Breakthrough Basketball

In this email, we’re going to talk defense! Additionally, we also have a little personal note for you to check out at the bottom of the email.

All great defenses start with this…

Guarding the basketball!

If you can’t stop the ball, it doesn’t matter how great your help defense is.

If you put your defense at a constant disadvantage, good teams will beat you!

In this new article, we discuss guarding the basketball. This breaks down how you should position your body when playing defense.

The popular topic of forcing baseline or forcing middle is also addressed. If you do this, there are some things you might want to reconsider.

There is a breakdown of the different approaches used by Chris Beard and Tony Bennett. The subtle differences can have a tremendous impact on your defense!

Then we share some advice for coaches at the youth or high school level.

A personal note...

Since we started Breakthrough back in 2006, two things have slowly diminished over time…

And these are two things that I really enjoy and really kept me passionate about what I do!

1 - Personal conversations with you.

2 - Talking about life lessons and character development within coaching.

Since then, Breakthrough Basketball has grown tremendously from a hobby to a legit business. And many of us at Breakthrough have started small families! So what was once a 24 hour day feels more like a 4 hour day.

So we can’t respond to emails personally like we used to because we wouldn’t ever get anything done. However, I do still read them and love to hear from all of you!

Your stories (good and bad) and ideas are what keep us going.

We enjoy the emails that ask us how we’re doing and what we’re up to. But it’s impossible to respond to every one. That’s why I’m going to include more little things about personal life in the newsletter.

Anyways, let’s get to the good stuff...

In the picture above, I’m (Joe) with my wife Annie and my two boys Gunner (blonde hair) and Sutton. We stayed at Wilderness Lodge at Disney and we’re celebrating Gunner’s 6th birthday!

And I can’t believe that… It feels like yesterday that he was born and I was calling him Beldar because he looked like a conehead after birth. A funny side note, he shrunk from 21 inches to 19.5 inches at his second appointment because his head finally rounded.

Anyways, back to Disney… The boys spent most of the time at the pool. And went down the slide about 50 times. And when they weren’t going down the slide, they were begging me to launch them in the air.

At night, the boys cooked s'mores at Fort Wilderness Lodge and we enjoyed a little night time movie. It was a great day!

All the Best!

Joe and Jeff Haefner
Breakthrough Basketball