Joel's Basketball Nuggets

Player Update - Dominique Brooks

2010-02-11T12:28:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a rivals.com article on Dominique Brooks. Big thanks to Kevin McCarthy of Rivals and Parsing the WAC (A website dedicated to WAC basketball @ Parsingthewac.blogspot.com).

http://washingtonpreps.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1050834.

Jon Moe Goes for 42 in intrasqauad

2009-11-08T10:49:00.001-08:00

Jon and I worked together this summer to work on his game so that he could have a great senior season. By no means was Jon a blank slate when I started with him as he had just come off a season in which he was the 5th leading scorer in the GNAC at 18.6 points per game. He came with a great attitude, worked his tail off and really made some great strides; especially with his conditioning, ball-handling and consistency. Jon was truly a pleasure to work with and it seems like it's gonna pay off http://alaskananooks.com/news/2009/11/7/MBB_1107090012.aspx

What is a good shot? Part Five

2009-10-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

Let’s say that you are winning, trying to run clock at the end of the game and you have an open layup. Do you take it? Jason (Kansas City, MO)

This one is tough and while I feel that you will get a different answer from different people, in order for me to answer this question, I feel that I need to get more specific. For instance, if you are up by two possessions or more, I say you take the layup, but let’s say that there are 10 seconds left and you are up by one point. You have just gotten the ball and have a breakaway layup; do you take that layup with 10 seconds left? This situation actually played out several seasons ago when I was watching Georgia Tech play. A player from Georgia Tech leaked out in the press break (I think it was Will Bynum but I’m not sure) and received the ball ahead of the defense for a quick dunk. This put Georgia Tech up by three points but it left a lot of time on the clock and it created a situation where the opposing team could have gotten a very good look in a one possession game. He should have run off some time (I think he could have taken at least four or five seconds off the clock) but instead he left the door wide open for the other team to force overtime.

I don’t remember the outcome of the game but this is just one situation in which it would have been smarter not to take the layup. I think that a good rule of thumb is that if time is running out and the layup will put you up by at least two possessions, take it. If not, run time off the clock.

What is a good shot? Part Four

2009-08-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

The next two postings are going to deal with several key questions that have been posed to me via email. I will go through a couple key questions that I felt were most important and I will do my best to respond to other questions via email. Mind you that none of the answers I give are absolutes and you might even disagree.

Question: I have a guy on my team who shoots the ball well and we honestly need his shooting prowess to keep the defense from sagging down on our big men, but there are some games where he just goes cold. At what point do I tell him to stop shooting or do I let him shoot himself out of a cold spell?

-John (Los Angeles, CA)

Answer: Well it really depends on the type of team you are. If you are a transition team, it’s a lot easier to live with one guy having a bad shooting night because you are getting up a much higher volume of shots. If you are a slowdown, Dick Bennett type team, it becomes very difficult to live with someone trying to shoot themselves out of a slump because each possession has that much more value to it. Being that I am a shooter, I have always preferred coaches who let me shoot my way out of it because shooters need confidence and a coach telling them to stop shooting doesn’t exactly build confidence. Instead if you really need him to stop shooting, you might want to let him take a couple minutes on the bench to gather himself before putting the kid back in. This gives the player time to rest up without totally shattering his confidence.

Question: Would you rather have your best shooter shoot a semi-contested shot (Defender running out on him) or would you rather he make the extra pass to a guy who is wide open and an average shooter?

-D.J. (Las Vegas, Nevada)

Answer: This is a tough one because I feel that in that instant, you want your best shooter to take that shot because he is your best shooter and most great shooters can make a shot with a defender closing out on them fairly consistently. The problem with this situation is that if you consistently miss the extra pass, it starts breaking down the chemistry of the team. I would say that it really depends on the situation. If your shooter is hot, this is a shot that you want him to take but if it is a situation early in the game, I would say make the extra pass. Championship teams always have star players who are unafraid to make that extra pass to their teammates.

Random Tips – Being Ready for a Visit

2009-08-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

When I work kids out that want to play basketball in college, I try to give them the tools they need to find the right playing situation for them. I tell them that schools will not recruit them if they don’t have their lives together off of the court, I try to prepare them mentally and physically on the court and I tell them to leave everything on the court in the workout/tryout.

I have talked to several coaches over the years about what they look for in players that come on recruiting visits or open gyms in the offseason and while the answers vary from coach to coach, they all agree on two things. They all expect all players who come on campus to be in playing shape and they are all looking for players that play hard on both ends of the court. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense because when you show up at a workout out of shape, it sends a message to the coach that you didn’t take the opportunity seriously enough. If you take plays off on defense or don’t get on the floor for a loose ball, you are telling the coach that you aren’t willing to do the little things that it takes to win. I think that the main reason that coaches look for these things is that they all know that anybody can have an off shooting day but work ethic and drive are things that you can control no matter how poorly you are shooting the ball. So my advice to all players looking for a place to play is to stay in shape, work on your game and when you get the opportunity, leave it all out on the floor.

