One thing I love to watch when other teams practice is how the coach deals with effort. One of the things I most want to learn is how coaches intervene in practice when the effort is not at an ideal level.
I guess what I really want to know is how coaches create that (mythical?) atmosphere of hard work where they never have to make an effort intervention. Everybody agrees that practice is way more fun, more fun to watch, more worthwhile and more satisfying when everyone is working their hardest and focused. Unfortunately, that feeling seems to fade with time. What I would love to know from some coaches out there is how you (try to) instill that drive in your athletes that every repetion needs to be at perfect game pace.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Having a Plan
The biggest thing I took out of today's practice is about players having a plan. This is a huge detail that is eventually going to become a big part of my coaching philosophy. Right now I actually think this one of the most important teachable parts of the game of basketball.
It is such an important part of learning. It is what ensures that you are actively trying to figure out the game and that you are on task. We as coaches talk about plans in several ways.
Most frequently we give plans to our teams to carry out on a big picture level. What are the other team's strengths? What are their weaknesses? More importantly, what are your team's strengths? What are your team's weaknesses? So what can we do to give ourselves the most success? The Coach has to formulate some of that plan and the players have to formulate some of that plan. This is the big picture plan, it guides all actions.
One of the most common plans is when you talk about your individual defensive matchup. So what do you have to do to make your opponent have the toughest time possible? Do they favor one direction over the other? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? So now to answer that question, you have to think about that other player. And maybe you have to watch that other player to see what their strengths are. When you go on the floor to play them, that plan is going to guide your actions.
The other type of plan is the one that I think our players do the most poorly with. It is the dynamic building of a plan on the fly. I can almost guarantee that Steve Nash has a plan formulated when he comes off a pick and roll. As he comes off it, he makes reads and decisions and then moves on to his next plan. In this case it is almost a synonym for anticipation. I don't think that you can just read the defense and become a great player. It is not enough. There is some kind of element of control that you have to establish that is bigger than just reacting to the game. You want to be the one pulling the strings and making puppets dance.
That control and how to get it is the #1 most underappreciated and undertaught skill in the game. I have sort of an arrogance about basketball skills. I think that I can always learn the details necessary to teach a basketball skill. All coaches out there can learn skills and teach them. What is more interesting to me is the mental side of the game, and how you teach players to approach situations.
All the physical skills in the game are governed by mental approaches and practices that bring everything together. This is where our coaching needs to take the biggest steps.
Tyler
It is such an important part of learning. It is what ensures that you are actively trying to figure out the game and that you are on task. We as coaches talk about plans in several ways.
Most frequently we give plans to our teams to carry out on a big picture level. What are the other team's strengths? What are their weaknesses? More importantly, what are your team's strengths? What are your team's weaknesses? So what can we do to give ourselves the most success? The Coach has to formulate some of that plan and the players have to formulate some of that plan. This is the big picture plan, it guides all actions.
One of the most common plans is when you talk about your individual defensive matchup. So what do you have to do to make your opponent have the toughest time possible? Do they favor one direction over the other? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? So now to answer that question, you have to think about that other player. And maybe you have to watch that other player to see what their strengths are. When you go on the floor to play them, that plan is going to guide your actions.
The other type of plan is the one that I think our players do the most poorly with. It is the dynamic building of a plan on the fly. I can almost guarantee that Steve Nash has a plan formulated when he comes off a pick and roll. As he comes off it, he makes reads and decisions and then moves on to his next plan. In this case it is almost a synonym for anticipation. I don't think that you can just read the defense and become a great player. It is not enough. There is some kind of element of control that you have to establish that is bigger than just reacting to the game. You want to be the one pulling the strings and making puppets dance.
That control and how to get it is the #1 most underappreciated and undertaught skill in the game. I have sort of an arrogance about basketball skills. I think that I can always learn the details necessary to teach a basketball skill. All coaches out there can learn skills and teach them. What is more interesting to me is the mental side of the game, and how you teach players to approach situations.
All the physical skills in the game are governed by mental approaches and practices that bring everything together. This is where our coaching needs to take the biggest steps.
Tyler
Monday, December 11, 2006
What are you looking at?
The latest interesting question that has arisen from the last few practices has to do with the eyes, and what are you looking at and what you are looking for. Right now we are working a lot in practice on picks (ball screens) and the infinite number of reads that arise from these situations.
To quickly summarize what I've found with our team, we come off the pick with too narrow of a focus, and typically have our heads down looking at about a 6 foot square on the floor in front of us while we dribble to the basket. If one defender gets over to the help line, our players have the natural athleticism and the ball skills to be able to dish the ball off. What I don't think we are seeing is when a second defender sees the action and rotates to help the helper. So when that first defender comes over to help, we throw the ball as a reaction. Sometimes it's the right pass, sometimes it's not.
