"Basketball is a game of mistakes." Inexperienced middle school players bring coaches to the asylum of failure of vision, decisions, and execution. At the other extreme, professionals obsess about mastery.
Why play basketball? Fun belongs. Mastery belongs. What ruins fun and corrupts mastery?
Turnovers. Many turnovers occur during passing...errant passes (including 'ankle biters'), passes to defenders, and failure to shorten the pass (receiver doesn't go to the pass). Shortening the pass is among the low hanging fruit available to teams. Turnovers against pressure exert damage as 'defense becomes offense.'
Poor shot selection. At one extreme is Doc Rivers' shot turnover. Offense is not a democracy, but a young player must learn a quality shot for herself. Identify what a good shot is for every player on your team. Can "my turn" shots. Know inappropriate shots based on time and score and recognize that each end-of-quarter offers a plus or minus six point swing via possessions at both ends.
Bad transition defense. Easy baskets in transition doom defenses. Hidden transition scoring occurs against the press because of numbers and look-ahead passes. Seek not to allow more than three baskets in transition per game.
Hand discipline. Fouling involves discipline, technique, and choice. A good "European" foul in transition can prevent a basket. Fouling low percentage shots is disaster as we turn low points-per-possession shots into higher (free throws). "Show your hands" and "elbows behind the ears" disinvite officials to call fouls.
Mental engagement (individual assignment defense). What mental mistakes cost us points?
1. Know our assignment at all times.
2. See the ball; "the ball scores." Help and rotate (help the helper).
3. Take away both front and back cuts.
4. NEVER allow a score off a tap play.
5. Failure to box out gives free points.
6. Contested shots lower percentage especially with proximity.
7. Never foul a jump shot.
Lagniappe: Gibson Pyper breaks down the passing of LBJ.
Great players make everyone around them better. Great passers combine VDE - vision, decisions, and execution.
Lagniappe 2: (from Five-Star Basketball Drills) 67. Spot Shooting Drill
Lagniappe 3: Quotes from today's newspaper (The Boston Globe)"
"Part of the message, has definitely been about being harder to play against." - Boston Bruins Coach Bruce Cassidy
"In many ways, a director and a coach are very similar," Shyamalan said. "You have extremely talented people. How do you get the best performances out of them?" Brad Stevens added, "Use the lens of someone else in another industry to help in your own management." Both remind me of Ron Howard's quote, "the director is the keeper of the story."
Lagniappe 4: Do your players get tired of the unexciting fundamentals? Excellence emerges from the will to earn skill.
It's true for every profession. Alan Stein says, "how you do anything is how you do everything."
Here's a screen shot of Continuing Medical Education 'dashboard' hours that I've earned since the summer. It's unexciting but it's the grind that counts.