Exploring basketball's best ideas, strategies, and coaches around the world

Happy Sunday and welcome to all the new subscribers from around the world! We're excited to have you as part of the community 🙏

🗓This is the 192nd straight Sunday of the newsletter! We continue to thank you all for your support and including us in your coaching journey!

ICYMI: Last week, we released our latest "Modern Game Truths" collaboration with The Pro Lane on Dribbling and Passing vs Pressure. View our drill designs and ideas HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SG Plus Content: "Get" Rescreens - Middle 3rd Ballscreen Solutions​

🎤 Slappin' Glass Podcast: John Mayer {LMU Beach Volleyball}

🥇Best of the Week: All Things Iverson​

📣 Our SG Plus Summer Coaches Roundtable Returns Tuesday, May 28th!

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Let's dive in...

"Get" Rescreens

For an offense, navigating middle third ballscreens presents a unique set of challenges that demand precision, strategy, and quick decision-making. Taking place in the heart of the court, where space is both a luxury and a constraint, players must master the nuances of attacking these screens to outmaneuver a defense that can tag and stunt from multiple areas. Particularly when attacking Drop Coverage, the complexity lies not only in reading the defense and exploiting potential gaps, but also in setting up situations that complement the technical and physical skills of of the ballhandler to beat the Drop Coverage.

The challenge of attacking through middle third ballscreens can be particularly high when smaller guards are tasked with operating in them. The presence of bigger bodies and extended length in and around the paint can pose significant problems for smaller guards, making it difficult to see through or over the defense, not to mention making "on time, on target" passes out.

In the past, we have explored various skills that smaller ballhandlers use to mitigate their size and exploit Drop Coverage. Techniques such as the "Nash" dribble, which involves dribbling along the baseline rather than attempting to "Finish or Find" deep in the paint, have proven effective. Additionally, deploying a "Skip Dribble" {🔒} or "Hostage Dribble"{🔒} helps hold space above the free-throw line, allowing the roller to open up gaps in the defense.

In addition to developing technical skills with ball handlers, coaches have several tactical options to alleviate the burden on the guards to make reads against a loaded paint. How a team chooses to space and cut around the ballscreen can simplify reads and open up gaps for the ballhandler. In increasing fashion, coaches are favoring playing to a pop in the middle third, transitioning to empty-side actions on the outer third, creating a situation where the defensive big is chasing the play and all the help is in front of the ballhandler. We detailed this concept in our "Creating Long Closeouts" Clinic {🔒}.

Additionally, another strategy is to play through the short roll with the "Pocket Pass." While this introduces complexities depending on the skill and shooting level of the offensive big in the ballscreen, it can effectively shift the decision-making to a larger player capable of seeing and passing over the defense. A particularly intriguing example is Joventut Badalona executing a "Give & Go" {🔒} off the short roll hit to their Center, Ante Tomic...

"Get" Rescreens

Focusing now on the tactical decision to utilize the short roll in the middle third, we turn our attention to today's breakdown of Tamir Blatt from Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Blatt is adept at creating scoring opportunities against middle third drops by hitting his screener in the short roll and then following the pass directly into a hand-off ("Get")...

In our film study of this strategy, the real strength of playing to the "Get" lies in its ability to create better separation or cleaner setups when chasing into the hand-off or "pitch & screen." By utilizing this technique, the ballhandler can effectively take advantage of defenders tendency to relax or turn their head for a split second immediately after the pass, creating more space to operate, cleaner shooting opportunities off the screen, and/or pulling the big out of the drop coverage.

The other sneaky benefit of this action, is that it quickly changes who the "tag" is on the eventual rim roll by the big. As seen above, by quickly playing the ball back to the ballhandler through the Get, the weakside/strongside responsibilities are shifted, creating just enough space to find the roller.

Today's breakdown provides many more examples of how these "Get Rescreens"can be another interesting tool in an offense's bag when attacking through the middle third of the floor.

For much more on "Get Rescreens", please enjoy this week's latest Deep Dive on SGTV...

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Slappin' Glass Podcast

We sit down this week with the Head Coach of LMU Beach Volleyball, John Mayer! Coach Mayer has become one of the best coaches in the sport, and risen the level of LMU Volleyball to compete at the highest of levels. In this conversation we dive into differential learning, "lab work", and Coach Mayer's deep dive into Ecological Dynamics, along with discussing creating "anti-fragile" players and maintaining high performance after success during "Start, Sub, or Sit?!"

Listen to the entire conversation here...

Together with Hudl

We're proud to partner with one of the best tech companies in the world of sports, Hudl! Every play, every stat, every breakdown. On their own, they’re essential. But all together, they’re undeniable. Hudl recently introduced their newest product, Hudl Instat – a new advanced data platform that integrates with Sportscode and every Hudl product you rely on to create an all-in-one data powerhouse. Hudl Instat’s advanced tagging and next-level stat reports help you develop your team – and its global film library helps you find the missing piece to get the most out of every second of film. Visit ​hudl.com/slappinglass​ to learn more.

Tactical

📺 Iverson • Delayed Blind Pig​

"VEF Riga using a nice misdirection pin down off the Iverson entry to set up the "Blind Pig" backdoor."

✚ Pair With: Iverson Keep • Corner Stampede​

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown of Tuomas Iisalo's Iverson Step Up spacing and execution.

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📺 Iverson • "Comeback" DHO​

"A real nice tactical adjustment to punish the defender attempting to cut the 2nd screen in the Iverson."

✚ Pair With: Iverson Keep • Twirl 4​

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown on the use of the Inside Hand Push Dribble when coming off DHO's.

Interesting Reads

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📚 Amid the Women’s Basketball Boom, What Has Happened to the NBA’s Female Coaching Pipeline?​

"But the number of women who are NBA assistant coaches has quietly decreased over the past few seasons. In 2020-21, there were eight women coaches; in 2021-22, seven; in 2022-23, six. This season, there are just five: Boucek, Mery Andrade (Raptors), Brittni Donaldson (Hawks), Sidney Dobner (Bucks), and Sonia Raman (Grizzlies).

The most notable explanation for the dip is that many of those who made up the NBA’s female coaching talent pool, including Hammon and Ivey, left for head-coaching jobs in the WNBA and the NCAA women’s game. "

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📚 ‘A Breathtaking Lobbying Campaign’: The NCAA’s Sophisticated Effort to Save Amateurism​

"The multipronged campaign raises the ethical question of whether educational nonprofits should spend millions to lobby for their own interests and, in turn, against the interests of the students they claim to serve. But it also raises a concrete legal question: Nonprofit organizations with the 501(c)(3) designation have limits on lobbying spending, according to the IRS. FOS found no direct evidence that the NCAA or conferences had violated any tax law. But it’s “absolutely reasonable” to say that the six organizations could be splitting the costs so as “not to raise an eyebrow” with tax authorities, FIU professor and nonprofit tax expert Erica Harris tells FOS."

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📚 How Do You Scale Excellence?​

"In reality you need both story and structure. What I mean by story is lofty, inspirational messaging about excellence. But you also need the structure — the plumbing, if you will — the unglamorous parts of scaling. If you don’t have both of those, you’re never going to get anywhere."

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan and Pat

info@slappinglass.com

We're proud to partner with the leading Sports Travel company in the basketball world, Beyond Sports! Follow the link above to learn more about why more than 600 universities have trusted Beyond Sports for their team's foreign trips. Let them know Slappin' Glass sent you!

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