"Time to stop taking a beating and start giving one." - Daredevil Do you have a Big Four actions to score when the chips are down? Let's work on it...but first some background. Practice allows us to get better. Games inform our needs. Remember Nassim Taleb's Antifragile advice, “A loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesn’t introspect, doesn’t exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information, and tries to explain why he made the mistake rather than moving on.” Read, learn, and apply what we've learned. Teach 'em and teach 'em again and again. In Why the Best Are the Best, Kevin Eastman recalls the 2008 Celtics (in a winning effort) allowing the Lakers 32 points on defensive errors and mistakes. Although we only allowed twenty points in our second game yesterday, half came on defensive errors...allowing basket cuts or transient ball-you-man violations. Recognition and reversal. In David Mamet's MasterClass, he explains that the hero's journey culminates in Act 3, identifying the solution and reversing the position of loss. Replicate or remedy. And political strategist David Axelrod reminds us of the principle of "Replication or remedy." Pound it or fix it.
BOB. We scored multiple times with this BOB against the 2-3. Our guards came off the handoff hard and the five sealed and rolled getting perfect pocket passes. Really good execution for young players.
SLOB. GERONIMO. This SLOB is inspired by a combination of Spurs and Warriors actions. 3 gets entry off typical Zipper action. Then 5 makes a sequential screen (off-ball) for the inbounder. It was wide open and we failed to execute. If they switch, 1 should cut through and we get a 5 versus 1 mismatch. MAN. Whether ATO or a simple set, this should be great action. Part of our bread-and-butter is the high ball screen out of horns. But I'm the King of Wishful Thinking.
More GSW action, with the high ball screen slip into a layup or a corner 3. ZONE. We knew our second opponent was going to play zone. Within our theme of R and R (Recognition and Reversal, Replicate or Remedy) was RUN and REBOUND. But we have other actions, too.
Wham block. Possibilities after cuts and screens. Lagniappe:
Off ball receivers cutting for the layups when the ball is penetrated is becoming more popular. But when is the right time to do it so that you don't spoil spacing by bringing more bodies into the lane? See this thread. First, a good rule of thumb, 'if you see a back, backcut' pic.twitter.com/jCKEhPkMQG
Missed blog posts? Here are a few highlights from the past two weeks. From Develop Our Gifts: Stories change lives.They inform epic triumph (The Boys in the Boat), powerful and unforgiving nature (Deep Survival), greed and loss (The Big Short), human psychopathy (Mindhunter), and more. Help players write narratives of achievement, empowerment, and teamwork. Our program graduates succeed in medicine (physician, nurses), teaching, banking, business, and the military.
From Knight offensive notes: "The key to good offense is to run things you know you have difficulty guarding."
Playing without the dribble in practice forces movement.
Against zone, think "draw 2" by forcing two defenders to cover one.
"The zone is designed to play the pass."
From Kipling to the Court:
How will we score?
"Fall in love with easy."
- Get easy shots.
- "Movement kills defense." Move yourself and the ball.
- "It's not your shot, it's our shot." (Jay Bilas)
From Ed Tapscott, 2015 Coaching U Live: Thou shalt understand the difference between power and authority. Work tirelessly to develop power. Authority is granted. Power is earned. Power is greater than position. Power gets people to work overtime. It gets back to the difference between persuasion and motivation. Don't be a bully. "Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see." - Mark Twain From Indomitable Spirit: Sacrifice today by doing what you don't want to do, so that tomorrow we can do what we want. Don't think HAVE TO; think GET TO. From Critical Thinking
From Seeking Sustainable Success: Sometimes it begins or ends with force of personality. Sam Walker informs the power of one in The Captain Class. "The most critical ingredient in a team that achieves and sustains historic greatness is the character of the player who leads it." And sometimes it ends because of management changes, player departure, or coaching change. After winning the World Series in 1997, owner Wayne Huizenga oversaw a "fire sale," claiming the franchise lost over 30 million dollars. Not so fast; you be the judge. The Marlins won a franchise worst (.333) 54 games.
