Basketball Practice Mindset 7, 8, & 9

Finally, the NBA Finals will start tonight. Probably will hurt our traffic, but I guess I can’t complain, I will be watching too instead of working on The Coaching Toolbox. 🙂

Here are three more of our twelve thoughts on the mindset it takes to have basketball practices at the championship level.

7. The practice court is a classroom. Practice is one of several classes that students attend each day. Like all classes, the students should expect to be taught something each day. Basketball Coaches should have clear objectives for the day and a well planned lesson designed to help the players achieve those objectives.

8. Coaches should enter practice with the mindset that if players are making mistakes, the reason they are making mistakes is that the coach has not taught them properly. Coaches need to make adjustments in how they are communicating their ideas. Yelling the same instruction louder does not facilitate the teaching process. Coaches must believe that everything that happens on the court happens as a result of their actions. A good coach is like a good teacher. If the student is not learning, the teacher must change the teaching methods.

9. Coaches must believe that they can win with their team, regardless of the team’s shortcomings or perceived shortcomings. It does not matter whether the team is too short, too slow, too inexperienced or lacking in basic skills. Coaches must believe that they can overcome all obstacles placed in front of them. There are ways to play when your team is too slow and too short. Young players can be taught and skills can be practiced. If you do not believe that you can win, you will not.

Tomorrow’s post will finish off the first principle of our 130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching.

The Coaching Toolbox 12 ideas to develop the mindset of a champion to take into basketball practice is moving along. After today’s post, we will have half of the list on the Toolblog.

4. Basketball Players will do in the games by habit what they learn, rehearse, and are held accountable for in practice. If a coach allows cutting corners in practice, that is what s/he will get in games. Don Meyer says that coaches can be demanding without being demeaning. We believe that type of interaction with players is imperative to success. For example, we believe that placing the ball under your chin after a rebound is an important fundamental. Therefore, in practice situations we blow the whistle and call a turnover if a player falls to chin a rebound. By consistently demanding that basketball fundamentals be executed, you will begin to see it occur more frequently. We want to create the mindset that doing things properly leads to increased success.

5. The players’ goal for each basketball practice should be to improve themselves for the good of the team. A coach’s goal should be to instill that goal in the players and plan practice to make it happen. Spend time making sure that your players see that as their goal.

6. Everyone involved in your basketball practice must know the expectations that you have as a coach for the level of performance and effort. Frustration and conflict which lead to team turmoil are always present when players individually and the team collectively are being coached to a higher standard than they are currently able to reach. The tension can be reduced greatly when everyone knows what the expectations are and why those expectations are so high.

We hope that these ideas are contributing to your basketball coaching thoughts and ideas. To read or downolad all 12, just click either one that you would rather do. For an overview of our book that contains 130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice, just click the link.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching.

This post is a continuation from yesterday’s Coaching Toolbox blog dealing with our basketball practice mindset. In our view, structuring what happens in practice is a huge part of basketball coaching.

2. Hard work is merely the price of admission into the competitive arena; it is no guarantee of success. If it is not present, then you can’t even think about competing. But, consistently doing the right things, in the right way, and in the right frame of mind—all while working very hard—over an extended period of time, can lead to success. Hard work is not a victory in and of itself; it must be accompanied by technique and toughness. It is possible to be a hard worker with poor technique and no toughness.

3. Players must see and believe that the coaching staff is eager and excited for practice every day. A coach’s enthusiasm for practice should be obvious to the players and assistant coaches. The coach’s enthusiasm should be contagious. For practice to be great everyone needs to be enthusiastically involved. As classroom teachers, it always amazes us when we see and hear athletes cheering in response to an announcement that their practice has been cancelled. That is not the type of response that demonstrates an understanding of the importance of high quality practices.

We have nine more ideas that we have defined as the Winning Way Mindset for basketball practice and will be posting them on this blog. You can see all twelve on our list by clicking here. You can see information about our entire list of 130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice here, along with hundreds of other resources and ideas for coaching basketball.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching.

