When I watch games, I always watch the bench. I can always tell if a team has good chemistry just by watching the demeanor of the players and the coaches on the bench. Are they focused on the time-score-situation? Is the bench supportive or making snide comments? Sometimes I see the guy who gets pulled and pouts at the end of the bench. Other times, I see two or three players playing with their PSPs, the bench players clique. I've even seen assistant coaches on their blackberries the entire half. You can tell a lot from watching a team's bench.
It's easy to get caught up in X's and O's, fundamentals, skills, etc... As many of you coaches are getting back into rhythm after the holidays, regular season in full swing, playoffs upcoming, team chemistry and team unity becomes more important than ever. As a coach, do you know all the cliques on your team? What are you doing to address potential player-to-player, player-to-coach, player-to-parent issues? If you don't think your team has any, you haven't been paying enough attention. In all the teams that I've ever coached on, football and basketball, I don't think I've ever coached a single team that did not have issues with chemistry and unity. I think it's inevitable that you'll get cliques, conflicts, and overall personnel issues. In one year, there was a conflict between two players and the head coach simply asked me (the assistant) to "take care of it."
Dealing with and addressing team chemistry is part of being a head coach. Though I don't think every situation is the same, I do think that there some general things that head coaches can do to help with team unity on the bench. Here are some great in-game tips from a variety of great coaches that hopefully you can also incorporate into your program to help build team unity on your bench. Enjoy...
Little Things
- Have a "salute" that each player in your program (freshman through seniors) gives each other when running into one another off of the court. It builds program unity and ownership. (By David Fox...Head Men's Basketball Coach Jefferson City, Mo)
- ATTITUDE....Have the coaching staff right smack dab in the middle of the team bench. One of the biggest problem areas is the end of the bench because players can hide down there and show their displeasure through their words and body language without the coaches knowing about it. This takes away the "Safe Haven" (Pat Summitt)
- At home games introduce all your players not just the starters. Introduce the non-starters first. Don't be detailed with them, just say name and number. This helps build team unity. (Duane Silver)
- Have honorary coaches for your home games. Could be teachers or loyal people from the community. (Billy Gillispie)
Two things for the players on the bench to do during the game
1. Every time a shot is taken they should yell "BLOCK OUT" when the shooter cocks his arm to let the ball go! (This is part of our teamwork) (Doug Boxell...Ponder, TX HS)
2. Have the players talk to the players playing defense on each possession. Most of their taking will be to the man guarding the basketball. (Bruce Pearl)
*The bad part about these two great ideas is they can only be done in the first half each game. The reason is, the defense will not be in front of your bench in the second half.
Credit: Coach Duane Silver's newsletter.
What a day of upsets and close games. BC stunning UNC at Chapel Hill, Oregon State beating USC, Louisville and Kentucky going to the last shot. And Cal upsetting 17th ranked Arizona State. I've watched a few Cal games so far this year, the latest was in their own tournament against Dartmouth. Tonight, the Cal Bears really impressed me with their offense. One thing is for certain, Mike Montgomery is one heckuva coach and has the Cal Bears playing some great ball right now.
First off, they took advantage of some poor shot selection by the ASU Sun Devils to score in transition. In the half court, they ran a great zone offense against the ASU 3-2 matchup zone that got great looks inside and didn't settle for too many 3-pointers. A lot of baseline cuts, and screen and seals. Here are few sequences from throughout the game,
Baseline Zone Offense:
For the Cal Bears, their zone offense is all about the underneath. Because defenders in a zone offense are ball-oriented, running players behind and running screen and seal is a great way to get high percentage shots, as the defense simply cannot keep track of players underneath. All the Bears do is in a 4-out 1-in set, they reverse the ball and the 1-in on the ball side comes out to the corner, the weakside forward then sneaks in from the weakside corner to the weakside block,
They repeat from side to side, with one of the wings cutting baseline once in a while to switch up the positioning. In the video, you'll see the players constantly looking for that baseline cutter underneath.
