate it to my players. I'm watching the players move, and Coach K is there saying "fake trap" and they're really getting into it. The motion is exactly like going to set a trap, but backing out -- a fake trap.

There's all kinds of coaching jargon that gets in the way of getting your message across to players. Although we take for granted, the many terms we use, we have to assume the players don't know what the heck we're talking about the majority of the time, and we also have to assume that not all terminology is the same from team to team, school to school -- ie. there is no universal terminology. I'd be interested to hear if you all have others out there that might help all of us out.

Using 2 Point Guards at the Same Time

2011-08-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

After this past season where we started 2 point guards, the more I think about it, it is something that I would definitely go to again given the personnel. The game of basketball has evolved to more of a dribble drive attack and having 2 point guards allows you to take advantage of the extra speed off the dribble. There are also several added benefits:

- never get pressed. Teams didn't even try to press us this past year with our team speed
- early offense initiated quickly. We didn't have to get the ball into our primary PGs hands to start our break. It was just outlet and go.
- shared PG duties. Our 2 guards could share the primary responsibility of bringing the ball up the floor against heavy ball pressure, making it easier for both in the long run.
- our best FT shooters were also our PGs, so we were more efficient from the line as well.

When one of our point guards got injured late in the season, we suffered our first loss of the year against our crosstown arch-rivals (whom we had beaten twice previously). I was (still am) convinced that the main reason why we lost was that we didn't have our 2 point guards on the floor at the same time. With our 2 point guard lineup back intact a few weeks later, we were able to beat the same team in the championship final.

I've seen most recently the Denver Nuggets using Ty Lawson and Raymond Felton on the floor at the same time. You sacrifice size on the boards, and maybe a little scoring, but what you gain in the efficiency of possessions and ball movement is worth it in my opinion. I think it is especially effective under FIBA rules where you basically have 15-20 secs each possession after you factor in bringing the ball across half-court. Let me know what you all think.

Number One Mistake Coaches Make...

2011-08-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

I often talk to coaches and they say that they plan on installing a new offense or defense in the fall. They say they want to go to a dribble-drive motion, or a Princeton offense, or they want to use a new zone offense they picked up from watching another team run it last season. Fast-forward to the end of the season, and when I ask coaches how the new system worked, I get a lot of responses that the system never worked the way it was supposed to, players were either too robotic, moving from place to place without really reading the defense, or players just ignored the play and freelanced.

I would say that the number 1 problem I've seen from coaches trying to install an offense or a defense is that they don't teach it in a progression. They start on air 5v0, then after a few reps they go 5v5. The players run the system but they don't really know what they're doing because they haven't spent the time on the intricacies. They have the big picture idea of how it is supposed to work, how it is supposed to look like, but they don't know why they are doing it. Coaches are on the sideline yelling and screaming at players to pass when they shot the ball, or shoot the ball when they were supposed to pass.

Sometimes, as coaches, we forget that at the end of the day, it's the players that have to play. As a coach, you can draw up any offensive play to beat a given defense, and vice versa, but that's all clinic talk, that only exists on the chalkboard. What really counts is whether or not your players can execute it. The best system in the world isn't going to do a darn thing if you can't teach it to your players. To me, that is really the essence of coaching, being able to communicate and teach it to the players.

So how do you teach in a progression? You want to start with a foundation and build on prior knowledge, you want to teach it step by step. Always start in a 1v1, then "progress" to 2v2, then 3v3, then 4v4, before going to 5v5. You don't go to 3v3 until the players have mastered 2v2. Basically, if you can't break your system down from 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, then you don't understand the system enough to be teaching it in the first place.

Teaching in a progression also helps you organize your practices better as well. It forces you to break your system into chunks which fit nicely into your practice blocks, such that you are maximizing the amount of reps the players get and minimizing the amount of standing around.

Another benefit of teaching in a progression is that when you want to make adjustments, or when you are having problems with your system mid-season, you can easily go back to 2v2 or 3v3 and find out where the breakdown is.

Finally, when you teach in a progression, you come up with your own drills on how best to teach your system. The best drill is the one that puts your players in the most game-like situation within your given system.

You don't tippy toe in — You carry a spear...

2011-08-10T09:46:00.001-07:00

When you go in the lion's den, you don't tippy toe in — you carry a spear, you go in screaming like a banshee, you kick whatever doors in, and say, 'Where's the SOB?' -- Brian Billick, former Head Coach of the Baltimore Ravens

I was reading something the other day from Brian Billick (who is now a FOX Sports football analyst) and I came across the quote above. I remember when he said it, it was 2000, the year the Ravens won the Superbowl. They had just beaten the heavily favored Tennessee Titans in Tennessee in the playoffs and a reporter asked him in the press conference why Billick was so confident they would beat the favored Titans. That's when he replied with the now famous quote: "When you go in the lion's den..."

It's still smack dab in the middle of the summer but I'm already jacked up about the upcoming seasons for both football and basketball. The school I am at has a storied basketball tradition and our Varsity team is touted as a pre-season championship contender. By contrast, the Varsity football team (relatively new, in year five) graduated most of the talent and is predicted to finish dead last in our division, the prep beat writer wrote in his preseason predictions that we would be lucky to survive the season. What's interesting is people think that it must be weird to have the two opposing set of expectations. I tell them the expectation for both is the same, to get into the playoffs and win a championship.

As coaches, there's always talk about what makes a championship team, or how to turn around a struggling program. By moving around and being a part of both rebuilding programs, and championship teams, I've seen what has worked, what hasn't, and I've had many chances to reflect on these ideas. There is one commonality regardless of the situation you find yourself in. As a coach, you must never compromise your expectations; you have to set high standards and commit yourself fully to achieving them. Coaches lead, and players get their confidence from us as coaches, and they lose it just as easily from us as coaches as well. If you're going to stand in front of all of your players before a game, before a season and say "lets just try to survive out there", or "I think we have an OK shot at winning," what kind of message do you think you are sending your players. You've already thrown up the white flag before the fight.

As a teacher, I've had the similar opportunity to teach in both public and private schools. Last year, I taught at a prep school which boasted a 100% university admission rate, and was ranked as one of the top high schools in the country. People always think that prep school kids are smarter, or more studious than public school kids, that it's a matter of money and genetics. That's a load of BS. There is one singular difference between private and public, successful and unsuccessful -- level of expectations. Prep school kids (and their parents) expect their kids to go to college and get good jobs. The kids at public schools who have similar expectations do just as well. The kids (and their parents) who have low expectations achieve what they aim for, mediocrity or lower.

Back to coaching to close. Some of you are probably reading this and are skeptical. You say, "yah, but Coach, we're just not a good team this year". The question I ask you is this: Did your preparation change as a coach when you were a "good" team? Do you take your foot off the pedal because the team you have this year isn't a "championship contender"? Winning is hard, winning championships is even harder -- a lot of things have to fall into place and a lot of things are out of your control. I get that, we all do. But you are in control of how you plan and prepare for your season, and each game. A coach is a leader, and part of being a leader is to set the expectation. As your seasons approach, I ask you to assess and evaluate your expectations of your own teams? What kind of signals are you giving to your players? Coaches, I'm asking you to stop tippy-toeing and kick that freakin' door in.

Sylvia Hatchell 2-Rule Motion Offense

2011-08-06T16:04:00.001-07:00

Going through some more videos the other day and really enjoyed UNC women's head coach Sylvia Hatchell's Quick Break DVD. It's not a great DVD if you're new to coaching and looking for the encyclopedia on offense. But for more experienced coaches, she's got some great tidbits in it.

One of the best parts is where she explains her 2-rule motion offense. Very simple to use, and suitable for any level of play. Much easier in my opinion than a traditional flex, or swing, or open-post motion. But sophisticated enough to run all the way up to the college level.

The 2 rules to the offense are:

1. Guard to Guard pass - Downscreen

2. Guard to Wing pass - Cut and fill

The post player just follows the ball to the side where the ball is.

That's it. Simple. The crux of the offense lies in the reading of the downscreen. There are 4 things you can do off of the downscreen - pop, curl, backcut, flare.

This is the part where you really need to drill your players, on how to read the defender off the downscreen. If the defender cuts underneath, then you pop out. You can then drive into the middle or shoot the mid-range, or shoot the 3-pointer. If the defender chases, then curl to the basket. If the defender jumps over the top to deny the pop, then backcut. If the defender cuts underneath and gets in a position to stop penetration, the screener rescreens for the flare cut.

It's also a great offense to use up some clock, you get good movement and there are other options you get use such as the post coming up to ball screen, it's an easy offense to fast break into. Really easy to teach, and something you can even add if you already do something like dribble-drive and you want something where players off the ball are moving more. I haven't seen the Kevin Boyle's Motion Offense DVD but I've heard that the rules are very similar.

Hope you all are having a great summer, it's hard to believe that there's only a few weeks left, the basketball season will be sneaking up on us pretty soon, enjoy the summer while you can.

Never Open up Your Gate on Defense

2011-07-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

I saw some club teams play a game the other day and one of the big things that I'm seeing lately is really bad one-on-one defense. Now, I know that in these summer games, not a lot of players and teams play much defense anyways, but that's besides the point, I'm seeing the same phenomenon in high school games too.

I think one of the major problems is that when we teach players that we want to force the ball baseline or middle (depends on your personal defensive philosophy), players translate that by opening up their body either to the baseline or to the middle of the floor, and then their check just blows by them. It's easy when we coach to then blame the help defender getting late. That's baloney, the ball is your man, square up and make the ball go lateral.

I got the phrase from Bobby Knight's Man-to-Man Defense DVD, Coach Knight talks constantly about never opening up your gate. The picture above is from Kemba Walker's game winner in UConn's win over Villanova from last season. The defender opens up and Kemba just attacks his technique and gets right into the lane for the game winning floater.

It's not about the help, obviously we want the ball to go to help, but we want the dribbler going east-west to help, not north/south. Once you open up your gate, you're inviting the offensive player to get to the hoop, irregardless if you're forcing baseline or middle to help.

What Players are Looking for in Their Coach

2011-07-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

Going through the 2011 Nike Coach of the Year clinic manual and I want to quote coach Houston Nutt, head football coach for Ole Miss,

Players are looking for the following characteristics in a coach:
- They are looking for somebody they can trust.
- They are looking for somebody the can depend on.
- They want to have someone predictable and consistent.
- They also want to have someone committed to them.
- They don't really care how much football you know until they know how much you care.

I hear all the time from coaches that kids are too lazy these days - "... they don't wanna work... they're too busy chasing girls/boys... they lack discipline... they can't make a commitment... they don't know how to communicate anymore... they're too self-interested..." But what about we as coaches? Have coaches changed over time?

To be honest, I don't think kids or coaches have changed much at all over the times. The thing is, players will always find a way to let you down. They will be late, they will skip practice to be with their boyfriend/girlfriend, they will decide to take plays off, they will sometimes have an attitude. However, as a coach, you will always have to be perfect. You can't be late. You can't decide not to show up. You can't promise new practice jerseys, and then not come through. You can't have morning practices some weeks and night practices other weeks. You can't make a practice calendar, then change the dates at the last minute. It just has to happen once, just once, and you've lost all credibility and respect from your players. Players may not remember all the good things that we as coaches do for them, but they sure as heck remember everything you didn't do. It is our responsibility, as coaches, to practice what we preach and to teach players how to do it the right way all the time.

If you think about it, what players want from their coaches is rather simple really, they want you to be there for them. But it's easy to say, hard to do because it requires discipline. We ask it of our players, we sure as heck better live it as coaches? For example, take our summer lifting workouts, we go Tue/Wed/Thu from 1pm-2pm. It is voluntary as per the rules for all schools, but I'm there every session. We don't get that many basketball or football players out because of summer vacations, etc.. but there are several core players that are always there. They know that the date never changes, the time never changes, and it never gets canceled for the weather or for any other reason. Is it hard for me to be there each day? Yes and no. It is only 3 days of the week for 1 hour. But I'm on my summer holidays from teaching, and there are some days that I wished I could change it to 4-5pm so I can get in a round of golf, or 10-11am so I can meet a friend for lunch, or just to cancel it on a sunny day because I'd rather hang out at the beach. But I go each day because I believe it's important to our team that our players are working to get better, and because I've made a commitment to being there for them.

I know that there are extenuating circumstances, health issues, personal problems, work schedules, but understand that being a coach carries a big responsibility. A lot of people go into coaching and don't really understand or are ready for that kind of commitment. Coaching is sometimes as easy as just being there for your players, which can also be the hardest thing.

1-4 Across to Beat Matchup and Man Presses

2011-07-25T12:14:00.001-07:00

A lot of you probably have this press breaker in your arsenal against aggressive full court matchup or man presses, but if not, something interesting to consider. I was re-watching Billy Donovan's DVD on his Full Court Matchup Press the other day and one of the press breakers he talked about that gave them the most problems was the 1-4 across set. The wing players can really cause a problem because of the threat of the over the top pass,

What happens is if the defender, X5 or X3 in this case, is playing in a press coverage either inside or outside, they are highly susceptible to a quick v-cut and then a streak downfield for an over the top touchdown style football pass. You don't even need to v-cut, once the inbounder slaps the ball you basically break and you'll be wide open. If the inbounds is after a made basket, the inbounder can run the baseline and get an angle on either wing. If for some reason you can't make that football pass (bad timing, slow fowards, etc..), then O2 can cross screen for O1 and you can get into your regular press break.

Obviously after you burn the man-to-man press or matchup press a couple of times over the top, the defense will adjust by having the wings play over the top. They will still press the 2 inside players because the over the top throw is harder with the basket obstructing a high pass. But now you have a relatively open pass to the wing player, and your PG can use that to out-leverage the defender and streak as soon as the inbounds pass is made for the open pass,

So essentially, just by alignment, you have forced the defense out of a full press situation. If they decide to continue to pressure, they have to give each of your players a cushion. And by releasing all of your players down the court in a full sprint once the pass is made, you have effectively nullified their pressure. Sure, the X1 defender can still get up on your O1, they can try to trap with one of the other players, but you've allowed yourself the ability to get the ball in without pressure,

A Closer Look at the Bill Green True Matchup Zone

2011-07-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days I've been busy putting together a defensive manual for our football team in preparation for the upcoming season and one of the big areas I was researching was the idea of pattern reading. You see, in football most teams that use a zone defense have gone away from straight spot dropping and match receiver routes instead. So, they align in a set zone, say a Cover 2, but then they read the receivers and their movements are dependent on what the receivers do. Now, it sounds like it would impossible to come up with a set of rules to match what the receivers do, but the thing is that receiver movements are highly predictable, because most passing routes are patterned and packaged together into concepts. Therefore, instead of just dropping into your "zone" area and covering grass, defensive backs are instead given a set of rules for a given receiver may do, and the defender reacts to that movement within their "zone" area. Turns out, in basketball, we can apply similar concepts.

In doing my research I came across a chapter in the book by Don Casey called "Own the Zone". It's a pretty good book going through the history of zone defenses in basketball. In the chapter on matchup zones, it talks about legendary high school Indiana coach Bill Green and how he came up with his true matchup zone. He and an assistant were watching a Purdue/Notre Dame football game and thought about creating a zone defense for basketball based on similar rules based on simple offensive player movements.

I had forgotten alot of what I've written in the past couple of years, so I went back through my blog and realized I actually wrote a pretty detailed article on the Bill Green 1-3-1 matchup zone (although I didn't credit it to Bill Green at the time) and it got my brain into overdrive again thinking about the different possibilities of matchup zones.

