Winter League - Week 7

My high school coach used to always say he wouldn't comment right after a game regardless of a win or loss. He wanted to wait 24 hours so he wouldn't get caught up in the emotion of the game. Sometimes he was better at that than others, but we wanted to make sure we followed that rule as a staff this weekend as we were a little disappointed in the job we did getting the guys ready to play this week. We felt like the gameslacked some of the continuity of previous weeks. A couple days later, we realize that some of it had to do with the boys taking what we did the last couple of weeks and really applying it in the games.

Specifically the last two weeks we worked a lot on the correct ways to defend screens. We worked on staying between man and the basket instead of chasing around picks and giving up layins. The boys really did a good job of taking the correct path to their offensive player keeping them in the proper position to stop the opportunities to drive. Individually guys did a better job of not overplaying on fakes make it more difficult to drive (especially off the wing), another thing we worked on last week. So part of us we'll score one for the defense this week (as a former player who couldn't shoot to save his life and had to get by on his defense I should have enjoyed it more).

Having said that, we'll work on some things to help the offense step it up. The big thing will be getting back to basics. We've had a little case of the "I Got This" syndrome creep in as we reach the middle of the program. Some guys are a little too satisfied with having learned the basics of the offense and need to recognize that the next level of understanding takes into account reading and reacting to the defense to create scoring opportunities. Also, as the defense improves; screening, cutting and playing at a little faster tempo, become much more important. You may see us coaching with a little more volume this week to make sure everyone recognizes the need to continue to improve and the pace of some of the drills will probably pick up as well.

Now that the defense has improved hopefully we can see another gain on the offensive side of the ball as well. Again, your input is always welcome.