What is a Good Shot? Part Three

2009-08-21T19:58:00.001-07:00

So the other day I was thinking about some of the coaches I played for and some of the things that they have told me about certain shots. I had coaches in high school who told me that you should never shoot floaters and fade-aways. Their logic was that you aren’t on balance when you shoot a floater and you take yourself out of the play when you shoot a fade-away (like for a rebound). I believe that there are some valid points to this argument but I wouldn’t call it an absolute by any means, especially when you get to higher levels of play where players can make these shots (You wouldn’t tell the guy in the picture to stop shooting them). I think that the biggest thing about shooting shots like the floater or the fade-away is that you have learn how to shoot them properly and you have practice them. If you shoot these shots the properly (on balance), in the right situation (i.e. don’t shoot a fade away if you are a big man and you have a guard on you) and if you practice them regularly, they can be good shots. The point that I’m trying to make in this post is that as long as you understand your capabilities and limitations as a player, it isn’t about the type of shot you take, it’s about taking the right shot in the correct situation.

Random Tips - Being a Straight Shooter

2009-08-18T10:52:00.001-07:00

About ten games into my senior year of college, I wasn’t shooting the ball well. I had put in a ton of work in the summer and it was pretty discouraging that I was having trouble shooting the ball. The worst part was that I wasn’t even missing short and long, I was missing a lot of shots left and right. Missing left and right is the worst because it really isn’t that difficult to shoot the ball straight. Sometimes it is a flaw in your mechanics and sometimes it’s an issue with a lack of focus. The problem is that if you are missing left and right, you aren’t even giving the ball a chance to go in. At least if you miss short and long, the ball can catch the rim and drop in. This almost never happens when you miss left or right.

One day I was shooting around in the gym and I remembered a drill that an old trainer had told me about and that was to go up to the side of the backboard and shoot at it. The side of the backboard is a very narrow target but if you hit it straight on, the ball will bounce straight back to you. I did this to warm up before every practice and game for the rest of the season and my shooting percentages increased dramatically. I tell every kid that I workout that has a problem shooting straight to do this drill because it tightens up your mechanics and it increases your focus. When you move out from the side of the backboard and start shooting on the hoop, shooting the ball straight seems like such an easy task.

What is a Good Shot? Part Two

2009-08-17T17:25:00.001-07:00

Is an open shot always a good shot? There are coaches who will say yes for the most part. You see a little bit more of this thought pattern once you get to the college and pro level where you have guys who simply don’t miss often, but is it a good philosophy? First of all, I think that it depends on the player. Do you want your big man with no touch shooting an open three? No, that is a bad shot. One of the first rules about shot selection is that you need to understand your limitations as a player and not step outside of them. For me, I was a good shooter in college but I was awful when I got inside the key. To put it simply, I was too short, too slow and too unathletic to be good at making a good percentage of shots in the key. I was effective anywhere between fifteen to twenty-four feet from the hoop so for me, that is where I wanted to shoot a majority of my shots from.

The more difficult part of shot selection is an understanding of time, score and flow of the game. I think that an obvious example of this is when you are up at the end of the game and you have an open shot. You have a choice between running more clock or taking the shot. It’s almost never a good idea to take the open shot as opposed to running more time off of the clock. This is a lesson that most players learn from watching basketball at a young age. I want to run down another more complex situation to better illustrate the concept.

It’s midway through the second half, the other team has just scored six straight points to take an eight point lead. You take the outlet pass, race down court towards the three point line and the defense doesn’t come out to challenge a potential shot attempt. What do you do?

You could take the shot. Let’s say you make it and the momentum swings. There are a lot of coaches who don’t mind their players taking this shot but I see this situation play out differently all too often.
Let’s say you miss the open transition three. This shot has a tendency to lead to a long rebound and a quick layup for the other team. This is really bad because all of the sudden you have really added fuel to the fire and the other team has all of the momentum. This is the type of moment that can take a game that has the potential to be close and turn it into a blowout.
Let’s say you decide to pull it out and run some clock. This is the option of choice for me because if you run a lot of clock, it forces the other team to play defense for a full possession and it generally results in a decent look. Let’s say that you run a play and you miss the shot. Unlike situation #2 I talked about, you have now taken some of the momentum away from the other team and while you missed the shot, you aren’t giving up a quick transition basket.
Let’s say that you make the shot after running some clock. This really shifts the momentum because nobody wants to defend for a whole shot clock and then get scored on. Tony Bennett’s teams at Washington State never really let games get out of hand because they forced their opponents to play defense for an entire possession whenever there was any chance of the game getting out of control.

Obviously the correct answer to this situation is going to vary by coach, the player with the ball and the context of the game (let’s say that you are a good shooter but you are having an off night. Are you still taking the shot?). Like I said, I would generally want to pull it out and run clock but let me know if you disagree!

What is a Good Shot? Part One

2009-08-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry that it has been over a week since I last posted but I was super busy the past several days. I wanted to expand more on shot selection today and the importance of it. They say that if you want to be considered a good shooter, you should strive to shoot over 40% from the three point line, over 50% from the field and over 80% from the free throw line. Most players who strive to be great shooters go to the gym and put up several hundred shots a day and call it good. While shooting jumpers is important, this is only half of the battle. In order to shoot a great percentage from the field, you have to make sure that you take good shots. Not only will taking good shots improve your shooting percentage, it helps out with team chemistry as well. This is a point that I have reiterated over and over but it is so important if you not only want to improve your shooting percentage but help make your teammates better. I want to talk about a few situations from experience that speaks to this.

Taking bad shots is contagious. Let’s say that your team is down a couple points in the fourth quarter and you decide that you want to take it upon yourself to win the game for your team. You dribble down the court and jack up a quick three pointer. There are several outcomes that could come from this.