The original Bill Green matchup zone is based on the principle of dividing the court in 2 halves using the hoopline. The defenders are then assigned:
- a #1 defender on the point,
- a #2 defender takes the first offensive player on the left,
- a #3 defender takes the first offensive player on the right,
- a #4 defender takes the second offensive player on the left or right (the rover)
- a #5 defender takes anyone in the paint or right man high or low

What I did not cover in my original post was the basic matching principle that Bill Green uses, which is based on what the offensive player can do. For you football coaches out there, this will sound very familiar to robber coverage or 2-read. Basically, an offensive player with the ball can only do 1 of 3 things:

1. Shoot. Get a hand up.
2. Dribble drive. Slide and sag.
3. Pass.

An offensive player without the ball can only do 1 of 3 things:

1. Move and replace teammate.
2. Pick.
3. Flash to the basket.

Those are the only 6 things a player can do with or without the ball. On the first 2 with the ball, the defender reactions are universal, they are exactly same for any defense man or zone. On any pass and pick in any matchup zone, you will switch automatically every single time. So really, the rules for defender matchup movements are restricted to 2 movements, replace a teammate, and flash to the basket. All the players have to remember are their original rules. Any movement to replace a teammate is an automatic switch. Any flash to the basket is covered by the same defender. The most complicated movement is any flash or movement through the lane. In this case, the defender passes off their man to the #4 rover and they switch checks. Here are the base formations against offenses that will attempt to align against the matchup zone:

Having this base knowledge, defending flashes to the basket are stated as I wrote in the original article.

The weakness of the 1-3-1 matchup, is obviously the corners. Teams can overload to one side of the floor and now the defense has to break its rules to cover the 4 players on one side.

In order to combat this problem, the #5 switches to take the corner man and #3 (or #2 if overload is on the left) takes the offensive player in the paint.

If you are having a problem with the overload with a player in the corner, Bill Green has a 1-1-3 matchup which is stronger towards the baseline. Instead of using the hoopline as the divider, now there are 2 above the FT line and 3 below. If one of the 3 low players goes above the FT line, the #4 rover carries him above the divider.

I think the problem that most people who play a zone defense is that they just play the spots, they don't even attempt to matchup players. It's the same analogy as football defense, you can't just cover grass, you gotta cover receivers. Same in basketball, you gotta cover players.

For a good video that has a similarly type matchup zone system, check out Flip Saunders' DVD on the 1-2-2 Matchup Zone. Coach Saunders is currently the head coach with the Washington Wizards.

Here's Some Summer Inspiration

2011-07-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

It's definitely the dog days of summer, and I'm trying to get in some reading and came across this great article about Coach Bobby Greco Jr. pursuing his dream to coach football. It's hard enough to coach with all of my faculties in working order, I can't even imagine how to do it from a wheelchair. But that is exactly what Coach Greco does everyday, as an assistant with St. John Fisher College.

Anyways, I was at a Kevin Eastman clinic over the weekend. It was a great clinic, a wonderful opportunity to talk X's and O's and I'm just putting together some notes and stuff from the clinic and to decide what I will post on next. It was a defensive clinic so most probably it will be related to defense. In the meantime, if you have some ideas, feel free to shoot me a message.

Key Points on Closing Out on Defense

2011-07-09T10:16:00.001-07:00

Going through clinic notes and instructional video and one big coaching area for 1-on-1 defense is closing out properly. It is something that needs to be coached because players develop all kinds of bad habits naturally which become impossible to correct as they get older.

(MJ vs a young Iverson)

There are of course a bunch of points you can make about the closeout and I've compiled my key points here based on a Lawrence Frank video, but I believe that the more you overload a player, the more they have to think, the less time they have to react and make proper decisions. I like to keep my coaching points to 3-4 so that they actually stick, so here are my 3:

1. Sprint past the lane, then break down. This is a hard one to coach because for each player it will be different. Someone who has great foot quickness can probably break down a couple of feet before the defender, while a bigger player may need 6 feet. I don't think you'll ever be wrong if you sprint to clear the paint area then break down on the ball.

2. Catch the first move, contain the second. The defender must react to the first move of the offensive player. It is a fact of life that at some point during the game as a defender, you will arrive late on a closeout (either you are slow, or the offensive player is quicker). But you must attempt to make a play on the offensive player's first move, which will put you slightly out of position for a fake, in which case you must then work to contain the second move. For example, the offensive player brings the ball up to shoot, you must get your hands up to challenge the shot as nobody else can help on the open shot but you. If it is a shot fake, and the player puts the ball down to penetrate, you will temporarily be compromised defensively, which means you must work to lose some ground to gain back leverage on the penetration, often this also requires help defense from your teammates. Communication is key as always for all team defense.

3. Hands always level with the ball. If the player moves the ball to the shot plateau, you must get your hands up to challenge the shot. You must make the offensive player throw high lob passes to give your teammates a chance at the deflection or at least to recover.

A couple of bad habits I always see:

1. Jumping to block a shot. Players see this on TV all the time and so they want to imitate their favorite players. If you are a big leak out in transition team, maybe this works for you. But another big reason why I don't like it is that players will also jump to block corner 3-pointers, and you get no leak out from those. Now, you've just lost a rebounder and a player on the fast break too. I don't like telling players to "stay down" either, instead I think you just teach them proper close out fundamentals and it should take care of itself.

2. Banana closeout. Players who don't go in a straight line but instead take an arc path to the closeout. Allows the offensive player to simply attack the open side and the defender is never in position to defend. Players must closeout in a straight line to their defender.

Lastly, as I mentioned before, communication is key. Sometimes you'll see 2 players closing out hard on the ball. It will happen in the chaos of ball rotation, players will get crossed up. But the key is that your defenders are in constant communication so that 1 can call the other off and they can recover in time.

For some more great 1-on-1 defensive wisdom, check out Steve Alford's All Access 4-DVD Set. Coach Alford is the head coach at the University of New Mexico. If you have watched any of Alford's stuff, you'll know that he's very passionate about teaching proper 1-on-1 defensive play. Anyways, hope all of your coaches are enjoying their time off, but keep your eyes on the prize.

Getting Out Of The Dreaded Elementary Stance

2011-07-04T22:03:00.001-07:00

I went back through all of the posts that I've made so far to this blog (950 if you can believe it) and I didn't find one that talked about stance, specifically defensive stance. Hard to believe I've missed talking about something so fundamental.

Anyways, I was watching our Varsity coach the other day working with some young Gr 8's soon to be playing on the freshmen C team next year (we don't have middle schools in our district so Gr 8 is their first year of high school) and he was making the comment about how the biggest problem kids have when they get to high school is losing what he calls the "elementary stance" and learning the proper athletic stance required to get into proper triple threat and to play proper defense. It's notably characterized by the lack of a butt extension and an arched back.

By contrast, you can see what the athletic stance differs. The butt is extended and the back is straight. You hear some coaches say "bend your knees", but clearly that isn't the problem at all. In the elementary stance, the knees are bent, but the problem is that the back is not straight and it looks like the person has no butt. Get the butt down first, and the knees will take care of themselves.

I've never thought about it much myself, but in watching these Gr 8's, most of them still have it, the dreaded elementary stance. We got to talking afterward and he was telling me that the kids that can figure out the stance as early as possible are the ones that end up doing well in all the sports throughout their high school career, and the ones that are stuck with their "elementary stance" all the way through high school are usually the ones that end up giving up sports or can never breakthrough and become really good.

I don't know if Elementary school PE teachers are teaching these kids the wrong stance, or maybe it's just a natural progression a kid needs to make, but it certainly seems to me that we need to get to these kids earlier. It's amazing to think that something so small as changing a stance can have a major impact in basically all things athletic. I've never really thought about it that much because the athletic stance has always been natural to me, sink your hips and get in your chair, as they say.

So, when you're out there with your freshman, first thing to do is check their stances. If they've still got the elementary stance going on, that's the first thing that's gotta go before you go onto any of the other stuff. For more great 1-on-1 defensive fundamentals, check out D'Em Up fundamentals with Darrick Rizzo. Keep working fellow coaches, remember the summer is the opportunity season.

To Hyper-Extend or Not to Hyper-Extend the Thumb

2011-06-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

I promise, this will be my last post on shooting for a while. It's the end of the school year and I was sitting in the gym and watching a coaching friend running practices with his club team getting ready to go down to Seattle next week for a summer tournament. He was doing some shooting drills and he came upon a player that was struggling with her shot. He looked at her hand position and the first thing he said was, "keep that thumb pointed sideways".

After the practice, I asked my coaching friend about this idea of extending the thumb. His logic was that the thumb of the shooting hand needed to be extended further out so that the ball would sit more naturally on the fingertips instead of in the palm.

This got me thinking when I got home. The past couple of weeks, I was helping running a shooter's clinic/camp for the team I will coach with next year, and the coach there said the number one tip for better shooting was to not hyper-extend the thumb. The logic was that if you extend your thumb out, it can drastically affect the way the ball leaves your hand which consequently can lead to a side rotation of the ball. So, I set out to see what I could find online regarding this idea of the thumb position of the shooting hand.

And like my real life experience, 2 veteran coaches both of whom I have great respect for, with completely contrary philosophies on something so fundamental, turns out to be the same when I did my search. I found this article on Basketball BC, a recent one, that talks about extending the thumb, they talk about extending the thumb out far enough so that you can insert a finger in the hole that forms between the thumb and index finger and the ball.

After a little more research, I found this article on BasketballShootingSecret.com which taught exactly the opposite. The separation between the thumb and index finger must not be greater than the separation between the index and middle fingers,

My own personal opinion?? I lean towards not hyper-extending the thumb. My reasoning is a little complex and convoluted but try to follow me. For me it has a lot to do with how I teach throwing a football. When I teach a QB how to throw a tight spiral, I teach the opposite, I teach the throwing hand with a hyper-extended thumb. The reason why I teach that for throwing the football is, by hyper-extending the thumb, when you release the ball, the thumb will naturally close down to your palm and the index finger will pronate downward which gives the football its natural spiral.

So if you translate that spiral motion to a basketball, with the thumb closed down into the palm, and the finger pronated downward, the rotation of the ball will be a sideways spin (think of a football spiral) as opposed to an end over end backwards rotation that we desire in a basketball shot.

I am sure there are plenty of players using both methods, the old adage holds, there are many ways to skin a cat, and indeed there are many ways to shoot a basketball. That is why I love the game, so many nuances, so many different ways that a skill can be taught, and still arrive at the same end goal. I would love to hear thoughts from other coaches out there and what they teach and the justifications of why they teach it that way.

Anyways, have a great long weekend (Canada Day here in Canada, 4th of July for all the Americans out there).

How to Find your Shooting Range

2011-06-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

We here it all the time, coaches that will say "that shot is out of your range, shoot within your range." The problem is, most players haven't the slightest clue what their shooting range is. They think that just because their shots can hit the rim, then that is their range.

Most people agree on the following basic statistical thresholds for shooting:

- 50% on 2-pt FG's made is good, anything under 44% is below average
- 33% on 3-pt FG's made is good
- 70% on FT's made is good, anything under 60% is below average

At the shooter's camp I was at this past weekend, we did a drill which helps players determine what their shooting range is. The use of a pilon or cone is optional, but helps to mark where the range is.

Players should start from the baseline block. They take 10 shots total. If they make a basket, they move the pilon back approxiamately 1 step and shoot again. If they miss a basket, they move the pilon forward. You cannot go anymore forward than the block. After 10 shots, leave the pilon there and repeat with the next 4 spots going around the basket to the other baseline block.

Since a player's shooting range will vary as they practice their shot and get better, player's should continually evaluate their range. The purpose for finding out their shooting range is so that in games they know where they can accurately shoot the ball. There is no point to shoot the ball if you are in a spot outside of your range.

For you coaches out there looking for more practice ideas, check out All-Access DeMatha Practice DVDs with head coach Mike Jones and S+C guru Alan Stein.

Stride Step or Jump Stop to Get Into Your Shot?

2011-06-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

I think we would all agree that players need both a stride step (also known as a 1-2 step) and a jump stop (also known as a hop step) to get into your shot depending on the situation. For example, for any catch and shoot, you want to use a jump stop. Coming off a ball-screen, you want to dribble off the hip of the defender and step into your shot using a stride step.

But what I'd like to know is what do you all teach to the first time basketball player? What do you want players to use as their default way of getting into their shot, a stride step or a jump stop?

Personally, I've always used a jump stop as my default method of getting into the shot. I've always been a fast dribbler so I've found that getting into a jump stop helps me keep my balance and set my feet before shooting. But I can see how a stride step would be faster than a jump stop, allowing the shooter the get the ball off quicker before the defender can get up and strip the ball or challenge the shot.

Got All My Stuff Back Online

2011-06-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I kept putting it off and putting it off, but with so much going on with teaching and coaching, I really didn't have time until this past weekend to get all my stuff back online. I took at a few different options, but ended up going with Google Docs because it was the easiest and most flexible.

In the end, all my stuff that was on this website ended up being just about 1GB worth, just under Google's space limit for the free version. I have about another 600MB of new stuff that I've downloaded in the past year or 2 but I just haven't processed them all yet. I will upload them later. All the files are arranged in the following links:

Google Docs: All My Basketball Files

Direct Link: FIBA Assist articles

Mediafire: Xavier Newsletters (2005-2010)

The downloads page has also been updated with the same info as above.

Please take some time to talk hoops and contribute to the X's and O's of Basketball Forum. It's been in existence now for almost 5 years and there are some great coaches talking hoops there. A lot of regular contributors who upload notes and files on a regular basis.

Finally, if you are looking for Alan Stein stuff, go ahead and visit his website and email him. Coach Stein is always willing to help out a fellow coach, just ask him.

I will be posting some stuff in the next few days and on the weekend after I work the shooter's clinic. In the meantime, enjoy the notes, and hopefully the sunshine wherever you are...

Fundamentals of Shooting a Basketball

2011-06-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

I know it's been forever since I last posted but the summer break is finally coming and I've finally had more time to reflect professionally on this past season, but also look ahead at what's to come, and I'm absolutely ecstatic to say the least.

I will be helping a Varsity head coach (a legend around these parts) with a shooter's clinic this weekend and next weekend. Shooting is such an important skill at each position that I think it's a great idea to grab all of your players (and players from your area) and spend 2 days just working on technique, which is what we will be doing.

We got talking as we started planning for the weekend and naturally the topic drifted to the NBA finals and the shot form of Dirk Nowitzki,

We talked about some of the good things he does on his shot like his starting position and shooting hand follow-through, and some of his not so good things like his tendency to shoot off one foot and finish off-balance and the finish of his guide-hand.

Obviously, the mechanics are important, getting the ball in the shot pocket, flicking the wrist, ten toes pointed to the basket, proper knee bend, etc... all that good stuff that you and I all teach. It doesn't matter how good your mechanics are, what matters most is what happens to the ball after it leaves your hands. And those 2 fundamentals are:

1. The ball must have the proper arc
2. The ball must have the proper rotation

The reason why the ball must have proper arc is simply a matter of physics. Balls that are shot with a flat trajectory have less surface area with which to get into the rim, and when flat balls do hit the rim they tend to bounce straight off the front, or off the back, as opposed to hitting the rim and falling into the basket.

The reason why the ball must have proper backspin rotation is simple. A ball that has no rotation will not have a consistent arc and is susceptible to change direction mid-flight, much like a knuckle-ball which sinks hard and goes in all kinds of directions. Rotation limits the ability for wind or air resistance to affect the balls natural parabolic trajectory. Backspin is the correct kind of rotation because it creates a soft bounce. You can always tell when a shooter has good rotation because when the ball goes in without touching the rim, it makes that loud "swoosh" sound and the net almost flies back up the rim. It's almost like the basket is a vacuum and sucks the ball down it.

