Closing out Games When Leading

When playing sports there some obvious and some not so obvious things that the athlete needs to work on and experience in order to get better.  Some of the things that are obvious, is experiencing the intensity of a game, hitting a jump shot in a game, shooting a free throw in a game.  The list goes on and on.  The obvious choices are almost all fundamentals based and they are all important.  One of the most important areas of a basketball game often gets overlooked by teams and coaches alike.  These are end of game situations and one of the most important is how to close out games that your team is winning.

During the game, most kids tend to relax as the game is approaching the final quarter and they find themselves up by a couple of baskets.  This is the wrong attitude to take in a game where a couple of baskets can turn a game completely on it's head. As a matter of fact at the end of a game that is close, against a good team what you should be expecting is their best shot.  It is at that point in the game where you can expect the other team to do the following:
  • Use their best lineups
  • Use their best plays
  • Play pressure defense
  • Use maximum effort.
This is the reason close games against good teams are difficult to win.  When the game is on the line and it's almost over, your team should not shut down but rather should step up their effort to bring home the result they want. At this point in the game I like to remind my players that we need max effort on defense and smart plays on offense.  I don't necessarily pull my team out of our standard sets on offense until about the last 2 minutes or so, but before that I do like to remind them that the score is on our side and the enemy now is as much time as it is the opposition.  It is at this point where I like to run our standard sets but swing the ball around.  If the other team is in a man, then I like to spread them out and run some pick plays to set people free.  Defensively, I don't take the foot off of the accelerator.  I firmly believe that it is at this end of the floor that you win games.  Especially close games.  The team that plays tough defense, rebounds, and grabs loose balls at the end of the game will usually come out ahead.

In closing I want to remind everyone that the toughest thing in basketball is to close out a close game.  As tough as it is, end of games are very often sacrificed at practice usually because of time constraints.  It is wise to try to find time in practice to expose your team to these situations but if time is limited, you do need to at least discuss it with them so they can understand what you expect at the end of the game.

More to come on end of game scenarios.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Drill: 5v5v5 Fast Break

Image
This is a nice drill that emphasizes a whole bunch of game like situations.  Here is the list:  Fast Break Secondary Break Offensive sets Transition Defense Transition to standard defense Recognizing and attacking odd man opportunities.
Read more

Burpees (HIIT) Bakers Dozen

 Below is a great burpee workout that you can use to challenge yourself.  This challenge is called the baker's dozen.  Below is the rep range for each set and rest intervals between each set. 13 burpees 1 minute rest 12 burpees 1 minute rest 11 burpees 1 minute rest 10 burpees 1 minute rest  9 burpees 1 minute rest 8 burpees 1 minute rest 7 burpees 1 minute rest 6 burpees 1 minute rest 5 burpees 1 minute rest 4 burpees 1 minute rest  3 burpees 1 minute rest 2 burpees 1 minute rest 1 burpee 1 minute rest During the rest period you should be walking and getting yourself ready for the next set.  Don't sit down. Once completed you will have done a total of  91 burpees in about 20 minutes. It should be noted that the balers dozen method to HIIT training can be used doing different types of exercises including mountain climbers, push ups, pull ups, squats, lunges, 20 yard sprints and others. If you are in outstanding shape then you can decrease your rest per...
Read more

Layups, Layups, Layups

Image
 When we go to youth games we like watching how the kids warm up.  To us youth basketball is an easy game to coach.  As a youth coach you need to teach your kids how to play good aggressive man to man defense and on the offensive end teach them how to pass and move towards the basket.  In a pass an move offense, layups are so important.  This goes back to our opening statement about watching youth level warm ups.  Most of the teams warming up spend a lot of time shooting shots, but the good ones are always working around the basket.  We've always found it entertaining that youth teams spend so much time working on jumpers and so little time on layups.  In addition, the little time they do spend on layups is spent doing basic layups using the right hand on the right side and the left hand on the left side.  There is so much more to it than this however and kids should be exposed to different types of layups in practice.  No one can predic...
Read more