Let’s say that you miss it and the other team gets a long rebound and a quick transition layup. When this happens, the four other people on the court collectively feel that it is their turn to play hero and thus everybody on the team comes down with the extremely contagious case of “bad-shot disease.”
Let’s say that you make it and you actually make a couple more quick shots to bring your team right back into the game. One of the negative effects of taking quick ill-advised shots is that your teammates, stop wanting to play defense (Players who don’t touch the ball, simply play with less intensity on defense. This is a fact.) and on offense, they start standing and waiting for you to do something. This leads to easy buckets for the other team, stagnation on offense, poor team morale and most likely a loss.
Let’s say that you actually string a bunch of shots together and win the game. The effect is similar to the one I talked about in the previous example. I always point to the “81 point game effect” to drive home the importance of not forcing it yourself. I remember when Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in one game. It was a pretty incredible display but the Lakers also lost five of the next seven games. I posted the video below and I want you to watch some of the shots Kobe took. Mind you that it’s a youtube video so you won’t know anything about the flow of the game (which is huge in shot selection). I know that Kobe is an awesome player but pay attention to how tough the shots are, how many people are open when he shoots and how much time is left on the clock (shot and game). For example, if you take a double pump fake-contested-20 foot jump shot in the middle of the shot clock, is it a good shot (1:22 second mark)?

Like I said above, these are situations that I ran into as a player during high school and college. I have heard the arguments on the other side about if you don’t have your best player take the ball down and shoot at the end of the game, you risk your worst player taking a shot that they can’t make. While I can understand this point of view I feel that if the team buys into the team concept and they embrace their roles, they should know that the goal is to get a good look for one of the better players.

These are just some things to think about when taking a bad shot. The effects of taking a bad shot don’t just show up in the stat line in the form of lower shooting percentages, but they also damage the delicate balance of personalities within the team concept.

Sorry Guys!

2009-08-07T17:25:00.001-07:00

Hey it's been a pretty crazy as of late because yours truly is getting married next Wednesday so I apologize that I haven't been as diligent about posting. I'm going to pick it back up soon but in the meantime I am going to do my best to get some stuff up on the site.

Thanks,

Joel Booth

What is a Good Shot? Intro

2009-08-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

What is the definition of a good shot? The answer to this question is very loose but the truth is that it really depends on the person you ask and the answer is constantly changing with time. For example, take the transition three point shot and how normal it is to shoot it today. Fifteen years ago, the transition three point shot was considered a terrible shot by most basketball minds. If you took a three in transition, most coaches would think of it as showboating or stupid (possibly a combination of both) and they would promptly yank you out of the game. As people started to shoot more threes in general, it became more acceptable to start taking them in transition.

Over the next several posts, I am going to try to explain what I feel is the definition of a good shot. I am going to go over a bunch of different situations but the bottom line is that shot selection is a “feel for the game” issue. Shot selection is something that is learned from playing a ton of basketball, learning from good coaches and watching smart players. There are things that you will probably disagree with me on so feel free to comment, but in the end I hope you can take something from it and I hope you enjoy!

Setting Screens

2009-07-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

I think that one of the most underrated skills in the game of basketball is the ability to set a quality screen. To me setting a half hearted screen is not only lazy but it is also selfish. It is selfish in that you are messing up an opportunity to help your teammate get a quality look at the basket and it is lazy because if you actually took the time to set a quality screen, you often get an open look yourself on a slip, flash, roll or by spacing out to the open area. I see so many players at all level set half hearted screens and it drives me crazy. I remember reading an article that Jay Bilas wrote on toughness and it was a story about Michael Jordan playing on the 1984 Olympic team coached by Bob Knight. Knight told him that he had to set a screen before he could take a shot and Bilas went on to say that if it’s good enough for Jordan, it’s good enough for you. I completely agree with that statement because setting a bad screen is wasted motion and if you have read my previous posts, you know how I feel about wasted motion.

So how do you set a good screen and how do you create an opportunity for yourself out of it? Below are some key points that come to mind and if you would like to add any to the list, please feel free to leave a comment.

Go seek out the physical contact. There are situations where the onus falls totally on the cutter to use a screen (i.e. most double screens are stationary) but a lot of the time, it is up to the screener to seek out the defender and make the contact. From this point it is up to the cutter to make to the proper read and use the screen but none of this works unless the screener makes that initial physical contact.
Set a moving screen. I know this sounds bad but many times you can either roll or open up to the ball and set a moving screen without getting a foul called on you (i.e. let’s say you are setting a screen in a PNR situation and the defender tries to go underneath the screen. If you roll a little bit early, you can often run into the defender buying your teammate a little bit more time.
Get low and wide. It is a lot easier to get through a screen if the screener is standing straight up as opposed to if they are low and wide. You want to eat up space and make it difficult for the defense to get through the screen
You can move up until the very moment you make contact with the defender. This point ties in with the first bullet in that don’t be scared of a foul call when you are setting a screen. The rule states that you can move until you make physical contact with the defender, and to be perfectly honest, I would rather see a player get called for a foul on a moving screen than watch that same player set a lazy screen. If they set a moving screen, I at least know that they are trying.
Once you have set the screen, find the open spot on the court and flash to it. Many times on a cross-screen out on the perimeter, the slip is wide open and cross-screens in the post normally set up a flash to the high post. If you think about it, the PNR is just that. It is the screener finding the opening in the defense. The thing that a lot of players don’t realize is that they can do this in any situation where they set a screen.