Everything else is just not that important in my opinion. Now, mechanics will dictate for the most part how those 2 fundamentals get accomplished, but I've seen players shoot from the side of their head (ala John Stockton), or from their chest (ala Shawn Marion), and still be very consistent and successful shooters. So long as the ball has the proper arc and rotation, nothing else really matters.

Hope you all had a great time watching the NBA playoffs, I know I did. It was great to see Dirk, J Kidd, and Coach Rick Carlisle win it because they've paid their dues. Patience and sticking with the plan certainly did pay off for Mark Cuban.

I will try to keep updating the blog throughout the summer, I will try to use a more analytical approach, discussing the craft of coaching and what people are doing these days.

For more shooting drills you can use in your practice, take a look at Steve Alford's Shooting Drills DVD. Coach Alford is the head coach at University of New Mexico.

Basketball Specific Off-Season Strength and Conditioning

2011-04-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of weeks I've been in charge of running an after school lifting program for football players and I've really gotten into a lot of the strength and conditioning stuff as a result. It got me thinking more about basketball and when players can do in the off-season (if you can call it that anymore) to prepare for in-season. A lot of teams that I see kind of drop off dramatically after the season ends but I think that putting yourself on a program can really help prepare you for the season, and also as a proactive measure to prevent injuries.

If you know me, I'm a big fan of Alan Stein when it comes to S+C. Here is a sample of what they've been doing for their first off-season workouts at DeMatha. I really like the balance stuff, and the heavy ball workouts, very basketball specific:

For the latest at what he's been doing with DeMatha, check out Alan Stein's new 3-DVD set which includes:

* Alan Stein's DeMatha Basketball: Warm-Up & Flexibility
* Alan Stein's DeMatha Basketball: Agility & Conditioning
* Alan Stein's DeMatha Basketball: Strength & Power

Playing in the memory of Coach Scott Lang

2011-04-10T00:16:00.000-07:00

I read about DivIII La Roche College head coach Coach Scott Lang and the tragic story of his passing late last year and it nearly broke my heart to read about how he had suffered a heart attack during practice one day and passed away right there in the middle of their court. Here is an update on the story from ESPN showing how the team played out their year and ended up winning their conference title for the first time ever, and honoring their coach along the way. Heartbreaking, but touching at the same time,

Words to live and die by:

"They may be wealthy, but we are rich..."

Pat Knight, I've proven I can coach...

2011-03-09T17:47:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year when coaches get fired and hired all across the country. Today, Texas Tech decided to part ways with Pat Knight. One great quote from Knight that really stuck with me in reading about it today was this one:

"I've proven I can coach. I run a clean program, I don't cheat, my players graduate and we have discipline. So if you don't want me here there's going to be someone else that wants me."

What a great quote. In a situation where all kinds of doubts can be swirling in your head, where you second-guess yourself, your philosophy, whether you are cut out for the profession, it's good to just remind yourself that just because you got fired, doesn't mean that you have no idea what you're doing.

Things don't always work out, but as long as you have integrity and work ethic, there will always be a place for you. That there are indeed things more important than winning, like doing things the right way.

The Story of Jimmer Fredette

2011-02-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

Watching some college basketball yesterday and caught the big BYU win over SDSU lead by BYU guard Jimmer Fredette. When I watched him play, the thing that struck me the most was how composed he always is, he never lets the emotion of the game get to him, he is always in control. When the ESPN analysts talked about Fredette looking for pickup games at the prison to hone his skills back in his hometown, I was intrigued. Here is the ESPN segment that goes into it,

One of the virtues that is undervalued by coaches is mental toughness. I do think it is something that can be developed like any skill. But its harder to develop because in order to be mental tough, you have to be in the position to make mistakes over and over again and then learn from them. It's a painful process, but it's the only way to become stronger.

Jerry Sloan Calls it a Career

2011-02-10T22:03:00.000-08:00

Wow, all I can say is WOW. But anyone who has coached for any length of time knows that it's a grind. And to think that Coach Jerry Sloan did it for 1 team for 23 years as a head coach, WOW... definitely will be missed, here was his press conference,

If it weren't for 1 Michael Jordan, Sloan probably wins 2 rings in the 90s. Still unbelievable that Sloan never won the Coach of the Year award.

Re-Analyzing Purdue's Last Possession Win Over Penn State

2011-01-22T10:04:00.000-08:00

With so much going on with teaching and coaching at the moment, I haven't nearly had the time to watch as much college basketball as I used to. I was able to catch some games and highlights the other day and this ESPN segment with Doug Gottlieb breaking down Purdue's win over Penn State on a last second BLOB play.

Usually I don't disagree with most of what ESPN puts out there, because they usually have ex-coaches doing the breakdowns. But I think Gottlieb has it wrong here. With Penn State up by only 1-point, I'd rather have one defender down low crowning the basket, protecting the easy layup, rather than having him "up the line" as Gottlieb says to help on the switch who can then help on the shot. Even if Battle had gotten up to the FT-line where Gottlieb is pointing to below, he wouldn't have been in a position to defend the switch or challenge the shot anyways, and would've allowed the inbounder to get great position on the offensive boards,

To me, it was just a missed assignment. What the Penn State defender who got screened should have done was simply switched hard. That should have allowed the screened defender to jump out to challenge the shot or at worst, to force the player to put the ball on the ground and dribble into the help where Battle was in position to defend. Bottom line for me as a coach, if the offense elects to shoot a contested 20-footer, rather than a contested 2-footer, I'm OK with that, I'll take the numbers on that one anytime.

If you're looking for more great ideas for your SLOBs, BLOBs, jumpball stuff, check out Tom Izzo's new DVD on Dead Ball Situations. Coach Izzo is the head coach of the men's basketball team at Michigan State University.

Make a Healthy Change in Your Life... Start Now

2011-01-17T21:52:00.000-08:00

A coaching acquaintance recently passed away and it had me thinking about the lifestyle choices we make as coaches. I don't know about you all out there, but I look around me and I see a lot of my coaching friends (men and women) becoming unhealthier every day. I'm not exactly old, but I think dying of a heart attack in your 40s or 50s is a pretty damn scary prospect, don't you?

Everyone knows that coaching is a time killer, doesn't matter what sport you're involved in. You wake up, work, go from work straight to practice and games and before you know it it's 9-10pm and the only thing open is McDs. But as coaches, we need to take a serious look in the mirror, literally. We need to spend more time thinking about the choices we make everyday. I know that healthy living isn't the easiest switch to make, but it isn't rocket science either. It basically comes down to 2 things: eat less crap, and exercise more.

Anyways, enough of the lecture, I just had to get that off my back as it has been bugging me the last few days. Oh, and the irony of it all isn't lost on me, that as coaches we are supposed to be promoting healthy living through sport.

If you want to read more about coaches and losing weight, read this from Coach B Dud's blog.

The Lakers, Kobe, and the Ewing Theory

2011-01-05T10:31:00.001-08:00

Been spending the past couple of weeks reading and getting caught up with marking/lesson planning, etc... I was lucky enough to catch a Lakers game live at the Staples Center over the break (not vs Miami, but vs the Bucks, ya, lucky me), and since then, there has been so much talk about what's wrong with the Lakers losing 4 of the last 6 (ya I know, the Lakers just beat the Pistons last night).

With the Lakers, it's always the same story, how often should Kobe shoot vs pass to his teammates to score? It is similar to the Ewing Theory but slightly more complicated. Clearly he is the best offensive weapon, but if he shoots too much, his offensive efficiency goes down as defenses key in on him. If we passes too much, than the team isn't taking advantage of his overall higher offensive efficiency. The answer then lies in finding the exact balance of how many shots Kobe gets and how many shots his teammates get.

So, in thinking about your own teams, especially teams that have a superstar player, you really need to think in terms of the Braess’s Paradox, which is basically like the law of diminishing returns. In other words, you can keep going to your superstar, but eventually your superstar's offensive efficiency will become lower over time as defenses adjust (double-teams, Box and 1, etc..). You can apply the same logic to a great play you use. It works great the first time, but as you use it over and over, defenses will adjust and it will become less and less effective.

There is a great post by the physics blog Gravity and Levity which explains the Braess's Paradox as it relates to basketball a lot clearer, it's a good read and definitely recommended for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

ESPN Coaches Roundtable, Boeheim, Izzo, Self

2010-12-12T23:46:00.001-08:00

Been even more busy then ever picking up more teaching blocks to fill my schedule, which means I'm driving 30-40 miles a day to and from schools and then practices at night. Oh yes, the joys of being a first-year high-school teacher. Anyways, basketball is in full swing now and I'm thoroughly enjoying the assisting role that I'm in. Our team had a good couple of weeks but ended with a loss in the finals of the big tournament in town.

I went through the plethora of highlights and interviews from college gameday yesterday, and this ESPN coaches roundtable with Coaches Jim Boeheim, Tom Izzo, and Bill Self really resonated with me, especially when talking about coaches and losing games. It really is true that the losses always feel way worse than any of the wins (Although I don't know about the feeling about the win to win the Championship that Self talks about because I've never won one). I remember almost every loss I've coached (both as a head coach and assistant), between football and basketball, over the past 7 years. And I've lost a lot of games. I've often hoped that the older I get, the less the losses will wear on me, but it never really does. I would say though that I used to think a lot more about what we could have done, and now I focus more on what we need to do to get better, but it still wears on you.

Another great quote from the interview is from Tom Izzo talking about how a player-coached team is better than a coach-coached team. If the leadership is there, if the players have demonstrated to me that they can take responsibility for making their own decisions, then I think Izzo is absolutely right. I've never had a big enough ego to think that I as the coach was above the team. Ultimately, I tell players that it is their team. It's a cliche but it's true, they aren't playing for me as the coach, they are playing for each other.

Finally, I think Bill Self is right on when he says that the more you get there, the more you want it. I have been fortunate enough to have coached (as a head and as an assistant) in a few Championship games in both football and basketball, unfortunately I have been on the losing end each time. But once you get there, you have that burning desire to get back. And I don't think winning it all will make it any less desirous the following year. Winning is contagious as they say.

Without further ado, the coaches roundtable...

Breaking Down Film With Coach K on ESPNU

2010-11-19T23:37:00.001-08:00

I realize it has been a long long time since my last update but in between starting new jobs, planning, preparing, marking, report cards, and transitioning into the basketball season, finding time to write something meaningful here has been difficult, but I will try my best to pass off some good info. I had a chance the other day to catch some of the ESPNU's All-Access special and it was great to see inside their practices.

In this segment, Coach K is doing film sessions with his team and I like the first comment he makes about whether his freshman know how to watch film. That to me is a teachable moment, do you know what you are supposed to be looking for when you watch film? What is the objective of the film session? What have you learned that you didn't know before the film session?

Anyways, it's a good time of year, the squeak of shoes on the floor, balls bouncing, and the smell of a freshly waxed floor always give me the butterflies, it's the start of another great basketball season. Good luck y'all...

Tricks to Teach Hand Positioning for M2M Defense

2010-08-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

I've been recovering from laser eye surgery the past couple of weeks which would account for my lack of updates recently. Over on the X's and O's forum, a coach had posted an interesting observation from this youtube video below, and how they use towels to emphasize the proper positioning of their hands during their shell drill,

I've never thought of using towels or skipping rope as another coach had suggested but I think it would help alot in reinforcing the proper position of the hands, palms out, pistol at ball, thumbs pointed in.

I love any little trick like this to help in reinforcing concepts. If you're interested in the video above from Coach Pat Summitt then definitely check out Pat Summitt's All-Access Practice DVD. Coach Summitt is the head coach of the Lady Vols of the University of Tennessee and winner of 8 NCAA championships.

Reinforcing Help Defense Concepts from Bob Huggins

2010-08-10T14:56:00.001-07:00

We all know one of the keys of great Man-to-Man defenses is teamwork and help defense. This is where your players' basketball IQ will be tested defensively, being in the right position defensively for help but not losing sight of their man. Went through some notes from the NIKE clinic this past spring and Bob Huggins has a couple of good teaching points on help defense that might help reinforce the concept.

Tape a “help” line on the court every day
o From rim to rim, middle of the court
o Guys need to straddle the help line
o If they’re not at the help line, they go to treadmill

2v2 Sprint to Help Drill
o Coach up top
o Player at each wing (offense & defense)
o Pass to one wing, other wing must sprint to help line
o We do this every day during practice
o If they don’t sprint and straddle the help line, they go to treadmill

I'd like to experiment with treadmills in practice someday. I always hate it when we do sprints and suicides and there is always someone who is loafing. You can't cheat the treadmill. For more great practice ideas for M2M defense, check out the Bob Huggins 2-pack DVD which includes his M2M defensive philosophy and intense practice drills. Coach Huggins is the head coach of the men's basketball team at West Virginia University.

One-and-Ones Free Throw Shooting Drill by June Daugherty

2010-08-01T14:03:00.001-07:00

We all know that free-throws are important, and in games, its the first one you take that often is worth more in a one-and-one situation. I came across this great competitive team drill for free-throws from Coach Duane Silver's newsletter the other day. It is a drill developed by Washington State women's head coach June Daugherty. Hope y'all are enjoying your summer, and enjoy...

A GREAT FREE THROW SHOOTING DRILL
By June Daugherty

Coach Daugherty uses a free-throw drill with the following rules: The players start with eleven points and shoot one-and-ones. If they make the first shot, subtract two points, and if they miss the first shot add two points. If they make the second shot, subtract one point, and if they miss the second shot, add one point. The first player or group, depending on how you divide it up, to reach zero points WINS.

If you're always on the lookout for more great practice drills, check out Bruce Pearl's New All-Access Practice DVDs. Coach Pearl is the head coach of the University of Tennessee.

Bobby Knight on the Dribble Against Zone and Man Defense

2010-07-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

Downloaded some great notes the other day which cover Bobby Knight's DVD on Practice Planning and Drills (notes created by coaches at Springs Valley Blackhawks). One interesting tidbit that I thought I would share is Coach Knight's philosophy on the dribble, against zones, and against man. He says that the dribble is the most effective against the zone, and against man he is straight motion. An extract:

Four Possessions
- Inside man should be the screener
- Do not throw the ball to the corner
- Talk about balance to your players…get the ball off the baseline…don’t crowd baseline!
- Players have a tendency to resort to the dribble vs. man, but Coach Knight actually encourages the
dribble against a zone
o Dribble against a zone every time that you catch the ball on the perimeter
o Attack a seam
- Causes the top defenders to react and move
- Dribble does more to change a zone than anything…it forces it to become something that it does not want to be

Man Offense: Eliminate the Dribble (No Dribble Drill)
- This drill develops cutting and spacing as well as encouraging good passes
- Players should only dribble to change position or to get to the basket
- Teams develop confidence that they can score without putting the ball on the floor
- Man/Man D…three-point line is the last line of defense for picking up the ball
o Half-court is the farthest
o Point of pick-up is dictated by how quick you are and how quick the offense is
- Post players need to hold their posts…don’t come off the block
o Other players do not come into areas where a post man is holding a post
- Don’t just run around…SEE AND REACT
- Offensive players need to get off the baseline
- No cross court passes against man-to-man defense

Traditionally, the idea against the zone is that you move the zone with the pass, by quick reversals and skip passes. But I've used the dribble in the past to great effectiveness against a zone as well, so I think there is a lot of merit to this idea. As for against man defense, I can see Coach Knight's point about over-dribbling, but the dribble penetration is still the hardest thing to stop for the defense.

