A week of practices has gone by with GL and I’m pretty pleased overall with both practices.
Monday saw the start of our one hour practices. The sixth grade team practices before us. I would like to scrimmage them at some point, though admittedly I have a lot less to lose than does Jon (coach of the 6th grade team).
With only an hour on Mondays we’re not going to waste anytime and I tried to convey that urgency to the team, successfully I think. I said since we’d only done open gym two times we were going to try it two more times if the team wanted. Overwhelmingly they did. However, while this open gym was better than the last one, in that more people choose to just shoot around, I think with the missing half hour that after next week open gym will just fall by the wayside for the time being (it doesn’t make sense to do at our Thursday practice space because it only has 2 10 foot baskets).
After that we did our Princeton continuous motion drill. They always clamor for this drill, I think because it hadn’t been as physically demanding. When we got to three balls suddenly they weren’t standing around as much (the reason I think they liked it), but they got very sloppy. It was disappointing. However, when I gave them a goal for how many baskets to make in 2 minutes they made it. I emphasized that is how they should be running the drill the whole time.
After free throws and a water break we went into our shell drill. We did some pretty good work with that, but the work also told me we need to be doing this more regularly. I know how important the shell drill is and so I need to make sure I continue to use it as a change of pace drill, despite it being one they don’t like and which has players sitting out.
Next with them in two groups, we did some work on making full speed layups. We again met our goal, which was nice. We then concluded practice with “bubble” in two different groups. One player is on the free throw line with the rest in blocks. If a player misses and the next player makes it they’re out. David and Jack P were out champions. We did a championship round with David winning. Since the drill was popular we’ll use it again. It was time to go home.
Yesterday we had our second practice. I get there early and find that there is girls house league practicing in the space. I was very impressed with how upbeat and positive the coaches were. I felt bad for one of the teams since there was only one father/coach and it was clear he didn’t really know what he was doing (for instance they were scrimmaging and he was basically encouraging them to all be close to the ball to get a pass. While that’s fine for 3 on 3, it’s bad news in 5 on 5). One of the teams doesn’t quite end practice on time so we start a few minutes late.
I start us off with our defensive slide continuous motion. After they go for about 6 minutes, with better quality than before, I set a team goal: Using two lines going one at a time if everyone finishes in 2:20 we’ll go for a minute more. Otherwise we’ll go for 3. We finish with 10 seconds to spare.
After free throws and a water break we work on our zone breaker. I made the mistake of not running it through without a defense first so Justin and Andrew have forgotten what they’re supposed to do and Lucas is also confused about what he does, even though he was doing the same thing as what he did last year and there was some confusion from Jack P, though that’s understandable as he’s in a somewhat new role this year. While overall the defense stopped our groups, the players were doing a better job of improvising and starting to figure out how it worked. I was also particularly pleased with my teaching in that there was a lot of good whole group and 1 on 1 instruction. I really do think the play can work this year, but we’re going to need to do a lot more work so that’s what we’ll do.
Next we did some 1 on 1 work. It was a simple, stay in defensive position while your partner zig zag dribbles up the court. It’s become apparent that my team needs work, and sure enough this is true. I matched them up roughly according to speed and quite a few players had trouble keeping up. I might even do this as a continuous motion, as that’s what it essentially turned into, though when we have 11 players (Cameron was sick) it gets trickier. Defensive stance and sliding is one of the few fundamentals I feel that I taught well last year and most of the players, when reminded, will do them. So it’s a matter of getting them to execute at a higher level.
After a water break, we did the last drill of the evening. They were in two teams doing our 3 on 5 press break drill. Brian got very whiney during this drill when he didn’t like one of my calls and Jack M got a little whiney. In general I think I’ve let things get lack with that area and am going to pull it back in a little before it gets out of control. The offense did a better job early on at breaking the press but the victories became much harder won by the end. One of the big problems had been David dribbling out of trouble. He did a better job of not doing this by having him be the in bounder so he would frequently be the one to receive a pass back. In general it didn’t tangle him up as much and kept others back to help.
And it was then time to go home. I feel like there was some good learning this week, especially considering we didn’t have a game over the weekend to focus us. If we can sustain this level of practice next week, when we play WK, if we look bad I won’t feel like it’s because of lack of preparation. A big focus next week will be us installing our own press, in addition to continued emphasis on our man to man defense, a little work on the zone offense, and the return of the Mikan drill.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
HP vs WM
Sorry that I’m a day late on this. I simply didn’t have time yesterday to write this up.
The notable event from warm-up is a warm-up drill that WM did. They had their players stand in an arc around the basket. Two players would have the ball. One would shoot. If he missed whoever the ball bounced to kept it. If he made it the coach passed it to another person. The other person would then shoot. It was a nice, low activity, warm-up drill.
WM comes out fouling. It is their first game, and it shows. They get into bonus, and double bonus, before the first period is over. Unfortunately the free throws all go to Jack A who is one of our worst free throw shooters and he only makes 1 of 6. Equally unfortunately, Josh gets into early foul trouble, which is a shame because he scored 6 points in the first. We go into the second up 8-6. In the second we extend our lead, with a variety of kids scoring. Josh basically sits the whole quarter out as he picks up a quick 3rd foul. With about 90 seconds left Jack A gets hurt and I put Josh back in. I tell him if he gets a 4th foul I’ll need to sit him the whole 3rd so he needs to be super careful. Right away there is one play that the ref rules a block but could have gone either way. Later on there is a play where Josh backs away. His dad, who is standing on our sideline, rather than sitting with the parents, yells at him. When there is a stop I explain to him that because Josh had so many fouls he was under instructions to be super careful. His dad apologizes to me and then as we are going out to meet at half, apologizes to Josh.
Since we’re only playing with 8 players, as Ben and Jon are in Arizona and Gavin’s at a hockey tournament, my big message is to just rest. We’re playing alright. Not terribly well, as our man defense is looking poor at times, but not terribly either. The good news is that we do a much better job of breaking the press than we had in previous games. The third quarter is basically a wash. In the 4th quarter they switch to a zone, and we struggle. We never lose our lead, but it gets mighty close. Part of this is due to the fact that we have two kids, Jack A and Danny, foul out and commit 14 fouls in the half, and so we are forced to finish with 6 very tired players. That’s just absurd and we’re going to have to improve on that as many of them were of the kind of fouls that aren’t great. With 30 seconds left we’re up by 4. They manage to get a quick steal and basket. They manage to get another quick steal but miss the shot, get the rebound, but Zach rips it out of their hands. He starts to dribble it up, gets the ball stolen from him. WM drives in, and in my opinion gets fouled, but there’s no call. We pull out the victory, but it was not a pretty win. The kids seems as despondent as I’ve ever seen them at the end of the game.
We have some clear areas to work on. The good news is that the effort we put into beat a press seems to have worked. The bad news is that we have a whole bunch of other areas to work on.
Taking a look at the players who were there:
Jacob – Without Gavin, and the twins, we counted on his inside presence more than ever. And while he showed a good court sense, he didn’t have the athletic ability to back it up. He got numerous balls stolen from him, in that he’d get the rebound and then they’d force a jump ball. His dribbling isn’t as good as everyone elses so that means when he’s open deep on a fast break he can’t convert. He was the only kid not to score.
Zach -- He struggled the most when they switched to a zone. His ability to drive was effectively neutralized and he had trouble, despite instruction, in making the switch in strategy. He did do a good job, however of basically locking down their best player during the 4th quarter.
Jack A – He continues to be a work in progress. I’m not sure we made any progress this week though. He needs more reinforcement about how to play man to man. His drives also weren’t as effective as normal, though I’m not quite sure the reason.
Henry – Played point for us a lot of the time he was in. Not a great point guard, but I think he’s got the most there so I’m going to be putting in the continued effort to try and grow his skills. He made two crucial free throws late in the 4th to put us up by 4 after they’d cut the lead to 2. He’s not a great free throw shooter so I give him lots of credit in coming through in the clutch.
Josh – Scored 12 of our 30 points. Would have had more if I hadn’t had to sit him so much due to the fouls in the first half. Like I said he’s a good shooter, though many of his other skills, such as hustle, dribbling, or defense, could be better. Does seem to understand, better than the rest, the key to breaking presses which is good. I gave him some time at point and we might try that some more to see how it works.
Danny – I didn’t think he deserved to foul out. Not quite sure where the fouls came from, in other words, as I thought he was playing tough, but clean man for most of the game.
Adam – A tad slower and less athletic than many of the kids out there. He tries hard, but the results just aren’t there. I’ve found that I’m giving him a lot of negative feedback, so I’ve resolved to be far more positive with him, despite there being less to be positive about.
Jack B – A solid scrapper. Probably our best defender at man to man. If he were taller he’d be a dynamo. Played exactly the kind of game I’d hope for him to play.
With that we’re off for the rest of the week. I’m not sure when my next update will be. GL starts it’s new Monday for an hour, Wednesday for an hour and a half practice schedule so there might be a practice update or two. Otherwise HP plays two games Dec 2 so look for an update after those.
The notable event from warm-up is a warm-up drill that WM did. They had their players stand in an arc around the basket. Two players would have the ball. One would shoot. If he missed whoever the ball bounced to kept it. If he made it the coach passed it to another person. The other person would then shoot. It was a nice, low activity, warm-up drill.
WM comes out fouling. It is their first game, and it shows. They get into bonus, and double bonus, before the first period is over. Unfortunately the free throws all go to Jack A who is one of our worst free throw shooters and he only makes 1 of 6. Equally unfortunately, Josh gets into early foul trouble, which is a shame because he scored 6 points in the first. We go into the second up 8-6. In the second we extend our lead, with a variety of kids scoring. Josh basically sits the whole quarter out as he picks up a quick 3rd foul. With about 90 seconds left Jack A gets hurt and I put Josh back in. I tell him if he gets a 4th foul I’ll need to sit him the whole 3rd so he needs to be super careful. Right away there is one play that the ref rules a block but could have gone either way. Later on there is a play where Josh backs away. His dad, who is standing on our sideline, rather than sitting with the parents, yells at him. When there is a stop I explain to him that because Josh had so many fouls he was under instructions to be super careful. His dad apologizes to me and then as we are going out to meet at half, apologizes to Josh.
Since we’re only playing with 8 players, as Ben and Jon are in Arizona and Gavin’s at a hockey tournament, my big message is to just rest. We’re playing alright. Not terribly well, as our man defense is looking poor at times, but not terribly either. The good news is that we do a much better job of breaking the press than we had in previous games. The third quarter is basically a wash. In the 4th quarter they switch to a zone, and we struggle. We never lose our lead, but it gets mighty close. Part of this is due to the fact that we have two kids, Jack A and Danny, foul out and commit 14 fouls in the half, and so we are forced to finish with 6 very tired players. That’s just absurd and we’re going to have to improve on that as many of them were of the kind of fouls that aren’t great. With 30 seconds left we’re up by 4. They manage to get a quick steal and basket. They manage to get another quick steal but miss the shot, get the rebound, but Zach rips it out of their hands. He starts to dribble it up, gets the ball stolen from him. WM drives in, and in my opinion gets fouled, but there’s no call. We pull out the victory, but it was not a pretty win. The kids seems as despondent as I’ve ever seen them at the end of the game.
We have some clear areas to work on. The good news is that the effort we put into beat a press seems to have worked. The bad news is that we have a whole bunch of other areas to work on.
Taking a look at the players who were there:
Jacob – Without Gavin, and the twins, we counted on his inside presence more than ever. And while he showed a good court sense, he didn’t have the athletic ability to back it up. He got numerous balls stolen from him, in that he’d get the rebound and then they’d force a jump ball. His dribbling isn’t as good as everyone elses so that means when he’s open deep on a fast break he can’t convert. He was the only kid not to score.
Zach -- He struggled the most when they switched to a zone. His ability to drive was effectively neutralized and he had trouble, despite instruction, in making the switch in strategy. He did do a good job, however of basically locking down their best player during the 4th quarter.
Jack A – He continues to be a work in progress. I’m not sure we made any progress this week though. He needs more reinforcement about how to play man to man. His drives also weren’t as effective as normal, though I’m not quite sure the reason.
Henry – Played point for us a lot of the time he was in. Not a great point guard, but I think he’s got the most there so I’m going to be putting in the continued effort to try and grow his skills. He made two crucial free throws late in the 4th to put us up by 4 after they’d cut the lead to 2. He’s not a great free throw shooter so I give him lots of credit in coming through in the clutch.
Josh – Scored 12 of our 30 points. Would have had more if I hadn’t had to sit him so much due to the fouls in the first half. Like I said he’s a good shooter, though many of his other skills, such as hustle, dribbling, or defense, could be better. Does seem to understand, better than the rest, the key to breaking presses which is good. I gave him some time at point and we might try that some more to see how it works.
Danny – I didn’t think he deserved to foul out. Not quite sure where the fouls came from, in other words, as I thought he was playing tough, but clean man for most of the game.
Adam – A tad slower and less athletic than many of the kids out there. He tries hard, but the results just aren’t there. I’ve found that I’m giving him a lot of negative feedback, so I’ve resolved to be far more positive with him, despite there being less to be positive about.
Jack B – A solid scrapper. Probably our best defender at man to man. If he were taller he’d be a dynamo. Played exactly the kind of game I’d hope for him to play.
With that we’re off for the rest of the week. I’m not sure when my next update will be. GL starts it’s new Monday for an hour, Wednesday for an hour and a half practice schedule so there might be a practice update or two. Otherwise HP plays two games Dec 2 so look for an update after those.
Monday, November 19, 2007
GL vs PL
Yet another double header day of games for me, and once again GL has the first game. We will be facing PL, the first team of the season who we’re unfamiliar with. In an unusual move for me I ask for the team to be there a half hour in advance. Unfortunately the team isn’t all prompt so we do a bit of a shoot around. Finally, I have the team go into our meeting space and play for them the Zone Offense videos I’ve created on my laptop. Overall, attention is fair for this. The bad part comes when at the end of the game I forget my laptop at the school. So far it hasn’t been found, but I’m still keeping my fingers crossed.