I think that the biggest thing to remember is that if you set a good screen for your teammate, he is more likely to set a good screen for you. Setting screens encourages good team play and I believe that it helps improve team chemistry. Just remember that if you are going to set a screen, do it the right way.

The Consistency Shooting Game

2009-07-27T23:47:00.000-07:00

I remember being told several years ago that any decent shooter can string several shots together when they find their rhythm but great shooters rarely miss more than two shots in a row. I think much of this has to do with the level of mental focus that all great shooters have. Once you get the proper mechanics of shooting down and you get the reps, it becomes all mental because you already know how you have to shoot it for the ball to go in. This is especially true when fatigue sets in and players start to break down physically and they lose their focus. This is why I have always incorporated conditioning into all of my shooting drills and I make all of my players get to a certain amount of made shots to get out of the drill. Still this doesn’t always force kids to focus as they will miss shots with the only consequence being that they have to get more reps in. While this does frustrate kids and test their mental strength, I wanted something that would push the envelope even more.

I have incorporated “Beat the Pro” style drills (This is a drill where you are trying to get to 10 points and you get one point for every made shot and -2 points for every missed shot. You have to start over if you get to negative 3 and I normally throw in a line drill or push-ups for failure to get out of the drill. I like this drill because you have to shoot 66% just to break even and shoot 80% to get out of the drill in a reasonable amount of time) and contact style shooting (This is where you have a football pad and you beat the player up while they are in their shooting motion. Helps increase game time mental focus) but I really want something that had a true emphasis on being a consistent shooter and I came up with the “Consistency Shooting Game.” You can really incorporate this into any drill and it’s really quite similar to “Beat the Pro.” You have to make ten shots (or whatever you decide is appropriate for the player you are working out) but the catch is that if you miss three in a row, you go back to zero. Conditioning should be incorporated in the drill because you really want to test the mental strength of the player you are working out.

Working off the Pivot on the Wing - Speed Inside Pivot

2009-07-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

This posting is the final one in the “working off of the pivot” series. The final move in this series is the Speed Inside Pivot “SIP”. The Speed Inside Pivot is primarily used by shooters that run off of a lot of screens. Richard Hamilton is a player that uses it in the NBA and Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick used this technique in college. The Speed Inside Pivot is very effective for shooters because all of the counters are based off of the initial catch and shoot movement.

To execute this move you first have to be able to properly catch and shoot off of your inside foot. If you are coming off of a down screen, you plant your inside foot, engage your core to turn, drive your outside foot into the ground when you square up and rise up to shoot. The counters out of this are all based on how the defender is playing you. I always like to teach a progression so in this case, the first move is always to shoot the jumper. This means that if there is even a little bit of room, you just let it go. J.J. Redick and Adam Morrison were both awesome at this in college and while I think that Redick was better at the catch and shoot part of this, I really liked the way Morrison used his counters.

Most college coaches teach players to aggressively trail any player coming off of a screen and let the person guarding the screener help on the curl move. This means that if you are the offensive player when you catch the ball, the defender is going to be on your inside hip. If the defender does not recover to square you up, forward pivot and take one dribble to beat the defender to the middle. If the defender ends up being on your high side playing off of you, you can either, forward pivot and jab into your shot, or you can jab middle to get the defender to drop the high foot and attack baseline. Both moves are good and which one you decide to use is all about your comfort level as a player. If the defender is jamming you on your high side, I generally teach players to spin to the baseline and shoot a mid range pull up or go to a step back if you are playing a tougher defender.

Some of the positives of this move are:

It is tremendously effective for catch and shoot players.
It is a quick move so it works really well within the flow of the offense
It has a simple first read which is very nice for a lot of players

Some of the negatives of this move are:

It is a finesse move. It can be tougher to execute against more physical players
It’s a quick move and while this can be a good thing, it means that the secondary reads out of are very fast and this can be tough for some players.

Overall I think that this move is most effective for players who move a lot without the ball and are good shooters. While other players can use this series, I think that in order to really be a threat on this move, you have to be able to catch and shoot.

Random Tips - The Retreat Dribble

2009-07-21T22:24:00.001-07:00

The retreat dribble is one of the most important tools to have in one’s game. It has so many uses, especially for players that handle the ball a lot. If you watch most starting point guards at the division one level in college, you will notice that they almost never get picked and they rarely get called for five seconds. One of the biggest reasons for this is that most college teams I watch either teach the retreat dribble or they recruit players that have it in their game (you never really know which one it is but the bottom line is that the players execute the move). The retreat dribble does a couple of things. First of all, it keeps you from over-penetrating. This is a huge problem with a lot of younger players. Some players are really fast and they beat their man, but when the defense collapses on them, they make poor decisions because they are generally out of control. Secondly, the retreat dribble is a great way to get a defender off of you. When you execute the move, you can do it with or without engaging the defender. If you choose to engage the defender, many times when you retreat, you can create some solid space for yourself when you disengage. Thirdly, it is really great for creating passing angles. This is huge for shorter guards who have to play against longer defenders. I always ran into this problem in my playing days and the retreat dribble tended to make it a lot easier on me because taking a step away from the defense gave me space to throw a pass without it getting deflected. Finally, it takes the five second count off of you. Jonny Flynn of Syracuse was excellent at this. He would always have a tough Big East guard defending him and he was always able to make progress towards the hoop (If you make progress towards the basket or you get the defender more than an arms length away from you, the ref has to discontinue the count. The retreat dribble generally accomplishes both) and get the count taken off. This allowed him to control the ball whenever his team had any kind of difficulty getting into their sets.

