Numbers Game - Apply These Numbers to Raise Your Game

Filter the firehose of numbers surrounding us. Here are suggestions:

"95" from Billy Donovan. What are you doing the 95 percent of the time you don't have the basketball? Impact winning even if you don't touch the ball. Communication, ball pressure and containment, blocking out, help, movement without the ball, setting screens. "Stand around and sit with me." And remember Coach Knight's admonition, "Just because I want you on the floor doesn't mean I want you shooting." 

"5" "Do 5 more." We control our attitude, choices, and effort. Make "five more" our mantra. Five more minutes. Five more reps. Five more pages. Five more sprints. 

Celtics '32'. Miniature version of Pitino 'quarters' drill. Five 'radians' with three shots along each radian, 3, 2, and 1 point. Finish with two free throws. That makes 32 point perfection on seventeen shots. Score your personal best. 

Great for "Camp Driveway" or the playground with a partner. 

"3-7-2." Win more games with 3-7-2... three consecutive stops, seven times per half, achieved both halves create a winning defensive formula. 

"50 Buckets" Three shooters, three rebounders, three minutes. Competent high school teams should be making at least 50. Middle schoolers at least 30.

"25 to 5." Whittle the twenty-five most important items on our list of priorities to five. Pay exquisite attention to those five. 

• Transition defense
• Half-court defense
• Half-court offense
• Pick-and-roll offense
• Pick-and-roll defense

10-80-10. Urban Meyer divided players into the top ten percent, the middle eighty percent, and the bottom ten percent. Meyer required players in the top ten percent to bring a teammate with them to workouts. "Drag a teammate into the top ten percent." 

"251." 251 applied to a drill in which Buddy Hield had set the record. It recorded the number of three-pointers made without consecutive misses from different spots. It has been eclipsed. Adjust the distance down for the level you coach. 

“10%” Geoff McKeown in Essentialism tells us to focus only on items in our top ten percent.

Grab a few from my list and add your own.

Lagniappe. "Variety is the spice of life." Minor variation in shooting form is part of the great shooter's repertoire. 

Lagniappe 2. The 'unit of play' matters. Coach taught us to "win this quarter." Don't focus on winning the game; focus on this possession. Have a great possession. A steal, conversion, and transition hoop is a potential back breaker. 

Lagniappe 3. "Happy Fourth." The number '4' holds many meanings for me. 

Dean Smith's "Four Corners" offense. 

Pat Summitt's "Four Corners" wake up call...she called a 6:00 A.M. practice and placed trash cans at each corner of the court. Her players had stayed out late partying and they ran until they heaved. 

A spectacular inbounds screen-the-screener play.

"Shell defense" with four-on-four "live" play... 

A Tufts horns option with a 4 slip. 

Another good way to run it is a 1-4 high set with a slip off a faked high ball screen.