PASS THE BALL!
So another defeat in the basketball league. Today I had a good feeling about the game and I knew what I wanted the team to do. Maybe I didn’t get across what I wanted them to do as I should have. Maybe Michael and Tom knew what I wanted, but Dave or Paul didn’t? Anyway, I’m not to know what they were thinking. As it is the whole team has to be on the same page. One player triumphs we all triumph.
Tonight’s game against Ayr I saw ‘moments’. The game started off well with a fairly even game and in moments we played well. When we moved the ball around and looked for the inside pass we got good looks. I don’t think this game was the worst of the season. The feeling wasmade a lot worse by the fact it was close all the way. Anything could have happened up until the last minute to upset Ayr’s small lead they had on us.
So what were the moments that made us bad? I believe it was a snow-balling effect. We were going out and looking to play the good game. However there were moments when an Ayr player got a tip on a pass, the ball never dropped for a wide-open lay-up, the pass fell out of someone’s fingers as it was on it’s way to them, a lay-up deflected off the rim after a good effort, a misguided pass etc. I felt these were the moments that hurt the soul of our team. When you’re not playing your best your heart can sink. What was the cause of these little turn over here and there? These moments? I think its lack of consistent training. For the first season ever we’ve had good numbers for our team and there was a vast improvement in the team at the start of the season when we had like 10 or more trainings in a row with 10+ players. Once the season started the trainings became sparing and inconsistent. Although we had a good wealth of players we haven’t trained consistently since the beginning of the season. So we got to this point at the start of the season where we reached this level and then it stopped. We never got the benefit you get from training week in/ week out. Training keeps you sharp as well. The sporadic trainings players have come in and have not been SHARP. So when we went to the game tonight we were not sharp, which resulted in the jittery butter finger-moments. Playing when you’re jittry is not the best environment.
I played this game as a coach basically only coming in for a few moments at the end of the game. I did not put myself in for the reason we had a lot of players and I felt they were doing well in the rotations and I wanted to keep an eye on the game as a coach. If anyone complains about their court time then they can see me later. However I think complaining about court time is a selfish thing as well. Granted you keep your best players on for the longest you do mix it up with the supporting cast members. I said to Michael earlier on today I’d rather play less minutes, enjoy good team basketball and win. Maybe it was a mistake not putting myself on more. From the court side I could see where it went wrong each time and felt I learned a lot more about the game there. When players started doing the individual things that weren’t the right idea I could see it and know whay it wasn’t the best idea. What were the bad ideas? One player driving against two players or a clump of players, not passing the ball, dribbling too much, taking that three pointer too early into the offence, moaning at other players, putting their head down, going for the big spectacular block etc. The three pointer thing wasn’t much of a problem as we didn’t really sit outside jacking up three’s allnight, but there were a few moments when Grassie hit a few threes that he missed. They were unnecessary as it was too early in the offence and I think the main reason he shot it was because the other teams defence off the ball was quite good. It felt like he shot it because he couldn’t find a pass. This is a frustration shot. Doing things out of frustration never works. Letting out frustration by forcing something is not the right idea.
In essence not one player was guilty of overly playing their own game. It happened in moments. Each player had a moment where they went to another game. I think players went to their individual game because of frustration. Frustrated I’m not getting a pass, frustrated that the defender is reaching and stealing, frustrated that you didn’t catch the ball, that you missed a shot, you didn’t make a pass, turned the ball over. Once frustration sets in the player becomes narrow minded and starts viewing the game, analysing it and breaking others down and are too busy focussing on other peoples mistakes than focus on playing the team game. It’s like in acting, once an actor starts being self aware of their performance and start analysing it themselves they become insecure and more likely to play badly. It’s the director job to view them and the actors job to let their barrier down and trust the advice being given by the director.
It’s the director/coaches job to talk to an actor/player to get the best performance from them. In films it’s to get a believable performance. In basketball it’s about getting a good team performance out of the player. And like both, with minimal direction. I’ve been learning how to talk to actors. It’s hard, but I know what to do and what not to do. Now for basketball I’ll need to learn how to talk to a team of players with minimal direction. Often at timeouts I felt I had too little time so need to work on what I say. This is something that comes with experience and knowing you said the wrong thing.
I do feel that I don’t ask players to play a selfish game. I don’t say “Paul ur gonna go yourself!”, “Chris don’t pass the ball” “Grassie hit that three pointer shot with plenty of time on the clock”, “Mikey and Tom, over dribble the ball” “Stuart, dribble into trouble for me?” “ok guys, I don’t want you to look for the open man” “I want you to moan at each other” and “Well you fucked up you should be pissed with yourself”.
So in keeping with not saying too much I’ll close off with this. To be the better player the team have to focus on their goal. I have to let them know what that goal is and how to achieve this. What is this goal? The overall team goal is to find the easy shot inside and score it. So how do the players achieve this? We achieve this goal by running our offence as we should but most importantly for each player is “When you get the ball, put your head u and look for the open man to pass to.” That’s it. In essence that’s all they need to know. Too much information is confusing. They player who gets the open shot will know when that shot is right. When you’ve passed the ball about well you just know when it’s right to take that shot.
