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45 Thoughts Basketball Players Must Hear

45 Thoughts Basketball Players Must Hear

By Brian Williams on April 19, 2013

These are 45 of the 366 thoughts for basketball coaches to share with players that I have compiled.

If you would like to download the entire eBook with all 366 thoughts for players, I would like to ask you to help me let other basketball coaches know about my email service.

  1. Toughness is a skill and can be practiced and improved like all other skills.
  2. “You should always want your coach to be critical.  It gives you an opportunity to learn and to overcome adversity.” Steve Nash
  3. The more things you can do, the harder you are to keep out of the lineup.
  4. You either get better or we get worse. You don’t stay the same, so we have to use every practice and workout to get better.
  5. Concentrate on effort and execution; the results will take care of themselves.
  6. Proper form and a strong work ethic plus preparation and repetition is the formula that makes a great shooter.
  7. No excuses, no explanations.
  8. Buy in or buy a ticket.
  9. Good teams and players give second efforts, great teams give 3rd, 4th, and 5th efforts.
  10. The only way for an individual to improve is to work at an uncomfortable pace in practice and during the improvement season (April-September)  If you aren’t uncomfortable, chances are you aren’t improving.
  11. Contact from the defense is never an excuse to lose the ball.
  12. “There is do and do not, there is no try.”  Yoda in Star Wars
  13. “The game honors toughness.” Brad Stevens
  14. Expect to get hit hard when you take the ball to the basket.  Don’t get upset.  The best revenge is making the free throws.
  15. A player’s goal every practice and every improvement season skill workout should be to improve yourself for the benefit of the team.
  16. Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.
  17. “Don’t mistake routine for commitment.”  Tommy Amaker. Don’t just show up, but give it everything you’ve got, every single time.
  18. Fouling negates hustle.
  19. “Anyone who doesn’t make mistakes isn’t working hard enough.”
  20. There are two pains in life, the pain of discipline, and the pain of regret. Take your choice.
  21. Your energy level is controlled by your thoughts.
  22. We rate ability in people by what they finish, not what they start.
  23. Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities.  They vary in their desires and how smart and hard they are willing to work to reach their potential.
  24. The best offensive players have ball in their hand as long as they need to…not as long as they want to.
  25. “Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.” Michelangelo
  26. Play Hard, Play Smart and Play Together”. Hard means with effort, determination and courage; Smart means with proper execution and poise, Together means unselfishly, trusting your teammates and doing everything possible not to let them down.
  27. “We all need a daily check up from the neck up to avoid stinkin thinkin which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitudes.”  Zig Ziglar
  28. “Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”  Epectetus
  29. You don’t have to be bad to change.  All too often, people resist change because they assume it means they were not OK to begin with.
  30. It takes 21 days of conscious repetition before anything becomes a habit.
  31. “False Hustle = cheap fouls, lunging, reaching, etc.” Billy Donovan
  32. If you think small things don’t matter, think of the last game you lost by one point.
  33. Teamwork: The fuel that produces uncommon results in common people.
  34. Good enough is neither.
  35. R.E.P.S.- Repetition Elevates Personal Skills.
  36. “A person really doesn’t become whole, until he becomes a part of something that’s bigger than himself.”  Jim Valvano
  37. “Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt.”  Jose Ortega y Gassett
  38. “Your toughest competition in life is anyone who is willing to work harder than you.”
  39. “The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get from it, but what they become by it.” John Ruskin
  40. The best way to improve your shooting percentage is to take better shots.
  41. Life is like a bucket of water.  We are a part of the whole.  But how big is the hole that is left when we take away a large cup of water?  The hole suddenly fills up and…so life goes.  The nature of life is that there is always someone who can and will take your place, when you think you are irreplaceable.
  42. It’s not the hours you put in, it’s what you put in the hours.
  43. Victory or defeat is not determined at the moment of crisis, but rather in the long and unspectacular period of preparation.
  44. “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Jacob August Riis
  45. This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.  There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it.  Everybody was sure Somebody would do it.  Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.  Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job.  Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.  It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

These are 45 of the 366 thoughts for basketball coaches to share with players that I have compiled.

Basketball Drills: Celtic (Toughness Shooting Drill)

By Brian Williams on April 18, 2013

Player starts at spot 1 with the goal of making it back to spot 10 within 2 minutes.

