"It's about the evidence." - Gil Grissom, CSI
Study why possessions work or fail. Edit failure out. Be specific.
Consider Dr. Fergus Connolly's paradigm across sport:
- Initial formation/spacing (use the three-point line as spacing line)
- Player movement
- Ball movement
- Scoring moment (shot quality and execution)
"What were you thinking? (Self-destruction)
- Live ball turnovers bleed into defense with high points/possession. All turnovers are not created equal.
- Turnovers, shot clock violations inform "turnovers kill dreams."
- "Shot turnovers" = airballs/"no hope" shots.
"This is not how it's done." (Start over)
- Poor spacing, as in Chuck Daly's "spacing is offense and offense is spacing."
- Players stand around "ball watching." Just don't do it.
- Ball sticking, you're not James Harden.
- Bad shot distribution, fewer shots for best shooters. Bobby Knight said, "Just because I want you on the floor doesn't mean I want you to shoot." Geno Auriemma added, "I would let you shoot it, but your teammates don't want you to."
- Jay Bilas, "It's not your shot, it's our shot."
- Lack of talent as in, "they have no shooters."
"If it looks as though there's no plan, there's no plan." (Coach Who?)
- Iso ball, hero ball, "Night at the Opera" - me, me, me.
- Video shows absence of intent. Where's the separation arising from individual skill or team actions? If you don't score in transition, force live-ball turnovers, don't run sets, or create separation, how do you plan to score?
- Absence of hard to defend actions manifests (hard cutting, PnR, complex screens) as low point totals.
Stuff doesn’t work. “We can’t run it because we can’t run it.” Abandon failure. "Kill your darlings." Belief that we're infallible proves fallibility.
Summary:
- "Great offense is multiple actions."
- "What were you thinking?"
- "This is not how it's done."
- "If it looks as though there's no plan, there's no plan."
- “Failure to revise or eliminate.”
Lagniappe.