Roy Williams Running Game Notes from NIKE Clinic

2010-07-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

I don't think it ever gets old, anything about early offense and the secondary break of Coach Roy Williams at the University of North Carolina. I pick up a thing or 2 from these clinic notes every time, these are from the NIKE Las Vegas clinic this past May. For example in these notes below, I like the idea of making sure your PG stops on a dime and changes direction after receiving the outlet. Too many times you see a team which has scouted well, on transition defense, have the defender on the PG plant right in front of the PG and draws the charge from the PG who turns his/her head too quickly.

The other part I like is the idea to cherish the highs of coaching. Which has less to do with the wins and losses and more to do with the relationships you make, and enjoying the process of improving your coaching ability. Anyways, here you go:

- Point Guard’s job is to go as fast as he can from top of the key to top of the key
- Make a commitment to run every single time
- We practice taking the ball out of the net
o Coach stands in front of FT line, shoots the ball
o Post player takes ball out and quickly outlets it to manager at the 28 foot line
- Make or miss

- Outlet pass
o Point Guard
- As you catch the ball, make sure you can stop on a dime and change direction
- Don’t risk committing the charge

- Primary Break
o 2 or fewer defenders
- 3v2 or 2v1
o Shot within 2 passes

- Secondary break
o 3 or more defenders

- Everybody on the team must like the shot that’s taken by a player
o Poll the team in practice during play

How many people on blue liked the shot that was taken by Joe?
- Post players: Deception
o Pretend like you’re catching the lob
o Tyler Hansbrough was so good because when he was in the post, he fought the hardest and demanded the ball every time

- Cherish the highs of coaching
o After we won National Championships, the next day I was on the road recruiting
- Didn’t celebrate the successes
o With a subpar season, we dwell too much on the negatives, we need to balance that out with celebrating the wins

For more on early offense and the secondary break, check out Roy Williams' DVD on the Tar Heel Offense. Coach Williams is the head coach of UNC winning the national title in 2005 and 2009.

Ball Screening Offense from Xavier's Chris Mack

2010-07-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent notes that I downloaded from a talk that Chris Mack, coach of Xavier University did on his ball-screening offense variety (notes via Zak Boisvert and DribbleDrive). Just some general information about running a ball screen offense, reads, etc... With Mike D'Antoni running his euro-style ball-screening, Coach K at Duke running their spread a few years ago (and still some this past year when they won the NCAAs) and Bill Self at Kansas with his ball-screen continuity, there has been a lot of attention on ball screening offenses.

For me, the key question on whether you should run a ball-screening offense has always been: are your players smart enough to make the reads? It sounds kind of like a leading question (towards no), but you really need to ask yourself honestly if the group of players you have are smart enough to make the right basketball decisions. Now, of course it takes reps to get good, but cerebrally, you have to have a PG that knows what is a good shot, a good pass, and when the right time to give the ball up is. You have to have bigs that know what it looks like when a defender is going to hedge, go underneath, and then make the right read. Easy on paper, hard to do in game-situations. But if you have the right group of players, smart players who know the game of basketball, ball-screening is definitely a good way to go. Without further ado, here are the notes:

Why Ball Screen?
- Keeps ball in primary ball handlers’ hands—Low Turnovers
- Players make plays
- Gets your team to the FT Line
- Creates Rotations which Lead to Open Shot
- Spacing
- Isolates the Low Post
- Offensive Rebounding due to Rotations
- Makes bigs defend away from the basket
- Pressure Release
- Bigs are more likely to screen on a ball screen than an off screen

Ball Handler’s Role
- Set Up (From Triple Threat, Live Dribble)
- Separation
- Level of the Ball Screen
- Reads
- Flat Hedge—Hesitate & Go, String 3
- Hard Hedge/Trap—Drag Throwback, Late Split
- Under—Shoot 3, Screen Re-Screen
- Switch—Drive the Switch, Post the Switch
- Overplay—Reject, Early Split
- Passing Routine
- Pocket Bounce Pass
- Late Throwback Jump Pass
- Drag Reverse Pivot Throwback
- Slip Pass from Triple Threat
- Slip Pass with Live Dribble

Screener’s Role
- Stationary, Sprint into It, Screen into it
- Pop Your Feet, Hold the Screen!!! (Must make contact!)
- How do we roll? Tap & Go or Traditional
- How do we pop? Sprint or Traditional
- How to Slip?
- Change the Angle
- Roll to Bury if team goes under

Ball Screen Actions
- Flat Hedge— Middle Ballscreen, Roll and Replace, Duncan action
- Hard Hedge/Trap—Slipped screen, Pick and Pop Sideline
- Under—Rescreen, Set it Lower, Old Spur action (Tony Parker)
- Switch—Seven Cut, Post the Switch, Sideline Roll and Replace (Hi-low flash)
- Overplay—Buffalo action

For more info on this offense, then check out Chris Mack's brand new DVD on his Ball Screen offense.

The NCAA Vault March Madness On Demand

2010-07-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

Ever since the school year finished up this past week, I've been addicted to this site. Probably most of y'all have heard it, but in case you didn't, you'll thank me on this one. It's the NCAA's Vault, past March Madness games going all the way back to 2000 for the Sweet 16 and rounds forward. It's a gold mine, but be careful, you could easily lose several hours/days just watching games, and taking notes. The only thing that would be better would be all the rounds, maybe that's coming soon. Anyways, enjoy...

I've also been addicted to watching old SEC football games too, though the SEC website only keeps games from the past couple of seasons.

Mario De Sisti's Top Teaching Points

2010-07-02T16:43:00.000-07:00

For me, the offseason is all about reflection and ideas. It's the time for coaches to do the deep thinking that we don't get to do during the season, with the necessary chaos of practices, games, and ya, of course teaching. I keep coming back to these set of notes from Mario De Sisti and he's listed a bunch of his top teaching points. I don't think all of them apply for me, but certainly the first 10 or so really resonate with me. I've always been someone who liked to keep teaching points to the minimum, because who's going to remember a list of 30 teaching points. Anyways, you can take a look here at all 30 or so and judge for yourself.

Top Teaching Points:

1. Teach “mentality”. Players need to learn to read the defense. Avoid drills on air. As much as possible use guided defense. This means a defender is directed in which way to play defense. It could also be a coach or manager. The offense learns to read the defense. When first learning give two options controlled by guided defense. For example go right or left. If you want players to learn the game you must teach it in every drill. By using guided defense the offense learns the reason for their actions. It gives them a target as to where they should be going. For example: Cut off the shoulder of the defender. It discourages actions that could not happen in the ‘real” game. For example chest passes to a post player. It also helps defense become smarter. The defender learns how his/her actions can influence offensive decisions.

2. If you have two options stay on offense three times in a row. Guided defense give you option one, option two, and a choice on the third. Add an option when the first two options have been consolidated.

3. Stay on offense or defense for multiple repetitions without changing positions. We so often rotate from offense to defense to a sub in many drills we do. This is easy for the coach, but it is not best for the athlete to learn. By staying on offense defense for multiple reps you get a chance to immediately learn form the rep before.

4. Add transition for conditioning and concentration.
a) Offense transitions vs. air i.e. 1on 0, 2 on 0, 3 on 0 etc. (add a coach for guided defense)
b) Transition giving the offense an advantage i.e. 2-1, 3 on 2, 4 on 3
c) Offense and defense transition 1 on 1, 3 on 3
d) Defense transitions vs. new offensive with an advantage 1on 1 on 1, 2 on 2 on 2, 3 on 3 on 3, 4 on 4 on 4

5. Teach offense the first 3 months, next 3 months 70% defense 30 % offense, last 2 months 40 % transition, 30 % offense, 30 % defense. Players need time to learn. By trying to teach everything at once it is very confusing for the athletes. The same idea can be used in training camps for teams that must come together for a short period of time. The first part of training camp should be offense with guided defense only. Play players are still playing defense and using transition during this time. It is just that the details are not being taught in drill situations.

6. “Flying corrections” – make corrections without stopping the drill. If one player is having problems pull this player out of the drill and correct. Have an assistant coach take the player and work on the problem and then insert the player back into the drill. The art of coaching is to know what mistakes need correction. A coach could stop the play on every single action. When do you stop the entire
group? When do you coach on the fly? And when do you ignore the mistake? What are the important ones?

7. The coach makes the players read by giving signals that force players to react i.e. a number to keep head up when dribbling, an arm up to indicate which way to dribble, two hands to call for a pass, signals to indicate the type of guided defense.

8. Continuity in practice. It is hard for players to follow the flow of a practice if you jump from drill to drill with no logical progression. Practice should read like a book. Start with the introduction and proceed to chapter 1 then 2, 3 etc. You don’t start at chapter 5, and then go to 1 then 7 etc. Ask your players at the end of practice how many drills they remember. They should be able to remember them all and the teaching points for each drill.

9. If you have a shot clock in the game must practice with one. Even if it is a 10 sec call by the coach. Players need to learn to adapt. What do you want to happen at the 10 seconds mark? You need to attack at about 7 seconds.

10. If you don’t have a centre; don’t play with a centre. Don’t force players to fit a system that does not promote development. Coaching at the development level should be about producing players who have the skills need to play at the next level; not the number of games won. In school we teach skills so students can be promoted to the next grade. This is not happening in basketball.

11. The game continues to evolve. To be current coaches must constantly up date how the game is taught. We run many “old” offenses and teach “old” offensive concepts. Many pre-dated the shot clock, 3 point line and the new physical defense. We need to create problems for recovery by the defense. Spacing and movement are key. Making use of the contact by defense. We need to make use of penetration, movement off penetration, continuous picks or screens into picks. The chest pass is an “old” pass yet is the first pass many still teach. It is most used in drills where no defense is prevalent. Almost impossible to use in today’s game.

12. Make use of your assistants. Give them specific things to do. Debrief with assistants before practice as to what will be done that day. Have assistants take notes in practice. What corrections they had to make. You want assistants to ask to do things rather then you tell them to do things. Make assistants think about the why. When they have a suggested should tell you why he things this is a good thing to do. Let players know which assistant will be working with them that day in
practice. Who is in charge in each drill? Debrief with your assistants at the end of practice.

13. A coaches’ positioning is crucial to the being able to “dominate” the practice. When drilling for offense the coach should stand under the basket. This way you can see all the players. For defense you need to stand at the top. If you position yourself under the basket the sagging defenders will block your sight lines. For full court drills stand at full court. The head coach is responsible to position the assistant coaches.

14. The coach must inspire the creativity of the players. Teach players to have imagination. Many players cannot picture what is going to happen in a game. In drills the coach must help the player see what will happen. Use guided defense, increase the intensity. It is very difficult to have imagination when you play 1 on 0, 2 on 0 etc.

15. Teach the fundamentals not the tactics. Coaches of young players should be more concerned with the number of player he/ she develops than the number of championships won. Championships can be won by taking advantage of the physical and mental limitations of young players. Using a zone defense that packs the key against mini basketball kids is an example. The children do not have the physical ability to shoot from long distances or the cognitive ability to read the number of defenders. When we teach tactics there is very often no carry over to the next level. Tactics that are affective at one stage of development often do not work at the next.

16. Evaluate the attitude and behaviors of the players not the outcomes. With young players we cannot get overly concerned with outcomes. Do the players have the right attitudes and behaviors should be your main concern. Over time with proper coaching the desired outcomes will occur.

17. Scouting. Who passes to the centre? What happens when the ball is in the post? What type of screens does the team run? What zone do they play? Who are the shooters?

18. A player is denied when the elbow of the defender is in the passing lane. A hand is not denying. Pass high outside and the offense will move to get the ball. Also a player can step through the hand to get the ball. Cannot step through an elbow.

19. Teach to teach. Be fussy. Make corrections. If you don’t make correction when the players are young you will never be able to make them when older.

20. Keep the same drill and add to it. Instead of changing drill formation all the time. This allows players to concentrate on learning the concept not the drill.

21. Never pass back without penetration first. Must force the defense to help first. Dangerous pass without penetration.

22. Practices at tournaments – shooting, no running. 1 day before soft, 2 days before hard.

23. No easy 3 point shots. No help for a 3 point shot. It has changed the game. The more players who can shoot it the more dangerous your team.

24. The first dribble is the responsibility of the ball defender. The second dribble is helps responsibility.

25. Scouting reports – pro’s watch video, juniors – scout players, Go through the types of screens you will see. Who passes to the centre? Be aggressive on that passer. Work mostly 2 on 2, 3 on 3 not 5 on 5. Too confusing.

26. National teams – invite assistant coaches from different regions. The national team coaches dictate what skills are to be emphasized.

27. You cannot cure details if you skip around in practice. One offense one defensive drill. Stay consistent. Finish the offensive book before you start your defensive book.

28. Don’t teach dirty tactics

29. Reward good defensive players. Start them. Have good offensive players come off the bench.

30. Give quality reps to one or two players while others are working on reads and timing. North American we think about keeping everyone ‘busy” or active. Mario uses players just as passers or as guided defense. Their job is to help the others learn.

31. Start in odd formations and flow into a drill. Forces the players to move into positions, which is more game like.

More food for thought for the offseason, check out Chris Mooney's All-Access Practice DVD to see how the University of Richmond runs practices. I love watching other teams practice, because you can see how drills and scenarios are run in context, and not just in isolation at a clinic.

Competitive Conditioning Drills with Alan Stein

2010-06-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

I've always been a big fan of Alan Stein's strength and conditioning videos primarily because everything he does is targeted specific to basketball. Sometimes when I watch kids go through off-season (or in-season for that matter), they're doing things that maybe relevant for say football, but basketball requires very specific skills.

After a long stint with Montrose Christian, Coach Stein has joined famed DeMatha as their strength and conditioning coach. If you're like me, you probably don't have the luxury of having a dedicated strength and conditioning coach on your staff, but thanks to the Internet, you can bring a little Coach Stein with you. Coach Stein has been starting a Youtube series focusing on a bunch of stuff he is doing with his team. You can follow them on his Youtube channel, or his blog.

In this clip here, he has his players go through a series of conditioning drills in a progression leading up to 100% and head to head. I love the idea of competitive conditioning drills. Setting goals, and having the kids go up against one another in practice. Take a look,

3-Peat for Phil Jackson?

2010-06-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

It was a great Game 7, maybe not from an offensive, aesthetic point of view, but certainly from a coaching perspective. Who do you put on the floor, who should take the shots, when to call a timeout, how do we defend X, how do we respond if the other team does Y. I think Coach pretty much sums it up in the video below where he says Ron Artest's effort and Pau Gasol's post play in the 4th quarter put them over the top.

As for Phil Jackson coming back for a 3-peat? I can't imagine him not coming back. Of course there's his age and injuries he's been dealing with, but I think Coach is looking for a reason not to come back rather than reasons to stay. In other words, if he doesn't come back, it will be because physically his body just can't take it anymore. Well, we'll wait and see in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, congrats go again to the Lakers, back-to-back champs.

Full Court Ball Handling Drills from Danny Hurley

2010-06-13T11:22:00.001-07:00

With the offseason upon us, I was going through some more individual skill development stuff and came across these notes from a Danny Hurley clinic where he was talking about ball handling. Definitely something you want to really hammer down during the offseason. For me, ball handling has always been addictive because as a small guy, it was important to have a good handle. But I know for other bigger guys it can get frustrating, so it's important to use drills that are flexible to allow players to work on different things. I like this drill because it allows you to do that (I've cut out the first part of the drill which is just up-downs using the same move, but you can start with that first before moving on), so without further ado, Danny Hurley...