Right now I think it's just a matter of getting our eyes off the floor and scanning what defenders are doing (or planning to do, if you're playing at that next level higher.)
What becomes interesting is trying to figure out how the top level players read defenders when they come off the screen. Does Steve Nash go through a conscious rapid fire process of elimination of looking at defenders, and seeing who is helping and who is open when he comes off it, or does his take a quick mental snapshot of the situation and instinctually decide what to do? If you have read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, the second option will sound familiar to you. I think it's a combination of the two, a case of Nash being so good at analyzing picks (and having a ton of repetitions under his belt) that the process has become semi-automatic to him. Just like how your body's muscle memory lets you shoot a ball without thinking of every deatil involved, your mind makes a sort of "decision memory," for lack of a better term, that lets you automate much of the process. Sometimes you have to think about spreading your fingers when you practice your shot and I think sometimes you have allow a conscious thought into that automatic decision making process.
What we are trying to achieve with training decisions using a high number of reps is this automatic (or at least faster) processing by your brain. We train you to look at certain cues and be able to recognize them faster and faster so that you have "quicker decision-making". Call it muscle memory for your brain.
To quickly summarize what I've found with our team, we come off the pick with too narrow of a focus, and typically have our heads down looking at about a 6 foot square on the floor in front of us while we dribble to the basket. If one defender gets over to the help line, our players have the natural athleticism and the ball skills to be able to dish the ball off. What I don't think we are seeing is when a second defender sees the action and rotates to help the helper. So when that first defender comes over to help, we throw the ball as a reaction. Sometimes it's the right pass, sometimes it's not.
Right now I think it's just a matter of getting our eyes off the floor and scanning what defenders are doing (or planning to do, if you're playing at that next level higher.)
What becomes interesting is trying to figure out how the top level players read defenders when they come off the screen. Does Steve Nash go through a conscious rapid fire process of elimination of looking at defenders, and seeing who is helping and who is open when he comes off it, or does his take a quick mental snapshot of the situation and instinctually decide what to do? If you have read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, the second option will sound familiar to you. I think it's a combination of the two, a case of Nash being so good at analyzing picks (and having a ton of repetitions under his belt) that the process has become semi-automatic to him. Just like how your body's muscle memory lets you shoot a ball without thinking of every deatil involved, your mind makes a sort of "decision memory," for lack of a better term, that lets you automate much of the process. Sometimes you have to think about spreading your fingers when you practice your shot and I think sometimes you have allow a conscious thought into that automatic decision making process.
What we are trying to achieve with training decisions using a high number of reps is this automatic (or at least faster) processing by your brain. We train you to look at certain cues and be able to recognize them faster and faster so that you have "quicker decision-making". Call it muscle memory for your brain.
Friday, December 8, 2006
The Sound of Shooting
My thought of the day today is a detail that always stands out to me when watching people shoot a basketball. It's my opinion that if you know you are going to shoot the ball before you catch it, your footwork should finish at the exact time that the ball hits your hands. If you catch the ball and have to take another step, or a little hop, that's all time for the defense to recover. There is no way that you can take that extra step and shoot it quicker than if your feet were ready when the ball got there.
To illustrate that point, the way I've been trying to get the explain it is that the sound of your feet hitting the floor (with legs loaded) and the sound of the ball hitting your hands should be one and the same. This little detail is something that is often overlooked in everyday practice situations, but when you play up against a better opponent, is one of several things that becomes obvious.
That footwork is such an indicator of the 'tightness' of your game for lack of a better word. It's a measure of how efficiently you move, and how you minimize your oponents' recovery time. Any time you play at the next level (or for us, play against a guys team) so many little efficiency indicators become exposed. Things like how hard you pass the ball, can you use fakes to increase your separation, is your footwork tight enough to not let a defender recover, are you dropping the ball to your shot pocket when you're going to catch and shoot. That being said, it's such a challenge to work on these habits every day, and get athletes to understand the efficiency necessary to transition to the highest levels of the game.
That leads very naturally into a future post that I intend to write, called creating a picture. I think one of the biggest challenges we have as coaches is that our athletes simply do not watch the game of basketball as much as we do, nor do they watch it the same way. Most coaches have a very clear picture in their heads of what the game should look like, and we are all trying to describe that picture to our athletes, many of whom have never seen it. Imagine trying to describe with words how beautifull a particular painting is to someone who has never seen it? If you asked them to draw you a picture of what you just described, how close do you think it would be? How can athletes see the beauty of the game if they don't get a chance to watch it enough? One of the most effective things we can do is watch the game with our athletes and just point out the subtleties of what makes the game so great at the highest levels.
