Pick & Roll Defense

A "Must Master" Part of Your Defense 

With the Pick & Roll being such an important part of all offenses in today's game, it has become imperative to have a consistent and simple defensive plan so your team can go into every game knowing there's a great chance to consistently stop the opponent's Pick & Rolls.

The system has to be sound in the five basic parts of the defense:

1. the player guarding the ball and how he adjusts his position to be the aggressor
2. the player guarding the pick setter so that he is always in the proper position to re-route the ball
3. the communication system
4. the protection behind the two players in the Pick & Roll -- so critical to the success or failure
5. the rotations out of the Pick & Roll action -- but how to keep from having to rotate so that like sizes stay on like sizes

I have seen teams try to employ 5 and 6 different coverages, often resulting in their being average in all of them.  Most detrimental is being tentative because there's no consistency.  

I want to introduce you to the system that most all championship calibre NBA teams employ.  It's the most detailed Pick & Roll Defensive DVD out there, and the beauty is that all levels will find it useful, from high school up to the highest level NBA teams.  It is based on soundness, simplicity and success.

BOOK QUOTE

"Pratice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better"

BY: by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi

"The enemies of practice are pride and fear and self-satisfaction. To practice requires humility. It forces us to admit that we don’t know everything. It forces us to submit to feedback from people who can teach us."

What Separates "The Best" from "The Rest"

Observations from Training Camp

One of my favorite books is Training Camp by Jon Gordon.  Whenever I speak to groups -- whether basketball or corporate -- I tell them this is a "must read" for players and coaches, and from young grads to corporate leaders.

I'm writing this late at night after two days in Istanbul, Turkey, with our Boston Celtics team at Training Camp for the upcoming NBA season.  The NBA has a great program that sends different teams to compete against pro teams from other countries.  It's not only about competition, but also about sharing of the game with kids over here. (another of the many NBA initiatives that's not always known by the public but is such an important part of what the NBA believes in.)

Since we're in the midst of training camp, I thought it would be appropriate to share a passage from Jon's book:

"Because if you want it you’ll be willing to pay the price and invest the time, energy, sweat, and dedication that greatness requires. People think it’s all about talent. But talent isn’t enough anymore. Everyone here has talent. It’s about infusing talent with heart, soul, spirit, and passion. It’s about doing the things that make the best of the best better than everyone else. And these things have nothing to do with talent."

Principles of Leadership

To help you be, know, and do, follow these eleven principles of leadership (U.S. Army, 1983). The later chapters in this Leadership guide expand on these principles and provide tools for implementing them:

1. Know yourself and seek self-improvement - In order to know yourself, you have to understand your be, know, and do, attributes. Seeking self-improvement means continually strengthening your attributes. This can be accomplished through self-study, formal classes, reflection, and interacting with others.
2. Be technically proficient - As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid familiarity with your employees' tasks.
3. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions - Search for ways to guide your organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, they always do sooner or later — do not blame others. Analyze the situation, take corrective action, and move on to the next challenge.
4. Make sound and timely decisions - Use good problem solving, decision making, and planning tools.
5. Set the example - Be a good role model for your employees. They must not only hear what they are expected to do, but also see. We must become the change we want to see - Mahatma Gandhi
6. Know your people and look out for their well-being - Know human nature and the importance of sincerely caring for your workers.
7. Keep your workers informed - Know how to communicate with not only them, but also seniors and other key people.
8. Develop a sense of responsibility in your workers - Help to develop good character traits that will help them carry out their professional responsibilities.
9. Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished - Communication is the key to this responsibility.
10. Train as a team - Although many so called leaders call their organization, department, section, etc. a team; they are not really teams...they are just a group of people doing their jobs.
11. Use the full capabilities of your organization - By developing a team spirit, you will be able to employ your organization, department, section, etc. to its fullest capabilities.

Article Link: Concepts of Leadership

Coach K: Leading With the Heart

“During the season, your team should be led with exuberance and excitement. You should live the journey. You should live it right. You should live it together. You should live it shared. You should try to make one another better. You should get on one another if somebody’s not doing their part. You should hug one another when they are. You should be disappointed in a loss and exhilarated in a win. It’s all about the journey.”

X&O NOTEBOOK UPDATES

Tates Locke: Williamsburg Visit

Thanks to Coach Tates Locke for coming up to see us 

and workout some Raiders and City High players. 

27 Page Preview to Del Harris book "On Point"

27 Page Preview of Del Harris Book: On Point

Visit our X&O Notebook

LEARNING SEASON: K, Devils take a ‘look at everything’

slideshow

By STEVE WISEMAN

swiseman@heraldsun.com; 919-419-6671

DURHAM — This past season’s ending, a maddening March rather than March Madness, represented a rarity for Duke basketball.

A loss to 15th-seeded Lehigh at the Greensboro Coliseum marked the first time since 2007 that the Blue Devils had failed to win at least one NCAA Tournament game. It was just the fourth time in 28 NCAA Tournament appearances under Coach Mike Krzyzewski that Duke went out without a win.

The loss led Krzyzewski and his staff to ask some tough questions about the program.

“Sometimes if you leave a tournament earlier, you are more truthful with yourself, not just about that game but about everything,” Krzyzewski said Wednesday. “If you would have won, say, two games and lost in the Sweet 16. Well, we won 30, so it must not be that bad.