Coach starts 2:00 countdown as the first shot is taken.

You must make 2 in a row before advancing to the next spot.

When the player makes 2 in a row on spot 5, she advances to spot 6. You don’t have to make 4 in a row.

If the player doesn’t make it back to all 10 spots in 2 minutes, record where they were as time expires. The goal is then to beat that in the next workout.

If the player does make it in under 2:00, then record the time and that is what the player will stirve to break next time.

Basketball Drills

Basketball Plays Aggie Elevator

By Brian Williams on April 16, 2013

Coach Vonn Read has submitted several plays from his playbook series The Basketball Encyclopedia of Plays to the Coaching Toolbox. Vonn is currently serving as an assistant for the Women’s team at Houston.

He has also served as an assistant coach in the WNBA with the Phoenix Mercury, Orlando Miracle, and San Antonio Silver Stars. He was an advanced scout for the Orlando Magic as well as The Charlotte Sting.

This set is a way to get a shooter open for a 3 point shot.

 

 

 

 

 

Basketball Plays

 

The 1 player passes to the wing and cuts to the opposite wing.

The 2 player will cut to the block.

 

 

Basketball Plays

The 4 player will sprint over to the wing to set the ball screen for the 3 player, who will dribble to the middle of the floor.

 

 

 

Basketball Plays

After the ball screen, the 2 player will fake a backscreen for the 5 player.

On the fake backscreen, the X2 defender will hold, as they are a help defender.

This will free the 2 player up as they sprint through the elevator screen.

 

Coach Read has also put together The Basketball Encyclopedia of plays. You can check them out here: The Basketball Encyclopedia of Plays or read more about the books:

Any coach looking for the latest and innovative plays from the Professional, College, or High School levels can stop looking. With a compilation of over 7,700 different plays, you will never need to purchase another basketball playbook again. These playbooks can be used as a great reference tool for years to come. This 2 Volume Book includes plays from 19 different play categories, and they are the most extensive playbooks on the market.

The Basketball Encyclopedia of Plays (Platinum Series) contains over 7,700 Plays (Both Volumes combined) from the NBA, WNBA, USBL, and College levels from someone who has worked as an Advanced Scout or Coach on each level!!! This book has been intensely compiled over the last 21 years, with plays taken from a lot of NBA Coaches (past and present), WNBA coaches, and College coaches (Men’s and Women’s) from around the country.

Any coach that is serious about improving their knowledge of the game from an X and O standpoint will benefit tremendously from these books. These Books can be used to discover New Quick hitters, add a New Package to your playbook, or develop an entire Offensive System. There are a lot of new ideas and concepts in these books to study, and the Basketball Encyclopedia of Plays can be a great resource for coaches on all levels!!! This book is definitely for those X and O junkies who are always looking to improve as a Coach.

“THE GAME IS ALWAYS CHANGING? ARE YOU?” Vonn Read

Here is the link: The Basketball Encyclopedia of Plays

Basketball Defense 2-3 Zone Part 2

By Brian Williams on April 15, 2013

These notes and diagrams On Jim Boeheim’s 2-3 Zone defense are a follow up to an earlier post I made about the Syracuses zone.

Here is the link to the original post: Syracuse 2-3 zone

The source of these notes is Coach Mike Neighbors newsletter. Email me if you would like me to pass your email address along to Coach Neighbors to add to his newsletter.

Most teams don’t play zone, so it is harder to prepare for in a short time frame.

It is tough for teams to get off a good shot against a zone with 10 seconds left.

 

 

2-3 Screening Drill

Basketball Defense

More teams are setting screens against the zone.

Guards at one end of the floor for this drill.

3 offensive players on the perimeter, 1 in the high post.

Post screens for the guards

Defense fights over the screen if it is a shooter, under the screen if it is a non shooter.

2-3 Short Corner Trap

Basketball Defense

X5 steps out

X3 doubles with X5

X4 comes across to the block

X2 drops

 

2-3 Corner Trap

Basketball Defense

X4 and X5 trap corner

X1 takes away the wing

X5 takes away the block

X3 takes away the midpost

Teams only make high post shot 20% of the time and we are in good rebounding position.

Baseline Inbounds Plays

Basketball Defense

Forwards can’t let the ball go to the corner

Guards take away the high post

 

 

 

Syracuse stays in the zone even when they are down 8 to 10 points.

