Basketball Specific

Mirrors are great because when you look into them you can’t see anything but the truth. You can close your eyes an pretend not to see, but once you get back to reality, the trust will show in every mirror. Almost every level of basketball has reached its season midpoint, which means that right now [...]

I’ve been reading a lot about the defenses of the “final four” teams that were in the NFL playoffs. Have often thought that basketball coaches should study football coaches from an organizational, practice planning, film watching and philosophy of defense standpoint. All four of the final play off teams talked about the importance of defense. [...]

There are a number of teams right now searching for answers — how can we get back to playing well? how can we turn things around? how can we play to our ability and potential? Teams have worked on drill after drill to the point that players know what needs to be done in any [...]

If you analyze successful teams, you’ll find a few common threads. One of the most vital things is that successful teams don’t believe in excuses. I can tell you that we work very hard at being a team of no excuses. We don’t win every game we play and we may not win the NBA [...]

As teams enter the second half of the season, sometimes practices become less frequent and, in many cases, shorter as well. Players still have to remember the importance of these sessions. It often becomes the difference in getting one or two more wins — wins that can determine the success of your season. Here with [...]

As I analyze not only our team but many other winning teams in various sports, it becomes clear that winning teams approach their seasons with a greater dedication to perfection than average teams. Many teams are satisfied with playing well and getting good practices in. The best teams are different. Whether it’s practices or games, [...]

During the course of a year, very few games will be perfect in execution or results. This is a given for all of us. Having said that, there are a number of times during a game when your team will require a “winning play.” This is a term I have heard a lot recently and [...]

Interesting to just observe players, not only see what they do, but also to listen to what they say. We were going over some defensive things with the young players the other day and you could see that they were trying to do it — they heard what was being taught but they didn’t grasp [...]

In this age of instant reporting and our ability to put almost every game on TV, there’s a decision that players have to make and coaches have to demand. The decision comes down to…performance or production. What is the goal of the player and the team that night? This decision is not as easy as [...]

Competition and game time can do certain things to us that sometimes we’re not even aware of. So often I see coaches (especially assistant coaches) who are so emotionally explosive during games that I often wonder if they have time to actually see what is going on on the floor. They are so wrapped up [...]

So often I hear about how intricate a system is and I always want to ask a few questions: Do the players fully understand all parts of the system? Is the team great at any part of the system or average at a number of parts? Does having all of these “things” bring comfort to [...]