In order to execute the retreat dribble, you have to remember a couple of key points:

Stay low because you are going to be shifting your weight back and forth. You can’t do this standing straight up.
Attack aggressively and retreat quickly. Good defenders will stay right there with you if you make a slow move.
Stick your forearm out to protect the ball from a reaching defender.
Last but not least, keep your chin on your shoulder. This keeps you looking down court and nothing is worse than retreating and not keeping your head up.

I always teach players to attack their defender hard. When you get your shoulder by the defender, turn hard on the foot of the hand that you are dribbling with and stop on the other foot. At this point, you should be sideways and you push off of the foot you stopped on and “Crab Dribble” Backwards. This has to be an explosive step back in order to create space from your defender. At this point the defender either has to make a miniature closeout on you (in which case you would easily blow by him) or he can sit back (this is great as well because it lets you run your offense or do whatever you choose to do).

Working off the Pivot on the Wing (or in the Post) - Reverse Inside Pivot

2009-07-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

The next move in the series that I am going to talk about is the Reverse Inside Pivot or “RIP.” The Reverse Inside Pivot is very similar to the Power Outside Pivot but the primary difference is that you are going to be sweeping towards the middle as opposed to the baseline. To execute the move, you are immediately going to establish your inside foot as the pivot and instead of forward pivoting to square up into your shot, you are going to spin the other way with your back towards the middle. This move is used a lot by post players when they square up. Dwight Howard is someone who uses this move a lot when he decides to face up in the post. He will catch the ball and immediately reverse pivot and sweep in one motion towards the middle. At this point he will either keep going to the middle and dunk it, or he will stop and jab to middle and dunk baseline. The primary difference between this move and the Power Outside Pivot is that with the Reverse Inside Pivot, you will either start with your back to the defense or you will turn your back to the defense during the move. The Reverse Inside Pivot is a great move to use especially when you have a physical advantage over your defender. Watch the video below and check out my notes on the move.

Cue the video to the 00:48 mark and watch the move (the replay shows it better) and it will show Howard reverse pivoting, sweeping and jabbing in one motion. He then goes back towards the baseline and dunks. You can do pretty much all of the same moves as you could out of the Power Outside Pivot (Sweep and Go, Jab and Crossover, Jab and Shoot, etc.) Some of the things that I like about this move are:

When you pivot, you are pivoting towards the basket as opposed to away from the basket when you work off of the outside pivot.
It catches the defense off guard because it is truly a quick and aggressive move (you are catching and immediately sweeping towards the defender)
It works really well for players that don’t have a great outside shot because it keeps them moving towards the hoop.

Some of the things I don’t like about this move are that:

At some point, you will be turning your back to the defense.
You are going to cover a lot of ground going towards the hoop and this could disrupt spacing (the same thing could be said for the Power Inside Pivot).
It is very hard to execute this move when you are getting jammed.

Overall, I think that is a great tool to have in your offensive repertoire. I like it because it is a great move to use on either the post or out on the perimeter.

Random Thoughts on Coaching – Establishing a Defensive Identity

2009-07-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

I was recently posting on the Coachingbetterbball message board (Check it out on my blog list because it’s an awesome resource) and the discussion topic got me thinking about what any new coach should do when they take over a program, especially one that has been struggling recently. The first thing that comes to mind for me is establishing a defensive identity. When I think of all of the most recent reclamation projects in the college basketball landscape, most of them have one thing in common; they all quickly established defensive identities. I could go down the list (UCLA, Washington State, Missouri, Clemson, Tennessee, Purdue, etc.) and every one of the coaches of these programs are defensive fanatics. They all have different playing styles, paces and offenses, but if you look at the teams I listed, all of them play very tough defense.

Another thing that I like about this whole idea is that most of these programs turned around very quickly. Take Purdue for example, Matt Painter took over for a retiring Gene Keady in 2005. The program had been down for several years with only one NCAA Tournament appearance in five seasons. While the team struggled in Painter’s first year (Much of this was due to injuries and transfers), the Boilermakers have made three consecutive tournament appearances since then. If you ever watch Purdue play, they play a very intense, physical style of man to man defense and they do a great job of taking their opponents out of their comfort zones. I like this a lot because you don’t need to be the most talented team in the world to play this style of basketball but if you get the team to buy in, they can become good very quickly.