From Individual Offensive Moves:
What play types work in your offense? From: Why Coaches (And Players) Must Read: Readers gain insight from the world. Kevin Eastman writes, “To be a great teacher of the game you must study the game; know your craft & be proud of your knowledge; but never satisfied with your knowledge.” He adds, “Interesting thing about the best leaders is that they immerse themselves in both teaching and learning. Growth comes by both.” From Sympathy for the Devil: Scandal is neither unusual nor confined to "mediocre" schools. Stanford provided a list of easy courses to athletes. The NCAA whitewashed alleged academic fraud at Carolina. A relative of a dean at an ACC hoop power told me that when players were referred for disciplinary actions, the problems inevitably disappeared. Playing taking priority over punishment. Serial tripper Grayson Allen got wrist-slapping for tripping opponents. From A Learning Culture Builds Anti-Fragility: Education builds antifragile states. In Antifragile, Nassim Taleb writes, “A loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesn’t introspect, doesn’t exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information, and tries to explain why he made the mistake rather than moving on.” A learning culture makes us antifragile.
From "Tell Me What I Don't Know": "Zone defense doesn't work in the pros." Why don't more NBA teams play zone defense? We can postulate that the spacing, ball movement, and perimeter shooting of NBA teams beats the zone. Is that true? Pro sports are copycats and dead dogs. Kevin O'Connor addresses the use of zone defense, highlighting brief successes by the Nets against James Harden and the Rockets. "Houston plays at a slow, deliberate pace, runs pick-and-roll on nearly every possession, and passes the ball less than all but one team in the NBA (Oklahoma City). But they dribbled less and passed more against Brooklyn. The freaking Nets made the freaking Rockets totally change their hallmark style simply by running a zone." From Podcast Notes Chris Oliver: What happens at the NBA level that applies at other levels? 1. "Guard your man...hardest thing to do...is closing out." (Create 'hard to guard' situations). Don't let help be your team crutch. "...contested shot is defender within three feet" (Analytics definition) Closeout: "run as fast as you can and stop as close as you can." Want to arrive on the catch...don't want the open shot. Coach was at an AAU tournament...8 courts...EVERY TEAM was playing zone...not teaching defense. "There is serious technique." 2. "At any level, you have to tell your team what shots you want and where you get them." (Corollary is defining what the other team can do.) 3. Hard to be in full denial all the time...would need a superior athlete at each position. "You can't catch every raindrop...take away something."
From Coaches Are Directors (Spike Lee notes): "Actors can come up with something that's better than you wrote (see Lagniappe today)...you have to take your ego out of it." "You may be a big giant star...but you might not be the right person for the role." "You want to get pieces that fit..." (to make the best film) From Are We Addressing Our Issues? What are my weaknesses? Thirst for knowledge can suffer style drift to sophisticated complexity. The best coaches leverage simplicity and reduction. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo
Weakside back screen with post man emptying the space.
A similar play that Spurs execute perfectly (via Chris Oliver)
Brilliance from the Spurs in the simplicity & effectiveness of this play design & execution. Backdoor cut off a wide post entry. pic.twitter.com/Ci61OcPKW2
What are my strengths? "It's not work." Committed coaches craft a learning culture to add value, attract buy-in, and grow players love for learning and the game. "Make the big time where you are."
What are my weaknesses? Thirst for knowledge can suffer style drift to sophisticated complexity. The best coaches leverage simplicity and reduction.
How do I leverage strengths? Tim S. Grover's Relentless reminds us that flowing water cuts canyons through rock. If we model ourselves after greats in other disciplines, in other eras, then we have a chance to approach excellence. My morning process includes study (MasterClass), reading, thinking, and writing.
Am I addressing my weaknesses? Ego is the enemy. When I spell my name, it's SOMEBODY, EVERYBODY, NOBODY. Know that "relationships are complicated; especially when they involve people." Sometimes when we fight for our people, we create conflict. Fighting is conflict. I don't like conflict. Lagniappe: What core concepts initiate your offense?
Radius Athletics shares the Bucks' spread offense into perimeter shooting. Even with young players incapable of perimeter consistency, the offense illustrates critical concepts. I favor automating options off the spread.
After isolation, we develop give and go, dribble at backcut, dribble handoff, and ball screens with the middle open.
