The Mother Sauces of Basketball: What Belongs in Ours? With Special Bonuses

Learn across domains to train 'top guns'. Chef Roland Henin taught that "cooks cook to nurture people." Coaches nurture people. Haute cuisine involves "high performance" sauces. The five French mother sauces are Bechamel, Veloute', Espagnole, Hollandaise, and Tomato. The core sauces become others with changes, such as Bechamel becoming Mornay sauce (the core for mac and cheese). 

MasterClass Korean chef Roy Choi shares his 'scallion dipping sauce' 

Refine basketball mother sauces. Consider offense, defense, conversion, and special situations.

Remember Roy Choi's required cooking equipment - simplicity works. What ingredients belong in our mother sauces? 

Offense.

• Spacing - initial and secondary (creating gaps)
• Player and ball movement ("movement kills defense")
• Attention to early offense (drag screens, pistol, others)
• Quality shots (find the shots we want - "Get 7s")
• Quality shooting 
• Daily player development and competition
• Limiting turnovers (the absence of ingredients can be critical)

Defense.

• No easy shots. 
• Ball pressure/containment
• No middle
• Deny penetration via dribble or passes
• Load to the ball/shrink space
• Contest all shots without fouling

Conversion (defense to offense and vice versa)

• Awareness at the moment of conversion
• "Zero to sixty" ("basketball is a sprinting game")
• Full mental engagement (no 'buddy running')
• Press the attack versus slow the attack
• Attack the basket versus defend the basket

Special situations. 

• Inbound the ball safely
• Same play different formation/same formation different plays
• Hard to defend (simple/complex screens) 
• Value in winning special situations
• Practice outperforms 'spontaneous' plays 

Find your own "mother sauces" with your unique ingredients. In fact, we choose philosophy and teaching to suit our tastes and experience. 

Summary: 

• Cooks and coaches nurture people.
• Find your mother sauces.
• Simplicity works.
• Spacing is offense and offense is spacing.
• No easy shots.
• "Zero to sixty"
•  Be hard to defend. 

Lagniappe. An NBA shooting coach reviews... 

Lagniappe 2. Separate with change of direction and change of pace. (Coach Hanlen)

Lagniappe 3. Cooking excellence takes a little more time. Last night's dinner used "salsa verde" (green sauce) for the rice base for the pork carnitas

For the cilantro rice

• 3 cups store-bought short-grain white rice
• Ice water (for blanching)
• 6 medium tomatillos (about 6 oz)
• 1 whole garlic clove, peeled
• Juice of 3 limes (about ⅓ cup)
• Kosher salt or coarse sea salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 bunch cilantro (reserve a couple of sprigs for garnish)
• 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley (reserve a couple of sprigs for garnish)
• ½ cup water
• 1 cup rendered pork fat (reserved from the carnitas), plus more to taste