We lost a close game. We fell behind early, as per usual. I attribute our early difficulties to two things: (1) our players are comfortable; none is willing to push beyond his comfort zone. Therefore, we practice at one tempo, but the game is at another tempo. We do not have a player who pushes the other players to increase the intensity, so it takes a while for us to adjust to the game tempo. (2) every team that we play runs dozens of set plays. In this game, the coach called out a play on every possession. For the entire first quarter, they ran a different play on almost every possession. The first time that we see the play, our opponent generally gets a good shot. After we see the play once or twice, we adjust and take away the first couple options. Our opponent needed a late fade-away three to hit double-digits in the second half. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘set plays’
Coaching Frosh Basketball – Week 6
Saturday, January 7th, 2012Why Are Set Plays Dangerous for Young Players?
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010I attended a university lecture on decision-making and the presenter showed a version of this video (There are many versions of this online). Please watch this video before reading the article below.
Why do people miss the moonwalking bear? When people focus on one task – counting the passes made by the white team – they attempt to ignore all irrelevant stimuli. To some people, noticing the moonwalking bear could be seen as a weakness, as it illustrates an inability to stay focused on a task. However, what happens if you focus so intently on your task that you miss something as obvious as a moonwalking bear?
Young, inexperienced players must deal with new and different stimuli when playing basketball. They have not mastered the basic basketball skills of passing, catching, shooting and dribbling, and now they must execute these skills under defensive pressure. Then, coaches teach set plays for players in an effort to make the game easier or to create a good shot for the best shooter.
The problem is that as players try to run the play, they miss the moonwalking bear. I watched a high school AAU game at a recruiting evaluation tournament a couple summers ago. The team had a player who had peaked the interest of Big 12, WCC and Big West coaches in attendance, so the team was not devoid of talent. The team ran the same play every time down the court. After several possessions, the defense caught on to to the play. The play started with a down screen and a wing entry pass. By the fourth possession, two defenders were running with the cutter coming off the down screen and nobody guarded the screener. The team threw the pass to the wing anyway, which resulted in several steals before the coach called timeout.
Why did the guard fail to see the screener who was open? There are probably several explanations, but this video explains one: she was trying so hard to run the play (count the white team’s passes) that she did not see the open player (moonwalking bear). The play was designed to go to one area of the court (wing entry), and she devoted all her attention to protecting the ball and making that pass. She focused more on running the play than trying to score.
Set plays or continuity offenses have a role in offensive basketball. However, the objective is always to create a good shot and score, not just to run the play. I hear coach after coach screaming at players to run the play, and then the player completely ignores an open lane, shot or teammate.
Before teaching plays, we need to teach young and inexperienced players our general goals. At my first practice this season, I asked the players for the best possible possession. They threw out some answers, but none gave me my number one answer: a possession that ends with a made basket with a defensive foul that puts us on the free throw where we score a third point. To me, that is the best possible possession because we get three points, our opponent gets a foul and we can set our defense. This type of thinking may be over the heads of eight-year-olds, but if that does not make sense to them, what is the objective of the set play?
After discussing the best possible possession, we discussed the worst: a steal or long rebound that leads directly to a fast break lay-up for our opponent. Not only do we not score, but our offensive possession leads straight to their basket.
Then, we went through other scenarios that fit between the best and worst. We prioritized shots. A wide open, catch-and-shoot three-pointer: great shot. An off-the-dribble, fade away 17-footer: terrible shot.
After we had the general idea of the types of shots that we wanted to take, we instituted a basic set: a four-out offense predicated on a high on-ball screen: think the Orlando Magic (without Dwight Howard or nearly as many shooters).
More often than not, while we started in the basic four-out set, we rarely ran the play. In fact, after a fellow coach had watched us play four times, she had no idea that our offense was designed for a high pick-and-roll as she had only seen us run it once or twice in four games. Instead, players took advantage of lanes to the basket or passed to cutters cutting to the basket.
Occasionally this freelancing led to bad offensive possessions or one player got in another’s way because she cut too early or stood in one spot too long, but generally the freedom to make plays within one set worked very well. We rarely missed the moonwalking bear under the basket, and the varsity coach was amazed at the points that we scored, as we well out-scored the varsity.
This isn’t to say that the Orlando offense is the perfect offense or that you should only shoot three-pointers. Instead, the point is that we cannot teach in a way that makes our players miss the moonwalking bear. Players need to be aware on the court and play the game, rather than run the play. The objective is to score. The best process is to take good shots – often, this means running a play or a continuity offense. However, the offense is only as good as the players, and when players focus more on the play than on scoring, mistakes are bound to happen because their awareness of the court decreases and bad decisions follow.
To enhance the decision-making of your players, create awareness of possible options rather than limiting the focus to one entry into a set play.
By Brian McCormick
Author of Cross Over: The Model of Youth Basketball Development, Developing Basketball Intelligence and several other books for coaches.
Join the forum discussion on this post - (2) Posts Two Ways to View Basketball: Clocks and Clouds
Monday, April 19th, 2010In the May 2010 Wired, Jonah Lehrer writes about problems with MRIs in an article titled “Lost in the Details.” At the end of the article, he quotes Karl Popper, a philosopher of science who divided the world into clocks and clouds.
“Clocks are neat, orderly systems that can be solved through reduction; clouds are an epistemic mess, ‘highly irregular, disorderly, and more or less unpredictable.’”
Some basketball coaches choose to view basketball as a clock, while others see basketball as a cloud. The way that you view basketball determines the systems that you run and your method of teaching.