Alan Stein Clinic: October 28

Snow Valley Basketball Schools Presents 

Alan Stein's Cutting Edge

Reaction, Quickness and Agility Basketball Clinic

October 18, Iowa City High School

Contacts: 

E-Mail Don Showalter      E-Mail Dave Schlabaugh

Alan Stein: Cutting Edge Clinic, Iowa City, IA Oct 28-2012

Crucial Simplicity

From Randy Brown’s: Coach RB Website

By Dan Fouts as told to Charlie Jones, extract from the Chicken Soup for the Soul Sports Edition

We’d like to share with you this extraordinary story below. I re-found it recently and shared it with a number of our clients and they loved it as much as I did. Crucial Simplicity is an excellent example of how the best head coaches get the most important things right. This short story is inspiring in its simplicity and is all about achieving the best from your players and athletes, when it matters the most…. Read on.
"Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothin' when it is absolutely necessary" Ray Knight
I remember one of the first times I went to the sideline for that “end of the first half, two minute-warning talk” with the coaching staff. It was Don Coryell’s first year as head coach of the San Diego Chargers. He had an impressive staff, as well as some great receivers for me to work with. On the phone was assistant coach Jim Hanifan, connected upstairs to the other assistants Joe Gibbs and Ernie Zampese.
So I’m at the sideline, expecting to hear Coryell tell me exactly what he wants me to do. But I don’t hear a word from Coryell; Hanifan’s doing all the talking. Gibbs is relaying to him, and Zampese is relating to Gibbs, and the three of them are going back and forth, funneling all this information into a bewildered young quarterback.

Jesse Owens: My Greatest Olympic Prize

Original from Reader's Digest, October 1960

Jesse Owens amazed the world by winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games—in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, the broad jump and the 400-meter relay. When this piece was originally published in October 1960, he was an extremely active member of the Illinois Youth Commission, which sponsors local committees “dedicated to keeping youngsters active in sports and out of mischief.” Luz Long, about whom he writes here, was killed in Sicily during World War II.

A story of triumph, sportsmanship

Gettysburg's Cory Weissman overcomes odds to return to the court one more time.

LINK: ESPN VIDEO      LINK: ESPN ARTICLE 

GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- Even two weeks later, the moment, for those privileged enough to behold it, still blazes in the mind's eye.

Cory Weissman, with the cockiness you would expect of a New Jersey point guard, stares down the rim from the free-throw line. He touches his white Gettysburg College shorts just above the right knee, then tosses the basketball upward and a little forward with an almost unconscious wrist motion he has practiced thousands of times. Like a magic trick, it jumps back into his hands. He bounces the ball three times, flips the ball again, then cocks and releases it with his right hand. Few notice that both of his size-10 Nike Hyperfuse shoes are an inch or two off the floor, a clear breach of free-throw etiquette, but he knows he needs a little something extra.

An awkward hush has fallen over Bream Gymnasium; some spectators are clasping their hands in prayer or pressing them to their hearts. All eyes are on the ball, floating above the court, rotating three, four, five times as it begins to descend. Everyone -- even the five Washington College players -- finds themselves trying to will it into the basket. The conflicted look on Weissman's face reveals what is at stake. His teeth are bared, clenched in a grimace, but his hazel eyes are already dissolving into something joyous -- even before the ball swishes through the net.

Stardom for Oklahoma City forward Durant almost never came to be

Read more: LINK: SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE

Kevin Durant nearly gave up basketball 

(twice) before stardom set in.

The NBA would go on without Kevin Durant, but it certainly wouldn't be the same.

LeBron James would have a larger lead in the latest MVP race, the Lakers would be their relevant and theatrical selves and commissioner David Stern would still be hoping that all these compelling storylines -- from young Derrick Rose and his Bulls to the ageless Big Three and their Spurs to the Chris Paul-led Clippers -- were enough to take the stain off this lockout-shortened season. But something special would be missing without the willowy wonder from Oklahoma City, a unique talent who has all the makings of an all-time great and just became the first player to lead the league in scoring three straight times since Michael Jordan from 1995-98.

There were times during Durant's early years in Seat Pleasant, Md., when this was a possibility, when the gangly kid who wasn't sure he was good enough nearly gave up his future profession because, well, it was already feeling like the job he didn't want. It was a dark chapter in his otherwise-blissful basketball life, a stretch of about two years when he occasionally questioned if all the work was worth it and considered quitting more than once.

Jeff Janssen: THE 7 KINDS OF CULTURES

IS YOUR TEAM’S CULTURE WHERE YOU WANT OR NEED IT TO BE?

ARTICLE LINK: Jeff Jannsen's Sports Leadership

Do you have a positive and productive culture firmly in place that helps you win on and off the playing fields?

Or are you frustrated because you seem to have a Country Club Culture where many of your athletes are too soft, lazy, and entitled?

Or worse yet, do you have a Corrosive Culture filled with conflicts, criticism, and cliques that distract, divide, and destroy your team from within?

Unfortunately, many coaches don’t realize the full impact of their culture - until it’s too late. For example, in the frustrating last days of his coaching career at Illinois, former men’s basketball coach Bruce Weber candidly lamented to the media, “You have got to develop a culture. I think the last three years all I worried about was winning rather than developing a culture. I am disappointed in myself for not developing a culture of toughness with our team.”

Artist Drawing of Possible Future Gym

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