Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Underrated Coaching Actions

Coaching choices are not all created equal. Separate success and failure by supporting execution. 

1. Have a reliable inbounder. Decisions come in three flavors - good, bad, and indecisive. If you've had a team with unreliable inbounding, you age fast. 

  • Get the ball in safely. 
  • Be 'on time' and 'on target' with passes. 
  • Have patience to allow plays to develop.
2. Manage tempo. Knowing when to play faster and slower allows teams to create and prevent comebacks. 

3. Establish offensive and defensive delay games. That entails having the personnel and mentality to do what is needed at the right times. Players have to know when and how to foul and be able to knock down pressure free throws. 

4. Deploy and save timeouts. Failure to stop a run or make a substitution can wreak disaster. Ideally, we save three timeouts for the final four minutes (Dean Smith policy). That can't always happen. Part of knowing how is knowing how many. Your lead assistant should track them. 

5. Win special situations. List and practice your best ATO, BOB, SLOB, man and zone offensive plays during 'specials practice'. We invested fifteen minutes at the end of each practice on three possession games (offense-defense-offense scrimmages) beginning with a special situation. That translated to late game success. 

6. Emphasize not beating yourself. 
  • Avoid bad shots.
  • Take care of the basketball. 
  • Don't miss assignments.
  • Stop committing bad fouls. 
Doing the right things earns better results. 

Lagniappe. Creating. 

Lagniappe 2. We can run similar actions from different formations or different actions from the same one. 

 


Alternative roads to the same destination. 









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