GL Practice 2

Well we had practice #2 tonight for GL and it was a good practice, the first for me out of the four between the two teams. I’m so excited I was having trouble falling asleep despite being pretty tired today. Part of the reason for this success? I ran them ragged at the start. With the team running its suicides people were tired to begin with. I then did a little talk about our upcoming schedule and did a demonstration of defensive positioning. Between this little talk/demo and their water break they had recovered enough that we went into continuous motion.

This was our defensive continuous motion drill where they practice sliding and posture along with running backwards. To me it’s more boring than our dribbling drills however the team liked it, because it was different. It had been my goal to spice up continuous motion this year and I think the team has appreciated that. I think I’ll introduce the last continuous motion, which is a shooting continuous motion, next Wednesday. Anyhow, they were dying somewhat doing the defensive drill and were getting sloppy with their running so after 6 minutes I put them into two teams and did a relay race with the winning team being done and the losing team having to go for a minute more. The losing team lost because of Dante, who wasn’t full recovered but insisted on going. I really should have put my foot down for this relay but didn’t.

We then spent some time in the shell drill to work on our man to man defense. Our goal this year is to force the ball to the corner and keep it out of the lane so the positioning for our man to man is a little different than traditional. Cameron really struggled with his positioning as did Lucas and Jack P to a lesser extent. Lucas’s struggles didn’t surprise me (he’s more an instinctual player and the intellectual side of the game is hard on him) while Jack P’s struggles were surprising to me.

It was then time to run the second half of the suicides, as each kid ran about half of their assigned amount at the start. We followed this up with two free throws. Our shooting percentage? Not so hot.

Finally we ended with a new game. While the shell drill had been somewhat useful, this game is what made the practice from an OK one into a good one. I need a better name for the game, but for now I’m calling it 3 on 2, 2 on 3. The way it works is that there are 5 players on each side. However, players are only allowed to go on half the court. 3 players are allowed in the front court (offense) and only 2 in the back court (defense). One team’s offense starts with the ball. It then plays as a game of 3 on 2. If the 2 player team gets the ball, either because of a turnover/rebound or after a made basket, they must then get the ball across half court with both players on the team touching the ball in bounds. Meanwhile the 3 player team is allowed to press/trap/etc.

It took them a little while to figure out how to do the drill correctly but once that happened it turned into a great drill. There was lots of aggressive defense and it really applied the pressure of a full court press. Not surprisingly, it was David who first figured out how to work the drill, though in the end his team lost. After the first grouping I applied an offensive shot clock of first 15 seconds and then 10 seconds, which Dante kept track of as scorekeeper since this was too physical of a drill for him to participate in.
It really started to let me see how they might act in a game. For instance, players on both teams started yelling at Tom to shoot when he was open, which he started to do. He didn’t make a shot, but they were good shots. Conversely, Andrew got criticized for his shot selection by members of his team. During pre-practice shoot around he was shooting 3’s and they were not smart shots for him and I told him as much. But it has no where near the effect of the team saying it. I think that’s the thing I’m most proud of: our team has a culture of shooting smart shots. I’m proud of it because while there was that desire there, this is an area, more than others, where I think I really imprinted my belief on the team, and now that culture is being spread. Anyhow, besides Andrew’s shot selection, he wilted somewhat under the pressure of the press. The kid who struggled the most with the press, making bad choices in his dribbling and passing? Cameron. He was constantly picking up his dribble when pressured, creating all sorts of problems for him. Jack M and Brian also got frustrated while on the 2 person teams, which is par for the course with them. Jack M really did a good job but he was paired up with Cameron and so Cameron’s troubles frustrated Jack. Jack P also struggled on the 2 person team more than I was expecting, but that could have been because his partner was Andrew, who as I mentioned seemed overwhelmed. Besides David, Scott did really well, really orchestrating the press when he was on the 3 man team. Justin showed the greatest improvement from start of the drill to the end. The game is neat because a team can rattle off 3 or 4 baskets in a row, without the other team being able to get the ball past half court, so the points can change fairly quickly. It was a winner and I think I’m going to use it with my HP team this Saturday as well.

The other news from today is that JCC contacted me about scheduling some games this year. I wanted to make sure that playing them would be ok with Justin and when I asked him about it before practice was completely pumped about the idea, so I think that’s a go. I’m not sure that I want to do more than 1 game against them, as they have an A and a B.

With only 4 practices left before our first game, I’m thinking we should be ready, and I’m excited about it.