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 released our NABC Final Four presentation on the most popular and effective European trends in Attacking a Switch. Read the newsletter HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SG Plus Content: Double Drag Slips - Corner Exit Screen Spacing​

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Nick Pasqua {Coker University}

📨 YouTube Mailbag: Storytelling & Attacking a Switch​

🥇 Best of the Week: Pinch Post Entry​

👀 Podcast Guest Recommendations: Someone in your network a great potential guest? Let us know HERE!​

Double Drag Spacing

With the double drag continuing to surge across the game, we’re diving into one of our favorite executions, courtesy of Maccabi Tel Aviv, and how they layer simple tweaks to consistently create space and advantages.

The staggered ballscreen has long challenged defenses. Even when teams feel comfortable in their base approach, double drags rarely present the same picture twice. Changes in spacing, how high it’s initiated, how wide it’s set, or subtle shifts in personnel across the two screeners keep defenses in a constant state of adjustment.

Maccabi takes it a step further by pairing the action with a baseline exit screen, introducing additional movement and decision points that stretch help responsibilities and open up multiple scoring windows.

Let’s take a look at one of Europe’s most effective double drag attacks.

Setting the Stage

One of the best ways to gain an early edge is by initiating action before the defense can settle into its coverage. As we’ve seen in our recent look into extended screening actions {🔒}, timing and early organization can be just as valuable as execution itself.

When an offense flows directly into a double drag, triggering that first screen just over half court, the defense is often caught in between. They’re not fully in coverage, communication is late, and responsibilities are unclear.

That brief moment is where the advantage is created.

Zooming In: Instead of having the second screener hold contact, Maccabi slips them early. With the floor spaced and the action happening quickly, there’s no need to stick the screen. The screener can simply turn and sprint to the rim, forcing the defense to react in real time.

At the same time, the baseline exit screen pulls help out of position, removing the low man and opening a clear path to the rim.

A Quick Aside: While Maccabi Tel Aviv uses the backside clearing exit screen to slip the big for a rim finish, another effective strategy is to leverage that same early slip into a seal {🔒}. As the defense reacts to the initial first screen and coverage responsibilities begin to blur, the slip screener can pin their defender inside, creating a driving lane for the ballhandler while neutralizing rim protection.

The Cost of Helping

By running a shooter accross the baseline into an exit screen, the action essentially shift into an empty-side look.

Now the backside defense is forced to make a decision:

• Stay home on shooters
• Or step in to protect the rim

Even a brief hesitation can create enough separation for a clean look off the exit screen.

Why This Works

What makes this action effective isn’t just the initial advantage, it’s how quickly it compounds.

The slip creates pressure.
The exit screen removes help.
The spacing forces indecision.

And suddenly, the defense is reacting instead of controlling.

Inside the Full Breakdown (SG+)

In the full SGTV breakdown, we go deeper into:

• How the exit screen eliminates the low man entirely.
• The cost of helping from the first screener.
• Maccabi’s automatic re-trigger into a second exit screen.
• How these actions create more rim pressure than perimeter shots.

With layers of pace, spacing, and constant flow, Maccabi Tel Aviv turns a simple double drag into a sustained advantage system, one that never lets the defense reset.

🔐 For more double drag and exit screen offensive spacing, become an SG+ member to unlock the rest of this newsletter, the full breakdown, and access to our entire film library.

Together with NABC

If you’re a basketball coach, you belong in the NABC community!

The NABC is the leading professional development and advocacy organization for coaches, serving over 5,000 members across all levels of basketball.

Why join? Members gain access to the NABC Convention and regional clinics, exclusive awards and mentoring opportunities, valuable discounts, and a voice in shaping the future of basketball.

If you're serious about growing as a coach and staying connected to the game’s biggest conversations, this is where you belong.

Become a member today and make your impact as a Guardian of the Game. Learn more HERE.

🎙 Nick Pasqua on Difficult Coaching Paths, Combining Euro and Princeton Offenses, and Efficient Player Analytics {Coker University}

In this episode, we’re joined by coach Nick Pasqua for a powerful and honest conversation on resilience, leadership, and building a program from the ground up.