So I’ll end with two famous quotes from Mick, “LOOK UP!” . . . “PASS THE BALL!”
Tonight’s game against Ayr I saw ‘moments’. The game started off well with a fairly even game and in moments we played well. When we moved the ball around and looked for the inside pass we got good looks. I don’t think this game was the worst of the season. The feeling wasmade a lot worse by the fact it was close all the way. Anything could have happened up until the last minute to upset Ayr’s small lead they had on us.
So what were the moments that made us bad? I believe it was a snow-balling effect. We were going out and looking to play the good game. However there were moments when an Ayr player got a tip on a pass, the ball never dropped for a wide-open lay-up, the pass fell out of someone’s fingers as it was on it’s way to them, a lay-up deflected off the rim after a good effort, a misguided pass etc. I felt these were the moments that hurt the soul of our team. When you’re not playing your best your heart can sink. What was the cause of these little turn over here and there? These moments? I think its lack of consistent training. For the first season ever we’ve had good numbers for our team and there was a vast improvement in the team at the start of the season when we had like 10 or more trainings in a row with 10+ players. Once the season started the trainings became sparing and inconsistent. Although we had a good wealth of players we haven’t trained consistently since the beginning of the season. So we got to this point at the start of the season where we reached this level and then it stopped. We never got the benefit you get from training week in/ week out. Training keeps you sharp as well. The sporadic trainings players have come in and have not been SHARP. So when we went to the game tonight we were not sharp, which resulted in the jittery butter finger-moments. Playing when you’re jittry is not the best environment.
I played this game as a coach basically only coming in for a few moments at the end of the game. I did not put myself in for the reason we had a lot of players and I felt they were doing well in the rotations and I wanted to keep an eye on the game as a coach. If anyone complains about their court time then they can see me later. However I think complaining about court time is a selfish thing as well. Granted you keep your best players on for the longest you do mix it up with the supporting cast members. I said to Michael earlier on today I’d rather play less minutes, enjoy good team basketball and win. Maybe it was a mistake not putting myself on more. From the court side I could see where it went wrong each time and felt I learned a lot more about the game there. When players started doing the individual things that weren’t the right idea I could see it and know whay it wasn’t the best idea. What were the bad ideas? One player driving against two players or a clump of players, not passing the ball, dribbling too much, taking that three pointer too early into the offence, moaning at other players, putting their head down, going for the big spectacular block etc. The three pointer thing wasn’t much of a problem as we didn’t really sit outside jacking up three’s allnight, but there were a few moments when Grassie hit a few threes that he missed. They were unnecessary as it was too early in the offence and I think the main reason he shot it was because the other teams defence off the ball was quite good. It felt like he shot it because he couldn’t find a pass. This is a frustration shot. Doing things out of frustration never works. Letting out frustration by forcing something is not the right idea.
In essence not one player was guilty of overly playing their own game. It happened in moments. Each player had a moment where they went to another game. I think players went to their individual game because of frustration. Frustrated I’m not getting a pass, frustrated that the defender is reaching and stealing, frustrated that you didn’t catch the ball, that you missed a shot, you didn’t make a pass, turned the ball over. Once frustration sets in the player becomes narrow minded and starts viewing the game, analysing it and breaking others down and are too busy focussing on other peoples mistakes than focus on playing the team game. It’s like in acting, once an actor starts being self aware of their performance and start analysing it themselves they become insecure and more likely to play badly. It’s the director job to view them and the actors job to let their barrier down and trust the advice being given by the director.
It’s the director/coaches job to talk to an actor/player to get the best performance from them. In films it’s to get a believable performance. In basketball it’s about getting a good team performance out of the player. And like both, with minimal direction. I’ve been learning how to talk to actors. It’s hard, but I know what to do and what not to do. Now for basketball I’ll need to learn how to talk to a team of players with minimal direction. Often at timeouts I felt I had too little time so need to work on what I say. This is something that comes with experience and knowing you said the wrong thing.
I do feel that I don’t ask players to play a selfish game. I don’t say “Paul ur gonna go yourself!”, “Chris don’t pass the ball” “Grassie hit that three pointer shot with plenty of time on the clock”, “Mikey and Tom, over dribble the ball” “Stuart, dribble into trouble for me?” “ok guys, I don’t want you to look for the open man” “I want you to moan at each other” and “Well you fucked up you should be pissed with yourself”.
So in keeping with not saying too much I’ll close off with this. To be the better player the team have to focus on their goal. I have to let them know what that goal is and how to achieve this. What is this goal? The overall team goal is to find the easy shot inside and score it. So how do the players achieve this? We achieve this goal by running our offence as we should but most importantly for each player is “When you get the ball, put your head u and look for the open man to pass to.” That’s it. In essence that’s all they need to know. Too much information is confusing. They player who gets the open shot will know when that shot is right. When you’ve passed the ball about well you just know when it’s right to take that shot.
So I’ll end with two famous quotes from Mick, “LOOK UP!” . . . “PASS THE BALL!”