Total Pageviews

Monday, July 20, 2026

Basketball- Negative Plays

Nothing worse for an offense than negative plays,” McDaniels said. “They put you in bad situations, and we saw that last year. When that happened to us, it’s hard to overcome those things.- Mike Giardi in Boston Sports Journal 

Negative plays fall in the essence of Coach Knight's The Power of Negative Thinking. 

For simplicity, let's start with the four factors and simply list a few under each category.

Dean Oliver's original four factors distill to:

  • Shoot it
  • Protect it
  • Rebound it
  • Get fouled 
Winning the "differential" (Team A versus Team B) extends the concept

EFG % (Shoot it)
  • Bad shots
  • Bad shooters 
  • Allowing easy shots
Sound byte: "More and better shots than opponents" - Newell

Turnovers (Protect it)
  • Bad decisions
  • Poor execution
  • Inability to force errors (Defensive issues)
Sound byte: "Turnovers kill dreams." 

Rebound 
  • Low percent defensive rebounding (want > 75%)
  • Low percent offensive rebounding (want > 30%)
Sound byte: "Rebounds end or sustain possessions."

Fouling
  • Foul for profit (Kevin Sivils)
  • Get fouled (live by the three, die by the three)
  • Make free throws 
Sound byte: "Fouling negates hustle."

GIGO (garbage in, garbage out)
  • What are we tracking?
  • Decide how to present? (Young players, team stats, older players can break out individual stats)
  • Be specific and explain the why. "...a game of winning possessions."
Lagniappe. Ball and player movement challenge the defense forcing them to manage cuts and closeouts. 









Posted by at