In the pregame talk I stress how this is PL’s firt game of the season so I would like to come out and take them by surprise. And overall this is what we do. Or would have done if we could make a lay-up. We miss just an appalling amount of somewhat open inside shots. I start with a line-up of Tom at point, David, Brian, Jack P (playing post), and Justin. At about 4 minutes in, I rotate this group out in favor of Cameron, Andrew, Scott, Lucas, and Dante with Scott playing point. As I said both groups do fairly well but we can’t make our shots. We finish the first up 6-5.
Things improve in the second quarter. I give some reminders about how we want to play defense and we don’t allow as many easy drives. David is still trying to break the press single handedly but when that doesn’t happen we actually manage to get some good looks. Further, by their speeding up the tempo of the game they start to play sloppily and we create some turnovers which we convert into baskets. We’re up 17-12 heading into half. One thing I was particularly proud of is quality minutes everyone received in the first half. This gives me wiggle room for the second half to either give our weaker players more time, if we pull away, or our stronger players the bulk of the time, if it remains close.
At half I congratulate them on a well played half. We then have a poor 3rd, or rather they have a good 3rd which we helped them to achieve. They do a good job of really cutting off our first pass and convert a lot of those into some easy baskets. We enter the 4th quarter down 27-25. And it’s time for Justin to take over. He rattles off 6 quick points, with a couple of other scoring as well, to give us a 7 point lead. PL cuts it down to 4, with 40 seconds left, after a successful 3 point shot, but we end up with a 43-37 victory.
We did MUCH better in this game than in the last game. PL really struggled with the tight traveling calls our refs call and unlike last week we did a much better job of avoiding this. I had stressed this during continuous motion during our practices and the reminder clearly paid off. We also did much better on the boards this week, despite once again being the smaller team. While we struggled in the 3rd, we made the necessary adjustments for the 4th. I feel like we were the better team and deserved the victory, unlike last week.
Taking a look at our players:
Andrew – He did a great job of helping us to beat our press in the 2nd by being down court but close enough to receive the pass. He had a few open looks at the basket as a result but didn’t score. However, he did find a nice jumper in the second to give him some points.
Brian – Had a couple of nice assists by getting the ball into the post, but was otherwise unremarkable.
Cameron – You could have forgotten he was on the court for all that he or his man touched the ball. I didn’t notice on defense if this was due to skill on his part or lack of skill on the person who he was guarding part.
Dante – The drop-off in rebounds between him and Justin continues to be noticeable. Dante had 1 rebound in 12 minutes to Justin’s 8 in 16 minutes. Dante does play good man to man, which is nice, as his man was out on the wing quite a bit even and Dante played him perfectly. But when Dante’s in the game I need to count on others to get that board, which is also a bit disappointing from a center. He did have a nice shot in the 4th quarter from farther out, so it was nice to see him regain a little of his offensive touch.
David – David is still the best player on the court most days. But the difference isn’t as great as it once was, and he hasn’t realized that things he was once able to do don’t work for him anymore. For instance, despite my not playing him at point that much, his 11 turnovers were nearly as many as the 13 the rest of the team committed. He continues to be a weak link on press break. I’m confident that with some coaching David will be able to continue to maximize his talents in a positive way for the team.
Jack M – When I did the complete swap-out in the first quarter Jack said how it was embarrassing that he was the only one not going in. I said, that with 11 players that’s going to happen to one person, but I did feel for him. I gave him a little crunch time play as a salve though when it got to the very end of the game I pulled him in favor of Dante’s free throw ability, and Jack felt frustrated at this. I didn’t play Jack at point which I think was the right decision, and a reason why our overall turnovers were down. However, if he’s not playing point he’s suddenly having to compete with a bunch of other players for minutes and so finding him time is going to be something I’ll have to pay attention to.
Jack P – He looked really good. His real skill comes in driving the baseline, rather than from the top of the key. Where as last year he wouldn’t make those shots, this year he has been. I asked him to play post and he responded with a solid 4 rebounds. I played him the whole 4th quarter. If he continues to shoot as well as he has been he’s going to make a strong case for being just as indispensable as David or Justin come crunch time.
Justin – Speaking of Justin, he continues to be the biggest reason why we’ve won this year. His ability to dribble, and do so from the left side (being a lefty) just catches people off guard. PL had to take their biggest player, and best rebounder, off the floor in the 4th after Justin dribbled by a couple of times, so that mismatch He hasn’t shown an ability to score from the right (I can’t remember a basket of his on the right side), so that’ll be something we’ll want to work on to improve his overall game. He is, in his quite way, our best player by far at this point in the season.
Lucas – Lucas hasn’t shown that explosiveness and spark that had me ready to have him be the centerpiece of our offense were the triplets not to have returned. I wonder if this is because he’s not starting, not getting into a rhythm or what. I think I might let him play a consecutive quarter and see if he just needs time to get into the flow. Otherwise I’d have to think that with his continuing to be short, he’s going to have to change his game, and work with him on making that transition.
Scott – Scott’s been my biggest disappointment this year. In fact he’s been my only disappointment. He’s been unfocused and unmotivated. I asked him in the 3rd quarter to go in and play point. He whined about playing point. So I said, no problem and had Lucas go in and play point instead. However, having made my point I did sub him in a minute or so of game time later and not at point. I’m going to tell him pretty bluntly that he will be a regular starter again when I see him putting in the effort and giving the attention that I expect. I feel he’ll respond well to this direct approach. That said, he rebounded nicely (pun intended) from the poor post game he had against LS, with some tough defense and 8 boards, though his 0-5 from the floor, with many if not all of those being lay-ups, was a little discouraging.
Tom – I’ve really done a disservice to Tom. I started him and played him a little in the first 3 quarters. Then the 4th came around, and I knew I needed to play him some more, and I didn’t. Tom has, by far, the fewest minutes on the team right now. He doesn’t deserve that Granted he’s not doing a whole lot for the team when he’s out there, but he deserves the chance to play. We play WK next and I worry, given that he already has confidence problems, about giving him some substantial playing time against a team we’re going to struggle against. However, in either the WK or LV game I am going to find some substantial playing time for him and I’m going to make sure not to short change him going forward.
I like where we're at heading into our game against WK, who if you recalled absolutley demolished us when we played them in a scrimmage last spring. If we can play them tough, win or lose, it'll show our 3-0 start is no fluke and that we are a team to contend with.
HP update will come tomorrow.
In the pregame talk I stress how this is PL’s firt game of the season so I would like to come out and take them by surprise. And overall this is what we do. Or would have done if we could make a lay-up. We miss just an appalling amount of somewhat open inside shots. I start with a line-up of Tom at point, David, Brian, Jack P (playing post), and Justin. At about 4 minutes in, I rotate this group out in favor of Cameron, Andrew, Scott, Lucas, and Dante with Scott playing point. As I said both groups do fairly well but we can’t make our shots. We finish the first up 6-5.
Things improve in the second quarter. I give some reminders about how we want to play defense and we don’t allow as many easy drives. David is still trying to break the press single handedly but when that doesn’t happen we actually manage to get some good looks. Further, by their speeding up the tempo of the game they start to play sloppily and we create some turnovers which we convert into baskets. We’re up 17-12 heading into half. One thing I was particularly proud of is quality minutes everyone received in the first half. This gives me wiggle room for the second half to either give our weaker players more time, if we pull away, or our stronger players the bulk of the time, if it remains close.
At half I congratulate them on a well played half. We then have a poor 3rd, or rather they have a good 3rd which we helped them to achieve. They do a good job of really cutting off our first pass and convert a lot of those into some easy baskets. We enter the 4th quarter down 27-25. And it’s time for Justin to take over. He rattles off 6 quick points, with a couple of other scoring as well, to give us a 7 point lead. PL cuts it down to 4, with 40 seconds left, after a successful 3 point shot, but we end up with a 43-37 victory.
We did MUCH better in this game than in the last game. PL really struggled with the tight traveling calls our refs call and unlike last week we did a much better job of avoiding this. I had stressed this during continuous motion during our practices and the reminder clearly paid off. We also did much better on the boards this week, despite once again being the smaller team. While we struggled in the 3rd, we made the necessary adjustments for the 4th. I feel like we were the better team and deserved the victory, unlike last week.
Taking a look at our players:
Andrew – He did a great job of helping us to beat our press in the 2nd by being down court but close enough to receive the pass. He had a few open looks at the basket as a result but didn’t score. However, he did find a nice jumper in the second to give him some points.
Brian – Had a couple of nice assists by getting the ball into the post, but was otherwise unremarkable.
Cameron – You could have forgotten he was on the court for all that he or his man touched the ball. I didn’t notice on defense if this was due to skill on his part or lack of skill on the person who he was guarding part.
Dante – The drop-off in rebounds between him and Justin continues to be noticeable. Dante had 1 rebound in 12 minutes to Justin’s 8 in 16 minutes. Dante does play good man to man, which is nice, as his man was out on the wing quite a bit even and Dante played him perfectly. But when Dante’s in the game I need to count on others to get that board, which is also a bit disappointing from a center. He did have a nice shot in the 4th quarter from farther out, so it was nice to see him regain a little of his offensive touch.
David – David is still the best player on the court most days. But the difference isn’t as great as it once was, and he hasn’t realized that things he was once able to do don’t work for him anymore. For instance, despite my not playing him at point that much, his 11 turnovers were nearly as many as the 13 the rest of the team committed. He continues to be a weak link on press break. I’m confident that with some coaching David will be able to continue to maximize his talents in a positive way for the team.
Jack M – When I did the complete swap-out in the first quarter Jack said how it was embarrassing that he was the only one not going in. I said, that with 11 players that’s going to happen to one person, but I did feel for him. I gave him a little crunch time play as a salve though when it got to the very end of the game I pulled him in favor of Dante’s free throw ability, and Jack felt frustrated at this. I didn’t play Jack at point which I think was the right decision, and a reason why our overall turnovers were down. However, if he’s not playing point he’s suddenly having to compete with a bunch of other players for minutes and so finding him time is going to be something I’ll have to pay attention to.
Jack P – He looked really good. His real skill comes in driving the baseline, rather than from the top of the key. Where as last year he wouldn’t make those shots, this year he has been. I asked him to play post and he responded with a solid 4 rebounds. I played him the whole 4th quarter. If he continues to shoot as well as he has been he’s going to make a strong case for being just as indispensable as David or Justin come crunch time.
Justin – Speaking of Justin, he continues to be the biggest reason why we’ve won this year. His ability to dribble, and do so from the left side (being a lefty) just catches people off guard. PL had to take their biggest player, and best rebounder, off the floor in the 4th after Justin dribbled by a couple of times, so that mismatch He hasn’t shown an ability to score from the right (I can’t remember a basket of his on the right side), so that’ll be something we’ll want to work on to improve his overall game. He is, in his quite way, our best player by far at this point in the season.
Lucas – Lucas hasn’t shown that explosiveness and spark that had me ready to have him be the centerpiece of our offense were the triplets not to have returned. I wonder if this is because he’s not starting, not getting into a rhythm or what. I think I might let him play a consecutive quarter and see if he just needs time to get into the flow. Otherwise I’d have to think that with his continuing to be short, he’s going to have to change his game, and work with him on making that transition.
Scott – Scott’s been my biggest disappointment this year. In fact he’s been my only disappointment. He’s been unfocused and unmotivated. I asked him in the 3rd quarter to go in and play point. He whined about playing point. So I said, no problem and had Lucas go in and play point instead. However, having made my point I did sub him in a minute or so of game time later and not at point. I’m going to tell him pretty bluntly that he will be a regular starter again when I see him putting in the effort and giving the attention that I expect. I feel he’ll respond well to this direct approach. That said, he rebounded nicely (pun intended) from the poor post game he had against LS, with some tough defense and 8 boards, though his 0-5 from the floor, with many if not all of those being lay-ups, was a little discouraging.
Tom – I’ve really done a disservice to Tom. I started him and played him a little in the first 3 quarters. Then the 4th came around, and I knew I needed to play him some more, and I didn’t. Tom has, by far, the fewest minutes on the team right now. He doesn’t deserve that Granted he’s not doing a whole lot for the team when he’s out there, but he deserves the chance to play. We play WK next and I worry, given that he already has confidence problems, about giving him some substantial playing time against a team we’re going to struggle against. However, in either the WK or LV game I am going to find some substantial playing time for him and I’m going to make sure not to short change him going forward.
I like where we're at heading into our game against WK, who if you recalled absolutley demolished us when we played them in a scrimmage last spring. If we can play them tough, win or lose, it'll show our 3-0 start is no fluke and that we are a team to contend with.
HP update will come tomorrow.
Friday, November 16, 2007
GL Practices
Well Wednesday’s practice was not a good one. Some of this was my fault, as while I had a list of things that I wanted to accomplish at the practice, I didn’t have a detailed practice plan laid out to give structure. And I definitely didn’t bring my A-Game in terms of handling them. However, some of it was definitely them. Scott, for instance, was absolutely off the wall. And the fact that only two kids had taken time to watch the video of how our zone break actually worked in action, meant that several of them felt emboldened to whine about how this play didn’t work last year. And it didn’t, but that’s exactly why I decided to take a new teaching approach to it.
Besides work on the zone offense, I also wanted to work on blocking out. And they simply aren’t doing a very good job of it. And that has to be my teaching right there. That part is frustrating to me, because I know that the teaching of fundamentals is a weakness for me. So being able to recognize the problem, work hard to put together the teaching points, and then still not be able to teach it? Ugh.
That leads us to last night. When I get to the gym, I arrive to find us locked out and basically the school is dark. The team arrives, but parents don’t leave as we struggle to find out if we can get in. Finally, I try to send the team home, but they won’t go. Just as they start to straggle off, Jack M sees a janitor through a window. And suddenly we have a practice.
