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

Happy Sunday! Welcome to all the newest subscribers from around the world!

ICYMI: Last week, we broke down the 3 Flat Nail Screen, exploring how a stationary screener at the nail creates coverage confusion and opens downhill attacks. We covered the pop threat, targeting matchups, and dunker spot reads that help turn those advantages into finishes. Read the newsletter HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SG Plus Content: Non-Shooting Bigs on the Perimeter Part 1 - Dead Corners ⚰️

🧪 The Practice Lab: Playing Out of Bad Positioning

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Tagging Up vs Crashing Five?​

📣 NABC Convention: Register Now!​

🥇 Best of the Week: Keep, Pitch, & Flow​

Dead Corners

In an era where three point shooting and highly skilled players are more cherished than ever, many of us can still find ourselves operating offensively with multiple non-shooters on the floor. Keeping those players involved without sacrificing spacing or offensive flow requires a bit of strategic problem solving.

Over the next two weeks, we’re exploring ways to solve that problem, from activating non-shooters in the corners to using their screening in blocker mover concepts and their physicality on rim duck ins. We’ll begin today with dead corner solutions from Jimmie Oakman and Mody Maor, before releasing a new Film Room video next week with Louisville Associate Head Coach John Andrzejek on playing two non-shooting bigs within a ballscreen continuity offense.

We’re honing in on the “dead corner”: what happens when an advantage produces an extra pass or skip to a corner player whose shooting doesn’t demand a full closeout. Without a plan, the defense can stay home, protect the paint, and bring the possession to a standstill.

Listen up, because dead men tell no tales.

The Dead Corner Problem: Few things stall an offense like a player catching and hesitating when a defense is daring them to shoot. If offense is about maintaining advantages, how do you keep one alive when the next receiver doesn’t command a closeout?

The Dead Corner Solution: Give the non-shooter a useful next action. One of the simplest is an immediate uphill dribble handoff. With the corner defender sitting in the paint, there may be no immediate support for the DHO. The wing defender, focused on the skip pass, can suddenly find themselves at a difficult angle to contain the receiver.

The wing should recognize the opportunity on the flight of the skip and be ready to receive the handoff. They don’t necessarily need to leave early: the defender’s positioning and lack of support can preserve the advantage. The key is being ready to connect as soon as the corner player initiates.

A small variation is to pass to the wing and chase directly into a step up screen. Passing first gives the forward time to adjust their angle, screen, or slip. As Coach Oakman emphasizes in his Film Room {🔒}, the priority is getting below the on ball defender.

But the corner player can also help create the advantage before the pass is thrown. That’s where the Flash comes in: by anticipating the pass and flashing out of the corner, the forward catches closer to the paint in a more threatening position.

Included in the SG Plus Premium Newsletter, we look at more ways to keep the offense moving, including Coach Mody Maor’s inverted ballscreen {🔒} and chase step up. We also connect these ideas to Bob McKillop’s Motion Offense, Rick Barnes’ actions at Tennessee, and Landry Kosmalski’s variations {🔒} at Swarthmore, where blocker mover elements and pinch post actions help keep two non-shooting bigs involved.

Next week, we’ll move closer to the basket with Coach John Andrzejek’s Film Room on playing two non-shooting bigs within a ballscreen continuity offense.

Playing Out of Bad Positioning.

Thoughts from Drew Dunlop in building The Practice Lab

Basketball rarely goes exactly as planned. Defenders disrupt driving lines, knock players off balance, and force them into positions they didn't intend to be in.

This week, we explored a simple question that came out of our most recent Coaches Roundtable:

How can we help players become more skilled at solving problems when they're forced out of good positioning?

Brick

We started in the paint with a simple 1v1 situation.

The defender would intentionally push the offensive player up the line, disrupting their intended path to the basket. The primary constraint was simple: The offensive player had to go with the push. No bracing or fighting against it.

Once displaced, they had to reorganize, re-establish their positioning, and redirect to finish against an active defender.

From there, we expanded the problem into ballscreens.

At the point of the screen, the on-ball defender would push the ballhandler off their driving line. Meanwhile, the screen defender would switch up the line at different angles and levels of aggressiveness. The ballhandler then had seven seconds to create and solve against a balanced, well-positioned defender.

We layered in our Shot Maker structure: Make the shot, earn an unopposed three-pointer on the exit.

Each repetition presented a slightly different problem. Different pushes, recovery angles, defensive positioning, and levels of pressure. The goal wasn't to teach a specific solution. It was to create situations where players had to find one.

Takeaway

We spend plenty of time helping players create advantages from good positioning. But what happens when the defense wins the initial interaction?

Being displaced doesn't mean the possession is lost. It just means the problem has changed. By intentionally putting players in compromised positions, we challenged their ability to reorganize their movement, recognize what was available, and find a new solution.

Sometimes that meant redirecting immediately. Other times, it meant creating separation, changing pace, or finding a different angle. The important distinction was that players weren't simply recovering their balance. They were recovering their ability to act.

This was a great reminder that skill development isn't just about creating advantages. It's also about learning to play when those advantages disappear.

Tinker

One thing I'm continuing to explore is how we manipulate the degree of disadvantage on both sides of the ball. Not every push needs to create the same problem. A slight positional displacement might require a quick adjustment. A more aggressive push could force a complete reorganization before the player can attack again.