We have posted twelve ideas that we at the Coaching Toolbox believe constitute a basketball practice mindset that is necessary for a basketball team to consistently attain great quality in basketball practice. We believe that the quality of the practices a team has is determined by more than just the drills that the coach runs. The types of drills certainly makes a huge difference, but the mindset that both players and coaches approach practice with day in and day out.

Here is the first of our twelve principles for having the practice mindset and manner of a champion:

Practice with the mindset and manner of a champion

Having the right frame of mind is what separates the programs with great practices from all of the others. By whatever means you can, indelibly etch the following saying into the minds of your players:

I have no individual goals. We play for one reason and that’s to win the title. Practice is more important than the games, and I will practice when I’m hurt, when 95 percent of the players in this league would sit out. I expect all of you to do the same thing. You will follow my lead.”…to the Chicago Bulls. And follow they did.–Michael Jordan

EVERY TIME WE TAKE THE FLOOR, WE PRACTICE AND PLAY WITH THE TECHNIQUE, INTENSITY, TOUGHNESS, AND TOGETHERNESS OF A STATE (OR NATIONAL) CHAMPION.

Everyone in the program must believe that championship level practices every single day of the season are the key to success on game day. If they do not demonstrate that belief, then you must continue working to convince them that is true. Then collectively, the team members must roll up their sleeves daily and make that vision a reality. For practice to impact your win-loss record, the players must agree to be and want to be held accountable to and be coached to the highest standards in your class.

Certainly, there is no way to measure what your competition is doing in practice. However, if the coach and the players have the mindset that your program’s standards for intensity, execution, toughness, and togetherness are those of a state champion, and you go to work every day to earn the right to feel that you are succeeding, your practices will be exceptionally productive. Your players must believe that the coaches are not helping them if they allow anything less than the championship level.

To see the remaining 11 principles, click here–>Practice Mindset.

For more information about all 130 Ideas to make practice better, click here–>130 Great Ideas.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching.

The Coaching Toolbox coaching staff started this post yesterday by writing about the poor handoff exchange that cost the Spurs a turnover and 2 points in Tuesday night’s playoff game. You might want to check out yesterday’s post to help put today’s in a little better context.

Your level of basketball might not play with a shot clock, but there are 3 shot clocks in high school basketball-the end of each quarter-where it is essential that your players execute in the manner you want them to. Then, there is the end of game clock management scenario to deal with. Regardless of which of those two scenarios you wish to apply it to, Kobe Bryant’s rushed shot at the end of the game that ran no time off of the game clock was a huge mistake. In just a few seconds, he took a game that was almost impossible to lose and turned it into a game of chance for the Lakers. If Kobe even runs 2 more seconds off of the clock before taking his bad shot, the controversial no call at the end isn’t even an issue. To me, the lesson is that we all must teach and drill and drill even the best and most experienced basketball players on clock management because it takes a great deal of talent to make up for poor clock management. As Coach Bob Knight says, “In basketball, the mental is to the physical as four is to one.” Clock management is a huge part of the mental game.

The third thing we took from the game is that you cannot put faith in the officials to make calls (even if they are obvious) in tight situations. We must coach our players to have a mindset to put the ball in the basket at the end of the game and not to rely on a foul call. As your players leave the huddle to line up for that last second play, they must be of the determined mindset that they are going to score even if the oncourt action resembles that old kids game of “scrubs and rummies” where there are no fouls. Our belief is that if the players expect a foul call, they are setting themselves up for failure. If they believe that they are going to be tough enough to score regardless of contact, they have no guarantee of succeeding, but they at least give themselves a chance.

In closing, this is not a criticism of any players, coaches, or officials involved. They are all at the top of their professions and unless we have been there, we have no idea of what it is like. My purpose in writing yesterday and today’s posts is to emphasize that we can be proactive and hopefully have a better mindset and purpose when we face the same situations at our levels of competition.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching.