I get to practice on Monday, 10 minutes early like I want to be, and already 2/3 of the team is there. The gym is all setup correctly and so, for the first time, we don’t have a space issue of any type. It was wonderful.

As I get the doggie bags back, I see that everyone, except for Dante, is claiming to have learned all 5 of the first rules of the offense. I am skeptical. I had made this doggie bag a little different in that I had given them a way to rate themselves and list any of the rules that they didn’t understand or were having trouble remembering.

Without much introduction we go right into our continuous motion drill. Several of the players commented, and I agreed, that the 10 minutes seemed shorter than on Friday. I’m pretty sure I did 10 minutes both days, but perhaps I messed up on one of them. If I did I likely went too short on Monday. Tonight, for the partner parts of the run, my partner was David. When I had done this with my other partners I let them set the pace. With David, I set the pace. I don’t think I’ve talked about this before, but I do treat David differently than the other players. It’s not that I am harder or easier on him, but I have found ways to express different expectations for him, higher expectations, than for others. There’s really no one there that can tire him out running except for me (Dante might be able to out endure him but since Dante is S L O W that is only so useful) so it was good to really push him there. About half way through, I asked if he was tired, he said no, so I really picked up the pace for the last half. David might have thought the time was shorter but he was more tired than he’d been before. Yes, it’s good that a healthy guy in his 20s can outrun a 9 year old. Anyhow, I will continue to look for ways to push David as I want him to grow as much as others, but since he’s starting at a higher mark, that can be hard at times. Just as a further example, he was shooting 3s before practice, something I don’t normally allow (they should be practicing shots they can make) but David made 6 out of 10. In the long run his shooting percentage would be lower, but still…

Defense was the focus of our practice. I randomly had paired them up during continuous motion. We then went into a “help defense” drill. I stood at the top of the three point arc, with a player on each wing. We had two defenders who guarded the two players on offense. As the ball was swung to a side the players needed to shift accordingly. This was a fairly simple drill, though it was made harder when we added a skip pass (meaning the two players could pass it directly to each other without passing it to me first, giving less time to recover and get into position). Lucas and Jack M struggled the most. Let’s do a quick tangent here about Jack M. I had noted previously that I wanted to really focus on the positives with Jack. And for the most part I have been doing this. At the same time I don’t fake achievement, so when he was out of place in the help drill, I’m going to, in a respectful way, remind him of where he should be and then give him a chance to demonstrate success. But overall I’ve been trying to find reasons to say good things. But Jack is the sort of kid who dwells on the negative. So despite having heard 10 complements it’s the one criticism that’ll stick with him. And then there’s the sulking. I am glad, however, that we have a long season as it does give more opportunity to really show him that I’m on his side. Hopefully, I will see better things as he realizes that basketball is a supportive place.

Then we did a couple of one on one drills. A reason for this was to give me time to divide them into groups of three for our last major drill, though we did end up spending a fair amount of time on them.

In this last drill teams of three are playing basketball. Except the offense can’t score. The goal is for the defense to force three turnovers. I turned it into a competition, as the offense needed to hold onto the ball the longest, while the defense was trying to force the mistakes as quickly as possible. I called fouls (which added or subtracted 10 seconds depending on which side you were on). However, I let a lot of ticky-tacky fouls go as I really want to encourage an in your face defense. I explained to the team that it’s easier in a game to back off then to suddenly get aggressive. I did the best I could in balancing the teams, and ended up with these groupings:

A – Dante, Jack M, Tom
B – David, Gordie, Jack P
C – Scott, Noah, and Lucas

The drill worked out even better than I had been hoping. First it forced the players to play some help defense. Forced them to take some risks with double teams, but then also learn how to react. And while I was doing it as a defensive drill it might have been even more helpful on offense. In order to do well on offense you had to really use many of the offensive rules I laid out. For instance the teams that did well kept the floor spaced, making it harder for the defense to cover. Players were forced to move with-out the ball. Teams that had players moving without the ball for a purpose did the best. Dribbling for no reason was a sure fire way to get in trouble, but dribbling for a reason was successful. And on and on. In the end if Scott hadn’t completely blown the first run through for his team (he stepped out of bounds twice) it’d have been fairly even. Team A actually won on offense. And since, as I was about to learn, Tom had really nailed the offensive rules, and Dante had given it real thought, it shouldn’t be too surprising. Team B came close on offensive, and absolutely dominated on defense, though part of that was helped by Scott’s mental mistakes. The players seemed to enjoy this drill as well, so we’ll likely be making a repeat of it. One thing I was SO happy about: All of our pivoting practice paid off. Almost all the players were pivoting out of problems in order to get free to make the pass. While we had practiced that some before, I had not given the offense any instructions, limiting myself to defensive reminders. So to see so many of the players do this was just wonderful. It really did help me feel justified for spending the time we have on “the basics” as I doubt pivoting like this had really been widely taught before now.

After all the teams had gone three times on offensive and defense I sat everyone down. And I talked about how the teams that did well on offense used many of the offensive rules. Tom was all over this. Dante also saw the connection (despite having admittedly not learned all the rules). Others? Well not quite as much. The Jacks were completely clueless, as were the H’s and Gordie. Lucas had a foggy notion, as did Noah. At this point I complemented them on a great practice. I said if we can have an equally good practice for the first hour on Friday we’ll scrimmage for about 20 minutes. Many seemed excited about this.
We ran our suicides next. Only a few players owed a suicide. I gave them 35 seconds (which was really 40, but shhh) to complete it. Last Friday I had given Dante a break on the time requirement. He was concerned about the fact, thinking that I thought poorly of him. After thinking over the interaction, I realized I hadn’t really addressed his concerns so I made sure to do so at the start of practice. I told him I knew he was slower, but that he didn’t tire, which was a good thing and so not to worry as much about the slow. Honestly, the slow will be a problem somewhat, as if a team is good at getting down the court I won’t be able to play Dante as he’d never make it down the court in time, but I think it will be workable. Anyway, so Dante decided to run the suicide, despite not having to. And he was SO proud when he did it under the allotted time. It was a great moment as it was entirely a self motivated thing, even a little bit of “I’ll show Coach that I can do it” and it was a genuine accomplishment. I loved it.

We ended practice with everyone giving a positive about someone from their 3 on 3 team. In this way far more kids got a positive stated about them. I’ve said it before, but I will say it again: this is a nice group. The supportive atmosphere Steve and I had to work so hard at creating on our baseball team is almost completely there already with this group. I claim very little for this good vibe, considering it was there to begin with. Hopefully as we start to play games, and a pecking order is established, as who I think the better players are becomes apparent, the good vibrations and supportive atmosphere will continue. If that happens I will take some credit for making sure a good foundation was there. I handed out the doggie bag, which had the rest of our 9 offensive rules. They are:

• You move every time you make a pass
• You move to get open for a shot, to receive a pass, set a screen to get a teammate open
• Be patient and make simple passes
• Dribble should be used to: advance the ball out of the backcourt, make a drive to the basket, or open a passing lane
• All players are responsible for rebounding and defense.
• The ball should be swung quickly to make the defense shift
• One in every three passes should go to the post
• All players are responsible for keeping spacing and floor balance
• At least four passes before a shot (unless a player is open in the post)


I don’t actually expect them to know the rules yet, but by our first game they better, especially as they will have seen how we’re putting the rules together. It’s nice to know, though, that a couple of kids, such as Tom, will likely come with all 9 rules down pat like the back of their hands.

All in all, it was perhaps our best practice which after a couple of downers, was good all around.