The pre-mortem examination presumes future failure and seeks to predict why a plan or campaign fails.
Many teams are nearing the halfway point in the regular season. Presume that you make the postseason tournament. A magic genie offers you three reasons why you'll fall short in the playoffs. He's doing you a favor, offering you a chance to diagnose and treat the future problem before it's manifest. Immunize ourselves against defeat.
Rule 1: Excellent teams seldom give games away.
Rule 2: Never forget rule 1.
Almost fifty years ago, after losing an overtime game to the defending State Champions, Coach Sonny Lane realized that we didn't handle extreme pressure well. From that day we played advantage-disadvantage (5 v 7) each practice, launching a thirteen game win streak (including four postseason).
Generic Failure Points:
- Dean Oliver's Four Factors (EFG%, Turnovers, Rebounding, and Free throws taken) "score efficiently, protect the basketball on offense, grab as many rebounds as possible, and get to the foul line as often as possible." Remember symmetry as the same factors apply on defense.
- Uncontrollable factors: illness, injury, officiating (infrequent)
- Randomness - "one-off" bad day at the office
Team-specific problems:
- Size - vulnerability to strong opponent rebounding
- Inability to handle defensive pressure
- Turnovers
- Free throw shooting ("teams that can't shoot free throws last as long in the playoffs as dogs that chase cars")
Team specific solutions:
- Coping with defensive pressure and turnovers. Scrimmage 5 versus 7 with additional constraints like no dribbling and a turnover when the ball hits the floor. Encourage the '7 team' to trap. Doing it every practice pressure means opportunity. Adding dribbling and subtracting defenders (games) simplifies pressure.
- Free throw shooting. Add pressure during practice. "Pressure free throws" allow your partner to say or do anything but not interfere with the shooter. "Swish or miss" practice ups concentration. Free the mind with mental training (e.g. mindfulness and change anxiety to excitement..."it's great to be in the playoffs") Mindfulness training decreased performance anxiety and approached statistical significance during a study of mental training on free throw shooting.
- Three-point shooting defense. There's an argument to be made for this approach but every coach has her philosophy.
Every team is different. Work on what translates into points. For one's team, it could be second chance points from poor blockouts, transition defense, zone offense, whatever. You know your team.
Drill. We want players to score on one dribble from the "spacing line" by the time they reach high school.
Set play. Here's another 'Horns' look.
Create a gap for a drive, with options for curl or pop.
Lagniappe. A lot of information in 38 seconds.
Be comfortable with discomfort out of your comfort zone. Make practice hard so games are easier.
Lagniappe 2 (from Coach Dave Smart): From Wikipedia, "In the 2003, 2005, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2018 seasons, Smart was awarded the Stewart W. Aberdeen Memorial Trophy, as the top men's basketball coach in Canadian university sports."
"Gaining the half-step edge is the key to winning championships." (It may not matter against poor opponents.)
"If you're sloppy against well-coached teams, you're not scoring."
"If you're sloppy against well-coached teams, you're not scoring."
Smart teaches that championship teams play harder for longer.
"The closest to evil...is selfishness..."
"Our guys defended every possession" (in a National Championship game) that resulted in a win
Lagniappe 3. Don Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements) advises, "Always do your best." It may not be great that day, but it was our best.