I made sure to come into practice with a strong plan. I really struggled putting together the practice. On the one hand we had a lot of fundamentals that I wanted to go over. On the other hand after yesterday’s poor practice I wanted to make sure we had some fun. We started practice a few minutes late as I had to raise the baskets from 7 feet to 10. I word hard to be in a better mood, and in control, than I was yesterday. And overall it’s a better practice. We worked first on setting screens. During the game I played with them, they went a little overboard in terms of setting screens, but they certainly had the idea down, which was good to see. Following this we did some press break work. After showing them the principles I want to see (set screens off the ball, stay away from the corners, pass the ball, and come to the ball to receive a pass) we did a 3 on 5 press. Towards the end of the drill the offense started doing better. I like this 3 on 5 setup more than the 2 on 3 I’d done with HP last Saturday. I think we’ll do the 3 on 5 with HP this weekend as well. David really wants to just dribble his way out of trouble. Well it wasn’t working. I reminded them how they can literally pass the ball far up the court. Scott, being a baseball person, is likely our one who will do that more than most.
To conclude practice I let them scrimmage as a reward for persevering about practice where I was ready to send them home. To pick teams I had them randomly line up and shoot a free throw. The first six to make it were on Team A, the five others on Team B. David was on the team which missed and moaned about how I picked unfair teams again. I pointed out that I didn’t pick the teams. He still moaned. Anyhow, the scrimmage went fairly well. After initially doing well, we started to bunch up on the court, but I reminded them not to do it and it stopped. Overall fun was had.
I’m really glad we had practice yesterday. I feel like some learning was done and put everyone, or at least me, in better spirits after Wednesday. Saturday we play PL at home. I’ve decided if the team won’t follow through with watching the videos I made at home, I’ll make them watch it before the game, as Tom and Dante, who’d watched the videos, were rattling off my teaching points and really seemed to “get” how the pattern might work. Of course they’re two of the sharper kids to begin with, so that might be why they got it. We’ll see, either way on Sunday, I suppose.
Besides work on the zone offense, I also wanted to work on blocking out. And they simply aren’t doing a very good job of it. And that has to be my teaching right there. That part is frustrating to me, because I know that the teaching of fundamentals is a weakness for me. So being able to recognize the problem, work hard to put together the teaching points, and then still not be able to teach it? Ugh.
That leads us to last night. When I get to the gym, I arrive to find us locked out and basically the school is dark. The team arrives, but parents don’t leave as we struggle to find out if we can get in. Finally, I try to send the team home, but they won’t go. Just as they start to straggle off, Jack M sees a janitor through a window. And suddenly we have a practice.
I made sure to come into practice with a strong plan. I really struggled putting together the practice. On the one hand we had a lot of fundamentals that I wanted to go over. On the other hand after yesterday’s poor practice I wanted to make sure we had some fun. We started practice a few minutes late as I had to raise the baskets from 7 feet to 10. I word hard to be in a better mood, and in control, than I was yesterday. And overall it’s a better practice. We worked first on setting screens. During the game I played with them, they went a little overboard in terms of setting screens, but they certainly had the idea down, which was good to see. Following this we did some press break work. After showing them the principles I want to see (set screens off the ball, stay away from the corners, pass the ball, and come to the ball to receive a pass) we did a 3 on 5 press. Towards the end of the drill the offense started doing better. I like this 3 on 5 setup more than the 2 on 3 I’d done with HP last Saturday. I think we’ll do the 3 on 5 with HP this weekend as well. David really wants to just dribble his way out of trouble. Well it wasn’t working. I reminded them how they can literally pass the ball far up the court. Scott, being a baseball person, is likely our one who will do that more than most.
To conclude practice I let them scrimmage as a reward for persevering about practice where I was ready to send them home. To pick teams I had them randomly line up and shoot a free throw. The first six to make it were on Team A, the five others on Team B. David was on the team which missed and moaned about how I picked unfair teams again. I pointed out that I didn’t pick the teams. He still moaned. Anyhow, the scrimmage went fairly well. After initially doing well, we started to bunch up on the court, but I reminded them not to do it and it stopped. Overall fun was had.
I’m really glad we had practice yesterday. I feel like some learning was done and put everyone, or at least me, in better spirits after Wednesday. Saturday we play PL at home. I’ve decided if the team won’t follow through with watching the videos I made at home, I’ll make them watch it before the game, as Tom and Dante, who’d watched the videos, were rattling off my teaching points and really seemed to “get” how the pattern might work. Of course they’re two of the sharper kids to begin with, so that might be why they got it. We’ll see, either way on Sunday, I suppose.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
HP vs NF
After a brief respite at home, just long enough to enter the stats for the GL/LS game, it was time to head off to NF. I get to the game a good 45 minutes before the game and find Henry already there. He had thought he could see the B team play, not realizing that we don’t have parallel schedules. By the time the previous game ends the whole team is there. We have time for an abbreviated warm-up. And then the game’s off and running.
Or would be were the first half not painfully slow. We don’t do a good of finding good shots. The shots we did take didn’t go in. Fortunately our defense was excellent and we go into half up 9-7. The game changes pace in the second half, with us scoring 8 points in the second quarter, though 3 of those points came on a last second 3 pointer by Henry that was more luck than anything else. That gives us a 2 point lead going into the fourth. And the 4th is a battle. Unfortunately we just can’t stop their number 10, fouling him repeatedly, and he scores 9 points, 7 on free throws, and we end up losing by 2.
Where I felt bad about the GL victory, I feel very good about the HP loss. At this point, I think it’s somewhat clear that we don’t have the stamina to play 4 quarters. I subbed extensively, giving nearly equal playing time, but even that didn’t help. However, I figured that the one practice a week, and the day before our game at that, would hurt our ability to play 4 quarters. Also not helping was that I didn’t rotate our defends to put our best defenders on 10. This is because they had another player, 40, who was gigantic, and just killed us on the boards. The problems I saw at this game were far less than I had seen last week and certainly less than what I saw with GL. I was real pleased with the game despite the two point loss.
Taking a look at the team:
Adam – Looked slightly less lost out there than normal.
Ben – Did a pretty good job of guarding some taller players.
Danny – Was 0-5 from the floor along with a team high 4 turnovers. He’s a fast kid but he doesn’t play in control of himself, leading to shots which are just a little off and the ball to get away from him.
Gavin – Got banged up inside. He got into first half foul trouble leading him to sit a lot more than he would have otherwise. While he did a good job of guarding their #40, he went 0-3 from the floor, with close shots, and 0-6 from the FT line. But overall a good game
Henry – Scored that lucky 3 pointer. The only one of his 10 shots to be made. However, most of the shots he took were smart shots and his defense was strong. I also think he has the potential to be a good point guard, so I’m going to see if that can’t be nurtured.
Jacob – Once again a virtual non-entity out there, which was a problem because he got so much playing time due to Gavin’s foul troubles.
Jack A – Played pretty well, but not in control. He didn’t get nearly as much playing time this week as last as his dribble penetrating was killing us, as it was unsuccessful and he’d force a shot anyway. It was perhaps a mistake not to have him in there at crunch, but he freelances so much on defense, and is uneven with his shooting, and so despite his athleticism there just wasn’t a spot on the floor for him.
Jack B – Took 4 good shots, but missed them all. He played perhaps the best game defensively, really shutting down his man.
Jon – Was pretty much a non factor during his time on the court, though part of that was due to the good deny defense he played.
Josh – The kid is a gamer. He scored 4 clutch 4th quarter points for us. While his skills aren’t pretty, he does, I feel, deserve more credit for his ability to get things done. However, he was also constantly walking up the court on offense and a little on defense. Seems like a player who I will, perhaps, have to play in short stretches.
Zach – Their star shut him down completely in the second half. His inability to score a basket during the last 90 seconds of the game, was why we lost the close game. Still a good effort for him. Just reaffirms my thought that he doesn’t quite have the skills to take over a game.
Overall it was a good team effort. I am upbeat about our chances going forward, especially when we start to get two practices a week in January.
Or would be were the first half not painfully slow. We don’t do a good of finding good shots. The shots we did take didn’t go in. Fortunately our defense was excellent and we go into half up 9-7. The game changes pace in the second half, with us scoring 8 points in the second quarter, though 3 of those points came on a last second 3 pointer by Henry that was more luck than anything else. That gives us a 2 point lead going into the fourth. And the 4th is a battle. Unfortunately we just can’t stop their number 10, fouling him repeatedly, and he scores 9 points, 7 on free throws, and we end up losing by 2.
Where I felt bad about the GL victory, I feel very good about the HP loss. At this point, I think it’s somewhat clear that we don’t have the stamina to play 4 quarters. I subbed extensively, giving nearly equal playing time, but even that didn’t help. However, I figured that the one practice a week, and the day before our game at that, would hurt our ability to play 4 quarters. Also not helping was that I didn’t rotate our defends to put our best defenders on 10. This is because they had another player, 40, who was gigantic, and just killed us on the boards. The problems I saw at this game were far less than I had seen last week and certainly less than what I saw with GL. I was real pleased with the game despite the two point loss.
Taking a look at the team:
Adam – Looked slightly less lost out there than normal.
Ben – Did a pretty good job of guarding some taller players.
Danny – Was 0-5 from the floor along with a team high 4 turnovers. He’s a fast kid but he doesn’t play in control of himself, leading to shots which are just a little off and the ball to get away from him.
Gavin – Got banged up inside. He got into first half foul trouble leading him to sit a lot more than he would have otherwise. While he did a good job of guarding their #40, he went 0-3 from the floor, with close shots, and 0-6 from the FT line. But overall a good game
Henry – Scored that lucky 3 pointer. The only one of his 10 shots to be made. However, most of the shots he took were smart shots and his defense was strong. I also think he has the potential to be a good point guard, so I’m going to see if that can’t be nurtured.
Jacob – Once again a virtual non-entity out there, which was a problem because he got so much playing time due to Gavin’s foul troubles.
Jack A – Played pretty well, but not in control. He didn’t get nearly as much playing time this week as last as his dribble penetrating was killing us, as it was unsuccessful and he’d force a shot anyway. It was perhaps a mistake not to have him in there at crunch, but he freelances so much on defense, and is uneven with his shooting, and so despite his athleticism there just wasn’t a spot on the floor for him.
Jack B – Took 4 good shots, but missed them all. He played perhaps the best game defensively, really shutting down his man.
Jon – Was pretty much a non factor during his time on the court, though part of that was due to the good deny defense he played.
Josh – The kid is a gamer. He scored 4 clutch 4th quarter points for us. While his skills aren’t pretty, he does, I feel, deserve more credit for his ability to get things done. However, he was also constantly walking up the court on offense and a little on defense. Seems like a player who I will, perhaps, have to play in short stretches.
Zach – Their star shut him down completely in the second half. His inability to score a basket during the last 90 seconds of the game, was why we lost the close game. Still a good effort for him. Just reaffirms my thought that he doesn’t quite have the skills to take over a game.
Overall it was a good team effort. I am upbeat about our chances going forward, especially when we start to get two practices a week in January.
Monday, November 12, 2007
GL vs LS
Long story short, GL won in our game against LS. But it was not pretty at all. We jumped off to a nice 4 point lead at the end of the first. I was pleased. We even extended our lead to six at one point in the second. But then LS started pressing and the wheels came off. The team was just totally unprepared for their suffocating man press and that has to be chalked up as my fault. I said as much at half when we were either tied or down by 2. We cranked it back up in the third and extended our lead to 6, once again, before it started to get close. They got back to with-in 3, with 30 seconds left, but Brian hit a clutch free throw (and he was 1-6 from the line for the day) to put us up by 4 and seal the victory.
Overall I’m feeling pretty depressed about our performance. The press tore us up. We fell apart against a good man to man defense. We played good defense, they were forced to take numerous outside shots, which they missed, but then just got POUNDED on the boards. It was a very disheartening victory. We have so much to work on. We’ve now shown we have trouble against zone and man defenses, don’t always box out negating our aggressiveness against a bigger team, have trouble against a press. I’ve liked our defense, but the fact that we’re allowing so many points each game suggests that perhaps our offense is in better shape than it appears and it’s our defense that needs work. Oh yeah I forgot to mention we were 4-11 from the free throw line.
Fortunately we have two real practices this week. After this week, we go to having a half hour less each week and I certainly can use that half hour.
Individual notes:
Andrew – Was absent. This allowed me to really spread out the playing time nicely.
Brian – Killed us with his 1-6 from the FT line. He’s a liability on defense, for the most part. But did put up a good game on the offensive side overall.
Cameron – Played some real solid defense. He actually got some crunch time playing as a result. Is a complete non-factor on offense, at best, and against the superior skill LS showed, was a liability.
Dante – Once again was basically a non-factor. Had three rebounds, but was noticeably slower against their big men, who would often come far outside the post.
David – I’m pleased he didn’t get discouraged with himself when he struggled in the 2nd versus their press. He made some amazing shots for us in the 4th, and was the leader I needed him to be. Not to mention he set an all time high for the team with 5 assists. His play making was terrific.
Jack M – Did really well for us in the first. Unfortunately, after that he seemed to get intimidated by their big men and his efficiency went down. He missed several lay-ups which hurt us.
Jack P – Once again shot efficiently and well. Unfortunately, he played sloppily on defense and fouled, denying us his presence during crunch time.
Justin – The kid is amazing. Was 6-6 on his shooting. However, he only came down with 4 boards against a physical team, kind of what I was expecting from how he did in practice. I hope he’ll benefit the most from the blocking out practice we’re going to do this week.
Lucas – Just didn’t have it. Couldn’t find a way to contribute offensively, and turned the ball over a fair amount on the touches he did find. Defensively he was alright, but struggled against the bigger players that LS has.
Scott – He played well. Unfortunately due to some bad calls he got into foul trouble and ended up fouling out. His 1 rebound, an all time low for him, shows just how badly we were hurting on the boards.
Tom – I didn’t get him the playing time he deserved. The problem, as I’ve said before, is that while he doesn’t do anything too poorly, he doesn’t do anything well.
Overall I’m feeling pretty depressed about our performance. The press tore us up. We fell apart against a good man to man defense. We played good defense, they were forced to take numerous outside shots, which they missed, but then just got POUNDED on the boards. It was a very disheartening victory. We have so much to work on. We’ve now shown we have trouble against zone and man defenses, don’t always box out negating our aggressiveness against a bigger team, have trouble against a press. I’ve liked our defense, but the fact that we’re allowing so many points each game suggests that perhaps our offense is in better shape than it appears and it’s our defense that needs work. Oh yeah I forgot to mention we were 4-11 from the free throw line.
