How to Beat Teams that Run a Great Transition

Coach Sar · **Posts:** 3139

Coach,

These are the things I always told my teams ( since we were usually out manned )

Keys for the game:

1- CONTROL THE TEMPO ( shorten the game - gave us a better chance for the W )
2- PROTECT THE BALL ( limit turnovers )
3- COMPETE ON THE BOARDS ( LIMIT their offensive rebounds to 1 per quarter )
4- MAKE THEIR 5TH PLAYER BEAT YOU ( take away their strengths
5- GET A GOOD SHOT EVERY TIME DOWN THE FLOOR.

I would tell them to play to our strengths, take away theirs - be patient and make them play a lot of defense. Leave it all on the floor, the last thing you want to do is walk away saying IF I HAD ONLY DONE THIS OR THAT. Play HARD - Play SMART and HAVE FUN.

I hope this helps, let me know how it goes.

eteug · **Posts:** 13

Coach,
your advice totaly worked.we played great defense and matched them in all aspects as adviced.Their bigs got a combined 18pts and they made 25 freethrows and the other guard scored 21 hard earned points.we fouled him out and their bigs too hence helping us win the game 79-73.

we have now qualified for playoffs and are most likely to play this super fast team of basicaly guards who can post up,play out well and run like crazy.
Your take on that coz the series will be a best of 5.
Thanks
GAD

eteug wrote:

Coach,
Totally agree with you.Picking our poison is the way to go because the two post players i told you about have the best shots in the league actually,so we run a defensive scheme yesterday that does not allow easy passes to the post and also forces them to play mostly from the outside.Today is the final prep for the game and i sure would like to try and ensure that the guys slow down the tempo of the game the way we did in the last game.I just also got the video of the last game and so we will watch it before the game tomorrow,although am thinking of letting the guys also watch our last years final championship game and challenge them not to allow anybody take away that moment from them? Your thoughts on this ASAP will be great.

Also if it were you in this position,what would you tell your guys?

Thanks alot.

Coach Sar wrote:

I liked your game plan Gad ... make them play D! Most guys don't want to do that for any extended period of time. I would use that same philosophy in the next few games too. Make them play your style. Teams hate to be dictated too....

As regards our next game and my team,its a semi pro team i coach so my oldest guy is about 35yrs and youngest is 24.These opponents get points from the 3 and drives to the basket and also have two youthfull post players who are racking up a combined 35points per game.

It seems like this next team has a lot of weapons... inside and outside..... Sometimes we have to pick our poison.... IF this was me, I would make sure that they don't get the ball inside ( or as little as possible ) stop the drives and force them to beat you from the arc. Its hard to stop everything but at least you can say that IF they are going to beat me, they are going to have to shoot well from the "3" ---

Pack your defense and pressure the guy with the ball.... ?? Pack your defense and challenge the 3 point shooter .... thats how I see your options here.... I would control the tempo again...... 3 point shooters like to get in a zone so to speak..... but if they are not getting their touches and shots, they become antsy and will take bad shots. Shorten the game - keep yourself in the game to the end and then do what you need to do going down the wire.

Thats how I would play this game.... what are your thoughts?

Coach Sar · **Posts:** 3139

Congratulations Gad - another HUGE victory......

The first thing I would do with your next opponent would be to SLOW this game down... A LOT! SHORTEN the game.... I don't know if you have a shot clock to contend with but at the high school level around here we don't.

This is something we did with a lot of success from time to time -
We called it "CUT ONE" which meant that we were going to take the clock down to the next minute - so, if the clock read 6:40, we weren't shooting until the clock read 5:59 UNLESS we got a wide open lay up. How would your players like to play D for 40 seconds? Most of the kids around here hated that - especially the GOOD TEAMS... they wanted to run and gun, shoot quickly IF they got good shots.

THIS style really messes with them.... they WILL take bad shots once they get the ball after playing D for that long... UNLESS they are really disiciplined.
I would pack 4 guys in while pressuring the guy with the ball - or at the least getting a hand in his face when they are shooting.

You might think about running some junk defenses at them also - Box & 1 - Triangle & 2 etc. (Next year talk to me about the match up defense we ran..... I dont think that you have enough time to put this in and run it well right now..)

Good luck and let me know what your thoughts are right now?

Coach Sar · **Posts:** 3139

Here is something that goes along with our thoughts regarding PICKING YOUR POISON.

" When you try to defend everything, you defend nothing."
Dick Bennett

eteug · **Posts:** 13

Coach you never seize to amaze with yo wit.Yo absolutely right.

As it is now,our confidence has shot up and so today we kinda tonned things down.our challenge now is to prepare well.considering the teams we are going to play are fast.what are some of the areas you would focus on going into playoffs.we play best of 5 and then 7 in the finals here in Uganda.
Are you on face book,you could send me a friend request so that we could chat tonite.
Gad

Coach Sar wrote:

Here is something that goes along with our thoughts regarding PICKING YOUR POISON.

" When you try to defend everything, you defend nothing."
Dick Bennett

Coach Sar · **Posts:** 3139

Not on face book Gad, do enough things now, would never be off the computer haha--

I do have Yahoo messenger though it you have that....

As for things I would cover - the first thing I would ask is - " What are the 5 things we need to do to beat this team? "
List them and set up drills to get them done.

Thinking about what you have told me about them....... fast and good shooters?

