That Basketball Life

 I've been coaching for a very long time but I've always made it a point to approach coaching with the attitude of  "you don't know everything."  I was coaching a game last night and my team was giving up a lot of height to the opposition.  At the same time, the other team were not good shooters from the outside so we decided to play a 2-3 zone and pack it in.  This would serve the dual purpose of having all 5 of our boys crash the boards and protect the paint from the height difference we were dealing with.   The zone worked fairly well.  The rebounding was okay and the outside shooting by the other team kept us in the game as it was poor.  At about the 3 minute mark of the 4th quarter we found ourselves down 6 points and we decided that we would no longer be in the packed in zone but would rather go man to man and extend full court.  This change of defense caught the other team off guard and got me thinking.  How much did the chan...

The 4th Pillar of Process is teamwork.  Like all of the pillars, teamwork is very important.  With teamwork, the group of individuals which make the team form one cohesive unit.  Without teamwork, the group of parts remains a group of individual parts not coming together for a common goal.  The biggest destroyer of teamwork is hidden agendas, followed by cliques, selfish individuals, and coaches with hidden agendas.  These team wreckers can cause huge problems with your team and you need to be aware of them and nip them in the bud.  Let's talk about each of them individually and then discuss how we can build teamwork and nurture it. Hidden Agendas - Hidden agendas are plots by players on the team to exclude or undermine the success of one or more of their teammates.  The reason for such actions can be jealousy, uneasiness that the other player may shine and be better than them, or simply bullying in another form.  Whatever the reason, it needs to ...

 The 3rd Pillar of Process is evaluation.  Evaluation is a very important pillar because as a coach you need to be evaluating your team, it's individual players, and yourself objectively very often during the year.  The evaluation needs to be brutally honest but delivered in a way where it does not disturb the energy of the team.  In short, execution + evaluation = progress and that is what we strive for. There are 3 areas of evaluation involved when talking about the pillars.  The 3 areas of evaluation are the team, the individuals, and the coaching staff.   When dealing with the team, the coach needs to evaluate 2 areas.  The first is if the identity of the team has been properly identified and that the team style of play we are implementing properly highlights the teams strengths while concealing it's weaknesses.  When evaluating this part of the of the team before the season starts you have to look at scrimmages carefully.  Put the k...

   

Pillar 2 of the Pillars of Process is Execution.  Execution is broken down into a few categories.  First are the fundamentals which are broken down into team and individual. After that the fundamentals can be broken down into the physical and the mental.  The next item to be addressed is establishing the identity of your team.  The final point of discussion will be the idea of stacking good games and practices together in an effort to improve. The fundamentals can be broken down into the team and the individual.  Execution is very important to take place on both levels but the 2 are taken care of differently.  On the team level, the whole idea is to play fast so you want to keep things simple and make sure the first layer is grasped before you proceed to a more difficult layer.  If  layer is introduced too early, it can cause the team to bog down and start thinking too much.  When you think on the court, you tend to slow down which is somethi...

In expanding our conversation on the 5 Pillars of Process, we are starting with Pillar 1 which is Energy.  As mentioned earlier, energy can be useful and it could be dangerous.  Energy can be used effectively or it can sap strength from a team.  With this post we will discuss all of this and how to nurture and make energy the tool it needs to be on your team. The first thing we need to understand is what do we mean by "bringing positive energy to the game."  Some of the questions I might ask are: Are we diving for loose balls? Are we fighting for rebounds? Are we moving our feet when playing on ball defense or looking to switch everything? Are we pushing the ball up the floor or walking it up? Are we getting beat down the floor during defensive transition? Are we sprinting to the bench during timeouts? Are we sprinting down the floor during a change in possession? There are keys I look at in practice also: Are we doing the drills hard? Are we hustling getting from o...

 

 Below is a workout you can use to help with your training and improving your speed at the same time. Warm Up (5 minutes) Floor Runs (1 minute) Pigeon Stretch (1minute) A Skips (1 minute) Hip Flexor Stretch (1 minute) B Skips (1 minute) Hamstring Stretch (1 minute) Foot Fire Drill (1 minute) Butterfly Stretch (1 minute) Ankle Jumps (1 minute) Thigh Stretch (1 minute)   Do this HIIT program 2 times.

 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...

 There are many ways to train.  Some ways are not efficient and you waste a lot of time working out but the results are not gained efficiently.  HIIT is a way to get good results in a small period of time.  HIIT involves small intervals of high intensity training followed by a small cool down and/or a quick rest period.HIIT requires a smaller amount of time than normal training and the high intensity part of it provides  the opportunity for your body to lose weight, burn fat,  build muscle, and boost metabolism.  So what is HIIT and how can it be applied.  Let's look at answering these 2 questions. What is HIIT? High Intensity Interval Training is pretty self explanatory. High Intensity - You can do this running, biking, doing aerobics, stair master, jumping rope, squatting, lunges, pull ups, push ups, Bulgarian Squats, boxing, MMA and many more.  You can be creative with this section.  Now the question you may ask is what is High Intens...

 With my last blog entry we introduced the idea of the process.  I also mentioned the 5 pillars of the process and how important it was for every player on the team to focus on the process and to let the wins take care of themselves.  Getting into more detail I mentioned that the process has 5 pillars: effort, execution, evaluation, teamwork, and trust.  What I will do next is discuss these 5 pillars in more detail. Energy: Energy is very important and hard work will affect both practice and games in a positive way just like laziness will infect both practice and games.  I've had good teams that were lazy and lost and I've had average teams that worked hard and overachieved.  The one thing a coach needs to realize is that players cannot turn effort on and off.  Players will play the way they practice.  If you practice with effort you will play with effort.  As a coach you need to make sure this pillar permeates all aspects of practice.  ...

 What I'm about to say might be viewed as controversial but here goes.  When coaching a team, the mindset you should be instilling in your team is not about winning games.  Instead what you should focus on is the process.  Some of you may be looking at me and saying what are you talking about?  To me, if the players understand what the goals of the team are and trust the path you as a coach are putting them on to achieve those goals then the process has begun. Setting Goals When I talk about setting goals, I'm talking about setting team goals about specific basketball characteristics you want the team to have.  I do not mean wins and losses.  To me the goals of the team should revolve around what the object of the games is, to score more points than the opposition.  To do this your teams should focus on the following: Taking more shots than the opposition-you do this by taking care of the basketball.  Limiting turnovers when you have the bal...