is played the way it 'sposed to be played, its in the air: floating, flying, soaring. The way the oppressed people of this earth see themselves in their dreams."
What a great quote. In a time when I'm frustrated with the basketball community at large it helps to keep me focused on the simple truth: this a is game, games should be fun. We get the opportunity to have fun, playing and competing when kids all over the world worry about the effects of genocide, land mines, religous oppression, arranged marriages, starvation . . . .
The list goes on. We have the luxury of feeling bad about medal counts and missing tournaments. The reality is what is great about basketball is not trips, tournaments, titles or all the other stuff we stress about. What is great about basketball is basksetball.
Being in the gym competing. Improving a skill set through hard work. Improving ourselves for that matter. Getting to play a game and be passionate about it is what is great about basketball. The rest of it is window dressing. We'll make memories regardless. There will always be somone we can play : it could be another school, a parent, our kids, adults in a rec league. Whats great is the game, everything else is details.
You can't take the game away. Who we play. Where we play. The rules we travel under. Whether we win or lose. Whether we get the respect of others or not. We still have the game. We will respect ourselves and our experience. The game only dies if we let it. Its the game that is great.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
A Wing Thing
Constant source of debate between me and my coaching friends: what do you do with the perimeter player 1 pass away without the ball. Deny, Sag, Up the line (Off or On), Help, Zone, . . . the list of possibilties goes on and on.
Clearly players more than 1 pass away need to have their players sagged off into a help position seeing their person and the ball. The issue becomes what to do with the player who is a threat to recieve an immediate pass. Then you get into issues of it depending on the reciever, or the capabilites of the guy with the ball.
Maybe I'm too simple minded. Maybe I feel my players are too simple minded. My thought is: who cares, they don't have the ball. Players without the ball can't score until they get the ball. We zone the wing players, gapping up the line off the line. Our chest is sqaure to the ball handler and we a 1 sprint step away from close out.
If the ball handler is being pressured, then the biggest threat is the dribble drive. A pressured wing pass can just as easily be stolen from this position as up denying the wing. In fact, more so because a denied player is probably less likely to a be the target of a pressured pass. A pressured pass should be also easy to close out on since the catch shouldn't be clean. I think doing anything else just opens up drive lanes and requires defenders on bigs to help up (giving up a dump or lob) or help late (letting an attacking player get into the lane).
Maybe I'm wrong. I understand all the situations and reasons for other things. We will deny a kid who we don't want to become the target of a pass, but in that case we are denying all the time and that defender has no other reads/jobs defensively. For me its, its keep it simple. Pressure the ball to drive have everyone taking that away.
Clearly players more than 1 pass away need to have their players sagged off into a help position seeing their person and the ball. The issue becomes what to do with the player who is a threat to recieve an immediate pass. Then you get into issues of it depending on the reciever, or the capabilites of the guy with the ball.
Maybe I'm too simple minded. Maybe I feel my players are too simple minded. My thought is: who cares, they don't have the ball. Players without the ball can't score until they get the ball. We zone the wing players, gapping up the line off the line. Our chest is sqaure to the ball handler and we a 1 sprint step away from close out.
If the ball handler is being pressured, then the biggest threat is the dribble drive. A pressured wing pass can just as easily be stolen from this position as up denying the wing. In fact, more so because a denied player is probably less likely to a be the target of a pressured pass. A pressured pass should be also easy to close out on since the catch shouldn't be clean. I think doing anything else just opens up drive lanes and requires defenders on bigs to help up (giving up a dump or lob) or help late (letting an attacking player get into the lane).
Maybe I'm wrong. I understand all the situations and reasons for other things. We will deny a kid who we don't want to become the target of a pass, but in that case we are denying all the time and that defender has no other reads/jobs defensively. For me its, its keep it simple. Pressure the ball to drive have everyone taking that away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)