Reading an article on espn.com made me think of another situation where establishing a defensive identity has led to a dramatic turnaround. This turnaround that I speak of is with the United States Senior National Team and the U.S. U-19 team. The rest of the world has closed the gap considerably when it comes to being able to compete with the United States on the basketball court. The Senior National Team was coming off of disappointing performances at consecutive world championships and the 2004 Olympics. The U-19 team hadn’t won a gold medal since 1991 and this team was short on NBA level talent because so many elite college players had turned down invitations to play on this team. I will still argue that the United States is by far the most talented country in the world but other national teams play together a lot more and this levels the playing field considerably. This leveling of the playing field has led to the perception that USA Basketball is down but I would say that it was just a matter of changing the identity of the program. The Senior National Team was led by Mike Krzyzewski and the U-19 team was coached by Jamie Dixon, Chris Lowery and Matt Painter. All four of the coaches I mentioned are big advocates of playing tough defense. If you watched the Senior National Team during the Olympics, you will have noticed that they played extremely aggressive defense and forced teams to play completely out of rhythm. The U-19 team beat teams by an average of 22 points while holding their opponents to 38.7% shooting from the field. Needless to say, both of these teams won gold medals even though they had a limited amount of time practicing together and I think that the biggest reason is that these teams defended the heck out of the ball.

To me, having a defensive identity is so important because the truth is that any team can have a bad shooting night but if you play defense, you give yourself a chance to win every game that you play in. Playing great defense wears down opposing teams over the course of the game and in addition to that, tough defense usually leads to your opponent making turnovers or taking bad shots and this in turn leads to easy baskets on offense. So my recommendation to all new coaches out there is to make defense a number one priority in your program.

Working off the Pivot on the Wing - Power Inside Pivot

2009-07-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

The second method that I teach on the catch on the wing is the Power Inside Pivot or “PIP.” This move is one of my favorites to teach because anybody can really do it. I have talked a little bit about this move in other posts (Especially when I talk about Carmelo Anthony because he is the best Pro I have seen at this move) but I really want to go into it here. The Power Outside Pivot move is a true power move because you are deliberately seeking contact with your defender in order to give yourself room to operate. This move works best when a physical defender is trying to jam you on the catch. In fact I really only recommend using this move against very aggressive defenders because if the defender is giving you space to operate to begin with, there is no need to create it unless you are trying to make an engage/disengage move. I tell all of my players to get this in their arsenal because you can create space on against a much stronger player when using this move. Likewise, when you are using the move against a player that is not as strong as you, it is a great way to physically punish them.

With this move you are going to catch the ball on your inside foot and take a forward pivot into the defender to create your space. I always teach to rip the ball over the top on this move away from the hands of the defense (This move is specifically used on aggressive defenders). Your aim should always be to split the defender in half, so your forward pivot should be right in between the defender’s legs. At this point, you will tuck the ball into your back hip and you can either, sweep and go from the position, jab and shoot, jab and go baseline or you can spin if the defender is leaning on you. It is highly effective because there is a counter for everything that the defense throws at you.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any video footage of anybody using this footwork so there will be none here but as soon as I find some, I will post it in a new post and revisit this article. Some of the pros of this move are:

It works to create space on any aggressive defender and it doesn’t really require you to be the strongest player out there.
There are a lot of moves and counter-moves that you can make out of this position.
Over the course of a game, using this move can really wear down an opposing defender.
It is an easy move to teach because the reads don’t happen nearly as fast as a move like the “Speed Inside Pivot.”

Some of the cons of this move are:

It is a slow developing move because you aren’t immediately facing up. This can sometimes lead to missing an open cutter or stalling a quick ball reversal.
Due to all of the pivoting involved, it can be easy to travel when executing this move. You have to be very conscious of keeping your pivot foot planted in this scenario.

In all I think that this is a great move to have in your arsenal. Basketball is currently moving in the direction of more pressure oriented defense and as a player, you have to be prepared to play against it. This is an excellent tool for neutralizing intense ball pressure on the catch.

Working off the Pivot on the Wing - Power Outside Pivot

2009-07-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

The first move that I am going to talk about in this series is the POP or Power Outside Pivot. I call it a “Power” move because it truly is based on your explosiveness and ability to power through the body a defensive player whereas a move like SIP or Speed Inside Pivot is more of a finesse move. POP is probably the most common way to catch the ball on the wing and it is the most widely taught method in basketball. I have heard coaches tell me that it’s not advanced enough and it’s too much of a beginner’s move but I really don’t buy that. No matter what level you watch, players will work off of the outside pivot (And if you really think that this is a novice move, watch the video below and tell me that it’s still a novice move).

Catching the ball off of the outside pivot means that when you catch the ball on the wing, you establish your outside foot as your pivot. So if you start at the block and pop out, your foot closest to the sideline will be your pivot. Out of this position, you can jab into your shot, you can jab and cross over and you can sweep and go. Watch the video below and I will expand on it further.

In this video you have Kobe Bryant executing moves off of the outside pivot (If Kobe still uses it, you can’t tell me that it’s not good enough for you). As you can see, you can make a number of moves out of this position and you can finish in a number of ways as well. I want to start with the positives of this move first.

It is very simple and effective. If you sweep and go baseline away from help defense, you have a one dribble pull up.
It is normally one of the first things taught to young players. This means that by the time they get older, they are fairly good at the move.
You can jab into your shot. This is nice because if the defender is playing your drive, you can easily jab step and get off a shot in one motion.

All of these things are great but there are some limitations with the move.

If you are getting jammed by a stronger defender, it becomes extremely hard to sweep and go.
Your momentum is going away from the hoop which means that it becomes awfully tough to catch and shoot.
Many players go into “autopilot” on this. I always want my players to be a threat to score when they catch the ball but sometimes it is too easy to rip and not even look at the basket.

