Question: What specifically do you focus on during a game? Does it differ from when you were a Head Coach?

Answer: My specific role during the game is as follows:

• keenly focus on the game
• offer suggestions on anything I see that we may want to do (this could be a set play to call, a defensive observation, alert the Head Coach as to minutes our guys are logging that night); anything that might help us that night
• keep notes on observations during the first half to go over if adjustments are needed at halftime
• keep notes the entire game of things we need to clean up in our next practice and things we need to be aware of for the next time we play this team
• encourage and/or correct players as needed

Along with these things, there are other specific areas that may change from year to year or even during the season. We try to identify areas of the game that we feel we need to concentrate on in order for our team to be successful that particular year; depending on our team, that may change year to year. With a quality post man, who also happens to be a willing passer, we want to make sure we play through him on offense. So we track the number of times the ball gets in to Kevin Garnett and what happens each of those times (score, good shot but miss, turnover, etc.). By keeping track of the number of times it goes in we have a true look at whether we are playing through the post that game or that quarter or that half.

Also, we feel it is important to have a nice balance between jump shots, drives, and post ups during the course of the game. If we ever go 3 or 4 consecutive possessions taking jump shots, then we know to call a post up set. We don’t want to let the emotion of the game keep us from really seeing the game and what is truly happening during the game.

My basic job is to keep track of anything we feel is key for our team that year to win. Stats are a great way to let players know specifically how we are doing. What stats you keep is relative to your team’s needs that year. When we had a younger team that didn’t move the ball very well, we would keep the number of passes per possession. If we were going a number of possessions with only 1 or 2 passes, then we would have that information we could tell the team during the time out.

I hope this gives you and idea of why I have my notebook out and am writing all the time during the game.