Fortunately we have two real practices this week. After this week, we go to having a half hour less each week and I certainly can use that half hour.
Individual notes:
Andrew – Was absent. This allowed me to really spread out the playing time nicely.
Brian – Killed us with his 1-6 from the FT line. He’s a liability on defense, for the most part. But did put up a good game on the offensive side overall.
Cameron – Played some real solid defense. He actually got some crunch time playing as a result. Is a complete non-factor on offense, at best, and against the superior skill LS showed, was a liability.
Dante – Once again was basically a non-factor. Had three rebounds, but was noticeably slower against their big men, who would often come far outside the post.
David – I’m pleased he didn’t get discouraged with himself when he struggled in the 2nd versus their press. He made some amazing shots for us in the 4th, and was the leader I needed him to be. Not to mention he set an all time high for the team with 5 assists. His play making was terrific.
Jack M – Did really well for us in the first. Unfortunately, after that he seemed to get intimidated by their big men and his efficiency went down. He missed several lay-ups which hurt us.
Jack P – Once again shot efficiently and well. Unfortunately, he played sloppily on defense and fouled, denying us his presence during crunch time.
Justin – The kid is amazing. Was 6-6 on his shooting. However, he only came down with 4 boards against a physical team, kind of what I was expecting from how he did in practice. I hope he’ll benefit the most from the blocking out practice we’re going to do this week.
Lucas – Just didn’t have it. Couldn’t find a way to contribute offensively, and turned the ball over a fair amount on the touches he did find. Defensively he was alright, but struggled against the bigger players that LS has.
Scott – He played well. Unfortunately due to some bad calls he got into foul trouble and ended up fouling out. His 1 rebound, an all time low for him, shows just how badly we were hurting on the boards.
Tom – I didn’t get him the playing time he deserved. The problem, as I’ve said before, is that while he doesn’t do anything too poorly, he doesn’t do anything well.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
HP Update (With a little GL thrown in)
We had a practice on Wednesday with GL. It was uneventful; hence I have not posted about it. As I will be trying to keep up on both teams as the season moves forward, I will likely just not posting about certain practices in order to keep things reasonable. Especially come January I would guess I would only post about each team’s practice once a week. Information from practice will also find its way into game reports as appropriate. This has been a long way of saying, that this will be an HP focused entry.
HP House League Games
Thursday GL had no practice because the gym wasn’t available so I went to see the house league teams I hadn’t seen play yet. Where I was impressed with the level of play the previous week, this week’s play was thoroughly unimpressive. There was a lot of drive and shoot without much passing by my players. Not too much different from our game, frankly, and not the type of basketball that will win it for us in the long run. Worse is the fact that there are, in reality, two kids on our team who I think will be able to consistently drive past their men in travel, but in house all of our players have that ability. I’m guessing my players have fun, but it does not help them become the kind of players I’d want them to be. Part of the difference, a large part, is that last week it was Kevin officiating the game. This week it was some random high schooler. Kevin knew how to strike the balance between making the appropriate foul and travel calls, and ignoring calls. The kids who officiated Thursday made no travel calls in the 3 games I saw and were far too inconsistent with foul calls. Basically it was organized street ball, which is fine, but could be so much more.
Josh, was still battling whatever sickness he’d had on Sunday. His team played a double header, losing the first. His team then won the second game, against a team that had far superior talent, by 1. But they did it with-out Josh in the second half, as he initially sat himself owing to renewed coughing and general not feeling well. When he then appeared like he was going to go back in for the final 5 minutes, his mom and I conferred and I told Josh that he wasn’t going in. Josh told his coach.
There wasn’t nearly as much for me to cheer about as there had been before. I cheered every good pass that was made, as there were so few of them. The positive to come out of the game was my continued belief that Jack B knows basketball. It’s a shame that he’s by far the shortest kid out there. I’m going to start him anyway tomorrow.
HP Practice
Had a fairly good practice, with all 11 players practicing. Ben tells me the doctor has cleared him to play with-out his boot and Josh is mostly recovered from his illness though I do sit him during continuous motion and our scrimmage when I hear the cough. I had two goals (well maybe closer to three) for the practice: work on breaking the press, and work on dribbling with our heads up and making passes, besides doing our normal continuous motion conditioning.
For the first part we do a 2 on 4 get the ball across half court. Overall it was fairly successful. Hopefully that success will carry over to tomorrow if/when NF comes out pressing.
We also did a drill where they had a partner and attempted to pass a tennis ball back and forth while not dropping the tennis ball or losing control of the ball they were dribbling. This seemed to work well as when they started dribbling during our scrimmage later they mostly did it with their heads up.
We did in fact spend the last half hour with one of my rare scrimmages. Now granted the first fifteen minutes was spent with no dribble. They actually adjusted fairly well to this conditioning, and, on the whole, spread out far more than my GL team has while running the same drill. Of course matters were helped slightly by the fact that Gavin and Jack A, playing on the same team, were defending other people’s men as much as their own. Gavin’s man, in particular, was often open due to Gavin not playing defense. After a period of complete no dribble, I allowed them to dribble in the back court, and press, and then allowed them to have one dribble in the area of the lane, which was never really used. For the last 7-8 minutes I let them dribble as much as they wanted, but they needed to have at least 5 passes to 3 different people. They also couldn’t dribble with their heads down. They didn’t struggle too much with this requirement, but it still cut way down on the number of shots created simply though penetration, which was my goal. They also couldn’t dribble with their heads down, something that happened surprisingly infrequently considering how they’d played in house league and at our first game. I hope that the tennis ball drill’s effectiveness carries over to tomorrow.
Next week we must do some man to man defense work. But overall, I was happy with the practice today.
Tomorrow’s Games
GL plays LN. LN who did very well in their first game, winning 44-27. I expect a tough game, but again a winnable game for us. LN has never seen David play before, so I think that’s a plus for us. And rumor has it that they’ve added a good new player, but so have we in Justin, so that should cancel each other out. I was going to give Andrew a start, in recognition of his being the only player to ask to sub out last game, but he’s out of town this weekend so that rules that plan out. So I think we’ll go with a starting lineup of Jack M (in recognition of his hard work during practice), David, Jack P, Lucas, and Justin. This is an aggressive group who will penetrate well. If we can set the pace as up tempo, I’m confident we’ll be able to out run them in the long run. At least that’s what we did last year.
HP plays NF. This is the same NF team that gave us a tough go in the play-offs though I didn’t remember until I read my game write-up for it that we’d gone with equal playing time for the game, which hindered us. More troubling from that write-up? The fact that our lack of point guard really killed us in the game. Uh oh. We could be in trouble. I will be going with a starting 5 of Zach, Jack B, Ben, Jon, and Gavin. I think they match-up well and give us a fairly versatile group to start.
I think both games are winnable for us and am cautiously optimistic I will be the coach of two 2-0 teams at this time tomorrow.
HP House League Games
Thursday GL had no practice because the gym wasn’t available so I went to see the house league teams I hadn’t seen play yet. Where I was impressed with the level of play the previous week, this week’s play was thoroughly unimpressive. There was a lot of drive and shoot without much passing by my players. Not too much different from our game, frankly, and not the type of basketball that will win it for us in the long run. Worse is the fact that there are, in reality, two kids on our team who I think will be able to consistently drive past their men in travel, but in house all of our players have that ability. I’m guessing my players have fun, but it does not help them become the kind of players I’d want them to be. Part of the difference, a large part, is that last week it was Kevin officiating the game. This week it was some random high schooler. Kevin knew how to strike the balance between making the appropriate foul and travel calls, and ignoring calls. The kids who officiated Thursday made no travel calls in the 3 games I saw and were far too inconsistent with foul calls. Basically it was organized street ball, which is fine, but could be so much more.
Josh, was still battling whatever sickness he’d had on Sunday. His team played a double header, losing the first. His team then won the second game, against a team that had far superior talent, by 1. But they did it with-out Josh in the second half, as he initially sat himself owing to renewed coughing and general not feeling well. When he then appeared like he was going to go back in for the final 5 minutes, his mom and I conferred and I told Josh that he wasn’t going in. Josh told his coach.
There wasn’t nearly as much for me to cheer about as there had been before. I cheered every good pass that was made, as there were so few of them. The positive to come out of the game was my continued belief that Jack B knows basketball. It’s a shame that he’s by far the shortest kid out there. I’m going to start him anyway tomorrow.
HP Practice
Had a fairly good practice, with all 11 players practicing. Ben tells me the doctor has cleared him to play with-out his boot and Josh is mostly recovered from his illness though I do sit him during continuous motion and our scrimmage when I hear the cough. I had two goals (well maybe closer to three) for the practice: work on breaking the press, and work on dribbling with our heads up and making passes, besides doing our normal continuous motion conditioning.
For the first part we do a 2 on 4 get the ball across half court. Overall it was fairly successful. Hopefully that success will carry over to tomorrow if/when NF comes out pressing.
We also did a drill where they had a partner and attempted to pass a tennis ball back and forth while not dropping the tennis ball or losing control of the ball they were dribbling. This seemed to work well as when they started dribbling during our scrimmage later they mostly did it with their heads up.
We did in fact spend the last half hour with one of my rare scrimmages. Now granted the first fifteen minutes was spent with no dribble. They actually adjusted fairly well to this conditioning, and, on the whole, spread out far more than my GL team has while running the same drill. Of course matters were helped slightly by the fact that Gavin and Jack A, playing on the same team, were defending other people’s men as much as their own. Gavin’s man, in particular, was often open due to Gavin not playing defense. After a period of complete no dribble, I allowed them to dribble in the back court, and press, and then allowed them to have one dribble in the area of the lane, which was never really used. For the last 7-8 minutes I let them dribble as much as they wanted, but they needed to have at least 5 passes to 3 different people. They also couldn’t dribble with their heads down. They didn’t struggle too much with this requirement, but it still cut way down on the number of shots created simply though penetration, which was my goal. They also couldn’t dribble with their heads down, something that happened surprisingly infrequently considering how they’d played in house league and at our first game. I hope that the tennis ball drill’s effectiveness carries over to tomorrow.
Next week we must do some man to man defense work. But overall, I was happy with the practice today.
Tomorrow’s Games
GL plays LN. LN who did very well in their first game, winning 44-27. I expect a tough game, but again a winnable game for us. LN has never seen David play before, so I think that’s a plus for us. And rumor has it that they’ve added a good new player, but so have we in Justin, so that should cancel each other out. I was going to give Andrew a start, in recognition of his being the only player to ask to sub out last game, but he’s out of town this weekend so that rules that plan out. So I think we’ll go with a starting lineup of Jack M (in recognition of his hard work during practice), David, Jack P, Lucas, and Justin. This is an aggressive group who will penetrate well. If we can set the pace as up tempo, I’m confident we’ll be able to out run them in the long run. At least that’s what we did last year.
HP plays NF. This is the same NF team that gave us a tough go in the play-offs though I didn’t remember until I read my game write-up for it that we’d gone with equal playing time for the game, which hindered us. More troubling from that write-up? The fact that our lack of point guard really killed us in the game. Uh oh. We could be in trouble. I will be going with a starting 5 of Zach, Jack B, Ben, Jon, and Gavin. I think they match-up well and give us a fairly versatile group to start.
I think both games are winnable for us and am cautiously optimistic I will be the coach of two 2-0 teams at this time tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
HP vs PL
When I arrive at the HP Rec Center I find that Henry and the twins are already there and that Ben has his boot on. I had called his house in the morning and talked to his mom. She says the doctor has said he should wear the boot as much as possible and while he could participate in playing basketball, practicing wasn’t a good idea for the moment. Ben assures me is just wearing his boot for now and will take it off to warm-up some. The three of us watch the 4B team play for a while, getting absolutely killed by PL’s 4B team. Most of their 4A team is there as well. I get a scouting report from the threesome who tell me that they’re big but don’t appear to be great shooters.
Unfortunately I am stuck doing administrative tasks for much of warm-up, so I don’t really get to see much of that. Even more unfortunately, I neglected to arrange someone to be our stat keeper ahead of time so I lack my normal detailed stats for this game.
The game begins with Ben, Jon, Henry, Zach, and Danny getting the start. I had deliberated whether it was fair to start Ben, as he hadn’t practiced on Saturday, and decided it was as he’d participated in our other practices. However, he won’t get another starting nod until he resumes practice, or the play-offs come around (if he’s earned it at that time). In my pregame speech I talked about how we shouldn’t get discouraged if they come out in a zone and we struggle at first, as we hadn’t practiced against a zone. I tell them to remember our offensive ideas of keeping the floor spaced, moving the ball around, and finding a smart shot, and we’d be fine. This came courtesy of what had happened earlier in the day with GL. Besides giving this coaching point I will also say that where I was uptight with GL I was relaxed and smiles with HP.
PL wins the tip and proceeds to have a 40 second possession to start the game, but fortunately this does not end in a basket, but instead a turnover for traveling. We then take the ball down and find a shot, all too quickly, which I’m not terribly happy with. After this inauspicious start, we are then off to the races. Our aggression kicks in, and PL is basically left stupefied as just take the ball from them, and I don’t mean steal I mean take, get multiple looks at our own basket, and force them to travel. At the end of the first quarter we’re up 10-2.
The second quarter goes fairly well until they start to pressure us a little and we break down. PL has momentum for most of the quarter, but we regain it at the end and actually extend our lead to 10, with a score of 19-9 at the half. I talk about how well we’re playing at half and said how when it started to seem like the gain was tilting towards them, we grabbed the momentum back and actually extended our lead.
The third quarter is basically back and forth. I fool around a lot with who is taking up the ball for us, and this only increases in the 3rd. Going into the 4th we’re still up by 10. I comment at the start of the 4th quarter, how we have a comfortable lead, but not one that they can’t come back from. We start of the quarter fairly well. But then their pressure gets to us and we make stupid mistakes and turn the ball over. However, with 3 minutes left we’re still up by 7, so I put in some players who hadn’t played so well to give them some extra playing time. And before you know it there are 45 seconds left and we’re up by 5, but it feels like we’re up by 1. I tell them if we can make 1 more basket the game’s over. Unfortunately we don’t make the basket and PL comes back to score a quick basket. I am forced to call another timeout and put back in Gavin and Jack A, who’d played very well for us, to make sure we pull out the victory. And we do, thanks to Zach basically getting the ball past half court and then waiting for them to foul him. After a couple trips to the line, and a stolen possession when we apply a slight press, we pull out a 3 point victory.
