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

Welcome to the Slappin' Glass Newsletter, thank you for reading and your support!

Today at a glance:

🏀 Defending the Ghost Screen

🎤 Inside the Episode: PJ Carlesimo

🥇 Best of the Week

Let's dive in...

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Defending the Ghost Screen

Over the past few months a question we know many coaches at multiple levels (including us) have tried to answer is..."How the heck do you defend the 'Ghost Screen'?" A well-timed and well-executed "Ghost Screen" can indeed lead to both coaches and players scratching their heads wondering the best way to jam up the pesky action. For reference and deeper research on the action, last year we put together this breakdown from the offensive side of the ball on the multiple ways teams use the "Ghost Screen" to create an advantage. Today we'll look into the variety of ways coaches are attempting to guard the action. We've broken it down into two categories..."Switching the Ghost Screen" and "Not Switching the Ghost Screen" and the different sub-categories of successfully executing each approach.

You can get the entire written and video breakdown (plus hundreds more like this) by becoming an SG Plus member, or you can purchase the video on SGTV for $19.99 here...

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January in Review:

It was a fun month of January, as we also did deep-dives on:

📺 PNR Stabs - Cloak and Dagger: Breaking down the philosophy, technique, and teaching points of "stabs" and "stunts" from the Big Man in a PNR

📺 BC Oostende - Full Playbook: We explored and pulled apart many of the entries and building blocks of Coach Dario Gjergja and his Belgian club's terrific offense. PDF's included!

📺 Defending the "45 Cut": As more and more teams use the "45 cut" within their offensive sets and flow, we looked into how teams across the world are defending the difficult cut.

📺 Best of 2021: The Top 3 Zone Offensive Sets, DHO Actions, Off-Ball Cutting Schemes, and more from 2021.

*Note: All included in the SG Plus membership as well.

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Sponsored by InStat

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Followers of Slappin' Glass can now get a Free Month trial and 10% OFF the platform. Go to InStat Form and enter the the promo Code SGPOD.

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Inside the Episode

We were excited to be joined on the podcast this week by former NBA and NCAA Head Coach, and current ESPN Analyst, PJ Carlesimo. It was great to dive into a variety of fun topics with one of the most storied professional and collegiate coaches including:

• Kobe Bryant - On the anniversary of his passing, Coach Carlesimo shared a fun story of Kobe Bryant ruining his best laid plans to foul up 3. (Yes, we know the details have been blurred).
• Career Windows - We dove into Coach Carlesimo's career decisions and the knowledge he gained about seeking opportunities, staying patient, and finding valuable mentors.
• End of Game Situations - Coach Carlesimo shared his insight on late game ATO design and his preference to keep it simple. Manipulating the action by putting weaker defenders in said action, but ultimately making sure your best player is in the vicinity of the ball if all else fails.
• ​Tough to Teach - During the always fun "Start, Sub, or Sit?! segment, Coach Carlesimo discussed his thoughts on how developing individual post moves and seals pales in comparison to developing post passers. Coach Carlesimo talks about how you can make players incrementally better, but making a bad passer into a effective passer has been a losing battle in his experience. In such cases, passing to the proper jersey has been the appropriate bar to set. 😆

You can listen to our entire conversation with Coach Carlesimo here...

Coach Carlesimo Podcast!

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Tactical

📺 FC Barcelona - Pick and Pop​

"A quick hitting Zoom PnR action to clear the side for their stretch big on the pop."

➕ Pair With: Our podcast conversation with Oral Roberts HC Paul Mills, discussing areas to Pop to and playing out of the Pop.

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📺 Obradoiro - SLOB Baseline Grenade​

"Cutting from the baseline side into a DHO with the post, allowing the guard to get into the middle while simultaneously setting a flare on the weakside."

➕ Pair With: Our Deep Dive Breakdown on Manresa & Alba Berlin's use of the Flex Screen on SLOB situations, analyzing how they execute the screen and the reads/counters out of it.

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📺 Zone Quick Hitter - Flare Slip​

"Whether it's against a man or zone, the "Flare-Slip" action is so tough to guard. Here's the use of the concept in one of our favorite Zone Quick Hitters."

➕ Pair With: Our Extra Pass podcast with Yale AC Matt Kingsley on Offensive Zone Concepts.

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Interesting Reads

📚 Breaking Down Wagner’s Unique and Perhaps Anti-Analytics Approach on Offense​

"Currently, the program’s long distance production midway through the 2021-22 season is not only at the bottom of league play, but also among the nation’s least productive. They are 348th in 3-point percentage (26.3 percent), 352nd in 3PA/FGA and 356th in point distribution from made threes (17.2 percent). Per Shot Quality, their shot quality points per possession metric rank them 305th in catch-and-shoot threes (0.95 SQ PPP) and 351st in off-the-dribble threes (0.71 SQ PPP). In other words, the quality of their perimeter looks hasn’t been satisfactory relative to the rest of Division I basketball. Despite all of this, Wagner’s offensive efficiency stands at 105.0 points per possession (adjusted), a mark that is head and shoulders above the rest of the NEC."

➕ Pair With: Our conversation with Indiana Pacer Assistant Coach, Jenny Boucek, on balancing analytics and the "human element."

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📚 The Mysterious Fall and Harrowing Story of an NBA Center​

"In the confusion of the moment, no one had realized that Baynes had lost his ability to walk. Or that he was headed for a nightmare that would derail his basketball career and leave him isolated in a Japanese hospital, weeping in pain day after day, with the possibility that he might be paralyzed."

➕ Pair With: Cal Maritime Head Coach, Tim Bross, on resiliency and the thing that matter most.

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📚 'Golden Hour' at Practice a Vital Time in Warriors' Growth​

“The idea was not, ‘Oh my God, we’re not good,’ the idea was, ‘We need some fresh ideas, we need some new blood.’ We felt it as an organization, so we made some moves to address that,” Kerr said of the efforts by his new-look staff. “A lot of this came through really kind of reassessing everything about our program and putting our heads together in collaboration with the players, with the training staff and figuring out a format that really would allow us to flourish.”

➕ Pair With: Our podcast with Academy of Art Head Coach, Scott Waterman, on hiring and developing a staff.
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Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan and Pat

info@slappinglas.com

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