That Basketball Life

Jerry Tarkanian was a great yet controversial coach.  He didn't make any bones about the fact that his main goal at UNLV was to win and he recruited many players who had no intention of fulfilling the student part of the term student-athlete.  What he did, however was care about these kids and gave them a chance very few others would and in the meantime put the University of Nevada Las Vegas on the map. Love him or hate him it's a great story.  Enjoy!

A new weekly posting is being introduced today.  In this weekly post we will be paying tribute to the best basketball coaches.  To start off with we will cover the Wizard of Westwood.  John Wooden won 10 national titles including 7 in a row.  This is a record that will be tough to break.

The higher up the basketball ladder one climbs the more exposure they will get to the ball screen.  We already covered the basics of the ball screen offensively in a prior post .  Today we cover the very important topic of how to defend the ball screen. The reason the ball screen is used so often especially as you get to the upper levels is because it forces the defense to make decisions.  The defense has to figure out how to defend the ball handler, the screener, and the rest of the team as the ball screen is being used.  Specifically, a good ball screen will force the defense into help rotations which should provide the offense with good opportunities for shots. There are different ways to defend against the ball screen and in this post we will discuss all of them and identify their strengths and weaknesses. The 5 ways to defend the ball screen are: Jump Switch Hedge Jam Blitz Ice

In this weeks installment of player of the week, we cover the original skywalker.  When it comes to artistry in the air, this man set the trend.  The man I'm referring to is none other than Dr. J, Julius Erving.  A nickname could not have been more deserved. It's been 30 years since Julius Erving retired and to many millenials he may be an afterthought but when you watch his highlights you realize that this man was truly ahead of his time.  Enjoy! 

Practice is a very important part of preparation.  As a coach it is important to expose your players to as many game like situations as possible in practice.  This way they know what to expect when they are in a game.  With a good practice plan, your players don't have to deal with the element of surprise. Have you ever noticed that many times, when your team loses a close game, you always think back to the layups missed.  I often catch myself saying, "if only we made a couple of the layups we missed the result would have been different." With this in mind, I believe in having competitive layups in your practice routine.  There are many to choose from and below is one that I like a lot because it is full court and allows us to cover multiple facets with one drill including passing, dribbling, conditioning and layups.  Enjoy.

The shuffle offense is a nice little offense that was made popular by Dean Smith and it's origins date back to the 1950's.  The thing that I like about this offense is that it forces all 5 players to be familiar with playing both in the post and on the perimeter.  It also necessitates that all players know how to set screens and how to use screens.  To me this is an offense that can be used at the youth levels where a coach's main goal should be to expose players to multiple positions as opposed to tying kids down to one position at a young age. Once all of the wrinkles are in this offense can be a bit complicated for the beginner but in it's basic form it can be taught to 3rd and 4th graders.

Here's a drill that helps with defensive footwork and also adds some intense conditioning into the mix.  This drill is another one of those multi purpose drills that allow coaches with limited practice time to tackle multiple elements with one drill.

In this drill we are practicing the secondary break.  It is full court 5 v 5 drill which is perfect to get your whole team involved.  Aside from helping with learning the secondary break this is also a good conditioning drill as well as a drill that hits on multiple fundamentals.  It is another one of the drill that is perfect when you are pressed for time and want to use a drill that helps with multiple facets.

As a coach there are many hats that you need to wear.  You need to be an organizer, a salesman, a tireless worker, a teacher and most importantly of all, a motivator.  Kids go through many hurdles as they grow up in the game.  There are setbacks.  There are bad games.  There are games against great teams. And there are days where the kids just don't have it.  You as a coach don't have the luxury of having an off day.  It isn't fair to the kids you coach to have an off day.  One bad day and you could lose your kids for the rest of the season.  The balance you need to maintain lies between pushing your players to go beyond their comfort zone which can be exhausting and uncomfortable for them and instilling confidence in them that each and every day they push themselves they are getting better.  It isn't easy but it needs to be done. 

In this week's installment of player of the week we are remembering the best big man of all time.  Nobody affected the game like Wilt Chamberlain.  Enjoy!

Below is a full court shooting drill that is awesome for getting shots up in a short period of time and for conditioning.  In addition, this drill helps players practice passing and their footwork on the catch and shoot.  This is a great drill to run in season, especially if you have limited practice time.

Below is a nice workout emphasizing the fundamentals.

This is a nice drill from Danny Miles.  This drill helps you run your offensive sets and helps with your team conditioning at the same time.

This is a nice drill which helps a coach cover a lot of fundamentals using one drill.  When you have the option of using one drill to cover multiple facets of the game that is a true blessing for a coach.  Especially for a coach who may have limited practice time. This drill covers passing, dribbling, receiving the ball, rip moves, layups, and conditioning.

In an effort to expose our readers to as many different philosophies as possible, we at TBL will spend a few posts introducing you to the flex offense and variations of it. The beauty of the flex is that it is simple to learn and it forces defenses to defend against screens and cuts thru the paint.  Because of all of the cuts and screens that it calls for, the flex offense forces defenses to cover the element that is toughest to defend against which is movement and screening.

Some of the drills I like to run the most in practice are fast break drills.  These drills help emphasize everything you want as a coach.  They stress fundamentals, fitness, and force the players to make quick decisions.  Add to it the fact that my teams love running these drills and you have a match made in heaven.  Below is the first of many fast break drills that I like to run.  This is a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 drill. 

This is a play that works really well against a man to man defense.  The good thing about this set is you can start it from your basic 3 out set.

In this installment of Player of the Week we want to recognize the best point guard in NBA history.  There may have been players who had more assists than Magic but there was nobody that could make his whole team better simply by stepping on the floor.  His 5 NBA championships prove it.  Enjoy!

When you are coaching team offense one of the most important topics that will need to be covered will be floor balance.  Floor balance is making sure that your players are positioned properly to do 2 things: Support your teammate who has the ball in his possession. Force the defending team to cover as much space as possible on the defensive end. On the surface accomplishing the 2 points mentioned above seem counter intuitive.  In order to support your teammate, one needs to make sure that there are plenty of options around the ball yet when you want to force the other team to defend the whole court it implies that your players need to be spaced away from the player with the ball.  Two contradicting forces fighting each other is the reason why the term floor balance is so appropriate.

This is a nice play run by the Kansas Jayhawks.  It is a side line out of bounds play which can lead to an easy basket.

This is a nice play run by coach K and the Duke Blue Devils.

Here at TBL we're all about basketball.  In an effort to honor the great players who have made this game what it is today, we will be dedicating a post every week to one of these players.  There is nobody better to start this off with than Michael Jordan, the great number 23 from the Chicago Bulls. Enjoy!

Shout out to Roy Williams and the University of North Carolina basketball team for winning the National Championship.  It wasn't pretty but it doesn't matter.  Way to redeem the disappointing loss from last year's title game.  Go Heels!

I found this nice set play that Tom Izzo and Michigan State use against a 2-3 or 3-2 zone.

One of the most famous offensive sets in college basketball is North Carolina's secondary break.  The Tar Heels run this offense on a miss or a make by the opponent.  It forces tempo and well run correctly it keeps the opposition reacting as opposed to dictating tempo.  Below we attempt to analyze some of the basics.