Overall, I feel very happy. I’m happy with our aggression. I am happy with how well we rebounded against a larger team. I am happy that two of our larger problems were the fact that our ballhandler seemed to just fall down about 4 or 5 times during the game, and that we made stupid traveling violations, when we were unpressured in the back court. As I said to the players on the bench when this happened in the 3rd quarter, “I don’t have a drill to work on not falling down, so we just have to stop doing that.” Hopefully it was just a freak occurrence. Though one could argue it was also related to the stupid travel violations in that while trying to play fast we weren’t playing in control. Our speed and aggression were what won us the game, so I want to be careful not to discourage that. It’ll be a balancing act, but I suppose that’s why they pay me the big bucks.
I’m also happy with the playing time given to all of the players. While I don’t have statistics to support it, I feel like all of the players got substantial, and fairly equal, playing time. However, this was helped by the fact that Josh continued to be sick and so while he played his time was more limited, meaning I had to worry about 10.5 players playing rather than a full 11. I continue to gain a better understanding of my players, which is a good thing.
Our lack of a real PG is, more than anything, my concern at the moment. While we have kids who can dribble, quite well in fact, we don’t have a kid who can dribble and see the court. It’s pretty frustrating to go from having a team who has half the team who could legitimately play point to a team where there isn’t even one kid who I really trust to bring up the ball. I hope to be able to help develop the skills of a couple of our better dribblers but the experiences of other coaches tells me that I shouldn’t expect too much on this front.
Adam – I tried him at PG and his decision making just isn’t there. Not surprisingly he wasn’t any better at in-boundng the ball. His man to man defense was actually better than I expected, which was a good thing. He also scored a couple of baskets which is nice. For the time being I would place him in a group of 3 who are just a tad below others when out there.
Ben – Played unspectacularly. His defense was very good, as I expected, but he was non-presence under the boards and on offense. I hope to see this change. I am also worried about how his progress will be limited with his foot. Obviously not a lot I can do there but I hope he doesn’t become frustrated if others start to surpass him as he doesn’t progress as quickly due to limited chances to play and practice both during our times and at school.
Danny – Danny was a disappointment. To his credit he made two early free throws for us, which was great. However, his man got by him a few times on defense, and his decision making with the ball was quite poor. On the better side, he did have a good sense of where to be to help break a press.
Gavin – Gavin had a very strong game. It’s going to be hard to break him of his desire to be around the ball, as he constantly was wanting to bring the ball up, or even in bound it. But he did a nice job for us underneath both in terms of getting rebounds (particularly offensive ones) and in guarding their bigger players (who were nearly a full head taller than him). He got fouled multiple times and unfortunately went 2-7 from the free throw line, which is in keeping with how he does in practice. If he’s going to be drawing those fouls, helping get him to around 50% seems like it would be a boost for us.
Henry – Henry’s a gamer. However, he struggled offensively against the much bigger PL team. His man to man also wasn’t quite as good as I expected. At the end of Saturday’s practice I was talking about playing time and such and Henry said at one point how he had a great idea. I told him to share it with me after practice. He did and it was basically the idea of calling our press “Kentucky”. So during a time out in the 4th I let Henry explain what Kentucky was. It was a nice moment for him.
Jacob – You’d have not known the kid was out there. His man didn’t really get the ball when he was on defense, but this was more because of our good guard play than his defense. And on offense he was a complete non-presence. The difference between the kind of center play Jacob provides and what Gavin provides is substantial. I also place him in that bottom 3 group.
Jack A – Turns out that Jack’s brother goes to the school I teach at, though Jack does not. His brother is a very cute 1st grader, who looks nothing like Jack. Jack is one of the stars of the team. His defense was fantastic. His ability to drive to the basket was equally good. I’d like it a little better if he made more of his shots when he drove to the basket, but he was a definite spark plug, and it was when I put him in during the first quarter that we went from playing pretty well to just dominating the other team.
Jack B – An unsung hero of the game. He was open a lot, due to a good sense of the court, and it was frustrating for me, as our bad play at point prevented him from getting the ball as much as I’d have liked. He was also excellent about setting screens, both on and off the ball. I made sure to tell him how what he was doing wouldn’t show up as a statistic but was really helpful to us winning the game. I think his play earned him a start at our next game.
Jon – Unlike his brother, he was a nice inside presence for us, grabbing quite a few rebounds and playing his bigger men quite well. Overall, I was very happy with his play.
Josh – As I said above he was still recovering from his illness. Poor kid actually cried after the game because he’d been sick and not able to play his best. As I’ve mentioned before he’s got some real strengths, but some real weaknesses as well. Hopefully the weaknesses will be improved on over the course of the season to make him a better player.
Zach – Along with Jack A the star of the game, accounting for 10 of our 30 points, and quite a few steals. He could, and did, dribble through their press. Unfortunately, he does it with his head down and so there were quite a few times where he could have passed ahead for an easy basket. I really would like him to be our PG, and had him there extensively during the game. But his head down dribbling means something needs to change, otherwise we’re going to be in big trouble.
So overall a nice first victory, and one I’m glad we didn’t give away at the end. We did get a little tired in the 4th which is troubling to me since with only one practice a week I’m limited in terms of what I can do in that regard at the moment. What we need to do at practice on Saturday is pretty clear:
1. Work on offense that isn’t just Jack and Zach driving to the basket. They did it well against the man we saw, but against a good zone we’re going to be like deer in the headlights.
2. Work on our poise in general and against a press in particular.
We play NF on Saturday. This is the NF2 team from last year that were a group of 3rd graders. I anticipate they’ll be a tough team to play and am excited to see how we do.
Unfortunately I am stuck doing administrative tasks for much of warm-up, so I don’t really get to see much of that. Even more unfortunately, I neglected to arrange someone to be our stat keeper ahead of time so I lack my normal detailed stats for this game.
The game begins with Ben, Jon, Henry, Zach, and Danny getting the start. I had deliberated whether it was fair to start Ben, as he hadn’t practiced on Saturday, and decided it was as he’d participated in our other practices. However, he won’t get another starting nod until he resumes practice, or the play-offs come around (if he’s earned it at that time). In my pregame speech I talked about how we shouldn’t get discouraged if they come out in a zone and we struggle at first, as we hadn’t practiced against a zone. I tell them to remember our offensive ideas of keeping the floor spaced, moving the ball around, and finding a smart shot, and we’d be fine. This came courtesy of what had happened earlier in the day with GL. Besides giving this coaching point I will also say that where I was uptight with GL I was relaxed and smiles with HP.
PL wins the tip and proceeds to have a 40 second possession to start the game, but fortunately this does not end in a basket, but instead a turnover for traveling. We then take the ball down and find a shot, all too quickly, which I’m not terribly happy with. After this inauspicious start, we are then off to the races. Our aggression kicks in, and PL is basically left stupefied as just take the ball from them, and I don’t mean steal I mean take, get multiple looks at our own basket, and force them to travel. At the end of the first quarter we’re up 10-2.
The second quarter goes fairly well until they start to pressure us a little and we break down. PL has momentum for most of the quarter, but we regain it at the end and actually extend our lead to 10, with a score of 19-9 at the half. I talk about how well we’re playing at half and said how when it started to seem like the gain was tilting towards them, we grabbed the momentum back and actually extended our lead.
The third quarter is basically back and forth. I fool around a lot with who is taking up the ball for us, and this only increases in the 3rd. Going into the 4th we’re still up by 10. I comment at the start of the 4th quarter, how we have a comfortable lead, but not one that they can’t come back from. We start of the quarter fairly well. But then their pressure gets to us and we make stupid mistakes and turn the ball over. However, with 3 minutes left we’re still up by 7, so I put in some players who hadn’t played so well to give them some extra playing time. And before you know it there are 45 seconds left and we’re up by 5, but it feels like we’re up by 1. I tell them if we can make 1 more basket the game’s over. Unfortunately we don’t make the basket and PL comes back to score a quick basket. I am forced to call another timeout and put back in Gavin and Jack A, who’d played very well for us, to make sure we pull out the victory. And we do, thanks to Zach basically getting the ball past half court and then waiting for them to foul him. After a couple trips to the line, and a stolen possession when we apply a slight press, we pull out a 3 point victory.
Overall, I feel very happy. I’m happy with our aggression. I am happy with how well we rebounded against a larger team. I am happy that two of our larger problems were the fact that our ballhandler seemed to just fall down about 4 or 5 times during the game, and that we made stupid traveling violations, when we were unpressured in the back court. As I said to the players on the bench when this happened in the 3rd quarter, “I don’t have a drill to work on not falling down, so we just have to stop doing that.” Hopefully it was just a freak occurrence. Though one could argue it was also related to the stupid travel violations in that while trying to play fast we weren’t playing in control. Our speed and aggression were what won us the game, so I want to be careful not to discourage that. It’ll be a balancing act, but I suppose that’s why they pay me the big bucks.
I’m also happy with the playing time given to all of the players. While I don’t have statistics to support it, I feel like all of the players got substantial, and fairly equal, playing time. However, this was helped by the fact that Josh continued to be sick and so while he played his time was more limited, meaning I had to worry about 10.5 players playing rather than a full 11. I continue to gain a better understanding of my players, which is a good thing.
Our lack of a real PG is, more than anything, my concern at the moment. While we have kids who can dribble, quite well in fact, we don’t have a kid who can dribble and see the court. It’s pretty frustrating to go from having a team who has half the team who could legitimately play point to a team where there isn’t even one kid who I really trust to bring up the ball. I hope to be able to help develop the skills of a couple of our better dribblers but the experiences of other coaches tells me that I shouldn’t expect too much on this front.
Adam – I tried him at PG and his decision making just isn’t there. Not surprisingly he wasn’t any better at in-boundng the ball. His man to man defense was actually better than I expected, which was a good thing. He also scored a couple of baskets which is nice. For the time being I would place him in a group of 3 who are just a tad below others when out there.
Ben – Played unspectacularly. His defense was very good, as I expected, but he was non-presence under the boards and on offense. I hope to see this change. I am also worried about how his progress will be limited with his foot. Obviously not a lot I can do there but I hope he doesn’t become frustrated if others start to surpass him as he doesn’t progress as quickly due to limited chances to play and practice both during our times and at school.
Danny – Danny was a disappointment. To his credit he made two early free throws for us, which was great. However, his man got by him a few times on defense, and his decision making with the ball was quite poor. On the better side, he did have a good sense of where to be to help break a press.
Gavin – Gavin had a very strong game. It’s going to be hard to break him of his desire to be around the ball, as he constantly was wanting to bring the ball up, or even in bound it. But he did a nice job for us underneath both in terms of getting rebounds (particularly offensive ones) and in guarding their bigger players (who were nearly a full head taller than him). He got fouled multiple times and unfortunately went 2-7 from the free throw line, which is in keeping with how he does in practice. If he’s going to be drawing those fouls, helping get him to around 50% seems like it would be a boost for us.
Henry – Henry’s a gamer. However, he struggled offensively against the much bigger PL team. His man to man also wasn’t quite as good as I expected. At the end of Saturday’s practice I was talking about playing time and such and Henry said at one point how he had a great idea. I told him to share it with me after practice. He did and it was basically the idea of calling our press “Kentucky”. So during a time out in the 4th I let Henry explain what Kentucky was. It was a nice moment for him.
Jacob – You’d have not known the kid was out there. His man didn’t really get the ball when he was on defense, but this was more because of our good guard play than his defense. And on offense he was a complete non-presence. The difference between the kind of center play Jacob provides and what Gavin provides is substantial. I also place him in that bottom 3 group.
Jack A – Turns out that Jack’s brother goes to the school I teach at, though Jack does not. His brother is a very cute 1st grader, who looks nothing like Jack. Jack is one of the stars of the team. His defense was fantastic. His ability to drive to the basket was equally good. I’d like it a little better if he made more of his shots when he drove to the basket, but he was a definite spark plug, and it was when I put him in during the first quarter that we went from playing pretty well to just dominating the other team.
Jack B – An unsung hero of the game. He was open a lot, due to a good sense of the court, and it was frustrating for me, as our bad play at point prevented him from getting the ball as much as I’d have liked. He was also excellent about setting screens, both on and off the ball. I made sure to tell him how what he was doing wouldn’t show up as a statistic but was really helpful to us winning the game. I think his play earned him a start at our next game.
Jon – Unlike his brother, he was a nice inside presence for us, grabbing quite a few rebounds and playing his bigger men quite well. Overall, I was very happy with his play.
Josh – As I said above he was still recovering from his illness. Poor kid actually cried after the game because he’d been sick and not able to play his best. As I’ve mentioned before he’s got some real strengths, but some real weaknesses as well. Hopefully the weaknesses will be improved on over the course of the season to make him a better player.
Zach – Along with Jack A the star of the game, accounting for 10 of our 30 points, and quite a few steals. He could, and did, dribble through their press. Unfortunately, he does it with his head down and so there were quite a few times where he could have passed ahead for an easy basket. I really would like him to be our PG, and had him there extensively during the game. But his head down dribbling means something needs to change, otherwise we’re going to be in big trouble.
So overall a nice first victory, and one I’m glad we didn’t give away at the end. We did get a little tired in the 4th which is troubling to me since with only one practice a week I’m limited in terms of what I can do in that regard at the moment. What we need to do at practice on Saturday is pretty clear:
1. Work on offense that isn’t just Jack and Zach driving to the basket. They did it well against the man we saw, but against a good zone we’re going to be like deer in the headlights.
2. Work on our poise in general and against a press in particular.
We play NF on Saturday. This is the NF2 team from last year that were a group of 3rd graders. I anticipate they’ll be a tough team to play and am excited to see how we do.
Monday, November 5, 2007
GL vs MP1
Well yesterday started off the basketball season. I first had a game with GL and then a couple hours later one with HP. I will be writing them up in separate posts. Let’s start with GL because that was first chronologically.