Screen and Seal:
When the wing cuts through the baseline as the ball is reversed, the strong side forward sets a backscreen, then seals the defender. The ball can now go to the corner for the 3-pointer, or even better, to the forward who has just sealed the defender for the lob,
In the clip, you see that the defender actually gets caught between trying to cover both O3 and O5.
Dribble Penetration
Dribble penetration works great against the zone if you have quick enough guards. Beat the first defender, penetrate the gaps, then look for the forward underneath,
Summary:
Arizona State is a tremendously talented team. But watching them tonight, I thought their offense was too one-dimensional, too much 1v1 play and one and done shots. I was also surprised that ASU went zone the entire game since Cal was doing so well breaking it. I haven't watched that many ASU games so maybe it was just one game. As for Cal, I watched Mike Montgomery when he was at Stanford and loved the way his teams played. When he signed on to be the head coach at Cal earlier last year, not many people noticed, but it looks like he has Cal moving in the right direction. I would not be surprised to see them ranked by the end of the year.
If you like Coach Montgomery like I do, then check out Mike Montgomery's DVD on his 5 Man Motion and Stack Offense. Be sure to check out the X's and O's of Basketball Forum to discuss this and more of your favorite basketball topics.
Went through some archived NBA games and came across this game between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Clippers. 2 teams that had a lot of high expectations going into the season but have so far disappointed. The 76ers won the game, but they really made it a lot harder on themselves. They are a good team defensively, but they just don't have enough offense right now to beat the better teams in the NBA.
The 76ers ran a matchup zone the entire game. Personally, I wouldn't run it the entire the game, but I think that it helped to force the Clippers to become a perimeter team. Here are a few sequences from throughout the game of the 76ers matchup zone,
The matchup zone is perhaps as confusing to run as it is to play against. Is it a zone defense, or is it a switching M2M? Every matchup zone is specific in that there are set rules to defend against different situations. Therefore, each matchup zone will most likely not like another, and depending on what you want to do defensively, the rules may go counter to what you would normally do in a traditional M2M or zone defense. The rules that you need to specify how your matchup zone will defend are:
1. How will you defend PNRs and other screens? Will you switch, double, hedge, fight through, etc..
2. How will you defend against cutters into the lane? Will the defender follow all basket cuts, baseline cuts, etc...
3. How will you defend penetration into the gaps? Who will help and from where. Who rotates to closeout? Who do you leave open?
PNR Defense Stop the Ball and Rotate:
For the Sixers, they always stop the ball first, then rotate to the next pass. They always stop penetration first, then every one must rotate to the first pass away. The PNR is set by O4, then O4 pops out. X4 and X1 stop the ball,
X1 and X4 stop the ball. X2, X3, and X5 are basically zoned up in a mini-triangle. Once the ball goes to O4, X2 closes him out. The ball is reversed to O2, X3 closes him out,
The ball is finally reversed all the way to O3. X2 rotates from O4 and closes out O3. Note, instead of X4 rotating down to take O5 and X5 rotating to close out O3, X5 moves with his check O5 (not sure why, probably one of the Sixers matchup rules for bigs on bigs). In this case, X4 rotates back to his original check O4,
Defending Cutters:
In this specific case, the 76ers decide not to follow O3 cutting baseline into the lane. X3 first looks to trail, then comes back to the ball, presumably to help on penetration against O2 (Baron Davis),
After O3 cuts, you'll see X4 and X3 zoned up. Again, it is probably built into their rules that O3 is to be left semi-open on purpose,
I didn't show the entire sequence, but eventually the ball is skipped to O3 in the short corner, but X3 closes out, and the ball is kicked back out.
