We have finally gotten a couple of games under our belts. Unfortunately, we still have a couple more games before we get 2 practices in a row. One game isn’t really enough, at this age, to see what areas need more focus…2 is though. I would like to see the season structured in such a way that we got a couple of games…then at least 1 practice…then maybe a couple even 3 games in a row if necessary. That early practice is vital though.
One of the struggles the team is having is that I’ve completely changed the way they think about offense. I’m trying to train them to react to what they have and not live is so much of a structured world. I believe that for their long term development this is best… unfortunately it is not conducive to them winning in the now. The initial concepts of the offense are simple…but it’s so different and allows them just enough freedom that they are having a hard time with it. It involves them playing together more so they can recognize situations at the same time. Maybe one player sees a back cut open, the guy with the ball also needs to recognize that opening and feed the ball. On the surface “pass and cut” seems to be so simple…but the actual execution of it effectively is not appearing to be so simple.
One of the main issues with executing the ideals of this offense is that almost every player who has ever played the game in the history of basketball is inherently selfish. Everyone wants to score there is nothing wrong with that…but it’s the process I’m having them go through to score that is difficult to get across. I want them to give up the ball to score…I want them to pass to get open. In their minds, at this age, the way to score is to get the ball…no matter where you get the ball. With what I’m trying to train, that is not the case. They need to pass the ball so they can make the movement to be open. Our warm up drills focus on spot up shooting drills, pass and catch drills…all of which you shoot as soon as you catch. Pass and cut, a guy fills in..pass. If you aren’t open, back cut…it seems simple. If someone is covering you to the point you can’t receive the pass, you will inherently have a step on them in the back cut to the hole. Jab step out to get them further out of place and then break to the hole. In the 2nd half of game 2 they were starting to get it, and we got a couple of chip shots…so it’s coming along.
The first game wasn’t a really good test of where we are as a team this early in the year. We played westhope, which I was informed before the game plays some of their younger guys in the JV team. I don’t have a problem with us playing age appropriate guys that play JV…the problem I had was they would have had several weeks worth of a head start on practice. In the 7th grade game we played a mix of 7th and 6th grade boys. I play a mix of 7th and 8th grade boys. I have four 7th graders…so I play five or so 8th grade. At the beginning of the year I was toying with bringing up about three to four 6th grade kids to play, but I wasn’t completely clear on the rules governing their participation. Also, I have 12 or so 8th grade boys and mixing them in the 7th grade game is a good way to give guys more time per night. This game I was short 3 players. 1 was in hawaii, another was sick a day and started the season late so he didn’t have sufficient practices to play and another is out with an unbasketball related back injury. All of these players would have played in the 7th grade game…1 would have played in the 8th grade game.
The game started pretty rough, our guys were standing around and just unenthusiastic about playing. They made some horrible passes and just didn’t execute well. Size wise we matched up well with westhope and execution wise we were both about even. Still it doesn’t mean I was happy with the effort. Given that we were playing a few 6th grade kids I expect a much better performance from our team. They boys did alright though and we ended regulation in a tie. The OT didn’t go our way for the most part. They were up by 2 with a few seconds left on the clock. I told my boys to go hard for the ball and see what happens. We fouled and put them on the line for a bonus with 2.7 left on the clock. Now pay attention…we’re down by two, 2.7 on the clock they are at the line for a bonus and their coach decides to pull his guys back off the lane. Seeing this, I told the near ref that I want a time out as soon as we are able to call it. If my guys get the rebound instantly I want a time out. I’m not “pre calling” a time out…what I’m doing is making him aware of when I will call a time out so as soon as I signal I can get it. This is very common at all levels of sports where the coach can call a time out. I’d done this a couple of times during the game…I would say something like “as soon as we cross the 1/2 line, gimme a time plx” he’d watch play and as soon as they cross the line I’d signal and he was prepared to look at it. Nothing wrong with this type of conversation. I did this in our 2nd game as well. When we were bringing the ball up, I’d make eye contact with the ref, point to the other side of the 1/2 line and mouth time out…everyone knows what’s up, the ball crosses, he looks at me, I signal. So…2.7 left on the clock. Their guy misses, my guy rebounds I say “time out”…nothing..my guy looks around confused (I’m sure he hadn’t been in a position where the opposing team wasn’t lined up on the lane with him before) he looks around..not sure if it’s 2 shots or what…takes a couple of steps towards one of the refs and tosses him the ball. The ref calls a foul, the clock had started as soon as he touched it…horn sounded. I immediately talk to the other ref “whoa, I called time…you knew it was coming..what’s up” He agrees, talks to the other ref and I get 2.4 back on the clock. It seems reasonable that something comes off. The other ref wasn’t happy…even when the first ref explained it to him and told him of the mistake…he wasn’t happy. The thing is I said it to the other ref at a distance of about 15-20 feet, loud infront of the crowd. No one from the opposing team’s crowd said anything in objection to this…they heard me talk to the ref. I was talking across the opposing coach…he didn’t object, he had heard the conversation and knew what was coming.