A little background on how the games work. We play four 7 minute quarters. Each team gets 5 time outs (3 full and 2 30 second) per game. There is no press allowed in the 1st or 3rd quarter. A team may press in the 2nd and 4th quarter as long as they are not ahead by 10 or more in the 4th grade league and 15 or more in the 5th grade league. Otherwise the games are played according to “real” rules.
Saturday night I was getting the stats sheet ready for the next day and wanted to put players uniform numbers on the sheet. So I got the bag with the uniforms and started writing down the assigned numbers when I realized a problem: there was no uniform for Cameron. He wasn’t on the uniform master list I had either. After doing some matching, I discovered that Lucas had changed numbers, as had Jack M. I call Lucas’s house in the morning and he agrees to bring his uniform from last year which Cameron will use. Crisis adverted.
I arrive at MP’s place a good 45 minutes before the game. I had asked the team to arrive a half hour early, to hand out uniforms, and because MP is a half hour away, leaving some cushion in case there was a hold-up (like there was last game with the H’s and Lucas). As I pull into the parking lot (and having snagged the second best non-handicapped space) I see Dante and his father already walking in. When I arrive in the gym, I see Andrew is also present. Kid can’t show up to practice on time, but he gets there exceedingly early for a game.
The team arrives and we sort out the uniforms. The smallest short size we have is Youth Large, which proves to be several sizes too big for both Jack M and Cameron. Ahh the joys and challenges of having small players on your team.
We end up starting the game early because both teams are ready to go. I start a line-up of David, Dante, Justin, Scott, and Brian. After winning the tip, and David getting an easy lay-up (which he missed) our game goes downhill very quickly. On defense they’re killing us on screens, while their 1-3-1 offense is just tearing us apart. It doesn’t hurt that they’re making most of their shots either. At the end of the first quarter we’re down 10-2. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t more than a little concerned at this point. Mortified at the prospects of being blown out against a team we beat last year would more accurately describe my emotional state.
At the quarter break I stress being patient on offense and coming off the screens on defense, but do so in a low key sort of way. I also prepare them for a press which never comes. And we settle down pretty quickly and start to find our offensive groove. By half we’ve narrowed it to 16-12. At half I stress how we’ve closed the gap, we’re playing better defense and how we’ve always been a second half team. Then just to prove my point, we tear them apart in the third quarter. We do this despite the fact that my weaker players saw extended time on the court together during the quarter. We basically ran them ragged, pushing the ball hard up the court nearly every possession and MP just wore out. When the quarter ends we find ourselves up 30-24. I stress playing solid defense and we’re off for another quarter of play. In the 4th quarter its clear that MP1 is frustrated, though I didn’t realize until part way through the quarter. Two different kids during the quarter take a hard fall and start crying, more out of frustration, I believe than injury. I had put out a group of five of David, Brian, Justin, Jack M, and Scott to start the quarter, though I sub out Jack M a minute in to the quarter in favor of Lucas. This fivesome does a nice job of putting the game out of reach, allowing me to give some end of game minutes to a few players who hadn’t seen the court as much. We close out a very solid 44-31 victory.
Its nice that we struggled so much and then still proved we could win, and in a dominating fashion too. A few of the parents commented to me how they were a little concerned in the first quarter, but it was a fun game to watch. This matches my feelings pretty closely.
I really struggled this game in terms of substitutions. Having 11 players versus 10 makes every bit the difference I expected it to make. Overall, I’m real happy with how the playing time worked out, with most players right in the 11-13 minute range of playing time, giving them a good chance to really get some quality playing time.
Let’s do a player by player break down:
Andrew – Andrew looked a little lost in his time on the court. Which frankly didn’t surprise me. He isn’t used to playing at the level we’re playing at, but I think he’s got the skills to adjust. He saw only about 10 minutes of playing time but I really hope that goes up as the season goes on. He did have the one bad shot of the game. He was in at the end and I had told them to slow it down and take their time. So he gets a pass in the corner, is wide open and takes the shot, just inside the three point line. Two problems with this. One it was hardly slowing things down. But I generally don’t fault kids for taking open shots. More troubling, was that he was so wide open he’d have been better off taking a few dribbles in and shooting closer in.
Brian – He played quite well in a mostly unnoticeable way. He had 6 points, 1 assist, and 2 good rebounds. Rebounding (as I’ll talk about more in a second) was an area I was happy with overall, as we didn’t give up too many 3rd and 4th chances to MP. He also made another comment about David being the best player out there. I had forgotten to talk with him about this before the game, but am going to make sure to do so on Wednesday.
Cameron – Cameron’s first sport is soccer, and he’s got a lot of the accompanying skills there. Like Andrew, the pace and nature of the game seemed to take him by surprise. While Andrew has a wellspring of basketball talent to draw on, Cameron has more athletic talent to draw upon. Cameron has the problem of being a guard, and a guard who I don’t really trust to bring the ball up. This lack of role makes it harder for me to really find a time when I think “Oh it’ll be great to have Cameron out there”. I hope that he develops a strength as the season progresses. For our first game he was pretty much a non entity besides picking up a couple of quick fouls in the third. Cameron’s mom remarked to me after the game that she can see why Cameron enjoys basketball so much since I am a positive coach. It’s always nice to hear this, as it’s certainly my goal.
Dante – While Dante has been rough and really going at it in practice, that same level of intensity didn’t carry over to the game. He’s did an OK, though not great job of guarding some big men. He was fairly soft last year, and I’d grown optimistic that he’d toughened up some. I hope that he too was just finding his bearings in this game and will be more of a presence for us inside in the games to come.
David – Showed again what a remarkable talent he is. Where he was sullen about his playing on Thursday, he worked through a rough first quarter to really help us explode in the second. At one point MP’s star point guard was shouting out that David had no left hand, after David had gotten fouled. I called a 30 second time out before he went to the line, pointed that out to him, asked him if that was true. He smiled and said no, and showed the next possession his left hand. When he’s relaxed and having fun (which go hand in hand) he’s just pure joy to watch. What was especially nice was that, for only the second time, the triplet’s father was there to watch and so he got to see David perform well.
Jack M – Served as our point guard when David wasn’t in and even at times while David was in. I liked how he moved the ball overall, though his stats (0-2, with 3 turnovers and 1 foul) suggest he was more harm than good. However, I think that’s not totally representative of what he did for us. He saw lots of short bursts of playing time, which I have a feeling will be fairly typical for him this season, having subbed in at 5 different points. I will say that his attitude this year has been very positive and I will likely be remarking on it to him at our next practice.
Jack P – He scored points on fairly efficient shooting (2-5) along with drawing 2 fouls. He played point for us at a couple of different points. This kind of performance is a HUGE step up from last year when he would regularly go something like 1-8, or worse. He is, after David, the best player on our team at penetrating, but his missed shots were driving me batty. If he’s turned that around, a big if and one I’m not willing to commit to after one game, my job will have only gotten that much harder as he will deserve to play substantial playing time.
Justin – When talking about the team, I had talked about how we had a new enter. And boy do we ever. Justin, who along with David, played the most minutes at just under 21, came up huge with 12 rebounds and 8 points, with most of those points being on put backs from rebounds. Having a true inside presence, combined with our fabulous guard play really takes us to a whole new level.
Lucas – Lucas played a solid game, seeing playing time at every position but 2, something that’ll be happening with him a lot this season. And by solid I mean 2-5 shooting, 2-2 at the free throw line, along an assist and 4 rebounds against 2 fouls and 2 turnovers. We lack size to have a true #4, especially if Dante continues to play soft, and so as much as I would like to take advantage of his guard ability we’re going to need him inside and guarding those big kids.
Scott – Scott is pretty similar to Lucas. The kid is as tough as nails and while I think he’s got even more ability than Lucas to play point, I wonder how much I’ll actually be able to find him time there. He had 3-7 shooting 1-1 from the line, along with 4 rebounds, 2 steals, against 3 turnovers and 1 foul. His rebounding numbers are going to suffer this year because there are only so many rebounds to be had and Justin is gobbling them up. It’s a problem I like having.
Tom – Tom didn’t play a whole lot for us, but played real strong in the time he played. Tom is frequently not inclined to shoot open shots, but he had an open shot in the game and he made it which was great to see. He also had a steal. In other words in limited minutes he played real well for us. Tom’s a good basketball player, but he’s not someone who can make things happen, for the most part and this effects how I use him. I have to be careful with Tom, since he’ll never complain about his playing time, which sometimes makes it easier to pick someone else when it’s a choice between two players. My goal is to not fall in this trap this season.
So I’m feeling good about where we’re at heading into our LN game. Look for the write-up of the HP game to appear sometime tomorrow.
A little background on how the games work. We play four 7 minute quarters. Each team gets 5 time outs (3 full and 2 30 second) per game. There is no press allowed in the 1st or 3rd quarter. A team may press in the 2nd and 4th quarter as long as they are not ahead by 10 or more in the 4th grade league and 15 or more in the 5th grade league. Otherwise the games are played according to “real” rules.
Saturday night I was getting the stats sheet ready for the next day and wanted to put players uniform numbers on the sheet. So I got the bag with the uniforms and started writing down the assigned numbers when I realized a problem: there was no uniform for Cameron. He wasn’t on the uniform master list I had either. After doing some matching, I discovered that Lucas had changed numbers, as had Jack M. I call Lucas’s house in the morning and he agrees to bring his uniform from last year which Cameron will use. Crisis adverted.
I arrive at MP’s place a good 45 minutes before the game. I had asked the team to arrive a half hour early, to hand out uniforms, and because MP is a half hour away, leaving some cushion in case there was a hold-up (like there was last game with the H’s and Lucas). As I pull into the parking lot (and having snagged the second best non-handicapped space) I see Dante and his father already walking in. When I arrive in the gym, I see Andrew is also present. Kid can’t show up to practice on time, but he gets there exceedingly early for a game.
The team arrives and we sort out the uniforms. The smallest short size we have is Youth Large, which proves to be several sizes too big for both Jack M and Cameron. Ahh the joys and challenges of having small players on your team.
We end up starting the game early because both teams are ready to go. I start a line-up of David, Dante, Justin, Scott, and Brian. After winning the tip, and David getting an easy lay-up (which he missed) our game goes downhill very quickly. On defense they’re killing us on screens, while their 1-3-1 offense is just tearing us apart. It doesn’t hurt that they’re making most of their shots either. At the end of the first quarter we’re down 10-2. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t more than a little concerned at this point. Mortified at the prospects of being blown out against a team we beat last year would more accurately describe my emotional state.
At the quarter break I stress being patient on offense and coming off the screens on defense, but do so in a low key sort of way. I also prepare them for a press which never comes. And we settle down pretty quickly and start to find our offensive groove. By half we’ve narrowed it to 16-12. At half I stress how we’ve closed the gap, we’re playing better defense and how we’ve always been a second half team. Then just to prove my point, we tear them apart in the third quarter. We do this despite the fact that my weaker players saw extended time on the court together during the quarter. We basically ran them ragged, pushing the ball hard up the court nearly every possession and MP just wore out. When the quarter ends we find ourselves up 30-24. I stress playing solid defense and we’re off for another quarter of play. In the 4th quarter its clear that MP1 is frustrated, though I didn’t realize until part way through the quarter. Two different kids during the quarter take a hard fall and start crying, more out of frustration, I believe than injury. I had put out a group of five of David, Brian, Justin, Jack M, and Scott to start the quarter, though I sub out Jack M a minute in to the quarter in favor of Lucas. This fivesome does a nice job of putting the game out of reach, allowing me to give some end of game minutes to a few players who hadn’t seen the court as much. We close out a very solid 44-31 victory.
Its nice that we struggled so much and then still proved we could win, and in a dominating fashion too. A few of the parents commented to me how they were a little concerned in the first quarter, but it was a fun game to watch. This matches my feelings pretty closely.
I really struggled this game in terms of substitutions. Having 11 players versus 10 makes every bit the difference I expected it to make. Overall, I’m real happy with how the playing time worked out, with most players right in the 11-13 minute range of playing time, giving them a good chance to really get some quality playing time.
Let’s do a player by player break down:
Andrew – Andrew looked a little lost in his time on the court. Which frankly didn’t surprise me. He isn’t used to playing at the level we’re playing at, but I think he’s got the skills to adjust. He saw only about 10 minutes of playing time but I really hope that goes up as the season goes on. He did have the one bad shot of the game. He was in at the end and I had told them to slow it down and take their time. So he gets a pass in the corner, is wide open and takes the shot, just inside the three point line. Two problems with this. One it was hardly slowing things down. But I generally don’t fault kids for taking open shots. More troubling, was that he was so wide open he’d have been better off taking a few dribbles in and shooting closer in.
Brian – He played quite well in a mostly unnoticeable way. He had 6 points, 1 assist, and 2 good rebounds. Rebounding (as I’ll talk about more in a second) was an area I was happy with overall, as we didn’t give up too many 3rd and 4th chances to MP. He also made another comment about David being the best player out there. I had forgotten to talk with him about this before the game, but am going to make sure to do so on Wednesday.
Cameron – Cameron’s first sport is soccer, and he’s got a lot of the accompanying skills there. Like Andrew, the pace and nature of the game seemed to take him by surprise. While Andrew has a wellspring of basketball talent to draw on, Cameron has more athletic talent to draw upon. Cameron has the problem of being a guard, and a guard who I don’t really trust to bring the ball up. This lack of role makes it harder for me to really find a time when I think “Oh it’ll be great to have Cameron out there”. I hope that he develops a strength as the season progresses. For our first game he was pretty much a non entity besides picking up a couple of quick fouls in the third. Cameron’s mom remarked to me after the game that she can see why Cameron enjoys basketball so much since I am a positive coach. It’s always nice to hear this, as it’s certainly my goal.
Dante – While Dante has been rough and really going at it in practice, that same level of intensity didn’t carry over to the game. He’s did an OK, though not great job of guarding some big men. He was fairly soft last year, and I’d grown optimistic that he’d toughened up some. I hope that he too was just finding his bearings in this game and will be more of a presence for us inside in the games to come.