MasterClass rocks. Spike Lee's class is epic wisdom. We direct; we cast. We tell the story. Lee shares what his grandmother said, "how about crawling before you walk?" "We'll come to the set and we'll figure it out...no, no, no, no. You're not ready to do that." "Everybody's not going to be a star." Can you be epic in performing your role? You have to look the part. "And how I saw it; it's be like somebody's really, like, lost their soul and you see it on your face." Lee describes Halle Berry auditioning for Jungle Fever as a drug-addled prostitute. When she auditioned, she just didn't look the part. She kept returning, looking worse every time. She got the part. Sometimes players show defeated body language. We can't have that. "There's this thing called chemistry...you feel it in your gut whether somebody has it." "Let me know about people I don't know about." "There are many, many talented people...and they need a shot, they need a platform to show what they can do." Lee introduced Rosie Perez, Martin Lawrence, Halle Berry, Queen Latifah, and others. "Don't be shy...you've gotta plead your case to total strangers." (Tryouts!) "You have to be really prepared...you never know when opportunity is going to happen again." "Actors can come up with something that's better than you wrote (see Lagniappe today)...you have to take your ego out of it." "You may be a big giant star...but you might not be the right person for the role." "You want to get pieces that fit..." (to make the best film) "Cliches become cliches because there's some truth in it." Lagniappe: "I didn't see that coming."
We had ten players at practice...one group was working on "spread development" (above) and I had the other four with me, including 3 bigs, working PnR. I needed one big to play PnR ballhandler. She was outstanding running PnR to either side, attacking the basket, finishing, hitting the roller. I did not see that coming. There's an app for that!
Teach advantages and disadvantages. Design practice accordingly. Input constraints (subtract space, time, dribbles, ball reversal or paint touch requirement) to refine offense. Quick five:
1. Crossover hard. Encourage execution in transition with an explosive speed move or crossover into a layup or shot.
- ALWAYS dribble with a purpose. - The crossover is NOT just exchanging hands. - "Crossover on the shoetops." Do not expose the ball. - "Explode out of the crossover." - One of its best uses is hard penetration in space (getting to the middle in transition). 2. Improve decisions. We do 'box drills' with either front or reverse pivot into basket attack with a two-dribble limit. BUT provide players with an outlet (e.g. pass to coach), so they don't take bad shots because they've picked up the ball. 3. "Attack the closeout."
We call this drill "rollouts."
4. Simulate the game. O-D-O. Offense-defense-offense.
We seldom scrimmage, instead...we work on SPECIALS during O-D-O. 5. Spaced repetition. Free throw defense has made me crazy through the years. Do it right. Do it every time. EDIRRRRR...explain, demonstrate, imitate, repeat x 5.
Sandwich the better rebounder. Make her life hard. Sometimes good players become frustrated when we take them away. That leads to poor decisions...bad shot selection and fouls. We work on this during O-D-O. Lagniappe: Need a 3. How about taking the ELEVATOR? Billy Donovan via Wes Kosel.
Core principles: 1) ball reversal, 2) elevator (sandwich) screen
I curate content. Wikipedia says, "Content curation is the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest." Chris Oliver (Basketball Immersion) shares an outstanding podcast with Kings' Assistant Bryan Gates. Here are highlights: "Everybody wants to play faster." Spurs rule...don't hold the ball longer than 0.5 seconds. "...don't work on passing enough." Efficient passing creates scoring. What happens at the NBA level that applies at other levels? 1. "Guard your man...hardest thing to do...is closing out." (Create 'hard to guard' situations). Don't let help be your team crutch. "...contested shot is defender within three feet" (Analytics definition) Closeout: "run as fast as you can and stop as close as you can." Want to arrive on the catch...don't want the open shot. Coach was at an AAU tournament...8 courts...EVERY TEAM was playing zone...not teaching defense. "There is serious technique." 2. "At any level, you have to tell your team what shots you want and where you get them." (Corollary is defining what the other team can do.) 3. Hard to be in full denial all the time...would need a superior athlete at each position. "You can't catch every raindrop...take away something." In-game, coaches whisper, "Can somebody make a shot? Can anybody guard your man? Can anyone rebound?" Assistant coach just took notes from what Coach Paul Westphal said during timeouts...and then worked on that at practice next day. Reminder, during passing drills call the player's name (automate talk). Chris Oliver wants every offensive drill to have a defender. Lagniappe: Every offensive possession the ball has to reverse sides or get into the paint.
3 person shooting drill: Shooter, Rebounder, Swing. After shot, rebounder returns the ball to the shooter, who then swings the ball to the new shooter. The original shooter (after swinging the ball) becomes the rebounder, and the rebounder becomes the swing (next shooter). The rebounder's job is a good outlet, the shooter relocates for the rebounder, and the swing has to relocate. Each must communicate.