Just to remind myself, another future post I do will be on the difference between getting athletes to perform skills, and getting them to understand skills. Every kid in Canada can "do" a crossover, but very few actually understand how to use one.
Again, feel free to comment on the page or email. I would love for one of these posts to generate some discussion.
tyler.slipp@gmail.com
To illustrate that point, the way I've been trying to get the explain it is that the sound of your feet hitting the floor (with legs loaded) and the sound of the ball hitting your hands should be one and the same. This little detail is something that is often overlooked in everyday practice situations, but when you play up against a better opponent, is one of several things that becomes obvious.
That footwork is such an indicator of the 'tightness' of your game for lack of a better word. It's a measure of how efficiently you move, and how you minimize your oponents' recovery time. Any time you play at the next level (or for us, play against a guys team) so many little efficiency indicators become exposed. Things like how hard you pass the ball, can you use fakes to increase your separation, is your footwork tight enough to not let a defender recover, are you dropping the ball to your shot pocket when you're going to catch and shoot. That being said, it's such a challenge to work on these habits every day, and get athletes to understand the efficiency necessary to transition to the highest levels of the game.
That leads very naturally into a future post that I intend to write, called creating a picture. I think one of the biggest challenges we have as coaches is that our athletes simply do not watch the game of basketball as much as we do, nor do they watch it the same way. Most coaches have a very clear picture in their heads of what the game should look like, and we are all trying to describe that picture to our athletes, many of whom have never seen it. Imagine trying to describe with words how beautifull a particular painting is to someone who has never seen it? If you asked them to draw you a picture of what you just described, how close do you think it would be? How can athletes see the beauty of the game if they don't get a chance to watch it enough? One of the most effective things we can do is watch the game with our athletes and just point out the subtleties of what makes the game so great at the highest levels.
Just to remind myself, another future post I do will be on the difference between getting athletes to perform skills, and getting them to understand skills. Every kid in Canada can "do" a crossover, but very few actually understand how to use one.
Again, feel free to comment on the page or email. I would love for one of these posts to generate some discussion.
tyler.slipp@gmail.com
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
One Speed
An interesting observation was made at practice today. A coach noted (correctly) that the players seem to always play at the same pace during practice. They run down the wings, run through their cuts, run to the offensive glass, and run back in defensive transition. Great players do not always play at the same pace. They use subtle changes of speed to get separation when they need it. I think using the change of pace it is an indicator of a much greater understanding of the game though.
We do a fine job of teaching how to do change of pace. At least once a week we do a defensive mirror drill where the offensive player has to move in a straight line from one baseline to the other using only changes of pace to try to get separation. The defense's job is to stay about arm's length away from one of the offensive player's hips and "mirror" her movement. This is a perfect way to discover how changes of pace can be effective. The problem is that this doesn't seem to be tranfering to game situations.
One of the most important skills in basketball that I am struggling to teach well is the notion of "being hard to read". There are two sides to the coin. On one side is the idea of always trying to figure out what the other player is thinking. The other side of the coin is trying to get them to think certain things about you, then misdirecting them.
The first level player will just play the game and try to win based on speed, strength, size, or skill. You can be very successful playing like this.
The second level player is good at "reading". (I don't think we emphasize reading the offense enough as defenders, but that's a post for another time.) They can beat a player by reading their opponent's body and seeing how they are being guarded, or reading how a teammate is being guarded. They generally will do better head to head than a first level player.
The highest level players are the ones that really understand misdirection. They are "hard to read". They will make you think that they are slowly bringing the ball up the floor to set up a play, and then accelerate by you when you relax. The will take you a step away from the hoop before running you off a hard backscreen. The notion of getting the other player to read you one way, then doing something else.
I would be willing to bet that the player on your team that is the best at using fakes effectively is also the player that uses changes of pace the most effectively. That speaks to a greater force guiding both principles. The way these great players approach the game is with this idea of mindreading. Always trying to figure out what the other person is thinking, and not making it easy for other people to decipher what you are thinking.
That was a long convoluted post to explain that I think "being hard to read" is an undercurrent that isn't recognized enough in this game. There are a lot of genereal skills that rely on this concept and I'd like to find a way to teach it better. As always, comments and feedback are expected.
We do a fine job of teaching how to do change of pace. At least once a week we do a defensive mirror drill where the offensive player has to move in a straight line from one baseline to the other using only changes of pace to try to get separation. The defense's job is to stay about arm's length away from one of the offensive player's hips and "mirror" her movement. This is a perfect way to discover how changes of pace can be effective. The problem is that this doesn't seem to be tranfering to game situations.