I see basketball as a cloud, as I see a lot of ambiguity. I feel my job is to prepare players as best as possible and then trust them to make the best play or best decision in the heat of the moment. Coaches who see basketball as a clock try to control the decision-making through set plays and set rotations, attempting to create order out of a chaotic game.
When I coach, I ask a lot of questions, and I often answer questions with “It depends.” Sometimes this can be seen as a negative. However, I do not want players to be too caught up in making the “perfect decision.” I don’t want players thinking on the court; I want them to rely on their instincts to make the best play possible.
When a player asks if he should stop the ball in transition or protect the basket, it depends. Who is handling the ball? Where is your help on defense? Who is the other offensive player? Is the ball handler attacking with his strong hand? Is he under control?
There is not a black-and-white answer in my opinion. In some cases, the player should stop the ball; in others, he should protect the basket. As a coach, it is impossible to cover every single instance. Therefore, I want to practice different situations, go over different ways to look at the situations and then trust the players to make the best decision in their opinion at that time.
If the decision looks like the wrong decision to me, it becomes a teaching point at the next practice. I try not to criticize; instead, I want to know what the player was thinking. Why did he choose A over B? Maybe he saw something or felt something that I missed. Maybe his decision was the best decision when looking at it based on what he saw. For instance, maybe he did not see that he had a second defender back close enough to contest the pass – is that the original defender’s fault for not seeing his teammate or is it the trailing defender’s fault for not talking and helping the first defender?
Because there are so many situations that are possible in a game, I do not believe that a coach can treat it as a clock and expect precision. It makes it easier to teach some skills and decision-making in certain situations, but the ease of instruction often breaks down in a live situation because the decisions depend so heavily on the particular situation.
By Brian McCormick
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League
Running Plays like the Indianapolis Colts
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009We played a game last weekend and our opponent spent more time setting up to run a set play than doing anything else. Players dribbled around, other players ran in circles and the coach grew increasingly frustrated. We managed to force a couple 30-second violations just by letting them try to run their own plays. We eventually won by 25 points running one “play.”
In his ESPN column, Gregg Easterbook tried to explain the difficulty of defending the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning:
Manning is the sole NFL quarterback who calls his own plays…Many plays drawn up by Moore and Manning have multiple options — any one of several things can happen, depending on the defense. When Manning comes to the line, he chooses which variation to use. Most of the time, Manning simply calls whatever he wants to call. Often several of the receivers are running “sight adjustments.” They don’t have a specific pattern called at the line — rather, they run what seems likely to be open given the defensive set.
In a perfect world, our offense (and to a lesser extent our defense) would be the same. We start in a basic five-out set. However, the point guard has multiple options based on what she reads. In fact, at the developmental level without a Manning-like player, the numerous options probably hurts our efficiency.
Generally, the ball handler is looking to pass and basket cut for a give-and-go. She has three potential pass receivers. If none is wide open, she also has the option to dribble at one of the pass receivers. The pass receiver then reads the defense and receives a hand-off or cuts backdoor to the basket.
In this way, we can play an entire quarter and look like we have run multiple plays even though our entire offense is based on three things: dribble-ats, pick-and-rolls and give-and-gos. I never call anything. It is up to the ball handler and the pass receivers to read the defense. When we play well, it looks great, we create open shots and we look pretty good. When we do not play well, we can look pretty bad, fairly unorganized and like a team without a coach.
However, that is part of the lesson: learning to adapt to and read the defense to make good basketball plays. At the developmental level, the decision-making is far from perfect. The goal, however, is to develop players who will make the right decision when they reach the varsity. How will they ever learn this skill if they are not allowed to make mistakes or look bad occasionally?
Having Manning call his own plays is extremely effective. Obviously, many quarterbacks lack his level of ability. But TMQ thinks the real reason more NFL quarterbacks don’t call their own plays is coaching bureaucracy. The coaches want to be in control, and maintain their illusion of possessing super-ultra-secret insider knowledge. No mere player could call a down-and-out — only coaches have that kind of skill! By not letting quarterbacks call their own plays, NFL teams concede an advantage to the Colts.
Is the same true in basketball? Phil Jackson will never get his due as a coach because he appears to allow his players to do everything and rely solely on his best players. However, former players have told me that in their years in the NBA, nobody prepared a team for an opponent as well as Jackson and his staff.
We see a coach who allows his players to play in the Triangle, which requires them to read the defense and make plays, and we give credit to the players, which they deserve. However, these players would not be able to make these plays if Jackson coached in a different style, demanding that players run certain sets every time down the court. His players thrive because of the way that he coaches, just as Manning thrives because of the way his coaches have allowed him to perform.
Is this only possible with a Manning or Kobe Bryant? It certainly helps. However, how many quarterbacks look better in the 2:00 Drill than they do throughout the course of the game? Why is that? How many basketball teams play better when making a comeback than during the normal course of a game? Why?
To a certain degree, players stop worrying about being perfect and concentrate on making plays. Coaches stop dictating the play and have to trust the players. When players read the defense, make the correct decisions and execute, they are more difficult to stop than when they try to run a specific play and the defense can defend the play.
Unfortunately, oftentimes a coach’s best intentions backfire and the plays are not nearly as effective against another team’s defense, especially when the players lack the general playmaking ability to fall back upon. My goal with my team is to develop the general playmaking ability first and then the varsity coach can play a similar style or use more plays knowing that the players have the general skills to enhance the execution of the plays and to use if and when the plays do not work.
By Brian McCormick
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League