Summary:
The matchup zone is a great way to disrupt the offense. Because of the specific rules, the defense is very unpredictable and as an offense sometimes teams tend to play to break the zone instead of just running their normal sets. The matchup zone has its flaws though. First, you give up more offensive rebounds due to all the switching and closing out, forwards crashing the boards tend to get overlooked. Second, it is inherently complex, and so players tend to sometimes forget rules, or 2 players get mixed up on exactly what to do at a given moment and the offense takes advantage. I think the Sixers did a good job with it, but like I said, I wouldn't run it all game. I'd run it once in a while say out of a timeout, just to throw off the other team.
For a brand new video on the matchup zone defense, take a look at Dave Odom's DVD on his 10-Rule Matchup Zone. Coach Odom is a former head coach of South Carolina and Wake Forest. Discuss your favorite offenses at the X's and O's Basketball Forum with other coaches from around the world.
From a couple of nights ago, watched the game between the George Mason Patriots and the Dayton Flyers. It was a really close game all the way through with Dayton winning it by a few points. I had originally wanted to see Jim Larranaga's Scramble defense, but George Mason ran almost M2M most of the game going to the scramble only a few times.
I really like the George Mason offense though. It was a basic flex continuity and a few quick hitters or option plays out of it. They may not blow out any opponents with their slow methodical offense, but it's disciplined and reliable. Combined with good defense, they should theoretically be competitive in almost every game they play in. I took a few sequences from the first half,
Baseline Flex Continuity:
The Patriots run the flex continuity with mostly only the baseline screens. The players cycle through all positions, so like other continuity offenses like Bo Ryan's Swing offense, each player is expected to be able to post up, shoot 3-pointers, dribble drive, etc.. They usually start in a 4-out 1-in set. The offense is started with your standard pass and pick away. The first look is always inside,
As the ball is reversed the other way, O5 sets a baseline screen for O2 who cuts off the screen high side looking for the pass from O4. In the video, this is the pass made in the first sequence that results in the drop-step layin,
If O2 is not available, then the ball is reversed again. This is where George Mason's flex differs from other versions of the flex. Instead of the downscreen by O3, for O5, most of the time George Mason will just have O5 come up to the top of the key after the baseline flex while O3 shuffles to the opposite wing,
As the ball is being reversed, O2 sets the baseline screen for O4 who cuts off the screen high-side again and looks for the pass from O3 on the other side,
They repeat this continuity until they get a good shot off, reversing the ball from side to side. Now, they do run a couple of options out of the basic continuity. The dribble handoff, the downscreen for 3-pointer, and the PNR (which I won't show but is in the video).
Dribble Handoff Option:
The flex is great because you can add options, counters, quick hitters as much as you want to vary the offense and prevent it from being completely predictable. You can use an audible from the bench to signal the option you want to run. George Mason likes to run a dribble handoff on occasion out of their basic flex. So, instead of reversing the ball all the way to the wing, all they do is have O1 dribble towards O4 for the quick handoff. O4 uses O1 as a screen and dribbles to a nice spot for the pull-up jumper,
Downscreen for 3-pointer:
George Mason on occasion will also run your standard downscreen for the baseline screener in order to get a 3-pointer look as well,
Summary:
As I mentioned, the flex offense is designed to use up clock, go side to side, it's possession basketball. You can't expect to be a team that will score 100 points with this offense, it's just not designed that way. What you will get is good shot opportunities. It does take discipline to run it, sometimes you see teams try to run the flex, but 1 player will all of sudden decide they want to do it all themselves and go 1v5. Overall, I think if you have a very balanced team in terms of offensive talent, the flex is a great way to spread the ball around and get the best shot opportunity available in the half court.
I originally wanted to see more of the George Mason scramble defense but of course Jim Larranaga doesn't run it much these days since he doesn't believe he has the athletes to do it. But if you like George Mason and want to know more about what the scramble is all about, then Jim Larranaga's 2-pack DVD on the Scramble Defense is for you. Be sure to check out the X's and O's of Basketball Forum to discuss this and more of your favorite basketball topics.