So, 2.4 on the clock. I tell my boys “we are going to toss it {kid’s name} at 1/2 court, your going to take a couple of dribbles…and just stroke it”. We break the huddle…and the wrong kid starts going forward to catch the ball (didn’t we just talk about this…man) I yell from the bench, “no {name} is shooting”. The correct kid comes forward, catches the ball…turns…dribbles a few times and lets it go about 5 feet behind the 3 point line, the horn sounds in the air and the ball hits nothing but the bottom of the net…game over, us by 1. The kid is a good spot up shooter and of the guys on the floor he had the best chance of hitting the shot. Still, there is a certain amount of luck involved in something like that. Their guys were too concerned about fouling to play any defense on him at all. If I was in a similar situation, he had 2 (I believe) fouls before we were in the bonus…I’d have fouled him on the ground…twice…and seen what happens. A game that close could go either way. Even if we had lost, our performance was close enough to theirs that if we met them in a tournament we might have beat them.
The 8th grade game was next. When the game started they quickly overwhelmed us. They executed the fast break very well. Knocked on our heels like that, the boys didn’t really know how to respond. I should have probably called an early time out and chatted with them a bit, but this early in the season I wanted them to try to play through it some. The first quarter ended 2 – 14…I was not happy. In the 2nd the boys came out of their shock and played quite a bit better…we put up 10 to their 2 going in to the half 12 to 16. This gave us a bit of a confidence boost and a chance going in to the 2nd half.
The 3rd quarter we came out of the gates slow again…we only put up 2 points for the quarter to their 6. We got to the rim alright, but we missed too many layups (the same problem the girls had). Also, one of the main reasons we didn’t score many this half was due to a decision I made at the beginning of the quarter.
Westhope had 1 player that put up 1/2 of their points in the first half. Going in to the 3rd he had 4 fouls. I decided we needed to work on him which would yield us 1 of two results. Either we would get him on the bench with 4 fouls or we would tire him out on defense and he wouldn’t be able to work as well on offense. I cleared out the side and put the guy he was guarding into the post. He had explicite instructions to foul him out. I didn’t care about points…I wanted him out of the game. The guy that was posting him up had no fouls…so things were in my favor. The refs let quite a bit go in the post for both players. My guy was rougher than he needed to be getting to his position, their guy was pushing him quite a bit. After a couple of trips down the floor one ref finally called a double foul (one on each player). This worked in my favor, putting one on my guy and 3 on him. We get the ball back and go right at him again…this time we got a quick whistle and his fourth foul. I stand by the decision to go after their leading scorer like that, putting a guy in foul trouble is a part of the game. In retrospect, if I had known it would take that much time and our offense would be stale for that long I might have gone with a different approach. I have a 7th grader that is a really nice post player, if I had to do it again I would have put him in and hopefully their guy would have matched up on him…and we would get the fouls quicker. He didn’t score the 3rd quarter and put 4 up in the 4th. 1/2 his point total from the first half.
We enter the 3rd quarter 14 – 22. 8 points wasn’t huge, and we might be able to make it up but we had to play better in the 4th than we had the entire game. Starting the 4th the boys seemed to play a little harder. I had them run a couple of high picks to setup one of our outside shooters for the 3 ball, and he hit a couple. they converted a couple of layups, so we were slowly chipping away at their lead. Now that we made a couple behind the arc they brought their defense out some and the inside was suddenly opening up. Seeing this, he slashed to the basket…and disaster struck. He got fouled and came down hard…twisting his ankle…bad. He waved me off and managed to struggle to the line for the 2 shots…missing them both. He took 2 steps down the floor and dropped. He couldn’t put any weight on it.
I got him off the floor, his parents came to the bench and my wife went to get him some ice. Since there were people tending to him, I focused back on the game. Him coming out was a big blow to our offense and we never fully recovered. We ended up dropping the game by 12 points. He went down with about 3min left, he’s a solid free throw shooter so without the injury I expect he would have made at least one of 2 with a good chance at making both. That puts us at a 4 point deficit with lots of time left. Who knows, maybe we would have been able to fight back. But, injuries happen and the team has to move through it.
After this game, I was not happy with the results. When a few days passed, thinking back and looking over the score book (as I do when I write these posts) it wasn’t near as bad as I thought. The boys need to move more, box out better and work on the defensive rotation…but overall we played decently against a team that had more practice than us.
Article source: http://www.hillbillycoach.com/2012/02/05/vs-westhope/