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

Happy Sunday and welcome to all the new SG Plus members this week! It's great to have you as part of the community!

*Note: You're reading the free version of this newsletter. SG Plus members get access to every piece of content in this newsletter (plus thousands of hours more). Upgrade HERE.​

Today at a Glance:

🚀 SG Ventures - Exploring and Supporting Basketball's Best Ideas​

🏀 Deep Dive Breakdown: Defending the Slide Cut​

🎤 Inside the Episode: Ettore Messina​

• You can support and help other coaches find the show by giving it a rating and review HERE! Thank you!!

🥇 Best of the Week

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Let's dive in...

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Slappin' Glass Ventures

Last weekend we launched a brand new grant giving and coaching support program called SG Ventures! We had a ton of terrific applications and project ideas submitted and can't wait to begin reaching out and working with coaches soon! There's still time to submit an application for interested coaches. ICYMI, you can read HERE about all the details of the program and apply below...

Examples of projects include (but are certainly not limited to) in-depth themed tactical breakdowns, analytical/statistical studies, research on off-the-court subjects like leadership, mental and physical health, culture building, or any other interesting ideas that would be helpful to coaches.

APPLY NOW

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*Note: Not a fit for you but potentially good for a coach you know? Please feel free to share the application above.

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Defending the Slide Cut

* Editor Note: Big thanks to European Professional Coach, Ferried Naciri, for his assistance of this week's breakdown (click to follow him on Twitter!).

In this week's podcast we had the opportunity to sit down with one of the game's best coaches in Olimpia Milano Head Coach, Ettore Messina, and during our conversation he discussed the necessity for teams to have at least one strategy to attack a Defensive Shift during the PnR. What is the shift?...

• Specifically, whether attacking towards or away from the "Two Side" in the PnR, opponents will position the top defender on the two player side at the nail to wall off the paint and/or provide a "Next" Rotation.

In the absence of a team's ability to place shooting around the PnR, a well-timed cut or screen (See "Best Sets of the Week" below) can take advantage of this shifting coverage. In basketball's ever evolving "game within a game" tactical seesaw, offenses have reacted to defenses by adding these alternate cutting and screening options, but, so too are defenses now reacting to the reaction...

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Defending the Slide Cut

In a previous breakdown we detailed the "45 Cut" and how defenses are picking up this cut without sacrificing their nail help. This week we turn our attention to defending another lethal cut against the shift, "The Slide Cut"...

The Slide Cut intends to open the nail by sending a baseline clearing cut and drifting the 45 man down into the corner, allowing the ballhandler to turn the corner or...

Zooming In: The Slide Cut is a nice way to open up the Corner 3 or attack through a closeout should the 2nd help leave with the baseline cut and the top man stays or stunts to help in the ballscreen.

As shown, the Slide Cut is a terrific action to run on the offensive side of the ball, and can be quite tricky for a defense to navigate. In Today's Video Breakdown we walkthrough how teams are defending the Slide Cut, with the contents of the video including...

• Strongside Switch Vs. No Switch

We walk through examples of when, why, and how teams may or may not switch the Slide Cuts, including some "Peel Switching" to the weakside corner...

• Defending the Slide Screen

We look at the defensive strategies used when savvy offenses turn the Baseline Cut into a Flare Screen to the Corner...

Beyond this, the video then further dives into:

• The Role of the Big
  • How the Defensive Big aids in covering passing lanes, corralling the ballhandler, and protecting the rim during the Slide Cuts/Screens.
• Avoiding the Weakside Switch
  • How the Nail Defender can effectively tag both the roller and recover to a drifting wing when the PNR and Slide Cut is going away from the two player side.
• Real Madrid vs Obradoiro's Slide Screen
  • A fun look at how two great coaches use and defend the Slide Cut and Screen.

This video (along with almost 500 others) is available today on SGTV for members of SG Plus, or can be purchased for $9.99 below...

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Inside the Episode

As mentioned above, we were thrilled to be joined on the podcast this week by one of the all-time greatest coaches in the game, Ettore Messina. Coach Messina brought his valuable years of experience in both the International and NBA game as we discussed:

• Adapting and Playing to Strengths: Some terrific insights from Coach Messina about how he thinks about forming an identity, roles, and style of play around the strengths of his players, as well as how he works to help his players understanding and playing to those individual strengths. 🔥
• Playbook and Set Design: An always interesting topic to discuss with coaches on how they build out their playbooks from pre to post season, and the tweaks and changes made along the way. Coach Messina opens up on his own process as well as the size of his playbook, cuts he prefers, and more.
• "Start, Sub, or Sit?!": In this always fun segment we ask Coach Messina about adaptability, creativity, and practice flow.

You can listen to the entire conversation with Coach Messina here...

LISTEN NOW!!

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Tactical

📺 Joventut Badalona - Argentinian Break to Stack Screen​

"Spanish Club Joventut sets up the Argentinian break to get their guard coming off a stagger screen, flowing into a stack ballscreen."

✚ Pair With: Another use of the Argentinian Break, this time to set up a Corner Pin Screen.

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📺 Ettore Messina - Attacking the Shift​

"3 different examples on how to attack the shift/nail help when attacking towards the two man side in the PnR."

✚ Pair With: Our Deep Dive Breakdowns on Cutting Around the PnR.

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📺 Calathes & Higgins - Backdoor Connection​

"Calathes & Higgins have developed a real synergy of attacking a top locking defender on the zipper screen with a timely over the top backdoor pass."

✚ Pair With: Some more great backdoor synergy in this Brad Stevens and Yale MBB Horns Backdoor Crossover.​

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Interesting Reads

📚 Pre-Performance Anxiety- Getting Excited About It​

"A study done by Harvard researcher Dr. Alison Woods Brooks investigated the most productive way to handle pre-performance anxiety. She found that an overwhelming majority of people (more than 90%) believe the best way to manage pre-performance anxiety is to “try to calm down”. The issue with trying to calm down is that, while you may be telling yourself you’re calm, your butterflies, rapid heart beat, and sweaty palms are screaming that you are in fact, not calm."

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📚 'Built for Basketball': Jayson Tatum Was Born and Raised to Be an NBA Star​

"'I get to school about 6:30 every day, and he was here at 5:45, 6 o'clock at the latest, getting his work in,' says Frank Bennett, who coached Tatum at Chaminade Prep in St. Louis. "What's impressive is he did it every…single…day! I remember the only day he took off. It was the day after we won state. That was his only day off."

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📚 How to Spot — and Develop — High-Potential Talent in Your Organization​

"To find people with high EQ, the differentiators we identified in our research suggest that you should search for individuals who engage for impact — for instance, those who are intentional about channeling their insights to influence stakeholders and negotiate outcomes. In addition, look for those who are able and willing to deliver difficult messages with courage and empathy."

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Join the conversation, gain insights from others, and help your fellow peers! As we use the off season to make ourselves and our teams better, get caught up on some of the latest conversations in the SG Plus' Coaches Corner...

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📋 Monthly Coaches Roundtable - June 29th @ 1 PM (PST) / 10 PM (CEST)

Save the date as we will be hosting our next Monthly Coaches Roundtable, Wednesday June 29th. Stay tuned for more information.

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📺 Coach Chetail - Post Game Shooting Drills // French NT

Coach Chetail shares with us a few post game shooting drills from the French Women's NT.

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Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan and Pat

info@slappinglass.com

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