I do not teach zone defense to our middle school players. Doesn't make it right. Zone defense is viable and helps teams win. It forces shooters outside, can contain star players, limits pick-and-roll play, can launch transition, and protect players in foul trouble. But I believe that individual assignment defense better prepares players for the next level. But over eighty percent of our opponents play zone defense, so our players need to work against it. Here's the LINK to PRESENTATION. We won't use all these actions and it only addresses work against the 2-3. Sample screenshots:
Lagniappe:
Here's a screenshot from Steph Curry's MasterClass (Stephen Curry Teaches Shooting, Ball-Handling, and Scoring. This chapter was on off-ball screens and the curl, pop, and fade. He starts under the basket in a "floppy-like" status and set up a hard cut to the screen (chair). He teaches the hard curl (defender trailing) using the inside foot and inside hand to ward off the (imaginary) defender who was in lock and trail mode. As he receives the ball, he goes downhill for a layup or floater, depending on the defensive help.
Messaging. What do we say and how we say it? Who is our audience? An NBA conversation has different depth than occurs in middle school. Both are valid, but stay in our lanes. Don't lose your audience. A senior physician asked a clinical fellow (advanced trainee), "what is the speciation of the organism?" The fellow answered, "I don't know." The Great Man (world famous doc) said, "You don't know because you don't care." Don't publicly humiliate subordinates. I don't remember the fellow, but I'll never forget the senior physician. There's no excuse to "lose" players, especially youth. "Everybody knows that." Coach Wooden reminds us, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." "Zone defense doesn't work in the pros." Why don't more NBA teams play zone defense? We can postulate that the spacing, ball movement, and perimeter shooting of NBA teams beats the zone. Is that true? Pro sports are copycats and dead dogs. Kevin O'Connor addresses the use of zone defense, highlighting brief successes by the Nets against James Harden and the Rockets. "Houston plays at a slow, deliberate pace, runs pick-and-roll on nearly every possession, and passes the ball less than all but one team in the NBA (Oklahoma City). But they dribbled less and passed more against Brooklyn. The freaking Nets made the freaking Rockets totally change their hallmark style simply by running a zone."
Defensive communication - ELO, early, loud, often - just happens. Al Horford says (Boston Sports Journal), “Today I wasn’t very happy with my performance. I felt like I wasn’t that presence I needed to be on the defensive end, and it was a lot of miscommunications. And I take blame for that, and I need to be better — "
Be concrete and consistent. "Don't confuse players." Drop to the level of the ball. If you're at the nail, you can help on the drive, limit penetration, and still recover. The help cannot get beat. "The ball scores."
We're too inexperience to have this defensive sophistication (tagging cutters).
We need a "system of help" understood by everyone. We're not there. Ego blocks our communication, our connection, our teaching. Choose to overcome obstacles. “Overcoming obstacles is a discipline of three critical steps. It begins with how we look at our specific problems, our attitude or approach; then the energy and creativity with which we actively break them down and turn them into opportunities; finally, the cultivation and maintenance of an inner will that allows us to handle defeat and difficulty”. ATTITUDE, CHOICES, EFFORT. Authenticity is great, unless we're authentically jerks. Lagniappe:
You've all seen Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success. A former player's mother informed me that her daughter carried it to school EVERY DAY in her gym bag during high school. Her daughter is now a second-year at the Naval Academy.
To learn about anything, learn about everything. Charlie Munger says, "be a learning machine" and Kevin Eastman, "be a learn-it-all, not a know-it-all." Recognize and use powerful mental models. FEEDBACK LOOPS. Disproportionate benefits flow to successful enterprises. From Farnam Street, "Winner-take-all markets are increasingly dictated by feedback loops. Feedback loops develop when the output becomes the input. Consider books. More people will buy a best-selling book because it’s a best-selling book (social proof influencer). More people will listen to a song that tops charts. More people will go to see an Oscar-winning film. These feedback loops magnify initial luck or manipulation." Google dwarfs other search platforms. Markets trend because of buying or selling reinforcement. The powerful in Congress get the lobbying spoils. Basketball follows these principles. Golden State inks Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins. Elite men's and women's basketball programs get the best recruits. AAU powerhouses get the top players. "The rich get richer." Feedback loops. Education builds antifragile states. In Antifragile, Nassim Taleb writes, “A loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesn’t introspect, doesn’t exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information, and tries to explain why he made the mistake rather than moving on.” A learning culture makes us antifragile.