Setup:

Teaching point: Remember that your players must be focused on going hard at all times to get better at what they are working on. Shoot FTs to rest in between sets.

So you'll need 3 chairs, cones, or markers for the drill. Place the first 2 at halfcourt on either sideline. Place the third one at midcourt.

For each section of the drill, you will go down the right side of the court on the way up and back and then do the same thing on the left side of the court down and back.

Spin Move:

The first move to work on is a spin move. Speed dribble up to spot 3 with your right hand. Spin dribble at spot 3 putting the ball into your left hand. Defensive slide from spot 3 to spot 2 while dribbling the ball with your left hand. Once you hit spot 2 spin dribble back to your right hand and in 3 dribbles get all the way to the hoop to finish. Do this move up and back on the right and left sides. When starting on the left side you will use your opposite hand you used from the right side.

Shuffle/Move:

For the next 3 moves you will use the shuffle crossover, shuffle, between legs, and shuffle behind back. You will come from the baseline to the halfcourt spot doing shuffle, crossovers.

Once you hit the spot you shuffle cross to your left hand and move from spot 3 to spot 2 defensive slide dribbling with your left hand.

Once you hit spot 2 you will crossover from left to right and take 3 dribbles for a pull up bank shot, pull up jumper or pull up 3 pointer. Do this coming up and down the right and left sides. Use the opposite hand you used from the right side when doing the drill from the left. Next, do the same drill with the shuffle, between legs and finish with the shuffle behind back.

Teaching Points:

Like all drills this one must be done at 100%. Make sure and do every move low to the ground and work on snapping the ball quickly. When the drill is asking you to focus on handling and hand speed don't worry about sprinting, concentrate on improving you handle. Remember, you can add in things to this drill to make it fit your needs. You can also adjust it to be more or less intense based on your skill level and condition.

For more ideas on individual skill development and offseason drill work, check out the Brand new DVD by Derrick Rose and John Calipari on Point Guard Skills & Drills Series. Derrick Rose is the starting point guard for the Chicago Bulls and John Calipari is the Head Coach of the University of Kentucky.

The Art of the Steal with Rajon Rondo

2010-06-09T21:55:00.001-07:00

An ESPN special on Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo talking about what he thinks about on defense in terms of steals, and how to steal the ball. I agree with him that to a certain extent, you can't really teach it, stealing the ball is just something that you have knack for, quick hands, good anticipation, and good coordination,

For more defensive info, check out Chris Lowery's DVD on transition and halfcourt defense. Coach Lowery is the head coach of Southern Illinois University.

The Legendary John Wooden Passes

2010-06-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

When I think of Coach Wooden, I think of Integrity and Greatness. Instead of sadness, we should celebrate the 99 years of wisdom that Coach has given us not just in basketball but in being better human beings. I have several books from Wooden and I stare at his Pyramid of Success every day in front of my computer,

To the man they call "Coach", Well Done, Well Done indeed, Coach...

Basketball is the Tie that Binds Kobe and Fisher

2010-06-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

Just a great story about friendship and basketball from the NY Times about Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher. There's a certain trust there that is evident. I don't know if it's just me but have y'all every noticed that somehow it's usually the best player on the team and a role player that develop that deep bond? It's funny how that dynamic develops. Logically, you would think it would be the 2 best players but it somehow rarely works out that way, probably because there is always that tension between the top 2 players as to who is better, whose team it is. But between the best player and one of the role players, there is a balance you could say which allows for that honesty to develop between the two.

Like all team sports, at the end of the day, its the relationships that matter most. Everything else fades away with time, but the memories of playing together, the stories you share, those are what will last a lifetime.

Jay Wright Free Throw Drill

2010-06-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

I think every coach has a way they coach free throw shooting, usually done towards the end of practices to simulate the fatigue factor. Here is one that I read from the Basketball BC website which is worth using to switch things up a little from what you might normally use.

Jay Wright Free Throw Drill

Divide the team into pairs and send each pair to a basket. The players will shoot free throws in this fashion: 3 in a row, 2 in a row, and 1. This will simulate the number of free throws they could get in a game i.e. fouled on a 3 pt. shot, fouled on a 2 pt. shot and fouled on a made basket. Total the number of free throws each pair makes. The losing teams may have a suicide, push-ups, etc. as a penalty.

If you like Coach Jay Wright, then check out Jay Wright's DVD on Innovative Late Game Sets. Coach Wright is the head coach of the Villanova Wildcats of the NCAA.

Various Ramblings on Lakers Zone Offense and Steve Nash

2010-05-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

Some great analysis by Sebastian Pruiti over at the NBA Playbook on the Lakers using a Pin and Skip vs the Suns zone, and then the Suns adjusting to a matchup zone to get a man on Kobe.

I like what the Suns are doing on defense, but to me, this series comes down to the Lakers' ability to control the tempo of the game. The Lakers will win every time if they can keep the Suns under 100. The Lakers are just a better half court team offensively and defensively than the Suns, and they're getting baited into running and gunning with the Suns. They won the first 2 games, because the Suns had problems matching up M2M defensively due to the Lakers' size. But the zone is causing just enough problems to allow the Suns to create a few more run out opportunities.

I'm still going for the Suns of course, because of my bias towards Steve Nash. The realist in me says that they will lose the series though because Phil Jackson is going to make the necessary defensive adjustments in Game 5 and Game 6. The real chance the Suns had to win this game was in Game 2, when they were tied heading into the 4th quarter, in LA. But Gentry went with his routine of keeping Steve Nash on the bench until the 6 minute mark, which turned out was too late, and the Lakers managed to build a big lead. If the Suns lose this series, they're going to look back at Game 2 and say that was the one that got away.

Anyways, I leave you with another picture of Steve, now with a broken nose to go with that still healing black eye:

You know you've really made it as a true Canadian icon when you get a plug from Hockey Night in Canada's Don Cherry:

3 line - Timed Shooting Drills

2010-05-21T18:59:00.001-07:00

Found a couple of great timed shooting drills to use. I got these from some old notes on motion concepts created by Coach Pfeuffer in Pennsylvania. I had the chance to put them through some 8th graders that I was helping out with the other day and they really liked it, plus its a great conditioner.

3 line—12 Second Shooting Drills
- Set up with 2 players on each side of the center circle. Player on right side has ball. Third player is on right wing at three point line. 12 seconds on clock.
- Player with ball will dribble at right elbow. On dribble the wing player will make a basket cut and go all the way through to opposite side of court. The player who started on the left side of center court will sprint to left side of court and will work will set a screen for the cutter.
- Now players will run the various screens and cuts, and passes for 12 seconds and take a shot at the buzzer. Don’t give the offense too much to think about, just
have them “play” out of concepts. The only “rule” we use for this drill is that whoever has the ball should have that side of the court to himself. The other two
players should be screening and cutting on the other side of the court. After a few repetitions the players will get used to working with each other and will surprise you with the motion concepts that they have picked up.
- Players like this drill as well if you use the clock because they get to take shots at the buzzer.

3 line—12 Seconds 2 shots drill
- Same setup as prior drill and same initial action.
- This time however players work together and take a shot about 6-7 seconds into drill.
- After shot the shooter will run to the top of the key. Other players go to the offensive glass, whoever does not rebound will then sprint to the top to screen for
the initial shooter. The rebounder will then pass to the shooter so he gets a second shot at the buzzer as he comes off of the screen.

Looking for improvement help during this summer? Take a look at Jay Wright's DVD on 28 Competitive Drills for Shooting and Footwork. Coach Wright is the head coach of Villanova.

Black Eyes, Steve Nash, and What Great Guards Do

2010-05-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

Most of y'all probably know my bias towards Steve Nash, being Canadian and all and especially from B.C. After he played game 4 with one eye and completed the sweep of the Spurs, everyone I know here said exactly the same thing, "Good old Canadian kid."

That got me thinking about point guards and as I was going through some old notes, tidbits from here and there, I came across an article talking about good guards by Dave Bollwinkel of the Boston Celtics, that Steve Nash does every single one of them. Show me a good team, and I'll show you a good point guard, the 2 go hand in hand. The article is below:

"Good Guards"
By Dave Bollwinkel, Boston Celtics Scout

Far too often, high school guards believe that what college coaches are looking for is someone to light up the scoreboard. While scoring is certainly an advantage, you can make it as a college guard if you understand and master all nine points listed below, even if you are not a great scorer.

Good guards...

1. Get their team into offense by:
- Developing a good handle
- Including the retreat dribble

2. Know how to attack pressure.- Always looking up the floor

- Looping the lag guard to create an open side of the floor (reverse the ball early in the offense)
- Using the retreat dribble to back out of traps, stay out of trouble, and to space the floor
- Avoid dead man's corner (at half court)

3. Know when and how to feed the post.

4. Creating through dribble penetration.
- Both for the post and the perimeter
- Deliver the pass into the shooting pocket
- Make use of on ball screens to assist in penetration and to create your own scoring opportunities

5. Make good decisions
- Know their teammates
- Take reasonable risks, think running the break
- Know game situations (clock, score, possession arrow, etc.)

6. Knock down the open jump shot

7. Doing their homework early when it comes to foot organization.
- By "one-twoing" into all 3 point shots (step into their shots)

8. Defend the dribble
- Can pick up full court and work the dribbler
- Can flatten out dribble penetration in the half court

9. Run the show
- Recognize the importance of good guard leadership
- Are "self-authorized leaders" (They take Ownership of the team)

If you're looking for more on developing guard skills, take a look at the Five-star Basketball DVD on Becoming a Championship Point Guard from Memphis Grizzlies NBA Scout, Scott Adubato.

Bobby Knight on Preparation and the Key to Victory

2010-05-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

Reading through the news of the day and came across this golden nugget of advice from none other than Coach Bobby Knight who gave a commencement address to a group of graduates today at Trine University:

“Preparation is the key to victory in any game that you play. The prepared people win a lot more than the unprepared people. You can never spend too much time on preparation. The will to prepare to win is far more important than the will to win.”

I count myself as probably someone who prepares alot, probably too much, as some of my friends say. In fact, the lack of preparation is one of my major pet peeves. When I observe other coaches coach, or other teachers teach, the first thing I take note of is how prepared they are. To me, preparation is so important because it's really the only thing as a coach I have complete control over. There are so many other things that are out of my control, but the one thing I know I can control is how prepared I am for each practice, for each game, for each season.

Want more practice planning advice, then don't miss Bobby Knight's DVD on Practice Planning.

The Vindication of Steve Kerr, Suns up 2-0

2010-05-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

A great article from Johnny Ludden on Yahoo!Sports today on the evolution of the Phoenix Suns under Gentry, and the vindication of Steve Kerr with the Suns on the cusp of overcoming past playoff demons up 2-0 on the Spurs. Kerr took a lot of heat the past couple of years, and rightfully so with the Shaq trade, but I think with the success of the Suns so far in these playoffs, and the continued ineptitude of the Knicks, at least one of Kerr's moves has proven to be right on the mark.

For us coaches, I think it was all pretty evident, that the Suns would never win the championship unless they played some semblance of defense, something Mike D'Antoni never could admit to committing himself to. I've been critical of Mike D'Antoni and his philosophy in the past. It's not just that he doesn't emphasis defense, but the biggest thing for me is that D'Antoni's ego getting in the way of common sense. D'Antoni has gotten so tied up into the 7 seconds or less offense. So much so that instead of focusing on the fundamentals of the game, he's obsessed with proving his thesis. In a way he screwed himself because if he changes his ways now, it would be an admission that he was wrong all along. My only non-negotiables as a coach are to always keep an open mind, don't be afraid of change, and always look for new ways to improve.

As for the Suns chances, I think they're good, very good. The Spurs are a little too old now, they remind me of the Utah Jazz just before Stockton retired and Malone left. The Lakers are still the team to beat, but Kobe maybe a little too banged up this time around.

Lakers Give and Go in the Triangle Offense

2010-05-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

From the other night, the Czar, Mike Fratello, breaking down a little of the Lakers offense, which we all know is the triangle offense. One of the keys of the triangle offense is the give and go, which is why you need a versatile big man to run it properly,

For more info on the Lakers' famed triangle offense take a look at Tex Winter's DVD on the Encyclopedia of the Triangle Offense. Coach Winters is of course the longtime assistant to Phil Jackson.

Suns Secondary Break Against the Blazers

2010-05-02T19:59:00.000-07:00

I've been watching the NBA Playoffs lately but with teaching and Spring football I just haven't had time to breakdown any games. Of course being Canadian, I've been following Steve Nash and the Suns very closely. I was very impressed with the way they were able to beat a good defensive team in Portland. I was going through my RSS feeds the other day and one great website I recommend for all of you players, coaches, fans who follow the NBA is the NBA Playbook. The author does a great job breaking down plays of NBA teams.

In the latest post, the author breaks down this specific play the Suns used consecutive times to score against the Blazers in Game 6. It's really quite simple, it's pretty much their standard secondary break out of the 7 seconds or less they inherited from D'Antoni, using a strong side small to big screen, the person screened reads the defense and either curls up top to receive the handoff, or cuts hard to the basket.

The defensive breakdown, as the author presents, is basically Brandon Roy who is defending Grant Hill in the weakside corner. As a rule, we usually say weakside defenders should have 1 foot in the lane. As you can see, Roy is about 1 step to far. This may not sound like a lot, but it allows Richardson enough room to make the play twice,

(Pictures from NBA Playbook)

But really, in my opinion, it's just a great job of spacing by the Suns. They do a great job with that spread offense that it forces the defense to take that extra step out, with a guy like Grant Hill out there, you can afford to be caught trying to close-out, especially with a not 100% Brandon Roy.

For more on the spread offense, check out Billy Donovan's DVD on the Spread Offense. Coach Donovan used it to win back-to-back national championships at the University of Florida.

Dynamic Warmup Ideas from Duke and Maryland

2010-05-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

There is a great thread on the X's and O's Coaching forum talking about warmups and dynamic stretching. One poster suggested searching for "Duke warmup" in Youtube, and so I did and there were some great videos that I found. I'm a big believer in teams who warmup properly, it shows discipline, and concentration on the task at hand.

Anyways, this first one is from Maryland,

This one is from Duke,

Anyways, if you are a big fan of the championship winning Duke Blue Devils, check out Mike Krzyzewski's All Access Duke Basketball Practice 4-pack DVD which includes 438 minutes of practice and Q&A with Coach Krzyzewski.

Leadership Moments with Larry Brown on NBA TV

2010-04-28T21:53:00.001-07:00

Hope y'all are enjoying the playoffs as much as I am. Here is a great interview from NBA TV with Charlotte Bobcats head coach Larry Brown. It's a short clip, but if you read between the lines, what he's saying is pretty profound. Once a coach, always a coach...

Some quotes from the clip:

(On differences in the players 20 years ago and now). Players don't play 4 years in college anymore, and when they come into this league and they don't play on a good team, they play right away, and they don't have a lot of good role models (ie. its easy for them to fall of the rails).

I coach execution, I don't coach effort (ie. that's your responsibility).

(Talking about David Robinson asking Coach Brown to introduce him at the Hall of Fame) When you're a coach, and you are around greatness, and somebody recognizes that you are a part of that, that's special.

Anyways, if you are a Bobcats fan or Coach Brown fan, take a look at Larry Brown's DVD on Secondary Break and Pick and Roll Offense. Coach Brown is the only coach to ever win both a NCAA Championship and an NBA Championship.