In all I think that this is a great move in the right situation, but you have to make sure that the players make themselves a genuine treat to score when they catch the ball (catch low, rip through and look at the basket). For some players this is a great way to go but for other players (especially pure shooters) this isn’t the best way to go. As I said in the introduction, it’s all about the player and the situation.

Working off of the Pivot - Introduction

2009-07-04T13:35:00.001-07:00

Over the past five years of my life, I have played, watched and studied a ton of basketball. The other day I was thinking about catching the ball on the wing and how everybody has a different opinion about how to attack on the wing. For instance, I have played for coaches that are strictly outside pivot guys. I have played for coaches that are strictly inside pivot guys. I have talked to coaches that feel that you should work off of the same pivot foot no matter where you are on the court. I have even talked to coaches that feel that working off of the pivot is a pointless because of the small-ball revolution. While I truly disagree with the last statement, I feel that many players don’t fully understand how to work off of the catch.

I have written about this topic on a couple occasions but I haven’t really gone in depth about it. In my opinion, every player is unique and therefore each player will be comfortable using different moves, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. That being said I feel that all players should follow a few rules when they catch the ball on the wing.

Regardless of whether you work off of inside or outside pivot, you should be able to work off of both pivot feet once you get to the college level. I feel that if you are able to do this, it makes you much less scout-able.
You have to be able to turn and face but at the same time, you should never completely opened up. Your feet should always be staggered because it is a much more balanced stance. Think about it, is it easier to push someone over when their feet are opened up, or is it easier to push someone over when they have one foot forward and one foot back? Keeping your feet staggered keeps you from getting bullied by stronger players (I don’t care how strong you get, at some point you will always run into someone who is stronger than you are)
Stay low! I know that it seems like I am beating a dead horse sometimes with this whole “Stay Low” thing but I can’t tell you how important it is. When you are making a move, if you can get lower than your defender, there is no way on earth that he can guard you.
Don’t be casual with the ball. You need to be strong with the ball because you don’t want an aggressive defender to just take it from you, and your fakes should be hard and “violent.” You have to sell your defender on the fact that you are doing one move when in fact you are doing another move.

Those are just some tips that you should follow on the wing but other than that, you have a lot of options. To me, there are four main ways to catch and the ball and square up on the perimeter (or in the post if you have a face-up style post player). Each method has its pros and cons but I would never tell you that one is way better than the other because I can give you names of elite level players who use each one of these methods. It’s all about playing to your strengths and not just using the method you are most comfortable with but using the right one in the depending upon the situation. The four methods that I am speaking of are POP (Power outside pivot), PIP (Power inside pivot), RIP (Reverse inside pivot) and SIP (Speed inside pivot). Over the next several posts, I will break down each one, tell you how they are used and I will give you the positives and negatives of each one.

Strength and Conditioning - Part Three

2009-07-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

Having the physical and mental strength and stamina to play basketball the correct way for an entire game is very difficult. When you think about it, there is a lot of stuff you have to be able to do when you are on the court. You have to stay in a low, athletic stance the entire time. Your feet should be moving the entire time and you should sprint full speed into all of your cuts. In addition to this, you are going to be playing defense for 50% of your time out on the court and that takes a lot of energy to do properly. You have to get out and pressure the ball, be in help-side, deny the reversal, get the rebound, etc. Did I mention that you have to be able to sustain this at 100% for the entire time you are on the floor? For some players that might only be forty seconds but for others, it could be forty minutes, and if you are big part of the team, you had better be in great shape.

How does one go about getting in shape? I think the first step you have to take is actually running and going game speed in all the drills you do by yourself when you are on your own. I like the quote that world renowned basketball instructor Ganon Baker uses which is, “For as hard as you go in a full gym, you have to go twice as hard in an empty gym.” The next thing that you have to do is some kind of distance running and this helps build up your stamina. I always recommend doing this on hills, in the sand or some really long staircases (For those of you who are in Seattle, I know some great places to get into shape). The final thing that I recommend is interval training (this is where you might jog for thirty seconds and sprint for thirty and repeat over and over). Mix up the workouts because you want to keep your body guessing and you never really need to go extremely long, but you need to make sure that you are going at full intensity. The video below is of Blake Griffin’s offseason training regimen. Check out how hard the reigning National Player of the Year works out.

Random Tips - Chris Paul Probing the Defense

2009-06-27T18:41:00.000-07:00

Chris Paul is the best point guard in the NBA. I can’t think of a player other than LeBron that one team is more dependent on than the New Orleans Hornets are on Chris Paul. Without Chris Paul, the Hornets are a lottery team and I think that is self evident from the eighteen-win season that they had in the year prior to his arrival. He is one of those players that truly makes everybody around him better. I could go down the line with the players he has made and the careers he has resurrected. Just look at Tyson Chandler. Tyson Chandler was labeled as a big time bust in Chicago, but playing in New Orleans with Chris Paul has given his career some respectability. His only double digit season scoring average is with Paul as his point guard. David West was a role player before Chris Paul arrived and literally helped him become an all star. Just think about that for one moment. David West went from being a six to eight point a game scorer to an NBA All-Star. It can make one wonder, “Why is Chris Paul so good?”

