Basketball "Mise en Place" - Preparation Is Critical

Learn across disciplines.  Cooking and coaching overlap. Above is my 'mise en place' setup to make naan...having laid out the cookware, ingredients, and recipe. 

From Wikipedia (mise en place) - "French culinary phrase which means "putting in place" or "gather". It refers to the setup required before cooking, and is often used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging the ingredients that a cook will require for the menu items."

The obvious analogy is preparation for practice and/or play. Coaches have video, equipment, drill books, playbooks, practice plans, and other cheat sheets. 

Here's a "shortcut" that I chose some drills from. I haven't edited this for a few years but I found it invaluable. Certain "ingredients" were regulars -

Warmups

• Lithuania (speed layups) 
• Bradleys (high release, close-in shots off a hop)
• Form shooting

Offense

• 5 v 7 advantage-disadvantage (full court press breaking)
• 30 buckets (timed drill for shooters to score at least 30 hoops)
• Box drills with defense

Defense

• Shell drill

Combinations

• ODO (offense-defense-offense situational basketball)
• 3 on 3 both ends (coach each end)

They served as "core" activities that built skill, pressure management, and team offense and defense

How to improve? 

• Organization is essential. 
• Player development is underrated. But the player has to want it. 
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• Coaches know that there is underteaching and overcoaching. 
• Video (the truth machine) is invaluable.
• Focus on reducing turnovers, poor shot selection, and missed assignments leading to transition baskets, layups, and free throws. 
• Make every action in practice impact the score in games (editing). 

What "not in place" factors guarantee failure (inversion)? 

• Lack of investment in individual skill development (detail)
• Inability to contain the ball (keep the ball in front of you)
• Bad decision-making (turnovers, shot selection, selfishness)
• Poor free throw shooting
• Undisciplined fouling 

Lagniappe. On ball defense is where it starts. 

Lagniappe 2. Create advantage by targeting weaker defenders. 

Where’s Waldo? Concept:

Find the slowest or weakest defender on the other team and put them in as many situations to be active on defense as possible.

Short defender? Make them defend drives at the rim.

Slow defender? Put them in a ton of on-ball actions. pic.twitter.com/3HhqzpvjCK

— Hoop Flow (@HoopFlow) May 21, 2022

Lagniappe 3. Lessons from Chef Thomas Keller that made the man:

• Organization
• Efficiency (get the most from our time)
• Critical feedback (the one unhappy guest helps performance)
• Repetition (Wooden's EDIR5 explanation, demo, imitation, repetition x 5)
• Ritual (specific things happen at specific times)
• Teamwork