George Karl on Watching the Nuggets in the Playoffs and Not Coaching

2010-04-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

A feel good segment from ESPN on Denver Nuggets head coach George Karl who is undergoing radiation treatment for his throat cancer which has therefore kept him away from his job and the playoffs. It's interesting to watch Coach Karl talk about how hard it is to not be with the team, I think as coaches we all can relate to that feeling when we are away and someone else is coaching your team, its gut wrenching.

Proper Use of the Guide Hand in Shooting the Basketball

2010-04-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

I was helping out a friend's teenage son the other day with his shooting form. Right away I could tell what one of the major problems was, incorrect use of the guide hand. One of the common bad habits that form early on is the habit of shooting with two hands. Kids who start playing basketball early (8-10) begin shooting with 2 hands because they don't have the arm strength to shoot the relatively heavy ball with one hand, so they use two. The problem is that they get used to it, and once they get older, even though they've stopped officially using 2 hands, the guide hand tends to still get in the way of the proper shooting motion. It's a hard habit to shake, but absolutely necessary in my opinion to become a consistent shooter.

I've used the one hand behind the back before but I've found it awkward because nobody plays with one hand behind their back, in other words its not a realistic way to help someone change their habits, they're likely to give up on it very quickly. I went home and looked through my notes and more notes and found these great tips instead from the Basketball BC website. They really helped me so I hope y'all enjoy them...

One of the most common flaws in shooting is the incorrect use of the non-shooting hand, also called the guide hand. The guide hand should only be used to help the player lift the ball up to the release point – it should not be used to help propel the ball to the basket.

Many players use their guide hand, particularly their thumb, to help shoot the ball because it adds more power to the shot; i.e. two hands are stronger than one. However, the more the guide hand is used to shoot the ball, the more likely force will be applied to the ball that is off the shot line. Keeping the shot on-line is simply broken down into two parts: 1) ensure the ball leaves the index and middle fingers of the shooting hand last, and 2) ensure the index and middle fingers point at the basket. If these two things are done the ball will always be on line. If the guide hand is used to push the ball to the basket it becomes more difficult to accomplish these two tasks.

How can you tell if the guide hand is used to by the shooter? Often the rotation of the ball may not be the true backspin associated with the great shot. However a more conclusive method, to see if the guide hand is used, is quite simple – look at the guide hand at the conclusion of the shot, and if the palm of the guide hand is facing the basket then the thumb of the guide hand has been used to generate power.

The more important question is, how can you help a player who uses their guide hand? What techniques can you use to eliminate the use of the guide hand on the shot? Here are several suggestions:

1. Flat Guide Hand - have the player pull the fingers of their guide hand back so the finger tips are off the ball. Now only the palm of the guide hand, as well of the shooting hand, is used to help lift the ball. This technique will help the player to recognize the shot will executed by the shooting hand, and that the guide is not necessary to help get the ball to the basket.

2. O-K Shooting – this technique reduces the effect of the guide hand’s thumb on the shot. The player will make the O-K symbol with the guide hand and shoot the ball. It will be difficult for the thumb to have any impact on the shot when the ball is held this way.

3. Thumb and Index Finger Pinch – have the player move the thumb of the guide hand directly beside the index finger. The movement will make it more difficult for the player to bring their thumb through on the shot. To keep the thumb and index together a coin could be lodged between the two. With the coin in this position it will make it unlikely for the two to separate.

4. L Shooting - have the player focus on keeping their off-hand and off-arm in the shape of an "L" – upper arm parallel to the floor. This will help teach players to move their guide hand off the ball earlier in the shot and minimize an adverse effect on the ball's rotation.

I had a real hard time to find some recent pictures which illustrate clearly the correct use of the guide hand, but here a couple I found (notice how both have the palm parallel to the shooting line):

For more great info on shooting technique, take a look at Ed Palubinskas's DVD on Becoming a Great Shooter. Coach Palubinskas has worked with professionals in both the NBA and WNBA.

The Association L.A. Lakers from NBA Entertainment

2010-04-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

From last weekend, ESPN aired a 2 hour documentary titled, "The Association L.A. Lakers" from NBA Entertainment which chronicles the entire regular season of the L.A. Lakers including unprecedented locker room and off court access, narrated by Andy Garcia. Of course for me, the best parts were the short snippets talking to Phil Jackson. Here is the trailer from NBA TV:

If you missed it this when it first aired last weekend, thanks to the Internet, someone has uploaded it here (around 200MB).

My favorite Phil Jackson quotes are:

Phil on player leadership - Leaders have to be assertive, I think Kobe has come to realize that.

Phil on teamwork - Sometimes I criticize myself about not exploring the modern game, kicking the ball and shooting 3s. But the principle of this game is teamwork, it always has been, it always will be.

The Yugoslavian School of Basketball Development

2010-04-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've become fascinated with trying to find out how other countries around the world develop their players. I've always been fascinated with the former Yugoslavia. Up until say 1993, the best players in the world outside of the U.S. came from the former Yugoslavia. I read a great article the other day which talks about the "Yugoslavia School of Basketball". Here are some great quotes from the article:

The Yugoslav national basketball team never played 'run and gun' basketball and rarely played a full court press (both dominant in the U.S.A), but did effectively play various types of zone defense that require a lot of teamwork and intelligence. At a basketball coaches’ seminar held in Italy in the early 1980s, a Spanish coach, wondering why Yugoslav players dominated European basketball and were highly competitive on a global scale, concluding that 'what matters most is that they are Yugoslavs!'

The Yugoslavs, knowing that they lacked the athleticism of their counterparts, had to rely on good shooting, sharp passing, and creativity instead. The author also points out the 3 pillars of the "Yugoslavia School of Basketball":

1. The national team. This included men, women, and junior (boys and girls) select teams.

2. Second, a strong national federal league was established. In the words of the professional player Dino Radja (Boston Celtics, 1995–1997), the Yugoslav federal basketball league used to be far stronger, more competitive, and balanced than any other European national or international league. The quality of the domestic competition was maintained thanks to the Basketball Federation’s provision that players could not work for foreign employers until they were 27 years of age.

3. Third, organized, systematic scouting, and early development for teenage players. As the result of this type of development, the national team would bring together entire generations of friends from all over the country, who would frequently begin to play together for the national team as 16-year-olds. They remained together throughout their careers, thus preserving the esprit de corps of their teenage days.

I think there are too many special interests in the U.S. system of development to adapt to the "Yugoslavian School of Basketball", and given the dominance of the U.S. in basketball, I'm not sure change is needed. But for Canada, I think it is definitely something worth exploring. The author of the article also talks about the "cult of the national team".

The author also talks about the Yugoslavian philosophy on shooting and practices:
Come off the bench shooting cold. Start practice with a shooting drill. No shooting in the middle of practice. End practice with pressure shooting must make certain amount of shots in a certain amount of time. Do not leave until the goal is reached.

No soft shooting drills.

Two styles a) form b) pressure (especially when mentally and physically fatigued)
50 baskets in 2 minutes – 2 point shots then 3 point shots

Experiment with team – how shots or time to make 10, three pt shots

For more offensive skill development info, check out Kevin Sutton's DVD on 2 Ball Development Drills. Coach Sutton is a NIKE Skill Academy Instructor and head coach of Montverde Academy.

Doc Rivers and Erik Spoelstra Mic'd Up in Game 1

2010-04-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

I always love watching these soundbites from behind the bench of games. I wish all college and high school coaches were mic'd up like this. This clip was from the playoff game yesterday between the Celtics and the Heat, Coach Doc Rivers and Coach Erik Spoelstra:



Creating a Culture of Accountability
2010-04-18T12:09:00.000-07:00
I caught most of the end of season press conference by an embattled Jay Triano, head coach of the Toronto Raptors the other day. My big takeaway was the idea of creating a culture of accountability. Some quotes from the press conference:

"Do I have to demand more discipline from these guys who maybe aren't going to be professionals and act in a professional manner every single game? Absolutely. I have to make adjustments. Just like players have to get better in the off-season, I have to make adjustments as well."

Often times, you hear the phrase, "coach is too soft on them, he's not tough enough". In my opinion, it's not about being "tough" on your players, it's about making them accountable. Players have to know what is expected them, what is acceptable and what is not. You don't have to be "tough" on them to make your players accountable. 

What kind of culture are you striving to create? What are your non-negotiables? 

I always like to watch the benches when I watch games, I can always tell the culture of the team by watching the bench, and how players behave when on the bench. When I look at the Raptors bench this season, I didn't always see a team that was business-like and focused on the same goal. 

Along this theme of accountability, I was observing a Spring Football practice the other day and there were several questions that I left thinking about afterwards:

What is your policy on dealing with lates to practices? 

Do you allow players to come in late? How do you think this is perceived by other players on the team? Why are players are allowed to waltz into practice late and start participating in drills?

How do you deal with the alpha-dogs on your team?

Are you consistent in your treatment of players? How is this perceived by the other players? Why are certain players allowed to take plays off and not others? When and how do you choose to deal with motivation issues with your star players?


France's Youth Skill Development Sport School System
2010-04-15T20:43:00.000-07:00
I was going through some newer notes today and went through some notes from a coaches clinic with Mario De Sisti. It broke down some of the youth programs from different countries around the world. The idea of standardizing how fundamentals are taught I think is important when trying to develop consistency from place to place. 

Specifically, this one below from France was quite intriguing to me. I like the idea of focusing only on offense for the first while. The skills involved with shooting, dribbling, and passing require much more time to develop. Defense comes much more naturally and isn't so much a skill but rather attitude and communication.

I also like the idea of introducing transition basketball only after players have a certain mastery of the fundamentals (maybe Gr 7 or higher). Too many times at the lower levels, its the taller athletic kids that go coast to coast over and over who score. Force the kids to play within the 3-point line, then gradually add transition offense afterwards. 

Anyways, here is the extract for you to read yourselves:

France – sport school system (CPEQ)

Analyze the fundamentals. You must be “fussy” about corrections. If you do not correct at the student level you will have problems at the cadet etc.

Mini level should be fun. Do teach spacing.
30 minutes – fundamental
Shooting games
Dribble games
Passing games

Mentality – don’t be afraid to make mistakes

Players need to learn to receive the ball inside and outside. Play guards inside posts play outside.

Defensive pick up points
Student – 1st year - inside the 3 point line, 2nd year – ½ court
Cadet – 1st year – ¾ court, 2nd year – full court

Also the intensity changes as you move through the different categories.

Periodization
Student – 100% offense – do not teach defense – learned through the offensive skills
Cadet – offense / defense no transition
Junior – offense / defense / transition

First three to four months – only offensive skills with GUIDED defense
Second three to four months – 70% defense / 30% offense
Last 2 months – transition / offense / defense

Conditioning is done through the drills

This allows the players to keep concentration on the skills being learned. If you jump around players are not aware of the concepts being learned. Players cannot remember form one day to the next.


NBA Tribute to Coach Don Nelson
2010-04-12T18:17:00.000-07:00
Catching up on news from last week, this is a nice video tribute of Coach Don Nelson who recently became the NBA's winningest coach with 1,333 wins surpassing Lenny Wilkins. Coach Nelson is the only coach of the top 5 winningest coaches that has never reached an NBA final. I think his greatest moment was when the 8th seeded Warriors beat the 1st seeded Mavs in 2007. Anyways, enjoy...




For Your Next Physics Lesson, Butler's Last Shot
2010-04-10T19:30:00.000-07:00
For those of you who happen to teach physics, this is a neat little video you could use in the classroom especially if you have some basketball players in your class. The analysis was produced by Sports Science and aired on ESPN showing the last shot attempt by Gordon Hayward of Butler which almost won them the national title game over Duke this past Monday. 



Key terms:

- launch angle
- velocity
- x-axis

Can you tell that I'm in lesson planning mode... Anyways, enjoy the rest of your weekend.


Walling Up On Defense
2010-04-08T20:51:00.001-07:00
You hear often times that your are what you emphasize. I think intuitively when we teach good defense to close out hard with high hands to challenge the shot and not foul. When in the lane, we definitely want to go chest-to-chest. I came across these set of notes the other day from Dick Bennett which talks about "Walling Up On Defense". Basically what we already teach our players, but framed in a way in which you can emphasize with your players easily during practices and games, here ya go:

Of all the techniques we teach on defense, "Walling Up" is probably the single best thing we do as a program. It is drilled every day in some shape form or fashion, it is emphasized in every live ball situation, and it's something you hear at least one player or coach from the bench yell when the situation arises in a game.

We believe by Walling Up we save outselves 3 to 5% points of defense and 3 to 5 fouls per games on our players. That keeps our posts out of foul trouble, it helps our rebounding, it keeps our opponents off the free throw line (where we can't defend), and provides a mind set that builds the rest of our defense. Walling Up most often occurs in the paint (lane) when an opponent is trying to score. Statistically speaking even the very best players in the game don't make a very high percentage of contested shots. We Wall Up in the post to force players to score over the top of us rather than around us (You put both hands straight up in the air when you wall up and put your body on the offensive player. You don't even have to jump.) We Wall Up on the perimeter to take away vision of a shot or pass you do not put your body on them in this situation.)

The basic technique is to keep your boyd "straight up" without bringing your hands/arms down. In practice we force players to over exaggerate our angles knowing that in a game situation it's a natural tendency to reach a little.

*Teaching Point: The hardest thing to teach is to keep your feet moving and lower body moving to take up opponents space before they have terminated their dribble of pivot.

*The Best Way to teach this technique: Give the ball to an offensive player with his back to the basket on the block on the right side of the rim. Tell the offensive player to take one dribble to the middle of the floor and turn around and shoot a jump shot over the Walled Up Defender. The defender will need to body up to the offensive player and keep both hands up high.

*This technique will win five games a season for you. DS (I don't have any research on this, but I do believe it.) Plus it is fun to teach and emphasize!

Here are a few pictures of NBA players I found that help to illustrate this basic defensive concept around the basket,




Here is a picture of walling up a player a little further away from the basket to prevent an easy pass,


For more info on M2M defensive concepts and guidelines for running the packline defense, check out Dick Bennett's DVD on pressure defense. Coach Bennett is retired formerly of the head coach of Wisconsin and Washington State.


Pre Final Four Interview with Coach Krzyzewski
2010-04-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

Like most of you, I'm getting really excited about the games tomorrow at the Final Four begins in Indianapolis. From the PBS talk show Charlie Rose yesterday, here is a great 1/2 hour interview with Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski. Unfortunately, I can't embed the clip, you can view the entire clip online on the Charlie Rose website. They talked about a number of different topics and I've added some of the best quotes below:

On Adapting to Your Players Year to Year:
We had to change, half-court defenders, rebounders. Less drive and kick, pressure full court defense.

You have to decide what team you are. Are you a drama, a comedy... then combine that with the basics of being good defensively.

On Trust:
When asked why he is so successful? There is instant trust. 

I'm not more melo, I listen better. I let people talk more than when I was younger. I trust my people more.

Shoot your bullets, don't leave anything on the court. I tell players to trust their instincts. 

Don't over talk your players so that their cup overfills. Allow your players to fill it up on their own.

It's not about what you know, it's about what the players know and can do. If you fill your players with too much info, they're thinking more about what to remember then reacting.

On Player Roles:
The rebounder is as important as the shooter. The rebounders have to believe that they are playing as an important role as the one taking the shot.

Well, hope y'all enjoy the games as I will. Anyways, if you are a big Duke fan like me check out Mike Krzyzewski's new All Access Duke Basketball Practice 4-pack DVD which includes 438 minutes of practice and Q&A with Coach K.