One of the most important skills in basketball that I am struggling to teach well is the notion of "being hard to read". There are two sides to the coin. On one side is the idea of always trying to figure out what the other player is thinking. The other side of the coin is trying to get them to think certain things about you, then misdirecting them.
The first level player will just play the game and try to win based on speed, strength, size, or skill. You can be very successful playing like this.
The second level player is good at "reading". (I don't think we emphasize reading the offense enough as defenders, but that's a post for another time.) They can beat a player by reading their opponent's body and seeing how they are being guarded, or reading how a teammate is being guarded. They generally will do better head to head than a first level player.
The highest level players are the ones that really understand misdirection. They are "hard to read". They will make you think that they are slowly bringing the ball up the floor to set up a play, and then accelerate by you when you relax. The will take you a step away from the hoop before running you off a hard backscreen. The notion of getting the other player to read you one way, then doing something else.
I would be willing to bet that the player on your team that is the best at using fakes effectively is also the player that uses changes of pace the most effectively. That speaks to a greater force guiding both principles. The way these great players approach the game is with this idea of mindreading. Always trying to figure out what the other person is thinking, and not making it easy for other people to decipher what you are thinking.
That was a long convoluted post to explain that I think "being hard to read" is an undercurrent that isn't recognized enough in this game. There are a lot of genereal skills that rely on this concept and I'd like to find a way to teach it better. As always, comments and feedback are expected.
Monday, December 4, 2006
One Thing
The title for this blog comes from an activity that we do at practice every morning that I think is incredibly powerful and important.
After getting the girls' heart rates up, they go through a dynamic stretching routine called "movement prep" designed to get them ready to play at full speed. The whole routine takes about 10 minutes for each athelete to complete. While this is taking place, one or all of the coaches will talk to the girls about what they are working on for the practice.
Coach McKay will say, "give me one thing that you are working on today that I can watch and give you feedback on." Before we start, Coach Stapleton will have given them an idea on what the focus of the practice will be, so that they can have a relevant goal. It is important for a couple of reasons though.
1. Focus. Now you have a plan on how you are going to improve today. Which reminds you that you are actually here to improve today. So often we (players and coaches) just go through the motions and do drills just to do drills.
2. Ownership. You get what you put in. You are in control of the process of improvement. If you aren't active in the process, then you likely aren't getting better.
3. Communication. While the goal is the athlete's, the coach has a chance to steer the goal in appropriate ways. You get a chance to let the athlete know hat they need to work on, and what they are doing really well right now. It's like having a player coach meeting every single day.
I have found this exercise so usefull that now I try to do it myself when at a practice. What is one thing that I want them to take out of this drill? Too often we get wrapped up in trying to do too many things right, all at the same time. Sometimes you can be more effective by just focusing on one important detail.
After getting the girls' heart rates up, they go through a dynamic stretching routine called "movement prep" designed to get them ready to play at full speed. The whole routine takes about 10 minutes for each athelete to complete. While this is taking place, one or all of the coaches will talk to the girls about what they are working on for the practice.
Coach McKay will say, "give me one thing that you are working on today that I can watch and give you feedback on." Before we start, Coach Stapleton will have given them an idea on what the focus of the practice will be, so that they can have a relevant goal. It is important for a couple of reasons though.
1. Focus. Now you have a plan on how you are going to improve today. Which reminds you that you are actually here to improve today. So often we (players and coaches) just go through the motions and do drills just to do drills.
2. Ownership. You get what you put in. You are in control of the process of improvement. If you aren't active in the process, then you likely aren't getting better.
3. Communication. While the goal is the athlete's, the coach has a chance to steer the goal in appropriate ways. You get a chance to let the athlete know hat they need to work on, and what they are doing really well right now. It's like having a player coach meeting every single day.
I have found this exercise so usefull that now I try to do it myself when at a practice. What is one thing that I want them to take out of this drill? Too often we get wrapped up in trying to do too many things right, all at the same time. Sometimes you can be more effective by just focusing on one important detail.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
First Post
This is the first post of what I hope will be many. The idea is simple. I'll take one thought from the day's pratice with the National Elite Development Academy and expand on it for my benefit and the benefit of anyone that wants to read it. Working with two of Canada's best coaches (Christine Stapleton & Mike McKay) and twelve of Canada's best female athletes means that I get a coaching clinic every day of the week. I know a lot of coaches would love to be able to learn in this setting, so I'm going to try to bring it to you.
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