I'm interested in experimenting with three variables:

• Direction: Where does the defender push the player, and what new opportunities emerge?
• Magnitude: How far off their intended line does the player get displaced?
• Defensive recovery: How quickly and aggressively does the defender re-establish good positioning?

The next layer is exploring how these situations change when we introduce additional offensive and defensive players. Can players recognize when to continue attacking, when to redirect, and when the best solution is to get off the ball?

Are we giving players enough experience solving problems from positions they never intended to be in?

Together with Hudl

The Best Staffs Are Built on This

Night one starts with the work before tip-off. Breaking down film. Building the scout. Deciding what your players need to see.

Hudl brings Sportscode, FastModel, and InStat together to help your staff connect video, strategy, and scouting. Assistants, analysts, and head coaches working from the same information, with a clear plan to bring to the floor.

Prepare for your opener with Hudl.

Learn more at hudl.com/slappinglass​

Subscribers to Slappin' Glass can also directly email Winston Jones of Hudl at winston.jones@hudl.com.

Slappin' Glass Podcast

🎙 Tagging Up vs. Crashing Five | Offensive Rebounding Deep Dive

The offensive rebounding conversation keeps coming back to Tagging up. After more coaches have spent a season or two using it, the questions are getting more specific. Which rules help players compete? Where can a good rebounder leave the tag? And how much transition defense are teams really giving up when they send more players to the glass?

In this week’s newest Deep Dive episode, we discuss early experience with a staff crashing five, teaching points for connecting the rebound to transition defense, and observations from a sample of Division I tracking data.

Seven lessons

1. Teach the objective before adding restrictions

Pat’s early experience suggests that asking players to crash aggressively can change their intent. The staff still teaches high-side approaches and recovery decisions, but begins with the outcome it wants rather than a detailed tagging task.

2. The first second after the rebound belongs in the system

A tag loses value when the opponent can catch, turn and advance immediately. Pressure that forces an east-west first dribble can give teammates time to identify matchups and recover.

3. Freedom should account for floor position

Dan sees more room to pursue the ball from the corners or carve out space in the dunker area. Flying past a tag from the middle third is riskier when a rebound can bounce overhead into a direct runout.

4. Shot creation helps organize the crash

A paint touch and extra pass can make a three easier to anticipate and organize around. Sudden pull-ups and awkward finishes leave less clarity. Eric also raises the possibility of attacking a rotating defense more freely.

5. Demand enough participation to survive slippage

Eric’s sample points to a larger gain between two and three crashers than between later additions. Dan’s coaching response is to demand four or five if the goal is to consistently get three involved.

6. Judge the complete possession tradeoff

Offensive rebounding rate alone cannot settle the choice. Eric says the transition-defense analysis still needs work. Dan adds that aggregate transition ratings can include turnover runouts unrelated to rebounding strategy.

7. Expect offenses to attack your organization early

After makes, early flat screens and pistol actions can force tagged defenders to switch or communicate before they are settled. Aggressive rebounding rules need an answer for that next phase.

Listen to the full conversation here...

Together with NABC

Your next coaching adjustment could start in Detroit.

A new action. A different approach to leadership. A conversation that changes how you teach the game.

Join coaches from every level at the 2027 NABC Convention, April 1st–5th in Detroit, for five days of X&O clinics, educational sessions and opportunities to connect with peers, all alongside college basketball’s championship stage.

Come with questions. Leave with ideas for your team.

​Explore the convention and register →.

Tactical

📺 Keep or Pitch Actions - Weave & Pistol Entry​

"DHO keep or pitch actions out of weave and Pistol entries, using the threat of a handoff to change the point of attack and create downhill advantages."

🔒 Pair With: Pistol Hip - Utah Jazz. Keep the ball out of the Pistol entry to bring the trailer downhill into a DHO to create the next attack.

🔒 Pair With: High Slot Brush Cut & DHO - Furman. Turn high-slot spacing into an attacking opportunity, using a brush cut to bring a cutter downhill into the handoff.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our Deep Dives on variations of Two Guard Front pitch or keep decisions, either after a ballscreen or leading into a step-up ballscreen.

Interesting Reads

📚 So, if You Can’t Build Culture, What Can You Actually Do?​

And there’s the beautiful paradox. Giving up the ambition to control culture may actually make leaders more effective at influencing it, and therefore shifting it.

They become less preoccupied with securing agreement to an idealised vision and a vague set of values, and more interested in understanding the forces that shape everyday behaviour. That change in stance means taking seriously the systems psychodynamic question: What is this system producing, and why?
​

📚 21 Lessons From 10 Years of Helping Companies Innovate and Transform​

7. Not all resistance to change is the same. Treating bystanders like opponents is likely to turn them against your initiative.

8. The people who actively question change are not your biggest problem. It’s the opponents quietly resisting that can be a challenge.

📚 The Japanese Have 7 Rules for Dealing With Difficult People​

3. Never Give a Difficult Person More Emotion Than the Situation Deserves

A difficult person often wants one thing without consciously realizing it:

your emotional reaction.

You become angry. They become defensive. You become more angry. They become more defensive...

...A useful Japanese-inspired principle is therefore simple:

Lower the temperature before deciding what to do.

Don’t answer immediately. Don’t send the paragraph. Don’t write the message at 2 A.M.

Don’t make permanent decisions during temporary emotional storms.

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, Eric, and Drew

info@slappinglass.com