How do we build a learning culture? Work as agents of change to disrupt the playing field. We don't water the baselines or slope the foul lies; we exploit trend shifts, analytics, and subtle differences in experience and training. A learning culture rearranges and changes the pieces on the board. Know whether the roller or the ballhandler has the high scoring efficiency on the pick-and-roll. Do more of what works and less of what doesn't. In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday organizes by Aspiration, Success, and Failure. The separation ignores the continuum, "sometimes we're the windshield and sometimes we're the bug." Process to limit the downside, the fragility or bugness. 1. I've shared using notebooks. 2. The Folder of Ideas
3. Menu for practice.
4. Drill book. Have one. 5. Reading routine. Commit to a daily reading period...not necessarily about basketball. 6. Spreadsheet with useful links for you. 7. Improving teaching. I keep a copy of Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion in my workspace. Lagniappe:
The Celtics create some reverse action off the SLOB. Smart (2) screens for Horford (5). Tatum (4) inbounds and cuts downhill off the Brown (3) screen. Naturally, they run options off that. This has roots with Bob Hurley.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
Among over seven and a half billion people, we can't know why people do what they do. Selfishness, autocracy, sloth, and meanness are personal choices. The Roman slave Epictetus said, “It isn’t the events themselves that disturb people, but only their judgements about them.” We have all said or done things we wish we could redo. Even great coaches like John Wooden have tarnished legacies. And his critics reveals their dark side, too..."equal parts brilliance and abrasiveness" according to Bob Costas. "Sainted" coaches wear crooked halos. Scandal is neither unusual nor confined to "mediocre" schools. Stanford provided a list of easy courses to athletes. The NCAA whitewashed alleged academic fraud at Carolina. A relative of a dean at an ACC hoop power told me that when players were referred for disciplinary actions, the problems inevitably disappeared. Playing taking priority over punishment. Serial tripper Grayson Allen got wrist-slapping for tripping opponents. Some of us have mental, physical, or personality disorders. I heard about a physician who was "stealing" surgical cases from an Emergency Room, telling doctors that he was on call for other doctors. During a disciplinary review, he was sent for evaluation and had Huntington's Disease that can cause behavioral disturbances. "Money is the mother's milk of politics." Well, money is the juice that fuels men's college basketball. Yahoo Sports shares, "The worst-kept secret in college basketball is how coaches, sneaker executives, sports agents, travel-team coaches and financial advisers, often through under-the-table payments, steer top high school talent first to NCAA programs and later to apparel brands and professional representation once they enter the NBA." Many remain in denial about the sport's seamy underside. And yet, even on the perimeter of the sport we hear about magic numbers, like $120,000. How do we exorcise the demons within when so much money is out there for the taking? Or can we rewrite human nature and a history of selfishness, greed, and envy? We can't or we won't. The old joke explains that the Dalai Lama asks a hot dog vendor, "make me one with everything" and gives him a $10 bill. The vendor returns him a loaded dog, and the Lama asks for change. He replies, "change comes from within." And here we are. Lagniappe: At practice last night, we briefly reviewed creating "double gaps."
And during live "shell drill" a player made a great, instinctive read to open a lane for a drive.
5 opens a driving lane after cutting by replacing.
I'm prioritizing simplicity, sharing offensive action with our young players. Within offensive progression, after isolation/one-on-one play, we focus on two player actions. Share brief videos; respect players' time. The most widely used action is pick-and-roll play, which belongs to another lesson.
"Fall in love with easy."
Give-and-go is even easier than pick-and-roll. Here are just a few of the possibilities: 1. Wing - elbow - cutter 2. Corner - wing - cutter 3. Wing - top - cutter 4. Top - elbow - cutter 5. Top - wing - cutter
This includes give-and-go actions out of SLOB, with or without screens (above). The emphasis belongs on spacing and timing and usually the pass will be a bounce pass. Overplay opens screening and back cuts. Ask players to define back cuts..."a cut that goes toward the ball and then away." Coach Castellaw shares this short video. Remember Jay Bilas' Toughness commandments, including "set up your cut." He reminds cutters that the passer must see you. Note in the video how players often finish off two feet. Players need to develop a sense of the possibilities. Here's a flashback to a summer post called Offensive Palette.
And an excerpt from that piece...combining ball screen with backdoor action. Lagniappe: Practice Day 1: Plan
Speed layups for warm-up via the Lithuania team at the #JonesCup. I like it because most of warm-up IMO is about getting shots as we shoot more than we get layups in games...the other part is a short burst of energy & enthusiasm so this would take care of that. pic.twitter.com/UQXy7w1Ozg