A Closer Look at Baylor's 1-1-3 Matchup Zone
2010-03-31T21:45:00.000-07:00
A little late, but I thought I would just talk a little bit about the game over last weekend's Elite Eight game between Duke and Baylor. The big talk was about how Duke was going to able to beat Baylor's 1-1-3/2-3 matchup zone. Especially when you compare how Kentucky fared against West Virginia's 1-3-1. In the end, Duke just hit some big shots, especially down the stretch to take over while Kentucky couldn't buy a 3-pointer if their life depended on it.

A couple of articles, this one from ESPN, this one from CBS Sports, have described Baylor's zone as a version of UNLV's Amoeba Zone used by Jerry Tarkanian back in the day. I posted a long while back on the Amoeba Zone. It certainly looked similar especially when they would trap the post on the catch from the pass from the corner.


But for the most part, I thought they played it more like a normal 1-1-3 zone, but with alot of matchup up at the top of the key to ensure they got good ball pressure. I also posted on the 1-1-3 matchup zone earlier last year. The keys to the 1-1-3 matchup zone that I posted were:

1. Apply tremendous ball pressure at all times.
2. Sprint to coverage areas with strong closeouts and hands held high.
3. Push the ball to the sideline alleys and corners.
4. The closest player to the ball takes the ball handler.
5. There always must be a player in the low post and high post.
6. All five players are required to rebound.
7. Once the ball is forced to the sideline, stay on the player’s “high hip”  in order to keep the offensive players from reversing positions and dribbling to the other side of the court.
8. The defender stays on the ball until called off by a teammate.
9. All players must communicate verbally for this defense to work.

I thought Baylor played their zone defense well, but in the end, I thought Duke was able to rebound, and shoot the ball when it counted. It wasn't pretty, but zone offense doesn't usually end up looking pretty anyways.

Ironically, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins also has a 1-1-3 zone in his back pocket, and he's used Jim Beilein's 1-3-1, as recent as last game. But WVU is good enough M2M to matchup with Duke, which is what I expect them to play most of the game in the Final Four.


The Importance of Shot Arc From the NYT
2010-03-26T18:46:00.000-07:00
A couple of big games tonight including that 1 vs 4 matchup with Duke against Purdue, and Northern Iowa against Michigan St. I must have missed this article the first time round, but thanks to Chris Brown at Smart Football, here is a unique, scientific look at the importance of shot arc to shooting percentage from the New York Times.



A few very interesting quotes to consider. 

Height of where the ball leaves your hand matters:In a classic study in the 1980s, Peter Brancazio, then a physics professor at Brooklyn College, determined that adding two feet to the height at which a shot leaves the player's fingers increases the success rate by a whopping 17 percent. No wonder you see so many jump shots. 
 So what exactly is the optimal launch angle with the least amount of force: Brancazio explains that you need 45 degrees plus half the angle formed by a straight line between the position of the ball at launch and the basket. Depending on your height and where you are on the court, that typically ranges from 7 to 14 degrees. Thus, for a shot leaving your hands at eight feet above the floor from 18 feet out, you'll want to launch the ball at a bit more than 48 degrees. For most players at a distance of 10 to 25 feet, the least-effort angle ranges between 47 and 52 degrees. 
Finally, the perfect shot angle for free-throws is:Using that system, you can calculate the ideal free-throw angle. It's 13.75 feet from the free-throw line to the center of the basket, and a 6-foot player launches the ball from about seven feet above the hardwood. That works out to a shooting angle of 51 degrees. 
Last but not least, backspin matters:Free-throw success is also improved by adding a little backspin, which pushes the ball downward if it hits the back of the rim. The North Carolina State engineers calculated the ideal rate of free-throw backspin at three cycles per second. That is, a shot that takes one second to reach the basket will make three full revolutions counterclockwise as seen from the stands on the player's right side.


Have fun watching the games tonight...


To Call Or Not to Call a Timeout, Izzo Pulls Back, MSU Wins
2010-03-21T19:52:00.001-07:00
What a crazy weekend of first and second round action. From today though, it's that burning question that all coaches have to ponder as a back and forth game inches closer to its finale. From today's thriller between 2 great teams in Michigan State and Maryland. MSU is up 1, but Maryland comes back and hits a potential game winner with 6 seconds left on the clock. MSU inbounds and brings it down the floor, 



As I read The Dagger later today, clearly from the video, you can see Tom Izzo thinking about calling a timeout but he decides not to at the last second, just before MSU hits the 3-pointer with no time left on the clock,


As a coach, I think it all just comes down to the maturity of your players. With a veteran team, it's probably better not to call a timeout, because the timeout will only benefit the defense who has a chance to rest, re-collect themselves, and prepare to defend against the most probably 2 players who will take the last shot. 

However, with a young, still maturing team, as a coach, I would take that timeout. It is unlikely that a young immature team would know what they should do in that situation, who should take the shot, and how they should be setup. A timeout, would at least assure that the players were in the right position.

Its hard to say whether Izzo made the right or wrong decision. From just going on the limited information I have, MSU is a team that has the experience and maturity to come down the floor with 6 seconds left and make the right play. It seems obvious now, but I think even if MSU misses that shot, based on what I know of MSU, I would still say it was the right call, to not call a timeout, but it's always a tough call, and even for Izzo, you can see he was going back and forth in his head, to call or not to call a timeout.

If you are a big Tom Izzo fan like me, then you'll probably like Coach Izzo's DVD on 'Basketball Smorgasbord' of Drills and Basketball Wisdom. Coach Izzo is the longtime coach of Michigan State.


Outside the Lines, Antoine Walker From Riches to Rags
2010-03-21T19:26:00.000-07:00
Not X's and O's related, but always an important reminder to always be smart with your money. ESPN's Outside The Lines talks with Antoine Walker who is now playing in the Puerto Rican Basketball League. It's so sad to see how someone who was once so high, who has fallen so low, but a good lesson to all of us.




Analyzing West Virginia's Game Winner over Georgetown
2010-03-14T17:39:00.000-07:00
What a weekend of college basketball. The number one seeds are set and everyone is starting to get at their brackets, its a great time to be a basketball fan. Like most of you I watched the Big East final yesterday between West Virginia and Georgetown on ESPN. What a great game, and a great finish. I had a chance today to look at that final inbounds play and it was interesting how Georgetown defended it. They made a critical switch which allowed Da’Sean Butler to catch it clean, beat a slower defender and get a decent shot off inside the lane.

Here is a little breakdown of it. First, off, WVU starts off with 3 players around the lane, almost in a FT lineup, with the 4th player at the weak-side corner. That 4th player, comes across the lane along the baseline scraping off of Butler at the bottom of the lane,

To me, what's interesting is how Georgetown's inbounds defender decides to play. He appears to be in a help position without pressuring the inbounds. This proves to be a crucial error in my opinion.

What happens next is Butler comes up to the top of the key getting a half-screen from the top post. Butler's defender tries to go around instead of chasing, and bumps the defender off thus switching Monroe on to Butler,

Again, notice where the inbounds defender is, supposed to be help-side defense I suppose but in my opinion, not really doing anything because he's not denying Butler the ball.

The ball gets inbounded cleanly into Butler, Monroe of Georgetown tries to closeout and Butler takes advantage of the slower defender to get by Monroe and get right into the lane for a little floater which goes in,


For Georgetown, I think what went wrong was the inbounds defender. Had they put the inbounder right up on the sideline, the pass to Butler would've had to been a lob or further away from the basket, allowing Monroe more time to close out. Secondly, I don't think they should've switched in the first place. If the original defender had chased, he would've had enough time to close out and keep Butler in front of him. I know that usually you tell your team to switch at the end of games, but when you know who the other team's go to player is, and you know who you want defending them, then I think you want to be M2M or at least a Box and 1, denying Butler the ball.

Anyways, we can deconstruct a play to death, but overall I though West Virginia did a great job in exploiting what the defense presented and was able to make the shot. If you are a big fan of West Virginia basketball, and Coach Bob Huggins, then take a look at Bob Huggins's DVD on his Cut and Fill Motion Offense.


Coach Roy Williams Talks About Goal-Setting
2010-03-12T17:36:00.000-08:00
This is a little old (from last week on ESPN's Inspirational Coaches) but I love anything that Roy Williams has to say about motivation and leadership. For sure, it has been a transitional year for the Tar Heels and Coach Williams talks about setting short term goals, and adjusting them year to year,



Coach Williams believes in using quotes as motivation for his team and here are some great ones he talks about in the video,

"Everyone has the will to win, Champions have the will to prepare"

"Persistence prevails when all else fails"

"Be led by your dreams not by your problems"

If you want to learn more from Coach Williams, check out his great DVD on the Secrets of the UNC secondary Break.


D'Antoni's Drive Thru Handoff Ball Screen Concept
2010-03-07T14:08:00.000-08:00
I just read these today after going through the links of the day. They are from Zak Boisvert, who is a Student Manager for the men's basketball team at Fordham University. He's setup a twitter account where he posts daily chalkboard breakdowns. The one he posted on Friday was great. He broke down one of the main plays the New York Knicks like to run out of their SSOL offense (Seven Seconds or Less). It's very similar to european ball-screen concepts that I've seen. Without further ado, here they are, I'll add my own comments at the end.

“drive-thru handoff” ball screen concept

While not technically a ball screen, the Knicks use it much like a ball screen and their usage of the concept (along with another ball screen concept I will highlight next Friday) has increased greatly in the 7 games since acquiring Tracy McGrady as a way to get T-Mac and David Lee in a 2-man game situation.

The action occurs, much like nearly everything else D’Antoni runs, in a spread alignment with 4 perimeter players surrounding 1 post. 2 (McGrady) has the ball on the right wing and 5 (Lee) flashes to the midpoint of the free throw line for a catch. 2 hits 5 and immediately follows his pass. The opportunities from this point are limitless.


The majority of the time, McGrady (2) will be able to free himself from his man enough to receive the handoff and drive the lane either for a score or a drive-and-kick opportunity for the player situated in the left corner.


As the game progresses and the defense begins to jump out and hedge the handoff (treating it like a ball screen), there are opportunities for Lee to fake the handoff and instead drive the ball hard to his right as his defender (x5) anticipates the handoff.


An option that the Knicks have been running in the second half of games that I really like is done with the 1 in the strong side corner as 2 hits to 5 on his post flash. With the defense seeing the “drive-thru” action a couple of times, x2 adjusts accordingly and doesn’t allow 2 to come off clean for a handoff while x5 is in correct hedge position if 2 is able to receive handoff while being ready to guard 5’s drive. 2 cuts off 5 (not receiving the handoff) and goes through as 1 lifts to the right wing spot 2 just vacated. 5 hits 1 and sprints into a ball screen for 1 (setting it on the butt of x1 to offer the best possible driving angle for 1).


My comments:

I think a lot is predicated on O5 being able to make the right decisions. A big man who is a good passer, able to put it on the floor, and is quick enough to chase the ball into ball screens. A lot of teams don't have a versatile O5 like that which would make it difficult to run. 

As for defending it, I would hedge out on O2, but also I would trap O5 on the catch once in a while. If the offense has a versatile dominant O5, then I would allow O2 to catch the handoff, and bring help from the weak side (X3 or X4) and leave one of those free (assuming neither O3 or O4 are good shooters).

For more video info on ball-screening offenses, take a look at Todd Kowalczyk's DVD on the Attacking Ball Screen. Coach Kowalczyk is the head coach of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.


Coach Tarkanian on the Day He Started Six Players
2010-03-06T19:29:00.000-08:00


Ever heard of starting six players and taking the intentional technical foul? I'm a big fan of legendary coach and former head coach of UNLV Jerry Tarkanian's blog, and in his latest post he talked about doing just that: starting the six seniors on Senior Day. Sometimes the right thing to do is just the right thing to do. I've never really thought about it too much myself now that I am a coach and somewhat far removed from my playing days. But I remember how I felt when I was a senior in high school, and having been mostly a bench player most of my career, being given the opportunity to start my final game, it was something special.


Don Meyer Coaches His Last Game
2010-02-28T15:56:00.001-08:00
The end of the basketball season means the end of an era for legendary college basketball coach Don Meyer who coached his last game this weekend. If you are not entirely familiar with Coach Meyer's story, click here. It doesn't get much better than Coach Meyer, here are some video highlights:



My favorite quote: "I love the game of basketball but not as much as I love the player"


Some Offensive Thoughts From Kevin Eastman
2010-02-28T15:50:00.000-08:00
I'm always looking for nuances that help explain things. I like finding patterns and see how to apply them for added advantage. From some notes that I received a little while ago, here are some interesting "truisms" courtesy of Kevin Eastman, the Assistant Coach for the Boston Celtics,

TRUISM # 1: There is a direct correlation between the number of ball reversals and defensive breakdowns. 

Our players have to understand that the hardest thing to do defensively is to close out — to be running out at a player from the help position. Having said that, we need to understand that an advantage our offense must look to create is to get the defense to close out as often as possible; we want the ball to be reversed from side to side. With our team I can tell you that our scoring proficiency goes up as the number of passes and ball reversals goes up. Of course we have a shot clock that forces us to shoot the ball quicker, but we still would like a minimum of 3 passes as we then know the ball is getting reversed. When we only throw 1 or 2 passes we find that it is very easy for the defense to load up to the ball


TRUISM # 2: The closer you run your offense to the basket, the more physical your screens can be.

We have found that the officials are more apt to let contact go when it is closer to the basket as they are used to seeing more contact down there as opposed to out by the 3 point line. We feel that is why the flex action is allowed to get away with some physical baseline and pin down screens, and why we have to be careful when setting a back screen out by the 3 point line. So give some thought to having some part of your offensive system where you run your stuff closer to the rim.

TRUISM # 3: The faster the ball moves, the closer the defenders stay to their man.

We have found that when we move the ball a little faster, the defensive players are more concerned with staying up with their man and tend to not jump to the ball and get in help position. We also feel that that leaves us with more room to drive it as the defenders are out of position just enough to allow us to get a good driving angle on them. I would say if you do not have a good scoring post man, you should look to move the ball a little faster at times and create driving opportunities. If you do have a good post man you would want to slow it down and give the post man a good look.

If you like any of Coach Eastman's stuff, or you just like the Celtics, then check out Kevin Eastman's DVD on Skill Development for Inside and Perimeter Players.


A Look at The Black Fives Era
2010-02-28T15:34:00.000-08:00
For all you history buffs out there (yes, I count myself as one of them), this is a short look at the Black Fives Era by ESPN's Outside the Lines. The Black Fives was a traveling team during the 1930s, a time when racial segregation was the norm. A great way to teach social history to students, through sports, enjoy...




Lorenzo Romar on Motivation and Leadership
2010-02-24T23:12:00.000-08:00
From a few days ago on ESPN, this is a great 1 on 1 conversation about motivation and leadership with one of my favorite college coaches Lorenzo Romar of the University of Washington Huskies. I have to admit that his style of coaching is very much the way I model myself after, he's not much of a yell in your face kind of a coach, instead he's cool and calm but still holds his players accountable. Enjoy...



My favorite quote from the clip:

"Your reputation is what perceive you to be. Your character is what you are when nobody is watching."


Motion Ideas Against Good Helpside M2M Defense
2010-02-21T12:11:00.001-08:00
In watching some local playoff games the other day, I caught one game where one team's M2M help-recover defense was causing the other team's motion offense all kinds of problems. When it comes to the playoffs, it's all about the adjustments, everyone knows what everyone else is running, so the ability to make subtle but important changes is crucial.