Chris Paul is a very quick, smart and tough point guard. His leadership and work ethic give him the authority to command the respect of his teammates. He plays hard at both ends of the floor and his teammates understand that if they work hard to get open, he will deliver the ball. Aside from all of this, I think that one of Chris Paul’s most impressive attributes is his ability to probe the defense. Some players are very quick and they are good at getting in the lane but once they get there, they either go too deep or they don’t have the patience to make a great decision. This is a product of simply penetrating the defense as opposed to probing. Probing is the ability to get by your man and keep him there while you draw other defenders. Chris Paul is exceptional at this because almost every time he beats someone, he goes to the rim and scores or he holds them on his back to buy more time. The ability to hold defenders on his back allows him to make better decisions with the basketball. He is able to do this because once he beats his man, he steps in front of him, eliminating the cutoff angle. At this point, it’s almost like he is momentarily boxing them out while he is dribbling and figuring out what his next move is. This is a simple enough trick that all young players should try to add to their game. The video below is a Chris Paul highlight video. Watch for what I talked about in the video below and make sure to practice the maneuver.

Strength and Conditioning - Part Two

2009-06-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

I think that if I could point to one thing that I was absolutely terrible at as a basketball player, it was that I was awful at stretching. To this day I still lace up my shoes and run out to play or work out. When I am done working out, I’ll immediately take off my shoes and either plop down on the couch or go to my car. As an athlete, I couldn’t think of a more terrible habit. The only times that I actually bothered to stretch were when I did it as part of a team warm up or if I was extremely sore. As you can imagine, my flexibility is very limited and I can barely touch my toes without bending my knees.

Michael Jordan has always said that one of the reasons that he was able to have a fairly long and injury free career was the amount of time that he put into stretching. When you stretch, you are increasing the elasticity of your muscles and this in turn makes it more difficult to pull or tear something. One of the biggest mistakes when I actually did stretch was that I didn’t take it seriously. I just did it to get it over with and I never challenged myself to get more flexible. Most of the injuries that I had over the course of my career were entirely preventable but because my muscles were tight, I ended up hurting myself.

Another benefit from increased flexibility is simply an overall improvement in your athleticism. If you are flexible you are able to take longer strides when you run, you are able to change directions better and you will be able to jump higher. If you watch Michael Jordan play, his strides were very long and he was able to cover a lot of ground whenever he moved. He was able to contort his body in ways that other people couldn’t. If you need a more recent example of this, watch Dwayne Wade. It’s more of the same thing. He has long strides and he changes directions very effectively at full speed.

Jordan always said he held each stretch he did for at least 30 seconds. Remember to challenge yourself when you are doing this because if it was good enough for Mike, it’s good enough for you!

Strength and Conditioning - Part One

2009-06-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

Strength and conditioning is something that has evolved a lot over the years. I remember that when I was back in high school, we would hit the bench press, squat rack and do some other lifts and call it good. It wasn’t until I got to college that I really started to understand how to work out for basketball. While all the power lifts are good for you (Bench, Squat, Cleans and Dead Lifts), strength and conditioning for basketball has become a lot more complex. If you want an idea, just go to www.gametimeworkouts.com which is one of the blogs that I read regularly. They show a lot of workouts that the pros do. If you notice, a lot of the stuff that they do focuses on core strength and stabilization muscles. The exercises that I am talking about improve your functional strength and balance which are extremely important in basketball.

In high school, my balance was horrible and because of that, I had difficulty changing directions at full speed and I had problems rising into my pull up jump shot. Once I got to college, one of our coaches worked on my core and balance and those problems went away. In addition to this, improving core and stabilization muscles will make it much easier to absorb contact and get a lot stronger without losing any kind of speed (In fact, typically you get a lot faster and I will talk about this a lot more in a later article). Steve Nash is someone that swears by core workouts and when you watch him play, it’s easy to see that he has tremendous balance. Even though he isn’t the fastest person in the NBA, his change of pace and direction is second to none. In addition to this, Nash has pretty serious back problems but with proper care and great core strength, he is able to overcome these issues and not get stuck with the “chronically injured” label.

Core strength is one of the most important things in basketball. There are a ton of “dynamic” core exercises that you can do but I suggest that you initially do them with the help of a personal trainer because improper form can cause injury. In the meantime, check out some videos on the website I listed above and other places on the net.

Strength and Conditioning - Intro

2009-06-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

Most of everything that I have talked about on this website has been directly basketball related. Over the next several posts I am going to talk about strength and conditioning which is a different but equally important aspect of the game. Basketball is a physically demanding sport and if you want to be able to play the game the right way, you have to attain a certain level of fitness.

Just as I have seen many basketball careers go by the wayside due to off-court problems, I have seen many basketball careers end due to a lack of commitment to staying in shape. By staying in shape I'm not just talking about weight and keeping that under control (Although that is very important). I'm also talking about other things involved in being in great physical condition like strength, flexibility, explosion, etc. All of these things not only give you an advantage physically in the game but they also keep you from getting hurt. One of the things that I always tell my kids is that you are one injury away from the end of your basketball career. I tell them this for two reasons. The first reason is that you need to be a well rounded person because there will be a life after basketball sooner or later (I have written about this in previous posts). The second reason I tell them this is because a majority of basketball injuries are due to a lack of fitness (In other words, they are completely preventable).

There is no incredible secret to being in great shape. There are ways to maximize your workouts, there are ways to be more efficient and some exercises are better than others, but just like everything else I write about, none of this means anything without you having the dedication and putting in the hard work.