I just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy New Year. Thanks to all my sponsors Better Basketball and Yardbarker. Thanks to all you readers. And may all your basketball wishes come true in the new year. Take care, celebrate safely, and make sure y'all come back for more on the X's and O's of Basketball in 2009.
The other week I was watching ESPN and Jay Bilas said something that irked me a little bit (which is unusual because I usually love watching and listening to all the College ESPN staff). He said that Tennessee was not good enough this year because they can't force enough turnovers, only 15 a game. He said they needed to be over 20 to be effective. Stats are great. I like to think that I'm one of the coaches that probably incorporates stats analysis more than most. But to assess a team's play solely on stats is presumptuous in my opinion.
And so I watched a few Tennessee games this season. The Vols still run pressure defense, they just don't gamble and trap as much anymore. The run a safer M2M version of pressure defense, designed to wait for the offense to make a mistake rather than inducing a turnover like the traditional Bruce Pearl 1-2-1-1 press. What the Vols really do well is matchup M2M full-court up-the-line/on-the-line on all inbounds. They put their most athletic forward on the inbounder and force you to make a dangerous pass to the corner or bait you to go over the top. In the game against Louisiana-Lafayette last night, they forced nearly 10 turnovers simply by pressuring the inbounds. Take a look,
Athletic Forward Defending Inbounder:
Put your tallest but also most athletic forward to defend the inbounder. The key to really creating inbounding havoc is to make it hard for the offense to both see and make a good direct inbounds pass. Here, 6-foot-9 Wayne Chism creates all kinds of problems on the spot inbounds,
Face Guard Denial:
Each defender in the backcourt should be face guarding their check with both arms up in full denial. This is how you get 5 second calls. And once the offense gets 1 or 2 called, that is when they start panicking at 4 seconds and throw the ball away in an attempt to avoid the 5 second call,
On the inbounds after a made basket. I think it's worth the risk to face guard all four potential receivers even the last offensive player in the frontcourt. It's extremely difficult to make an accurate baseball pass, and even harder to do with a guy like Chism guarding the inbounder.
Summary:
I like Jay Bilas, but as mentioned, sometimes there is a lot more behind the numbers than simply the numbers. The Vols are not as good as they were last year simply because they have less scoring talent. They were blessed to have the clutch shooting of Chris Lofton and the finishing of JaJuan Smith the past couple of years, the Vols are missing the presence that Lofton brought. As shown, the Vols can still run pressure defense, but Pearl doesn't run his famed 1-2-1-1 full-court press much anymore because it has become somewhat predictable and also because he doesn't have the athletes to run it against the top tier competition.
If you're a Tennessee or Bruce Pearl fan like me, then you'll want to check out the Bruce Pearl's DVD on Pressure Defense. Discuss this and the rest of your favorite basketball topics at the X's and O's Basketball Forum.
In case you all didn't catch it, MSNBC recently aired a great hour long interview with Steve Nash. He talked about a lot of different topics including his biography of being a 6-foot-2 Canadian non-dunker to 2-time NBA MVP.
My favorite part was Nash talking about his philanthropy. It is well documented that a lot of professional athletes just do it for the tax breaks and PR. He doesn't talk about it much but Nash did a great thing 8 years ago. A grassroots league funded by the former NBA franchise in Vancouver, named the Junior Grizzlies looked like it was all but finished when the Grizzlies skipped town to Memphis. When Nash heard about it, he immediately stepped in to fill in the funding gap to keep the league going. 8 years later, the league lives on strong and is now named after him, the Steve Nash Youth Basketball League. Because of Nash, hundreds if not thousands of young basketball players continue to learn and participate in this great game, and for us coaches, that means a continuous flow of players.
Back to the game though, Nash also talked about the finer points of being a point guard. Specifically how the PG is an extension of the coach and at times, the PG needs to be a mother and/or a psychologist. The clip is here,
Credit tip: Truehoop and Huffington Post
