Coach Messina shares practical concepts:
"go through a process that might help my system"
Focus: spacing and timing
"Don't let your man defend you and help on someone else...spacing stretches defensive rotation."
Offensively, maximize space and defensively shrink the space
He advocates for side-to-side and down-up ball movement getting defense to drop toward baseline
"Make sure that our language is the same as that of our players." (Shared terminology)
Timing...while one action is happening, other players must be preparing for their action (e.g. cutting)...see Lagniappe today
"Defensively, I want to destroy opposition spacing and timing."
Big picture (watching practice) is whether priorities align with actions (e.g. value spacing yet see scrimmage with bad spacing)...details only matter if big picture works...if you have no gas in your car, fixing the mirrors makes no difference.
Defensively...is there aggressiveness and is the (color) defense arriving close to the arrival of the ball...result is offense gets pushed away.
In NBA, on the post feed, the wing passer usually cuts through. In Europe, the passer moves but is usually replace by another shooter...on the dribble (from the post that attracts help)...the wing moves (e.g. to corner) looking for catch-and-shoot. On the weak side, cut on the post dribble...looking for opening.
Messina prefers to have the ball entered to the post then sprint high after a pass out to establish pick-and-roll against defense that is not set. Some players are good at running side-to-side but not up and back.
"Build the game with your passes."
Against the PnR hedge...this makes the rotation much harder than if 3 moves up (to catch) and enters the ball to the rolling 5. If defense switches, the offense gets the small on big mismatch on the perimeter. "Referee instinctively protects the small..."
When do you have a better chance to score, moving the ball without the players moving or moving the players and not the ball? Defense more likely to make mistakes with ball movement.
Great offensive players use THEIR peripheral vision, see the defense, and anticipate the next pass.
Good players see the ball and two players; great players see the ball and three players.
Lagniappe:
I'm continually reminding players, "the ball is a camera." Get seen. "Relocation, relocation, relocation."Coaches, before you put in your offensive sets and structure, start by teaching one of the key building blocks on offence: "Penetration Automatics". That is, how do your off ball receivers react and where do they go when the ball is penetrated? See this thread for details: pic.twitter.com/XrCyunv2MQ— Coach Liam Flynn (@coachliamflynn) October 24, 2018
