Evolution of Dealing with Adversity

One of our keys to being relentless as a team (see 5 Keys to Being Relentless ) is to have a response built in to all situations. This way regardless of the situation we can attack confidently knowing how to respond. We have footwork and reads for actions and reactions. We even go so far as to create rules for when you are confused or lost on offense and defense: we dictate what you say and how you physically respond so your teammates can continue to flow and go.

The hardest one for kids to learn is how to deal with stressors and adversity. When things go bad they've generally got already built in habits and behaviours for how to react. Obviously these are not normally useful in the game of basket to our team or to their performance. So we need to come up with cueing system for support, train them in language for self talk and refocusing  and condition a response that we want when we put them in stressful or frustrating situations.

This is not always as straightforward as it sounds. Early in my career we would sub kids out for making mistakes or lack of effort, or we would talk to kids about being tougher, playing through it and staying focused. While none of these were bad ways to handle it they weren't the most productive. Subbing a kid out didn't give them a more positive reaction or improve their ability to perform in stress. It eliminated the problem from the floor but promoted them trying to avoid triggers rather then changing habits when they went back in. Conversations were often positive experiences and they ended with a general desire to be tougher, stay focused, etc. They often didn't have a meaningful and particularly short term or immediate coping mechanism.

This led us to trying to come up a cueing system to have kids be able to return to focus on proper mind set in reaction to phrase they can use not only as self talk but that coaches could use in order to prompt the proper reaction without the need to leave the play in order to make adjustments. To that end we adopted the mantra "Next Play". The purpose of which was to remind players that the past was over and we had to focus on doing our job in this upcoming play. We had limited success with this vocalization from coaches but once players embraced it as self talk or reminders to teammates we had more positive immediate returns following problems or moments of stress.

Again, this was imperfect. It didn't help the player with whatever feelings they were experiencing and while they might try to put themselves in the next play mentally and physically, depending on their repsonsbilities or the situation might not yield an immediate solution or chance for action. We wanted something that allowed our kids to respond to stress by: increasing their activity level, focusing on what they and their teammates each had to do next (to avoid focus on what just happened), and having a verbal communication component to raise support and energy.

So borrowed from the people at PGC we now use the idea of  "Hustle Caat". This isn't a call or slogan as much as it is our general response to any problem or stressor. We hustle (force ourselves to sprint, get into a stance, and get active) and Call At A Teammate (call ou a reminder or a focus point on what is happening or you need next). We like this is it gives an immediate response of positive feedback mentally, verbally, and physically. It engages all parts of the individual and the team as our immediate response to a problem. We get hustle (something you always like to see). We get communication in our soundscape (which brings energy and focuses attention on task). We also get the player recogsnising the next potential actions to make decisions about what they need from teammates to call out something productive (focus becomes the moment not the previous issue).

Below is a clip from the originators of the Hustle CAAT idea. Dena Evans from PGC discusses Increasing Your Actvity Level. This and many more great coaching points we use all the time can be found on http://keystothegym.com/blog/

We've been extremely impressed with our results. We get sound, thought and action all built into an immediate stress response. It allows us to attack relentlessly because we have a standard positive repsonse to stress/adversity on the floor that we can program our kids to make in order to increase our productivity.

How are you teaching your kids to respond to stress? Could it be better?

Movement is Offense

"Movement is Offense" is a pretty simple concept. I'm not sure why so many people struggle with it. If you are moving you are playing basketball, if you are stationary you are not. That being said the world is full of ball stoppers, over dribblers, and players standing in spots. Its partially coaching/tactics, partially bad defense and mostly a lack of focus/will to make people defend movement or at least defend constantly.

One of the odd things I notice about basketball is that 90% of the defensive drills and practices I see have kids in a low wide stance sliding or chopping. Yet unless you are a superior athlete to your opponent if they sprint and you slide there is no way to can maintain position. So either coaches believe: A) that defensively they will always have superior athletes that can out work, out speed and out athlete the opponent (ask my OKC Thunder how that is working out against old men like Parker, Ginobli and Duncan) B) that offense will never execute skills or play at top speed.

On our teams we try to address both. We play rotational m2m and work on defensive footwork to allow our kids sprint almost all the time. On offense we want our kids to play at pace and force defense to defend movement. We use a  pivot foot theory and concept based offense built on ball movement, player movement and anticipatory reads so that every player should be able to constantly move at their top speed.

Keys to establishing and maintaining offensive movement:

- You must establish clear guidelines for spacing and action/reaction in all phases of offense/the shot clock.
- Your fast break, transition, half court and late clock offenses must flow seamlessly one into the next.
- Your pivot foot theory, offensive movements, and action/reactions must allow for the game to be play without stop - start or waiting for specific action.
- Players who can execute skills at speed and make anticipatory reads instead of making reads post catch and pivot.
- Players must be able to make shots. To maintain spacing and freedom of movement players need to be able to play facing the basket away from the rim effectively.
- Players must not be ball stoppers. They must catch and make their next action trying to maintain the pace of the ball and play. Maintain a 1 second advantage over defense.
- Simultaneous actions. Everyone must be reading and attacking on the move at the same time, not series of action or movement.
- Players must be in condition (or you must have great enough depth) to maintain pace of play.
- Players must trust each other and the movement to generate chances. They cannot force or overplay.
- Quality passes must take place to allow players to make the next action not be focused on making a clean catch.
- Have reactions and guidelines to situations trained and in place so there is no question or confusion about what should be happening even in break downs.