They will go full court press and try to trap more.

If they are down 15 or more they will look to go man to man

If a team hits a couple of threes against you early, stay with the zone. If a team did that against you and you were playing man to man, you would take timeout and tell them to play better man to man. You wouldn’t change your defense.

Zone’s impact on Syracuse offense:

Players are in better position for transition game

Guards don’t get caught underneath

Basketball Offense 5 Strategies Against Switching Man to Man Defense

By Brian Williams on April 12, 2013

This article was written by Coach Randy Brown.

He has passion for the game of basketball and works as a basketball consultant and mentor for coaches. C

A speaker and writer, he has authored 75 articles on coaching and is nationally published.

His 18 years in college basketball highlights a successful 23-year career. Mentored by Basketball Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson at Arizona.

Randy’s coaching resume includes positions at Arizona, Iowa State, Marquette, Drake, and Miami of Ohio, 5 Conference Championships and 5 NCAA appearances. His efforts have helped develop 12 NBA players including Steve Kerr, Sean Elliott, and Jaamal Tinsley. To contact Randy, email him at [email protected]

In my current role as a mentor to coaches, I receive a lot of questions about practice and game strategies and ideas. Recently I was asked how to beat a team that switches screens in their man to man defense. There are five ideas that I’d like to share with you.

1. On ball screens–One of the most difficult defensive tasks is guard on ball screens. One way to attack a switching defense is to set on ball screens that will create mismatches. The Big/Little and Little/Big on ball screens will create constant matchup problems for the defense. It will be up to them how they choose to handle this situation.

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2. Pass and Cut strategy–Instead of screening, pass and cut on every pass, not giving the defense a chance to switch. This will open the floor and allow your post players to gain good position in the block areas.

3. Run set plays. I think that sets are more difficult to switch than straight motion. Sets are designed to include many mismatch-type screens mentioned in #1. Motion screens are mainly between like sized players, making it easier for the defense to switch.

4. Back cutting–If you are down screening on the wing, the defense will anticipate a switch coming. Just before the point of the screen, the cutter can back cut hard to the basket. The question now is, who has the cutter? Does the original defender keep him, which goes against their switching policy, or does the screener’s man have him even though the cutter has not yet come into the defenders area.

5. Screen your own man–I know this sounds crazy, but think about this tactic. Suppose you made a pass to the left wing and down screen for a teammate on the right wing. As the cutter is about to use your screen, you screen YOUR OWN MAN. Why? Because he’s getting ready to switch onto the cutter, but he CAN’T because you are screening him. This will really confuse the defense as you are getting open easily on every screen. I have seen this work against very good man to man college teams so I know it is technically sound and a good strategy to go to against switching.

What makes the game great is all of the wrinkles and strategies that a coach can use. I hope this has given you some insight on how to attack and beat switching defenses.

Basketball Workouts Fifty Point Shooting Drill

By Brian Williams on April 11, 2013

This is one of our technique shooting basketball drills. We have several basketball drills that are designed to improve individual shooting and dribbling skills.

You can see them in our basketball videos section.

The purpose of this drill is technique, not game pace. So, all shots (including the in close shots) are shots, not layups.

You can do a similar drill to this one (at game pace) called 3-2-1 where you shoot a 3 point shot.

Then catch beyond the arc, shot fake and shoot a one dribble pull up 2 point shot. 3rd move is catch beyond the arc, shot fake one dribble, then a dribble move and finish at the basket for 1 point if made. You repeat those 3 shots for all of the angles that are used in this 50 point game.

Basketball Drills

The game involves 29 shots. The shots should be taken in the order that the spots are diagrammed at the left.

For variety, the numbers can be mirrored on the floor so that the right side is where the first shots are taken from. If there is a rebounder, the shooter shoots and then jogs to the next spot. If there is no rebounder, the shooter can jog to get his/her rebound and proceed to the next spot.

Shots 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, and 19-32 are 1 point

Shots 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, and 17 are worth 2 points

Shots 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 are worth 3 points

You must choose your level before the 20 game workout starts. To win you must tie or beat the score for your chosen level:

Middle School: 30

Junior Varsity 32

Varsity: 33

Championship Varsity: 36

D1: 39

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