These are some notes I wanted to share from an article written by Coach Don Hawkins of Nashville (IL) High School. The article was sent to me by Coach Ken Sartini. The red text are my additions to what Coach Hawkins presents.
Basketball is situation specific and how a teams handles those situations often makes the difference between winning and losing.
Coach Hawkins uses a “special teams” concept much like a football team and looks to find the players who are best for each situation.
He finds that it has been a confidence builder for his substitutes because he feel that he can find situations in which most of them can be successful.
He allocates time in each weekly practice for offense, defense, and special teams.
His Specialty areas are:
1) Sideline inbounds (“pecking order” of players to inbound the ball, plays for end of game or period, defending sideline inbounds)
2) Underneath inbounds (“pecking order” of players to inbound the ball, plays for end of game or period, defending sideline inbounds)
3) Jump Ball (hold, rotate, defend) This is an area that makes a difference to start an overtime
4) Delay (purpose, pattern, defense)
5) 1-10 seconds left in game (full court, back court, half court, front court, baseline–all of these offensively and defensively
6) End of period both offense and defense
7) Free Throws (ahead and behind by one, two, and three)
8) Time Situations (60 seconds, 90 seconds, two minutes)
Early in the season he covers when and what they will do in each situation and what the roles needed for success in each one are.
Weekly practice breakdown:
Monday: (10 minutes of practice time) End of game situations ahead and behind by one, two, and three points. Involves as many players as he can. After two or three weeks will settle on the best players in each situation and then work those players as units.
Tuesday (10 minutes of practice time) Two minute situations. ahead and behind by different point spreads. If the first unit that starts out ahead and loses, they must repeat the process. I would add to this to make sure to define the number of fouls for both teams and individuals, possession arrow, and time outs remaining. This is a good time to practice how to foul by taking the ball away and possibly being called for a foul to stop the clock as opposed to getting called for an intentional foul. You can also practice fouls to give in this situation.
Wednesday (10 minutes) End of period. Delay game to get the last shot of the period and transition into the last shot. You can execute this at the end of a game without having to call timeout if it is practiced. Again, work both sides of the ball. I like to start our play at 12 seconds and shoot at 5 seconds in the first three quarters. I like to shoot with 3 seconds at the end of the game and have found that if you expect that to happen and practice it, players will execute it in a game.
Thursday (15 minutes of practice time) Specialty review. Reviews all of his specialty items and emphasizes the ones he feels will be significant in their next game.
Coach Hawkins usually uses 8 to 10 players each game and looks for where each one can be successful. The special teams approach encourages player participation. Having practiced the areas that come up in a game he can tell his players that “we have a plan and have been here before,” which is a confidence builder.
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this is magnificent. this has opened my eyes to a new way to plan my practice. i have normally planned it for playing to win the game and i see that my situation training did not include these variables. thank you soooooo much! this has given me an idea to coach better shot clock and game clock management