David – Showed again what a remarkable talent he is. Where he was sullen about his playing on Thursday, he worked through a rough first quarter to really help us explode in the second. At one point MP’s star point guard was shouting out that David had no left hand, after David had gotten fouled. I called a 30 second time out before he went to the line, pointed that out to him, asked him if that was true. He smiled and said no, and showed the next possession his left hand. When he’s relaxed and having fun (which go hand in hand) he’s just pure joy to watch. What was especially nice was that, for only the second time, the triplet’s father was there to watch and so he got to see David perform well.
Jack M – Served as our point guard when David wasn’t in and even at times while David was in. I liked how he moved the ball overall, though his stats (0-2, with 3 turnovers and 1 foul) suggest he was more harm than good. However, I think that’s not totally representative of what he did for us. He saw lots of short bursts of playing time, which I have a feeling will be fairly typical for him this season, having subbed in at 5 different points. I will say that his attitude this year has been very positive and I will likely be remarking on it to him at our next practice.
Jack P – He scored points on fairly efficient shooting (2-5) along with drawing 2 fouls. He played point for us at a couple of different points. This kind of performance is a HUGE step up from last year when he would regularly go something like 1-8, or worse. He is, after David, the best player on our team at penetrating, but his missed shots were driving me batty. If he’s turned that around, a big if and one I’m not willing to commit to after one game, my job will have only gotten that much harder as he will deserve to play substantial playing time.
Justin – When talking about the team, I had talked about how we had a new enter. And boy do we ever. Justin, who along with David, played the most minutes at just under 21, came up huge with 12 rebounds and 8 points, with most of those points being on put backs from rebounds. Having a true inside presence, combined with our fabulous guard play really takes us to a whole new level.
Lucas – Lucas played a solid game, seeing playing time at every position but 2, something that’ll be happening with him a lot this season. And by solid I mean 2-5 shooting, 2-2 at the free throw line, along an assist and 4 rebounds against 2 fouls and 2 turnovers. We lack size to have a true #4, especially if Dante continues to play soft, and so as much as I would like to take advantage of his guard ability we’re going to need him inside and guarding those big kids.
Scott – Scott is pretty similar to Lucas. The kid is as tough as nails and while I think he’s got even more ability than Lucas to play point, I wonder how much I’ll actually be able to find him time there. He had 3-7 shooting 1-1 from the line, along with 4 rebounds, 2 steals, against 3 turnovers and 1 foul. His rebounding numbers are going to suffer this year because there are only so many rebounds to be had and Justin is gobbling them up. It’s a problem I like having.
Tom – Tom didn’t play a whole lot for us, but played real strong in the time he played. Tom is frequently not inclined to shoot open shots, but he had an open shot in the game and he made it which was great to see. He also had a steal. In other words in limited minutes he played real well for us. Tom’s a good basketball player, but he’s not someone who can make things happen, for the most part and this effects how I use him. I have to be careful with Tom, since he’ll never complain about his playing time, which sometimes makes it easier to pick someone else when it’s a choice between two players. My goal is to not fall in this trap this season.
So I’m feeling good about where we’re at heading into our LN game. Look for the write-up of the HP game to appear sometime tomorrow.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
HP Practice
Good news was that, for once, I wasn’t exhausted going into practice with HP. However, the practice wasn’t great, wasn’t bad, but not great either. The fun started before practice. Ben shows up in a foot boot. He had previously been under the “don’t do something if you were in pain” order. Ben decided to hear “you can do whatever you want”. He’s a maybe for tomorrow. Josh had been sick but showed up to practice. So we’re down two men despite everyone being there.
For continuous motion we practiced dribbling, with my placing a large emphasis on doing it with the head up. Following this, we spent some time in a half court scrimmage practicing just moving around, essentially, on offense. Giving them a “position” to play just seemed to throw them off, more than anything. I think I would have been better off saying “you 5 go in and play” on some level. Gavin was particularly upset at being told he was going to be a center. This after already being told, when he started chucking up shots during our water break post continuous motion, that if he shot like that in the game he would come out. Not a happy day, for Gavin, all things considered.
Following this we played a game of golf, then did our triangle passing drill. It was then time to practice our inbounds play. I basically taught them a simple stack in/out cut and a free lance play at the free throw line. Later on, after we’ve worked on picks, we’ll probably do a box play or two. The way we did the stack is simply to alternate who cuts towards and away from the basket, based on whether it’s an odd or even number called out. Most of the players had no problem with this, though a few struggled.
After that it was time for the “here’s how games” work. I talked about subbing in and then kneeling down, and telling the player who’s subbing in for you which player you were guarding. The nuts and bolts of substitution. I then did a much better job of explaining my philosophy about subbing, then I did with GL on Thursday and even took some questions. Jack A asked a good question, for instance, about what happens if you get tired. Would then mean you would get less time. I explained that when a player gets tired, I try to get them back in when they tell me they’re ready. I felt good about this part. However, I just felt like the rest of practice wasn’t as filled with instruction as I would have liked. I think I really need to start including teaching points on my practice plans, and using my practice plans when I’m doing the practice (as I’ve basically done the practice plan, but from memory).
I haven’t gone into nearly as much detail with the HP practices as I have with the GL practices. Part of this is simply reflecting that I am more tired for HP practices than GL. But also, because I don’t have quite the same bond with the HP team as I do with GL and so I simply have less to say about them. I sincerely hope that this changes, as I don’t want to be that parent who favors one child over the other. I am really hoping once we’ve been in the breech together, after a few games, that the bond will start to form. But in the mean time it seems like a good time to do a team overview:
Adam – I really want to like this kid. Or rather I do like this kid. I really want to like his basketball skills. However, while he’s close on a whole bunch of issues, the complete package just isn’t there. He is aggressive, which I like, but his man to man is weak. He can penetrate well, but then gets trapped and doesn’t know how to get out of it. In the long run I think he could turn into a real good player, but he’s not quite there yet.
Ben – The stronger of the twins, when he’s not in a foot cast. Despite not being a tall player he’s definitely going to be an inside presence for us. He had predicted he would be playing a 2, but I explained, “No no. It’s more like 3 or 4”. He’s also a great teammate. Today, for instance, when he had the cast on and was sitting out to the side he was cheering on his teammates in a great manner. He was a definite starter, but now with being a maybe for tomorrow, I’m not sure. I think I will start him if he’s able to play, but just really limit his minutes. I’d much rather have him for January, February, and March, then play him some in November and lose him the rest of the season.
Danny – Kid’s got a great smile. He’s pretty quick and a good slasher. I think he has the potential to be one of our stronger players. When we were doing triangle defense, he did a great job of getting his hands up and deflecting the pass and otherwise disrupting the passing lanes. He will be starting tomorrow. His dad, while all smiles kind of rubs me the wrong way for no real reason. I don’t want to say he’s creepy but that’s the best word to describe how he rubs me the wrong way. Off-putting perhaps? Whatever it is, I can’t really put my finger on it yet.
Gavin – Our center, despite his protests. Attitude is going to be an issue with him more than ability. Well decision making and resulting attitude. He doesn’t have a sense yet of how to play the post, but I anticipate that will develop over time. I had said I was going to start the 5 best defenders, which he is not. However, with Ben a maybe, it looks like Gavin could very well get the start in his place.
Henry – He’s small but he doesn’t play it. He’s a sharp kid and so he’ll be someone I use as an in bounder a fair amount. The one thing that bothers me is that he dribbles really high. Now since he’s short it’s not too much of a problem, but it does make it far easier to steal the ball from him than it would be otherwise. He’ll be starting tomorrow.
Jack A – He took losing very hard in his house league game. I like that. As I said he’s got a real good jump stop and can making a moving lay-up. I tried him a little at point and that’s not the right position. And not just because he has a tendency to travel, by semi-catching the ball as he’s dribbling. He is, I think, a gamer so I expect him to do better tomorrow than he had been at practice.
Jack B – Unlike Henry, he’s a small player who plays his height. I think he’s got some good instincts and could be developed into a better point guard than he is now, but he’s not there yet (as he has a tendency to pick up his dribble at the first sign of trouble). For the time being he’ll be seeing less playing time.
Jacob – I basically gave my assessment of him the other night. He’s got a great grasp of basketball fundamentals, but lacks a lot of the athletic ability to execute. Because of his size he’ll get some good chances to play. I’m going to be very curious what his WS says about him.
Jon – He’s a kid who I’m going to play in spurts, as he gets tired easily. I told him this and he seemed comfortable with that idea. Shares much of his brothers aggression and good nature. He’s also a lefty versus his brother being a righty which is kind of interesting. So he’s going to be a starter but will likely also come out after only a couple.
Josh – He’s a bit slower than most of the other players on the team. And he doesn’t do some things all that well. But every now and then he shows a flash of something, such as today when he executed a perfect through the legs and behind the back crossover, that shows that he belongs, something I didn’t think was true of him at first. But as I can’t figure out how quite to use him, he too will likely see less playing time tomorrow if it’s a close game. Of course if it’s a blow-out I’ll likely leave him in more just so I can figure him out a little better.
Zach – Reputedly the best player in the grade. This is probably true, though he’s not going to be able to take over a game the way David can, or at least I haven’t seen it yet. He is the best of a bad crop at point guard. Unlike with GL where I would feel comfortable putting half the team at point (literally), I don’t really trust any of the players to play point. But someone has to do it, and for now it’s going to be Zack.
So that’s our team. Brian told me some real nightmare stories about some of the PL coaches, so we’ll see how that goes. But I’m excited at having a chance to play a game and see how we stack up.
For continuous motion we practiced dribbling, with my placing a large emphasis on doing it with the head up. Following this, we spent some time in a half court scrimmage practicing just moving around, essentially, on offense. Giving them a “position” to play just seemed to throw them off, more than anything. I think I would have been better off saying “you 5 go in and play” on some level. Gavin was particularly upset at being told he was going to be a center. This after already being told, when he started chucking up shots during our water break post continuous motion, that if he shot like that in the game he would come out. Not a happy day, for Gavin, all things considered.
Following this we played a game of golf, then did our triangle passing drill. It was then time to practice our inbounds play. I basically taught them a simple stack in/out cut and a free lance play at the free throw line. Later on, after we’ve worked on picks, we’ll probably do a box play or two. The way we did the stack is simply to alternate who cuts towards and away from the basket, based on whether it’s an odd or even number called out. Most of the players had no problem with this, though a few struggled.
After that it was time for the “here’s how games” work. I talked about subbing in and then kneeling down, and telling the player who’s subbing in for you which player you were guarding. The nuts and bolts of substitution. I then did a much better job of explaining my philosophy about subbing, then I did with GL on Thursday and even took some questions. Jack A asked a good question, for instance, about what happens if you get tired. Would then mean you would get less time. I explained that when a player gets tired, I try to get them back in when they tell me they’re ready. I felt good about this part. However, I just felt like the rest of practice wasn’t as filled with instruction as I would have liked. I think I really need to start including teaching points on my practice plans, and using my practice plans when I’m doing the practice (as I’ve basically done the practice plan, but from memory).
I haven’t gone into nearly as much detail with the HP practices as I have with the GL practices. Part of this is simply reflecting that I am more tired for HP practices than GL. But also, because I don’t have quite the same bond with the HP team as I do with GL and so I simply have less to say about them. I sincerely hope that this changes, as I don’t want to be that parent who favors one child over the other. I am really hoping once we’ve been in the breech together, after a few games, that the bond will start to form. But in the mean time it seems like a good time to do a team overview:
Adam – I really want to like this kid. Or rather I do like this kid. I really want to like his basketball skills. However, while he’s close on a whole bunch of issues, the complete package just isn’t there. He is aggressive, which I like, but his man to man is weak. He can penetrate well, but then gets trapped and doesn’t know how to get out of it. In the long run I think he could turn into a real good player, but he’s not quite there yet.
Ben – The stronger of the twins, when he’s not in a foot cast. Despite not being a tall player he’s definitely going to be an inside presence for us. He had predicted he would be playing a 2, but I explained, “No no. It’s more like 3 or 4”. He’s also a great teammate. Today, for instance, when he had the cast on and was sitting out to the side he was cheering on his teammates in a great manner. He was a definite starter, but now with being a maybe for tomorrow, I’m not sure. I think I will start him if he’s able to play, but just really limit his minutes. I’d much rather have him for January, February, and March, then play him some in November and lose him the rest of the season.
Danny – Kid’s got a great smile. He’s pretty quick and a good slasher. I think he has the potential to be one of our stronger players. When we were doing triangle defense, he did a great job of getting his hands up and deflecting the pass and otherwise disrupting the passing lanes. He will be starting tomorrow. His dad, while all smiles kind of rubs me the wrong way for no real reason. I don’t want to say he’s creepy but that’s the best word to describe how he rubs me the wrong way. Off-putting perhaps? Whatever it is, I can’t really put my finger on it yet.
Gavin – Our center, despite his protests. Attitude is going to be an issue with him more than ability. Well decision making and resulting attitude. He doesn’t have a sense yet of how to play the post, but I anticipate that will develop over time. I had said I was going to start the 5 best defenders, which he is not. However, with Ben a maybe, it looks like Gavin could very well get the start in his place.
Henry – He’s small but he doesn’t play it. He’s a sharp kid and so he’ll be someone I use as an in bounder a fair amount. The one thing that bothers me is that he dribbles really high. Now since he’s short it’s not too much of a problem, but it does make it far easier to steal the ball from him than it would be otherwise. He’ll be starting tomorrow.
Jack A – He took losing very hard in his house league game. I like that. As I said he’s got a real good jump stop and can making a moving lay-up. I tried him a little at point and that’s not the right position. And not just because he has a tendency to travel, by semi-catching the ball as he’s dribbling. He is, I think, a gamer so I expect him to do better tomorrow than he had been at practice.
Jack B – Unlike Henry, he’s a small player who plays his height. I think he’s got some good instincts and could be developed into a better point guard than he is now, but he’s not there yet (as he has a tendency to pick up his dribble at the first sign of trouble). For the time being he’ll be seeing less playing time.
Jacob – I basically gave my assessment of him the other night. He’s got a great grasp of basketball fundamentals, but lacks a lot of the athletic ability to execute. Because of his size he’ll get some good chances to play. I’m going to be very curious what his WS says about him.