1- Post defense
2- Closing out on shooters
3- Preventing penetration

4- Passing, ball handling and reading the defense
5 - REVERSING the ball at least 3-4 times to shorten the game and keep them from all the running
6- Shooting
7- I would try to work on that CUT ONE I explained to you..... IF that fits into your plans

Back to the Keys for the game -

1- CONTROL THE TEMPO ( shorten the game - gave us a better chance for the W )
2- PROTECT THE BALL ( limit turnovers )
3- COMPETE ON THE BOARDS ( LIMIT their offensive rebounds to 1 per quarter )
4- MAKE THEIR 5TH PLAYER BEAT YOU ( take away their strengths
5- GET A GOOD SHOT EVERY TIME DOWN THE FLOOR.

Thoughts?

eteug · **Posts:** 13

Coach,
Great list of areas to work on,you just nailed it for mer coz it falls exactly in the area that we need to improve as a team generally.I have however added one or two areas to help us protect the ball and rebound well as a unit.I think we need to practice our press breakers and offensive sets over and over so as to improve on unit execution.
Any good press breakers you could get me would do well for me?
Iam still struggling with understanding the CUT ONE concept.

i also have a yahoo messenger so you can send me mail on eteug@yahoo.com
Thanks
Gad

Coach Sar wrote:

Not on face book Gad, do enough things now, would never be off the computer haha--

I do have Yahoo messenger though it you have that....

As for things I would cover - the first thing I would ask is - " What are the 5 things we need to do to beat this team? "
List them and set up drills to get them done.

Thinking about what you have told me about them....... fast and good shooters?

1- Post defense
2- Closing out on shooters
3- Preventing penetration

4- Passing, ball handling and reading the defense
5 - REVERSING the ball at least 3-4 times to shorten the game and keep them from all the running
6- Shooting
7- I would try to work on that CUT ONE I explained to you..... IF that fits into your plans

Back to the Keys for the game -

1- CONTROL THE TEMPO ( shorten the game - gave us a better chance for the W )
2- PROTECT THE BALL ( limit turnovers )
3- COMPETE ON THE BOARDS ( LIMIT their offensive rebounds to 1 per quarter )
4- MAKE THEIR 5TH PLAYER BEAT YOU ( take away their strengths
5- GET A GOOD SHOT EVERY TIME DOWN THE FLOOR.

Thoughts?

eteug · **Posts:** 13

eteug wrote:

Coach,
Great list of areas to work on,you just nailed it for mer coz it falls exactly in the area that we need to improve as a team generally.I have however added one or two areas to help us protect the ball and rebound well as a unit.I think we need to practice our press breakers and offensive sets over and over so as to improve on unit execution.
Any good press breakers you could get me would do well for me?
Iam still struggling with understanding the CUT ONE concept.The reason i say so is,how can i be able to teach the guys how to wear down the clock without compromising the offensive set up that we run?

i also have a yahoo messenger so you can send me mail on eteug@yahoo.com
Thanks
Gad

Coach Sar wrote:

Not on face book Gad, do enough things now, would never be off the computer haha--

I do have Yahoo messenger though it you have that....

As for things I would cover - the first thing I would ask is - " What are the 5 things we need to do to beat this team? "
List them and set up drills to get them done.

Thinking about what you have told me about them....... fast and good shooters?

1- Post defense
2- Closing out on shooters
3- Preventing penetration

4- Passing, ball handling and reading the defense
5 - REVERSING the ball at least 3-4 times to shorten the game and keep them from all the running
6- Shooting
7- I would try to work on that CUT ONE I explained to you..... IF that fits into your plans

Back to the Keys for the game -

1- CONTROL THE TEMPO ( shorten the game - gave us a better chance for the W )
2- PROTECT THE BALL ( limit turnovers )
3- COMPETE ON THE BOARDS ( LIMIT their offensive rebounds to 1 per quarter )
4- MAKE THEIR 5TH PLAYER BEAT YOU ( take away their strengths
5- GET A GOOD SHOT EVERY TIME DOWN THE FLOOR.

Thoughts?

Coach Sar · **Posts:** 3139

Coach,
Great list of areas to work on,you just nailed it for mer coz it falls exactly in the area that we need to improve as a team generally.I have however added one or two areas to help us protect the ball and rebound well as a unit.I think we need to practice our press breakers and offensive sets over and over so as to improve on unit execution.
Any good press breakers you could get me would do well for me?
Iam still struggling with understanding the CUT ONE concept.

i also have a yahoo messenger so you can send me mail on eteug@yahoo.com
Thanks
Gad

Gad.
You and I are on the same pages regarding areas to work on.... as far as these:
1- We called it our PRESS OFFENSE.... and I am not so sure that I would change that right now..... we practiced ours EVERY DAY for 10 -15 minutes so they knew it in their sleep........ staying calm and execution is the key here..... we told them NOT to worry about a 10 second violation, we can deal with that because we can play D when they take the ball out of bounds, so stick with the one you are using and make sure they can execute it well.

Coach Sar · **Posts:** 3139

2- As for sets - we ran them at the beginning of every practice every day without a defense - that way they all know exactly what to do and all the options... I picked that up from Kevin Oneil when he was at Northwestern University. Then you can run them vs a defense

3- As for CUTTING ONE ---- think of it this way... there is 7:39 on the clock.... we were going to run our offense until it got down to at least 6:59 UNLESS we got a lay up - this way we controlled the tempo and shortened the game vs the better teams.... in this case that is running 40 seconds off the clock.... The CUTTING ONE part is gettting down to a lower minute on the clock.... 7 to 6 - 6 to 5 etc... is that clearer?