France U20 Team Secondary vs. Zone

We've been lucky enough to have FIBA put so many games up on Youtube lately. I've been spending some time watching these games, with great enjoyment. As with my last post, I enjoy watching the French team play. The French U20 team runs this secondary against Turkey's zone defense, and I loved it. Haven't seen a lot of good secondaries to use against zone but this was a very nice entry.

The secondary starts with a perimeter (2) inbounding it to the point guard. The 5 rim runs and the 4 gets on the ball side wing. Another perimeter (3) is opposite the point guard in the slot. The point guard dribbles it down the sideline. The 4 runs a shallow cut and gets the ball at the ball side slot. The inbounder basket cuts and fills to the back corner. The point guard hits the 4 cutting up on the shallow cut.

The point immediately cuts through to the opposite corner on the pass. The 4 reverses to the other guard (3) who dribbles to the top of the key, back in the direction of the pass. The 4 spaces away to the wing and the perimeter in the corner spaces up with the dribble over.

The 3 throws back to the 2 in the wing/slot area. They received it in both places from what I saw.

 The 2 dribbles back to the top, the 3 spaces to the wing. The 4 kind of screened the guard in the zone and then came to the middle pretending to set a ball screen for 2.

The 2 swings to the 3 on the wing immediately. The 4 slipped the fake ball screen, catches the ball wide open mid lane, and then make a play.

Here is a quick video clip of them running it. 

What I like about this action is that it's an immediate look in the middle of a zone coming off a break. As you see in the clip, it's pretty wide open. You could add some counters or continuations to give it more dimension. Not sure if it is a super simple break, as there is a lot of movement, but I do like the overall action. Would have to weigh teaching time efficiency if I were to run this with a group of high school guys. 

The one road block for a lot of coaches is that they like to have their 4 take the ball out on the break. I think you could easily modify this and make it work with the 4 taking it out. The 2 and 4 could just switch places. Instead of the player on the 2 shallow cutting, he cuts through to the backside corner and ends up in the same place. The 4 trails in the 2's spot in the ball side slot. The point guard throw back to the 4 in the ball side slot as he fills and you can run the same action.

Why Triple Threat is Bad for Offense and Bad for Players

When  coaches talk about a lack of fundamentals in US players what are they really talking about? It's not shooting - lots of kids can shoot it very well. It's not ball handling - every kid now can dribble like Bob Cousy. What we are really talking about is the fact that players don't know how to move the ball and make decisions quickly. A big part of the problem is that we teach and emphasize triple threat. The Tweet below comes from a group called "D1 Experience" who touts themselves as a group that gets players ready to play Division 1  basketball. The tweet highlights the "importance" of triple threat (I won't even get into the stupidity of the dribbling comment). Unfortunately it is dead wrong. 

Anyway, why do I hate the triple threat? It's simple. The triple threat encourages players to hold the basketball. They hold it, they face up, they jab step, jab again, maybe throw a shot fake in for good measure. As they do that, what happens? The defense gets into position, the other offensive players start watching. Using and teaching triple threat slows down offense, creates ball watchers, and encourages selfish 1 on 1 play. It does not have a single positive attribute. 

The three clips below are of this year's French U20 National Team - you can watch the entire game by clicking here.  The way they play is very reminiscent of the way the Spurs play - they move the ball quickly, they find the open player, and no one uses triple threat. How many times does a player get into triple threat, use jab fakes, etc? The answer is never. They make decisions on the catch and shoot it, drive it, or move it immediately. They move the ball quickly, make quick decisions and read the defense before or on the catch. They are holding the ball around a second and moving it. Their drives are not coming out of triple threat, but coming immediately on the catch. It's beautiful basketball and it's free of triple threat. This is the way basketball is meant to be played, so why don't we teach it this way in America?

Sam Smith, The Talent Code, and Visual Learning

Picture courtesy of Rollingstone.com

What does a British pop singer have in common with book The Talent Code? More than you might think. Sam Smith is a British pop star who recently had his first big US hit "Stay with Me". When I first heard the song, what struck me was that it sounded like an 80s R&B or Soul singer. I was a little surprised that it was sung by a guy from Britain. Then I heard Smith interviewed on the radio last night and it made perfect sense. Smith started talking about how he was greatly influenced by a lot of female R&B singers, Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin being two of them. His mother was a big fan of that type of music and played it often. Smith readily admits he fell in love with the music and it was a deep inspiration for him (lighting the spark). After hearing that interview, it became apparent why he has the sound that he does.

So what does that have to do with the Talent Code? In The Talent Code, Coyle talks about how great performers spend a lot of time watching/listening to other's performers and studying other performers help to influence their own work. If you listen to Smith's songs, it doesn't take long to hear who his influences were. He spent a lot of time around, inspired by, and studying, those performers. Those performers in turn influenced his sound.

Okay, great, but what does this have to do with basketball? Simple - what are our players watching? Do they even watch anymore?! Unfortunately, visual learning is now one of the most under utilized learning tools. In a lot of talent hotbeds younger players watch the older players. They see how and why they move and then internalize that information to use themselves. In basketball the playgrounds and street courts used to be a great example of this.  Winner stayed on so the younger teams spent a lot of time on the side WATCHING the older players and without even knowing it they picked up valuable information on how to play the game. They then applied next time they were on the court. This created a hotbed of learning that produced a lot of great players.

With the rise of structured year-round basketball, our players are watching a lot less and just playing more. Our young players are so saturated by playing basketball that they don't have time to watch, and if they do they chose to do other activities because they need a mental break. This isn't a blame AAU statement, but just an observation because basketball is year round now. As coaches it's important to get our players watching more and learning through visualization. Some ideas that I have to help coaches get players to visualize more are as follows:

• Incorporate visual learning into your practices and skill work with video. 
• Want to teach players to attack the basket? Show clips of Jordan, LeBron, and Kobe attacking the basket and highlight the details - shoulder to hip, pushing ball out, etc. Question players and have them break down what they are seeing. 
• Want to teach dribble drive? Then have them watch clips of teams running dribble drive well. They will then see the big picture and small nuances of the offense. 
• Incorporate peer coaching into practices
• Have players watch each other and have them coach each other on proper movements, position, etc. 
• Incorporate visual learning in workouts/skill work with peer coaching
• Partner up players and have them watch each other. 
• Correct mistakes and praise when done right - helps players evaluate good vs. bad for themselves as much as for partner. 
• Encourage players to watch more film
• Pros, college, high school - anything will do. 
• Have them watch a game on TV and write thoughts on the Xs and Os, player movement, player skills, etc. 
• Have them watch a player (choose wisely) and take notes on how/when they move, how they execute what they do. 

As a coach I know that I need to do more with players visual learning. We have a middle school workout at noon today and I'm going to partner them up and have them coach each other. We will see how it goes. Also next year I'm going to incorporate more video into practice to show them proper way to execute techniques and offensive/defensive actions. Would love to hear feedback about how you incorporate visual learning into your practices.

Basketball Roles Over Positions

Picture courtesy of talkbasketball.co.uk

I was having a good conversation today with another coach. We were talking about how coaches often pigeonhole players into  positions. The picture on the right shows some examples of traditional positions that coaches would have for players. Each position comes with expectations of what that position will be doing. For example a "center" or "5" will post up by the basket, play inside, and not handle the ball. On the other hand the "point guard" or 1 will be handling the ball, making a lot of decisions, etc. The problem with this is that positions don't take into account what players can do, what skills they have, and the match ups on the floor. Every player at that position is expected to be the same - and they are not. For example a center, or 5, might be a good ball handler even though they are tall. And in some games he may be guarded by a slow, plodding player and your pg guarded by a great defender. In this situation it would make sense to have your bigger player take it up. This however, usually doesn't happen and we get the tall player standing under the rim and the shortest player bringing it up.

After having that conversation reminded me of an article by Beckham: Analytics Reveal 13 New Basketball Positions. It's a great read on redefining positions in basketball. Re-reading it today got me thinking defining players based on what they can do - their roles. After a quick brain storm, I came up with a list of roles that players could have:

3 point Shooter
Inside Shooter
Scorer
Post Up Player
Slasher
Ball Handler
Perimeter Defender
Post Defender
Rebounder
Rim Protector

So what you do is pick the things the player can do and label him as such. Some examples of this would be below:

1. Player who can block/change some shots from help, can rebound, but isn't offensively skilled he would be a: Post defending, rebounding, rim protector.

2. A player is a great ballhandler, a great defender, and can get to the rim, but can't shoot it or guard in the post would be a: slasher, inside shooter, ball handler, perimeter defender. 

3. A player who is a big body, isn't a great shot blocker, rebounds, defends a post, scores well inside with post ups, and can catch and shoot a three would be: inside shooter, post up player, 3 point shooter, post defender, rebounder.

4. A once in a generation player for your school, who can do it all on offense and defense, would be labeled as a: Scorer, 3 point shooter, inside shooter, slasher, ball handler, perimeter defender, post defender, rebounder.

5.You have a smaller player who is great on the ball but doesn't do anything on offense can be described as a: perimeter defender.

So as you can see it's about labeling players by WHAT THEY CAN DO and not a position that implies things. This will help coaches with lineups, subbing, etc. You always need someone on the floor who has ball handler on their name - might not always be someone you would think of as a point guard. Obviously this thing isn't new, but I do think that if you think about it this way it will give you a clearer picture of what you have to work with

Using a Season Journal/Binder

This year I was lucky enough to be able to run our youth summer workouts. I was writing the first plan this morning in a new notebook and first started by writing out what I wanted to accomplish over the 4 weeks we are together. I narrowed down about 4 things I wanted them to learn and then wrote some more ideas about how they would learn that. I then wrote a big picture plan and then started to write out the plan for the first day. During the workouts I wrote every one's name down to help remember and also remember who was there. After we were done today I went back and wrote a paragraph or so of thoughts, feelings, and ideas that I had based on day 1. For instance I put down that having 90 minutes of stuff for 90 minutes wasn't feasible because Coach Klingsporn wanted about 10 minutes to talk before we got going so he could cover several house cleaning items.  Another thing was that I should narrow my focus to one skill and shooting - which is a good thing to remember.

Now this didn't all happen by design. I lack a good printer at home so I just wrote it down in an empty notebook and didn't tear out any pages. Doing this got me thinking, what if you were to do this for an entire season. Just keep a record of all practices, games, thoughts, feelings, and ideas during the season. I mean I type and keep all my practice plans, but don't have what we actually did, what happened during that time, the reflections, thoughts, game breakdowns, ideas, etc with them. How much more powerful would that be? This year I think I am going to try it, but instead of a notebook, I will use a three ring binder because I like to type practice plans and can just three hole punch them. We'll see how it goes next year and will definitely post an update as we go.

Also, would love to hear feedback if anyone has done this and how it went for them.

Best Xs and Os from the River Falls Tournament

Photo courtesy of wikipedia

At Tartan we always go to the UW-River Falls team camp. It's well run, the high school facilities are unbelievable, and the competition is pretty good. Both the varsity and jv groups did well and improved over the weekend. Now summer high school tournaments aren't normally somewhere that you would expect to pick up a lot of great Xs and Os. Most guys have a new team because the seniors graduated and don't have in a lot of their stuff. This weekend at River Falls was an exception to that rule however. I saw several good things that I wanted to share.






Back Screen BLOB Play
I can't even remember who ran this set, but I thought it was really slick. It's not one with multiple options that will work 2,3,4 times against an opponent. But it's a simple one that I would keep in my back pocket for a situation where you need a basket in a tight game - it's really a great last second blob if you tweaked it for a second option - maybe 2 screens 4 to the corner for a shot in a screen the screener action.

The set starts in a box with guards on the bottom and posts on the top. All for players start to cut toward the ball.

 As the backside players reach the lane line the bottom players (2,3) keep cutting, The back side elbow (5) sets a back screen for the ball side elbow player (4) who cuts to the rim for a score.

Line BLOB Set
Forest Lake ran this classic against us several times and ended up with two easy baskets, one on the initial dive and one on the screener's roll. It's a pretty solid play if you have a few other line plays. Also a good one to only bring out when you need a basket at the end of a game.

It starts in a pretty simple line stack with the guards low and the post or big wing players high. The bottom 2 players cut to the corners and the third player in line faces the ball and butt screens the top player's (5) defender.

The top player (5) cuts hard off the butt screen to the rim and the third player (4) spaces out to the opposite side. 4 will be open if they cheat off him to cover 5 or switch it.

Michigan
Our JV team got a good test playing Mounds Park Academy's varsity. They ran this play several times and I liked the looks they got out of it. I think it could be a play that you add some counters to and make really good.

The set is a 2-3 high look. The point reverses to the opposite wing.

The high post back screens the point who cuts to the rim.

 The point then fills out the ball side off his cut. As this is happening, the opposite guard (2) comes off a double flair screen by the post (5) and backside wing (3). The wing with the ball (4) dribbles up at the flair. The post dives after setting the first flair which really can create mismatch issues if they switch.

They would often throw to the 2 coming off the flair and he would attack and dump to the post or kick to the pg. Once the 3 flashed middle go the ball and attacked as well.

Toughness as a Coach

Lots of good stuff on Twitter today about being tough as a coach and the need for toughness in coaching. Dean Benton (@athletico_dev) tweeted a link to this Huffington Post article defending the toughness of the ousted Canadian rowing coach. Then, Greg White (@GregWhite32) had a string of great tweets about how players need toughness from their coaches. My favorite was this one:














All this talk gets me thinking, what are tough coaches really about? And that brings me to the man in the picture. This is Coach Reinhardt, Hall-of-Fame football coach from Rushford-Peterson (MN). I played for R-P my freshmen and sophomore years, so I didn't play much varsity, but I got to be around Coach Reinhardt a lot. The thing that made Coach Reinhardt great was that he was a tough SOB, but at the same time, you knew he cared. He would be the first one to tell you that you screwed up, but also the first one to pat you on the back when you did something right. That philosophy stuck with me and is what makes a truly great tough-guy coach. You can't be a yeller and a screamer all the time and expect consistent results. Would he yell when he needed to? Of course, but he also developed meaningful relationships with his players. And because of this, his players would run through a wall if he wanted, with no questions asked.

We do need more toughness and honesty in coaching. I truly believe that every player really does desire to be coached, pushed, and held to a high standard. But being Bobby Knight is not productive either. Today's players don't respond to that. Today's tough-guy coach has to be a lot like Coach Reinhardt - have a high standard, don't compromise, be brutally honest, but also work on relationships and give positive feedback when deserved.