Jon – He’s a kid who I’m going to play in spurts, as he gets tired easily. I told him this and he seemed comfortable with that idea. Shares much of his brothers aggression and good nature. He’s also a lefty versus his brother being a righty which is kind of interesting. So he’s going to be a starter but will likely also come out after only a couple.
Josh – He’s a bit slower than most of the other players on the team. And he doesn’t do some things all that well. But every now and then he shows a flash of something, such as today when he executed a perfect through the legs and behind the back crossover, that shows that he belongs, something I didn’t think was true of him at first. But as I can’t figure out how quite to use him, he too will likely see less playing time tomorrow if it’s a close game. Of course if it’s a blow-out I’ll likely leave him in more just so I can figure him out a little better.
Zach – Reputedly the best player in the grade. This is probably true, though he’s not going to be able to take over a game the way David can, or at least I haven’t seen it yet. He is the best of a bad crop at point guard. Unlike with GL where I would feel comfortable putting half the team at point (literally), I don’t really trust any of the players to play point. But someone has to do it, and for now it’s going to be Zack.
So that’s our team. Brian told me some real nightmare stories about some of the PL coaches, so we’ll see how that goes. But I’m excited at having a chance to play a game and see how we stack up.
Friday, November 2, 2007
GL Practice
I got to practice 15 minutes early and there wasn’t a kid in sight. In fact the first kid, Jack M, showed up about 6 minutes before practice began. Then, all of a sudden, the whole team was there, except Andrew (who was late again). When it looked like the team was all going to be late, I was awfully tempted to name everyone who as at practice on time starters for Sunday’s game.
After the overview of the practice, we went into continuous motion, similar to the one I did with the HP team last Saturday. Their shooting, overall, looked quite good. In particular Scott looked good, as did Andrew (after the first minute or two and he relaxed). Jack M, on the other hand, cramped up early on. He did push through it, which was nice to see versus last year when he would just give up in continuous motion. Jack P, looked as smooth as ever in what he did, but couldn’t make a shot to save his life. After continuous motion I had them shoot their two free throws. And this is where the Discontent of David settled in. He went 0 for 2 in his free throws. He has not been shooting well, overall, in his free throws. This is not good considering David will likely get more “in game practice” then any other player on the team. David was clearly unhappy with how he did there. I talked to him some to try and reassure him, but didn’t do a good job as he played unhappily the rest of practice.
After this, I used a no dribble scrimmage to work on our floor spacing and offense. They actually did so well with this, that rather than doing the shell drill, we continued to scrimmage, with dribbling only being allowed in the front court. Of course as soon as I announced this the defense went down the drain. However, overall they did a good job with trapping, and even doing a little encouraging of getting the ball to the corner. I would like to see us collapse a little more when they get into our house. After this it was time for two more free throws.
We then practiced our in bounds play. I am cautious optimistic about it since: A. They ran it correctly, versus last year when they never seemed to run it correctly. And B. Even knowing what the play was, we were still getting some looks.
We then played a few games of golf, from different spots on the floor. I had the last game be from behind the 3 point line, to emphasize how many more shots are missed from there. Where as teams were regularly getting 2 or 3 in a row from the first two spots, no team ever strung together more than 2 from the three point line, and that happened only once.
After this we did some of our 3 on 3 switch drill. They continue to do a good job of communicating pick-ups here. It was then speech time as I talked about our first game. I’m not real happy with how I said what I said, so I’m going to say it on Sunday in a better manner. Overall, I had been focusing on team skills and getting us ready, at the expense of fundamentals, these first few practices. I feel like our new players are fairly well integrated into our structure at this point, which is good. I think we’re ready for MP on Sunday. I don’t know if we’re ready for some of the new teams, such as EV, but I predict a solid victory come Sunday.
Unfortunately I’m still not sure where I stand with starters. I had toyed with the idea of doing something radical, such as making Lucas or Scott our starting point guard. However, in an effort to mitigate (unsuccessfully I’ll add) the Discontent of David, I named David our likely starting point guard talking about his ability to handle the ball well. I worry now that this only added to the Discontent as he heard extra pressure rather than praise. I think I’m going to have a pretty frank talk with him asking how I can help him giving him a few different ways I might do that.
So we have David starting at point. Justin will be starting at center and Scott will be in the line-up as well. Lucas is one of the 5 best on the team, but I kind of want to keep in him in reserve to give us a good spark with the first substitution group, and might even insert him at point there. If it’s a close game, however, he’ll be in there at the end of it. I’m really tempted to put Dante in as he’s been playing really well in practice, with the exception of his foot still slowing him down some. But that also causes substitution pattern problems as it would mean I would have both of my big guys out there at the start. Dante is likely capable of playing through the first quarter without a rest, however, so the idea of going big is tempting. Brian redeemed himself with some good defense last night and so I’m tempted to forgive him his bad drill in Animal Rebounding from last week. The group of Brian, Dante, David, Justin, and Scott is one which makes us “big” (as Scott continues to be able to play far above what his height and weight would indicate). So as of now that’s my starting five. I absolutely might change this between now and Sunday.
After the overview of the practice, we went into continuous motion, similar to the one I did with the HP team last Saturday. Their shooting, overall, looked quite good. In particular Scott looked good, as did Andrew (after the first minute or two and he relaxed). Jack M, on the other hand, cramped up early on. He did push through it, which was nice to see versus last year when he would just give up in continuous motion. Jack P, looked as smooth as ever in what he did, but couldn’t make a shot to save his life. After continuous motion I had them shoot their two free throws. And this is where the Discontent of David settled in. He went 0 for 2 in his free throws. He has not been shooting well, overall, in his free throws. This is not good considering David will likely get more “in game practice” then any other player on the team. David was clearly unhappy with how he did there. I talked to him some to try and reassure him, but didn’t do a good job as he played unhappily the rest of practice.
After this, I used a no dribble scrimmage to work on our floor spacing and offense. They actually did so well with this, that rather than doing the shell drill, we continued to scrimmage, with dribbling only being allowed in the front court. Of course as soon as I announced this the defense went down the drain. However, overall they did a good job with trapping, and even doing a little encouraging of getting the ball to the corner. I would like to see us collapse a little more when they get into our house. After this it was time for two more free throws.
We then practiced our in bounds play. I am cautious optimistic about it since: A. They ran it correctly, versus last year when they never seemed to run it correctly. And B. Even knowing what the play was, we were still getting some looks.
We then played a few games of golf, from different spots on the floor. I had the last game be from behind the 3 point line, to emphasize how many more shots are missed from there. Where as teams were regularly getting 2 or 3 in a row from the first two spots, no team ever strung together more than 2 from the three point line, and that happened only once.
After this we did some of our 3 on 3 switch drill. They continue to do a good job of communicating pick-ups here. It was then speech time as I talked about our first game. I’m not real happy with how I said what I said, so I’m going to say it on Sunday in a better manner. Overall, I had been focusing on team skills and getting us ready, at the expense of fundamentals, these first few practices. I feel like our new players are fairly well integrated into our structure at this point, which is good. I think we’re ready for MP on Sunday. I don’t know if we’re ready for some of the new teams, such as EV, but I predict a solid victory come Sunday.
Unfortunately I’m still not sure where I stand with starters. I had toyed with the idea of doing something radical, such as making Lucas or Scott our starting point guard. However, in an effort to mitigate (unsuccessfully I’ll add) the Discontent of David, I named David our likely starting point guard talking about his ability to handle the ball well. I worry now that this only added to the Discontent as he heard extra pressure rather than praise. I think I’m going to have a pretty frank talk with him asking how I can help him giving him a few different ways I might do that.
So we have David starting at point. Justin will be starting at center and Scott will be in the line-up as well. Lucas is one of the 5 best on the team, but I kind of want to keep in him in reserve to give us a good spark with the first substitution group, and might even insert him at point there. If it’s a close game, however, he’ll be in there at the end of it. I’m really tempted to put Dante in as he’s been playing really well in practice, with the exception of his foot still slowing him down some. But that also causes substitution pattern problems as it would mean I would have both of my big guys out there at the start. Dante is likely capable of playing through the first quarter without a rest, however, so the idea of going big is tempting. Brian redeemed himself with some good defense last night and so I’m tempted to forgive him his bad drill in Animal Rebounding from last week. The group of Brian, Dante, David, Justin, and Scott is one which makes us “big” (as Scott continues to be able to play far above what his height and weight would indicate). So as of now that’s my starting five. I absolutely might change this between now and Sunday.
HP House League Game
Well yesterday was a night full of basketball. It was the night of the first games for house league basketball in HP so I went out to cheer for my players. Unfortunately, due to GL’s practice I could only see about 1 and a half games. Being a house league they basically do mass substitutions every 5 minutes (with two 15 minute halves) which of course limited not only the time I got to see the players but also the time I got to see the players play against each other.
In the first game I saw Adam and Zach on one time, and Jack A on the other. Zach took over the game on offense. Kevin, who if you read my baseball blog you’ll remember is Park District employee, was officiating the game and told me how he thinks Zach is the best player in HP in the age group. This might be true, but he’s not so far above, at least from what I’ve seen. Anyhow, Zach’s play was definitely impressive. Adam and Jack presented a more mixed picture. Adam was acting as the point guard for his team and had the tendency to dribble the ball straight down the free throw line, rather than through the lane. He would then frequently get trapped there with the ball. If he’s getting trapped there in house, I fear what’ll happen to him in travel. His man to man defense continues to be suspect. On the good side, he hustled. Anytime the other team got a fast break, he hustled to get back and helped force some misses in that manner. He also found himself near the basket a lot on shots (see suspect man to man defense) but pulled down 4 rebounds, one of the higher totals for any individual player, despite being one of the shortest players out there. Jack did a great job of penetrating when there was a slower pace, and creating fast breaks. He didn’t always convert but he got good shots. He was particularly effective at doing the jump stop on the fast break to make pursuers over shoot him. The mixed bag part comes from the fact that it seemed like every time he touched the ball he ended up shooting. Were they smart shots? Yeah they were all good shots. But he’s going to have a harder time driving through the lane in travel than in house and I worry that we’re still going to see the same amount of shots from him as he would drive with his head down, hardly a good way to be ready to dish the ball off to a teammate.
Unfortunately because I had to get to the GL practice, I only was able to see about half of the next game which featured Ben and Jon on one team and Jacob on the other. Also fun was that Jeremy F’s and Matt A’s (from baseball) little brothers were on one team while Matt S’s brother was on the other, so I knew a lot of the kids out there. Ben and Jon were both used as point guards for their teams, a role that they will not be playing on our team, so that limited the value I was able to see in that capacity. Their defense and hustle were both excellent. However, Jon got winded very quickly, just as he had in practice. I think this means I will be, for the time being, using him in short bursts, of say 2 minutes with him frequently rotating back in. Ben played well overall except at one point when there was a small kid on the ground on the other team and Ben was clearly tempted to reach in and just take the ball from him, but didn’t. So the instinct was there but not the killer attitude to follow through. Hopefully I can nudge him towards following through on that. Then there is Jacob. Jacob is a very bright kid and enjoys talking with me. So I really like the kid. He does a lot of things right, such as space the floor. In fact, I was pleased in general with how well my players moved around the floor and kept it spaced. However, Jacob lacks many of the athletic skills to full take advantage of his technical knowledge and is not a good dribbler to boot. Not sure how much I can do about the athleticism but I can certainly work on his dribbling.
I was glad I got to see these games and was sad I didn’t get a chance to see my other 5 players play.
In the first game I saw Adam and Zach on one time, and Jack A on the other. Zach took over the game on offense. Kevin, who if you read my baseball blog you’ll remember is Park District employee, was officiating the game and told me how he thinks Zach is the best player in HP in the age group. This might be true, but he’s not so far above, at least from what I’ve seen. Anyhow, Zach’s play was definitely impressive. Adam and Jack presented a more mixed picture. Adam was acting as the point guard for his team and had the tendency to dribble the ball straight down the free throw line, rather than through the lane. He would then frequently get trapped there with the ball. If he’s getting trapped there in house, I fear what’ll happen to him in travel. His man to man defense continues to be suspect. On the good side, he hustled. Anytime the other team got a fast break, he hustled to get back and helped force some misses in that manner. He also found himself near the basket a lot on shots (see suspect man to man defense) but pulled down 4 rebounds, one of the higher totals for any individual player, despite being one of the shortest players out there. Jack did a great job of penetrating when there was a slower pace, and creating fast breaks. He didn’t always convert but he got good shots. He was particularly effective at doing the jump stop on the fast break to make pursuers over shoot him. The mixed bag part comes from the fact that it seemed like every time he touched the ball he ended up shooting. Were they smart shots? Yeah they were all good shots. But he’s going to have a harder time driving through the lane in travel than in house and I worry that we’re still going to see the same amount of shots from him as he would drive with his head down, hardly a good way to be ready to dish the ball off to a teammate.
Unfortunately because I had to get to the GL practice, I only was able to see about half of the next game which featured Ben and Jon on one team and Jacob on the other. Also fun was that Jeremy F’s and Matt A’s (from baseball) little brothers were on one team while Matt S’s brother was on the other, so I knew a lot of the kids out there. Ben and Jon were both used as point guards for their teams, a role that they will not be playing on our team, so that limited the value I was able to see in that capacity. Their defense and hustle were both excellent. However, Jon got winded very quickly, just as he had in practice. I think this means I will be, for the time being, using him in short bursts, of say 2 minutes with him frequently rotating back in. Ben played well overall except at one point when there was a small kid on the ground on the other team and Ben was clearly tempted to reach in and just take the ball from him, but didn’t. So the instinct was there but not the killer attitude to follow through. Hopefully I can nudge him towards following through on that. Then there is Jacob. Jacob is a very bright kid and enjoys talking with me. So I really like the kid. He does a lot of things right, such as space the floor. In fact, I was pleased in general with how well my players moved around the floor and kept it spaced. However, Jacob lacks many of the athletic skills to full take advantage of his technical knowledge and is not a good dribbler to boot. Not sure how much I can do about the athleticism but I can certainly work on his dribbling.
I was glad I got to see these games and was sad I didn’t get a chance to see my other 5 players play.
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