YBCA

5/18/10

• Today we had our team meeting for our summer program
• Went through schedule of practices and games from now until August when school starts for us
• We have it broken up into 3 days a week, 2 for practice and lifting and one for league play
• Our practices will be no longer than an hour and 20 minutes including warm-up and cool down
• Focus is on tactical play, using the TGFU model w/some shooting breakdown and shooting drills included
• After that we are lifting
• Day 1 will be focused on the squat and bench, Day 2 will be focused on the trap bar dead-lift and overhead press
• Auxiliary work will consist of all types of chins and pull-ups, and glute-hams and single leg squats
• We will be utilizing Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 programming, you can find info about it here
• http://www.tmuscle.com/free_on…..e_strength
• After June, we will focus exclusively on strength, speed and lateral quickness until September
• During our summer league games we will play everyone equal minutes and utilize the Blitz offensive system
• 1st practice is Monday, May 18th, more to come

Post edited 4:19 pm – May 25, 2010 by admin

Thank you for the posts.

For those who don't have Blitz Basketball, the paperback is available at http://www.lulu.com/product/pa…..ll/2620962 and the e-book is available at http://www.180shooter.com/cart…..=blitzbook

Also, as a point of clarification, DBI refers to the book Developing Basketball Intelligence, which is available as a paperback at http://www.lulu.com/product/pa…..ce/4283517 or as an e-book at http://www.180shooter.com/cart…..dd=dbibook

Hopefully Demon's posts are a helpful complement to the books as he continues to outline his approach throughout the summer. 

All the reading I have done and reading Brian's posts and newsletters, I would suggest playing the modified games first and then working back to the skill work.  Look at what the players lack in the games and then use a skill breakdown to work on it.  Then go back to the game and then to the whole.  Eventually you will have to do more skill work at some point, but if you are limited in practice time then I think it would be better to spend your time on smal sided games.

ok thanks. i often try it like that. 

1. make a ball handling drill, like back ups.

2. i let them do a SSG where they have to do a back up dribble like 1on2 fullcourt or 2on3 halfcourt

3. next practice i say somethin like “ok we had trouble in that little game with doing this and that, lets work on it.

4. we do the little game again

can you guys imagine some ssg for play against a zone defense? because we almost played man defense this year and when our opponents played a one against us, we looked not that good. so my players often asked me to give them a zonesystem. i would rather like to show them some principles like in brians books.

It's tough to simulate a zone in a small-sided game. However, attacking a zone is much like attacking in transition. 4v3 and 5v4 drills work to an extent. 

However, I ran our regular man2man offense against a zone this year and the Blitz Basketball offense works okay against the zone provided you give the posts a little more freedom to find open spots and rely a little more on the pass and not just the dribble. 

The problem that most teams have when they face a zone is that they think they have to change everything. Principles are the same – you want to disorganize the zone and then move the ball to find the open shot. 

here are a couple other ideas on zones:

http://learntocoachbasketball……mbinations

http://learntocoachbasketball……inst-zones

Looking at this weeks practices we have a few things we want to emphasize before our first summer league games this week.  We have already put in a few offensive principles and now we want to work on perfecting these principles.  Spacing, dribble penetration movement,speed of the break and aggressive offensive play in the half court is what we have been emphasizing.  After practice Friday we asled the players what we needed to work on, they responded with:

• spacing
• more 2v2 and 3v3 to work on their reads against live defense
• army drill (just because this is their favorite drill by far)
• pick and roll games, 3v3 and 4v4

We are trying to empower the players a smuch as possible and give them some ownership over practice.  This is the first time we have sat down with them after practice and let them develop their own practice plans.  You could reaaly see the wheels turning in their heads as we discussed what we needed to do to get better.  After our first game we will be able to look again and see what needs tweaking and make adjustments. 

So our next practice will go something like this, althought it could change as we progress through the actual practice:

• dynamic warm-up
• contested lay-ups
• 3v0 progression
• 3v3 closeout
• army drill
• 3 in a row
• 4v4 transition w/ball screen to start
• 5v5 half and full court

Sorry its been a while since I have posted on here.  I will go over our game from this Wednesday first.

• We played every player almost equal minutes.  We rotated a new 5 in every 3 minutes
• Lost first game by 3 and second game by 10.  Both teams we played used only 6 out of their 15 players during the game.  I explained to my kids that everyone on our team got better, but the other ones did not.
• This is a very tough thing for us coaches to do as we all have a competitive side.  I had to balance my desire to win w/the desire to get all of my players better and give them a chance to make mistakes.  Every year my new players look puzzled when I tell them I want them to make mistakes during the summer so they can see what they need to work on.  It is a tough pill for the players to swallow sometimes as well as their parents but in the end we are always better off for it.
• All in all we played well considering we had only practiced twice.

Thursday we practiced at 7am so the kids were tired from the day before.  We went w/a little different format for this practice.

• Dynamic warm-up
• 3 in a row
• Dribble tag
• 5 straight shooting
• Dribble penetration shooting working on circle movement
• Lift->Bench 3×65 / 3×75 / AMAPx85 , Glute hams for 25 reps, chins for 50 reps

The skill and shooting portion lasted only 20 minutes and served to get some recovery going since we could tell they were sluggish after the games from the day before.  After we lifted we sent them home.  Our emphasis is on increasing our athletic ability so we were not worried with working on any tactical skills.

For next practice we will be focusing on shooting, lifting and pass and cut action ( moving the ball and attacking).

Against teams that switch, slip screens or run shallow cuts. The Celtics run a nice play where it looks like Pierce/Allen is going to set a high on-ball screen for Rondo, but he shallow cuts instead and receives a flare screen. 

Also, if teams switch, show a little more patience. Rather than trying to attack immediately, try to move the ball a couple times and then attack. 

Also, re-screen. It worked last night for Rondo when Kobe went way under a ball screen and then came back the other way. Often, if you run the first screen and then come back the other way, the defense will make a mistake.

Final idea is to set a double or stagger screen. Often the defense will break down in these cases, leaving someone open. There are many different ways to run a double or stagger on an on-ball screen.

Finally, punish a switch by attacking the mismatch. I run on-ball screens hoping for the switch so that I can attack the mismatch. Sometimes in high school it doesn't matter as much, as many high schools play five similarly sized played, but if you can get a big on a small or a small on a big, attack. Heck, in pick-up games, if I have a good defender, I'll use an on-ball screen just to get the switch and then attack the lesser defender. 

I apologize, its been a while since I posted.  We have won 5 of our last 6, again playing everyone.  The kids are really gaining confidence in themselves and each other.  We beat 2 teams from last yr that won 25 games and returned everyone.  Our practices have stayed the same throughout the summer.

• Dyn warm-up
• Walberg lay-ups, right side one day, left the next
• 2v0 progression
• Olympic shooting
• 5-spot
• Then we do our offensive attack drills, memphis closeout 2v2, 3v3, 4v4
• Then scrimmage and lift

In the summer it amazes me how many teams workon their entire systems yet do not give the time to skill development.  We only work on offense really, the only defense coming in our closeout drills.  But the emphasis is on offense right now.  So if you play us, you play a team that shoots 30 min. a day and works on attacking the rim and getting better athletically.  So if you dont shoot theball well you make us look really good.  My buddies always as me what we are doing yet when I tell them they say they couldnt make themselves do that.  I know one thing, our kids are shooting the ball and getting better individually.  I dont think there is anymore important thing we can do in the summer.