I've posted over fifteen-hundred blog entries. Low-hanging fruit is gone. That ship has sailed.
Players and coaches see the 'easy' pickings. Where's the hard stuff? Beating pressure, applying pressure well, shooting. No magic genie grants three wishes.
Consider free throw shooting. If we took twelve free throws a game and made six, a hard to reach fifty percent improvement would yield three points a game. Where can we find points?
Imagine we averaged 24 turnovers (too many) and 50 shots a game, with 16 hoops (16/50~ 32%), including 1 of 6 threes and 15 of 44 twos (33 points).
Let's walk through scenarios.
Hold possessions constant, reduce turnovers 20 percent to 19 per game to increase shots to 55 per game. Vary turnovers, threes, and twos and examine the possibilities as a function of modest gains in shooting (better skill or shot quality).
Reducing turnovers alone increases scoring about 10 percent. The largest gains occur at intersection of turnover reduction (20%) and improved shooting (to 38%) increasing scoring about twenty percent. 3 point shooting to 30% (girls going into 7th grade) ain't happening.
As we play better teams, we need efficient, winning possessions.
Winning defensive possessions means consistent core defense...ball pressure, ball containment, contesting shots without fouling, and cleaning the defensive boards. It's how they embrace what must be done.
Hubie Brown summarizes winning with less talent:
1.Control the defensive boards
2.Get more shots (turnovers, offensive rebounding)
3.Get best shooters more shots
4.Shoot free throws better
Undermanned teams can't beat themselves. My mantra to players is "possession and possessions." Win this possession and get more possessions.
Lagniappe:
At lower levels, many teams defend BOBs with zones. Chris Oliver discusses a "hedge and recover" technique used by the Cavs.If we need to mix up our BOB defense we have usually switched out (on the ball defender switches out to first cut, & their defender switches onto ball). Cleveland demonstrates a different strategy as they hedge & recover on first cut (similar to a ball screen coverage). pic.twitter.com/F8M6q79WXK— Chris Oliver (@BBallImmersion) May 25, 2018
Lagniappe Bonus: SLOB with multiple options (spitballing)
Double Diamond with multiple options
You can change that look by screening the inbounder to create other options to get 5 opportunity or an isolation for 1 by cutting 5 through and relocating 3 to the wing.