I came across these great notes from a coaching clinic conducted by Coach Bad Brownell that outlined some great adjustments you can make to your motion offense against a strong help defense team. In watching that playoff game, I thought a couple of tweaks could have helped them overcome their difficulties:

Motion Ideas vs Helpside Defense

General thoughts - move the defense:
- Ball reversal
- Player Movement
- Early Offense, flow into motion acting out of transition

Flare Screens
Use flare screens because the defense usually jumps hard to ball (over-committing) when playing help defense,


Screen and Skip
Screen in for the crosscourt pass, then skip to the open side. The side to side action really causes help defense teams a lot of problems, just like it does for zone defenses,


Downscreen Cutters
Pass and cut on the perimeter. Cutter cuts through the basket and receives a weakside downscreen by the offensive player on the weakside, then you can reverse the ball quickly to that open cutter,


Drive the Weakside
On the quick ball reversal or skip pass, your perimeter players need to attack the glass as defenders are temporarily caught on help rotation,


Penetrate and Fill Behind
Drive hard at a shooter's defender, and the shooter should fill behind for the open shot. Basic drive and kick principle,


For more info on drills to use for motion offense like the dribble drive, take a look at John Calipari's DVD on Perimeter Drills for the DDM. Coach Calipari is the head coach of the University of Kentucky Wildcats.


Kobe Bryant Not Worried About Lakers Winning Without Him
2010-02-17T19:55:00.000-08:00
Some good stuff from Kobe Bryant today on Pardon The Interruption talking about how he's glad that the team is winning without him. How, the Lakers pride themselves in being able to make decisions independently, overcoming injuries, and the trust they have that if one of them goes down with an injury, others will step up. 



It goes back to the point that you want your players running things. A sign of a well coached team isn't where the coach is dictating every movement or action, the sign of a well coached team is one where the coach is barely noticed, where the players can start practices themselves without the coach's every command.


Talking Motivation from Tennessee's Bruce Pearl
2010-02-14T21:39:00.001-08:00
From the other day, here is a great 1-on-1 interview with Tennessee Head Coach Bruce Pearl. Some great 1-liner motivational tidbits that you can use with your team:



Champions are made when nobody is watching. What are you going to do separate yourself from others. What are they going to do to deserve victory.

Adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it.

Hard work alone won't guarantee success, but without hard work, I guarantee that you won't be successful. It's your choice, I choose to work hard, I choose to make sure our teams work hard to put our teams in position to have success.

It's easier to get something goin', than it is to keep something goin'. The difference between the good coaches and the great coaches is that if they didn't win a championship, they always competed for a championship. Creating the consistency to be successful.


Steve Smith's Ball Reversal Primary Break
2010-02-14T21:29:00.000-08:00
Watched a playoff game the other day between 2 high school teams and the final score was 118-103. Wow, think about that, this is high school ball, single game elimination district final. Can't say I was entirely impressed with the lack of real defense, but when you score 118 points, how can you argue with that. 

In any case, I was inspired to look for some more primary break stuff while I had that game still swirling in my head and came across these great notes from Oak Hill Academy's Steve Smith. It is their primary break offense they run, they just call it regular. Enjoy...

Player Spacing
Both post players are interchangeable. First post player gets to the rim and second post player is the trailer. Trailer is one step behind the ball. The first post player is the rim man and the most important part of the break. The two wings are interchangeable. He does not insist that the two guard run the right side of the floor. The point guard runs the middle of the floor and should know what everybody is doing. Point guard is always looking to pass the ball ahead up to the wings and not always dribble the length of the floor.

Regular
Unless they call a set play from the bench they are running what they call regular in their full court offense. They don’t verbally say regular it is just something they do by default. Point guard follows the ball to whatever side he pitches it ahead. Trailer always fills opposite. They tell their rim runner to stay in the lane like 5 seconds. In transition he feels like you get this much time. The rim runner is always your first option. They like to reverse the ball once give the rim runner a look. When the ball is reversed, the low post player then comes to the foul line and sets a pick for the point guard and trailer. They scissor cut off the high post with the point guard going first. The post player then steps out to the top of the key and takes the ball reversal. Wing then screens down and looks to post up. Ball goes to one wing and the opposite side sets a back screen out top for a lob look.


First option on regular is ball beversal looking to feed the rim runner near the basket area.


Second option is a scissors cut off the high post. The PG cuts first and the trailer second.


High post then steps out for ball reversal.


Ball goes back to PG looking to post up 3.


4 backscreens for 5 looking for possible lob play.


Simple motion then continues.


For more transition offense pointers, take a look at Steve Smith's DVD on High Scoring Transition Offense. Coach Smith has built Oak Hill Academy into a prep school powerhouse with famous alums in the likes of Jerry Stackhouse and Team USA's own Carmelo Anthony.


Bobby Knight on Syracuse's 2-3 Zone Fundamentals
2010-02-10T20:44:00.000-08:00
I posted way back when I started this blog what Syracuse does in their 2-3 zone. From ESPN today, Bobby Knight took the opportunity to do the same, take a look:



A couple of great things that Coach Knight mentioned in the clip. Your perimeter defenders must work to close all the gaps. A lot of teams that I see play zone, basically play a packed in soft zone, they allow the offense to do what they want. Good teams will eventually work the ball around enough to get a good shot. Instead, your zone defense must attack the ball with pressure and close out quickly on the perimeter, force the action which will result in turnovers. Lastly, you must have good weak side support on either side of the zone. 

Coach Bobby Knight isn't known for his zone defenses, therefore he doesn't have a video on it, but if you want to know more about the Syracuse Zone, you can always check out Jim Boeheim's DVD on the 2-3 matchup zone. Coach Boeheim is the longtime head coach of Syracuse University.


Kansas Ball Screen Offense in Action Against Colorado
2010-02-07T13:41:00.000-08:00
From earlier in the week between Kansas and Colorado, I caught the tail end of the game in the Overtime period where the Jayhawks were able to out-execute their way to the win over the Buffaloes. The beauty of their ball-screen continuity offense is that no matter how you choose to defend it, they just adjust their reads, execute, and still score on you. Check out these 2 sequences, where the Buffaloes try to hedge first, and then they try to switch second, both times the Jayhawks simply make the correct read,



In this first sequence, they try to hedge on Collins. Morris rolls to the basket and then because the Buffaloes can't drop enough players on help side, it's basically 2-on-1,


As the game winds down, the Buffaloes adjust by switching on all screens. They do so here and the Jayhawks re-adjust. Collins is now matched up against a slower bigger forward, so he takes him off the dribble and goes for the reverse layup,


From all the top 4 teams I've seen in action, I'd have to say that Kansas and Kentucky have been the most impressive so far. Kansas plays better half-court defense so I'd have to give them the edge but Kentucky looks like the Memphis team that went all the way to the Finals a couple of years ago, it will be very interesting if Coach Calipari and Coach Self meet again. 

Anyways, there isn't a dedicated video to just the offense, at least not just yet. But if you like Coach Self and the way Kansas plays, then take a look at Bill Self's All Access Kansas Basketball Practice 4-pack DVD which includes 424 minutes of practice and Q&A with Coach Self.


Mike Fratello Breaks Down Cavs Win over Heat Last Week
2010-02-04T16:40:00.000-08:00
From NBA TV, this is a segment from "The Czar" Mike Fratello breaking down one of the last plays between the Miami Heat and the Cleveland Cavaliers last week. In it, it shows Dwayne Wade attempting a behind the back pass which gets picked off by none other than Lebron James, who takes it all the way, is fouled, and makes what ends up being the game-winning free throws. Take a look:



Just like my post below, its a lesson in why you make the simple, yet effective and efficient overhead pass instead. The behind the back stuff may make Sportscenter, but it's just a great pass because:

1. Its hard for your teammates to know when exactly they will be getting the ball.
2. Its slower to develop, as almost everyone can throw the ball faster and more accurately forward than behind their back. 

Anyways, for more info on passing and guard fundamentals, check out Oliver Purnell's DVD on Fundamental Team Drills for Practice. Coach Purnell is the head coach of the University of Clemson.


Lessons on Why You Don't Go for the Strip
2010-02-01T20:12:00.000-08:00
From the other night between Indiana and Illinois, I couldn't help but cringe a little at that game winner by Illinois that beat Indiana. You play so well throughout the game, but then you let your guard down you make a little mistake and poof, you lose the game. Basketball is sometimes hard like that, but it's the lessons you learn that are the most valuable.

In this last play, the Illinois player does the right thing, he drives straight to the basket. The Indiana player actually does a pretty good job staying with using good defensive stride but at the moment the offensive player picks up his dribble for his shot, the defender commits the cardinal sin by trying to go for the strip. Check out the video,



Again, in this picture, you can see that the defender is actually doing a pretty decent job staying with, not letting the dribbler cross his face,

But at the end of the play, the defender brings his arm down to try to go for the strip. He actually fouls the Illinois player who makes the shot anyways to win the game,


Now we'll never know if the defender had not dropped his arm down over the offensive player, whether or not it would've prevented the shot from going in. But percentages say, that it probably would have.

Well, if you want some more info on defensive drills for your practice, check out Darrin Horn's DVD on Defensive Drills to Build your Defense. Coach Horn is the head coach of the University of South Carolina which recently beat former number one Kentucky.


A Day in the Life of a NBA Referee from NBA TV
2010-01-28T21:05:00.000-08:00
And no, this has nothing to do with Tim Donaghy. For all the coaches out there, I encourage you to spend at least 1 month refereeing, it will change your whole perspective on the game. I never really had a true appreciation of refereeing until I became one for a season a few years ago. What I found most eye-opening was the incredible pressure I was under. Being a coach, its always easy to "referee" from the sidelines, having the benefit of being able to reflect for 2-3 seconds before reacting, seeing what the ref calls, how your players react, how the fans react. As a ref, you blow the whistle milliseconds after the play. You don't have 2-3 seconds to reflect, you must make the right call right away. Everyone is waiting for you to make the call, then reacting to it. It's tough, it's a lot of pressure, all the time.

Anyways, I really liked this segment from NBA TV, probably one of their best all season. Refs really are perfectionists, they want to get the call right. They care about the integrity of the game. And they are professionals. I felt the same way as the refs in the video, if a player or coach came up to me respectfully, I was always more than willing to talk. I think it's a myth that referees hold grudges, I never really had time, people don't realize that when you become a referee, you usually ref a couple of games a night, I barely remembered the scores of the games, let alone coaches or players. Anways, enjoy....




4-on-3 Closeout Drill for Man-to-Man Defense
2010-01-28T20:52:00.000-08:00
I'm always on the lookout for good shell-based drills for M2M defense. This one is a good one to teach help defense concepts and closeouts. If your team is playing good team M2M defense, you will always have situations where you are disadvantaged, 3-on-2, 4-on-3, as a result of your defense shifting to stop the ball, so it's always critical for your players to be able to closeout properly and split the offense properly until your teammates can recover. I got these from an older Xavier Newsletter, I like it because there is a quick turnaround so that you can get a lot of players through it instead of a lot of players standing around while 7 players play 4 on 3 for 3 minutes.

4-on-3 Closeout Drill:
1. The drill begins with four offensive players versus three defensive players. The offensive players cannot move without the ball. The drill is halfcourt only.
2. The defense must get three consecutive stops to get out. Possession of the ball by the defense equals a stop. If the offense scores or is fouled before a "third consecutive stop" occurs, the consecutive stop count returns to zero.
3. The offense must shoot on three passes or less.
4. On every catch by an offensive player, one of the three defenders, the closest one, must actively closeout and defend the ball. A defender should not have to take two consecutive passes.





For more shell drill info, check out Kevin Boyle's DVD on Building a Man Defense. Coach Boyle is head coach of St. Patrick's High Shool in New Jersey and a part of the NIKE Grassroots Basketball Program.


Anatomy of a Buzzer Beater, Florida over SC
2010-01-24T19:39:00.000-08:00
Wasn't able to catch all those great games yesterday, I stayed with CBS most of the day, so I went through the Florida vs South Carolina game earlier today on tape. What a thrilling finish, USC goes coast to coast to go up by 2, only to have Florida come back coast to coast to drain a game winning 3-pointer.

It was one of those plays where you can't find fault really, just 2 teams which played their hearts out, executed as best they could, and the team with the last shot was the one that came out on top.

If there was one thing I would like to point out, is just the spacing of Florida's break. Parsons, 25, goes wide and knows exactly where to spot up for the 3-pointer. Tyus dribbles wide to get into a better driving angle, then as the defense stays at home to defend against the dribble drive, Tyus drops off the ball to Parsons for the open 3-pointer, which he hits.





And if you're wondering why Florida didn't call timeout after USC hit their 2-pointer for the 1-point lead, it was because Florida was out of timeouts at that point.

For more ideas on incorporating the 3-pointer into your offense, check out Billy Donovan's DVD on Shooting and Defending the 3-pointer. Billy Donovan is the head coach of the University of Florida.


Teaching Concepts for Press Break Skills
2010-01-24T14:14:00.001-08:00
When I watch a lot of basketball at the lower levels (up to JV), it bugs me a little when I watch 1 team dominate the other team simply through a full court press. Ever since about a year ago, I used to be of the sole belief that it was just bad form for a more athletic team to FC press a less athletic team. But the more I think about it now, I think it points to a failure by coaches to properly teach players how to deal with traps and double-teams, especially in the open court. 

There were always be situations where it is bad form for a team to be FC pressing (like if ahead by 20-plus points, etc...). But as coaches, we tend to overemphasize the tactical side, how to scheme out of FC pressure, and not actually teach players how to play out of pressure themselves. I think there are some general concepts we as coaches should be teaching which will allow even less athletic teams, the ability to successfully play against pressure defense in the open court. Sure it takes more work, there are no quick fixes, but in the end its a better way to approach it in my opinion.

I scoured my notes and came across some good teaching points from a Mike McNeill article of Basketball BC. So, without further ado, here are some of those great pointers:

1. Dribbling and passing skills required:
• Change of pace dribble
• Pop back or retreat dribble
• Pivoting skills – a great deal of passing ability is determined by pivoting ability; you must be able to create passing lanes by pivoting
• Pass fakes

2. With the ball, do not:
• Attempt to pass off the dribble over top of the defense
• Attempt to pass around the defense – “pass through the defense” - this means pass the ball by the ears, off the hips or directly over top of the defender’s head
• Pick up the dribble until you are ready – “keep the dribble alive”

3. Away from the ball, do not:
• Get “three in a row” – in the diagram O2 should move to the sideline, or to middle, to create a passing lane for O1
• Wait for the pass - move to the pass, “run through the ball”
• Let the defense catch up to the ball after a trap – Hit the next open player.


4. With the ball:
• Pass first, dribble second
• Fake high, pass low or fake low, pass high
• Dribble, but constantly change pace
• Force the trap when you want to not when they want to

5. In the double team:
• Stay low in the trap - maintain balance
• Pass away from the defense
• To split the double team take the ball through low and first
• If near a side-line or end-line learn to bounce the ball off the defenders out of bounds – this should be practiced
• If, using NCAA rules, call a “time-out”

6. Approaching the double team:
• Only cross center when you know you can get 10 feet past the center line so you have room to pass the ball back
• When approaching the trap make your last dribble and step to the outside of either defender to create a passing lane
• Use your retreat or pop back dribble and take on the slower of the two in the double team

7. Away from the ball:
• Go down the floor until your check stops - “when yours stop, you stop”

• Circle cut to take your check out of help and to create passing lane

• When the ball is moving towards the sideline or on the sideline you must have a teammate down the sideline, ready to move behind the ball in the middle, and in the middle


• When your defender goes to double team you come back to the ball


For a brand new DVD just released, check out Bill Self's All Access Kansas Basketball Practice 4-pack DVD which includes 424 minutes of practice and Q&A with Coach Self.