Coach Pasqua shares his unconventional path through the profession — from early success and landing a head coaching job at 30, to being fired after one season, and then taking over one of the most challenging programs in Division II basketball. Through those experiences, he unpacks the realities of coaching that often go unspoken: failure, self-doubt, identity, and the pressure to prove yourself.

We dive into the transformational lessons that reshaped his leadership approach — moving from control and ego-driven coaching to clarity, adaptability, and player-centered communication. Pasqua details how simplifying standards, prioritizing effort and accountability, and embracing authenticity became the foundation for rebuilding culture and driving a historic turnaround.

On the court, we explore how necessity fueled innovation, including blending Princeton concepts with Euroflow motion to create adaptable, hard-to-scout offensive structures built around decision-making and spacing.

This is a must-listen for any coach navigating adversity, building a program, or striving to evolve their leadership.

🧠 What You’ll Learn

• How failure and adversity can accelerate growth and clarity as a coach
• Why authenticity and adaptability are critical to leadership success
• How to build culture through simple, consistent standards
• Creative ways to merge offensive systems to enhance decision-making

Listen to the entire episode below...

Together with Hudl

Hudl Powers Every Possession

If you’re already using tools like Instat or Sportscode, you know how powerful they can be. Hudl Academy is designed to help coaches get more out of the technology they already have, and confidently add what they don’t.

The Hudl Analyst Academy walks coaches through Instat, Sportscode, and the broader Hudl ecosystem, with clear, practical instruction on film workflow, tagging, breakdowns, and analysis that actually translate to winning. Free to enroll!

​Learn more about Hudl and their variety of products or subscribers to Slappin' Glass can also directly email Winston Jones of Hudl at winston.jones@hudl.com.

✉️ Storytelling in Coaching: Building Trust, Communication, and Culture​​

"Pulling insights from recent conversations with Philipp Humm and Claire Murphy, we explore how elite communicators use stories to connect, teach, and build teams that communicate under pressure."

✚ Additional Study Material:

• 🎧 Dr. Preston Cline - "Managing Uncertainty, Assessing Risk, and the Benefits of Humor"
• 🎧 Phillip Humm​ - "Storytelling Frameworks, Player Resistance, and Behavior Change"
• 🎧 Clare Murphy - "Shared Narrative, Connection, and Building Real Team Cohesion"

✉️ Attacking Switching Defenses: European Concepts from the NABC Final Four​

"Key takeaways from our presentation at the NABC Final Four in Indianapolis, where we explored how European teams are evolving their approach to attacking switches. Instead of relying on isolations, today’s best offenses are using spacing, timing, and seamless actions to create advantages within the flow."

✚ Additional Study Material:

• 🗞 NABC Session: Attacking a Switch​
• 🗞 Clyde Clears​
• 🗞 Right Corner Ghost Screens​

📩 Submit your Mailbag questions HERE, and keep an eye out for the next Mailbag episode dropping on YouTube.

Tactical

📺 Pinch Post Entry - Pistol PNR • Stagger Veer​

"Turning a Pistol PNR into a staggered veer screen for the point guard cycling back after the hand off entry."

✚ Pair With: Tight curling off the elbow split to create separation, freeing up the screener to pop back into space for a clean look.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our Film Room session with Coach TJ Saint on Dribble Point, "Cluster" spacing, and playing small.

🔒 Pinch Post Entry - RIP • Zoom • Flare Slip​

"Attacking the full side of the floor off a Zoom DHO with the Flare Slip."

🔒 Pair With: Tight curling off an exit screen from the block, taking advantage of the screen defender’s reluctance to leave the big.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our Film Room session with Coach Josh Schertz on teaching splits and gaggle screening.

Interesting Reads

📚 Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership​

In effect, the delivery was more important than the message itself. And everybody knows that when people feel better, they perform better. So, if leaders hope to get the best out of their people, they should continue to be demanding but in ways that foster a positive mood in their teams. The old carrot-and-stick approach alone doesn’t make neural sense; traditional incentive systems are simply not enough to get the best performance from followers.

📚 Top Reasons for Coaching Burnout

*From former podcast guest, Alan Keane​

Missing Mother’s/Father’s Day. Working through anniversaries. Partners holding everything together at home. This is what coaching looks like for too many right now. We talk a lot about caring for our players. It’s time we got serious about coaches caring for themselves & letting others in to do the same.

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, and Eric

info@slappinglass.com