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

Happy Final Four Weekend! Welcome to all the newest subscribers from around the world!

ICYMI: Last week, we recapped the 1st quarter of 2026! Get caught up on all you may have missed HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🏀 SGTV: Extended Screening - Dead Ball & Made FT Pressure​

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Johnnie Bryant {Cleveland Cavaliers}

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

🥇 Best of the Week: Iverson "Snap" & Horns RIP​

📨 Youtube Mailbag: We will be answering your questions next week! Submit a questions HERE​

Extended Screening

A trend we have been tracking across Europe over the past year is the rise of full court pressure, not zone presses, run and jump, or heavy trapping, but defenses attempting to be more disruptive by raising their pickup points, often paired with aggressive offensive rebounding, i.e. tagging up.

The goal is simple: disrupt their ability to enter the offense and bleed the shot clock.

With offensive talent at an all-time high and actions becoming increasingly difficult to guard, shortening the clock has become a viable defensive solution.

But as always, the game evolves.

In response to this extended pressure, offenses have begun to extend their actions, pushing ballscreens, stack screen, or even Pistol{🔒} out toward half court and beyond, creating an entirely new set of problems for the defense.

Most coverages are built to defend actions at 25 feet…

So what happens when they start at 47?

If you’re looking for a trend poised to take off in 2026, this is one we’re betting on.

And today, we’re diving into how teams are using extended screening actions to turn pressure into advantage.

Punish The High Pickup

Many of these extended screening scenarios emerge in dead ball situations, such as after a made free throw, where the defense can get set and pick up the ballhandler immediately.

Historically, this might trigger a single high step up screen in the backcourt, especially against a disruptive on ball defender or when the ballhandler needs relief. But these actions were typically designed to secure clean entry into the frontcourt, allowing the offense to initiate, not to directly attack.

As the game shifts toward "Total Basketball", where offense and defense flow seamlessly into one another in an effort to eliminate any pauses in conversion, these screens can presents more than just relief.

Instead of using a screen to create space, teams are now creating immediate advantage by involving two screeners and turning early pressure into early offense.

Zooming In: One screening solution to attack pressure, Extended Horns, offers everything we value in an extended ballscreen. By lifting the alignment to half court or beyond, these actions stress the defense in three cascading ways:

1. The on ball defender is hard pressed to go under and recover back to a neutral position on the ball.
2. The defensive big is forced into coverage against the ballhandler.
3. With three defenders lifted beyond the three point line, help is naturally stretched thin.

Coverage Confusion

One of the major advantages of extended screening actions is the confusion they create, placing defenders in unfamiliar situations and opening the door for straight line drives.

When faced with an extended screen, many defenders will default to retreat mode and attempt to go under. However, the "north-south" angle of the screens and their location on the floor make it extremely difficult to get under and reconnect anywhere outside the three point line.

Wheres the Help?

With the guard chasing over and the big pulled into a coverage, a separate challenge for the defense emerges behind the play, where tagging responsibilities become unclear and standard help rules begin to break down.
​
Let's call these "Goldilocks" tags.

Too Far? With the Horns screens lifting three defenders above the three point line, the corner defender can be forced to help on the roll. However, covering that much ground makes it difficult to impact the roller, and the tag is often late and low given the urgency of the situation.

With the second screen pulling that defender up and away, there is also no clear rotation behind the corner defender. This leaves them responsible for tagging a deep roll and then recovering out to the shooter, a near impossible task against the pace these actions create.

Too High? Beyond Horns, offenses can stagger the screens to further blur who is in coverage and who is in support. With the 4 screening first to trail and the 5 screening second to roll, if the defense has the 5 contain the ballhandler, the defensive 4 is lifted too high by the first screen to meaningfully impact the roll of the 5.

Zooming In: The defensive 4 may be able to get a quick bump, but with the action occurring in so much space and limited help from the corners, the late roll will be met with little resistance. If the 4 commits more fully, they risk getting rolled up on and giving up a trail three at the top.

Too Low? By flipping the screening alignment into a Spain ballscreen, the offense can dictate the rim protector by manipulating which defender is pulled into the stack screen. As the stack defender is forced to balance the ball and the roll, they are often caught on their heels to curtail the rim attack or pulled in way too deep, leaving the top open.

Whether the help is too far, too high, or too low, extended screening actions are designed to stretch defensive responsibilities beyond their breaking point. By lifting the floor and layering actions, offenses force imperfect decisions that cannot all be covered.

What once disrupted offense is now being used against the defense, turning pressure into advantage. As these actions continue to evolve, the question becomes less about stopping the ball and more about simply surviving the spacing.

🔐 For even more extended screening options, become an SG+ member to unlock the rest of this newsletter, the full breakdown, and access to our entire film library.

Together with NABC

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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.

🎙 Johnnie Bryant on the ISO Analytics, Building Decision Makers, and Elite Communication Habits {Cleveland Cavaliers}

What actually decides late-clock possessions? And why do most teams break down when it matters most?

Cavs Associate Head Coach Johnnie Bryant joins the show to unpack how elite teams think about decision-making, adaptability, and communication at the highest level.

“The players really teach the coaches… you just create the environment and let them find the solution.”

We start with constraint-based coaching and ecological design—how creating the right environments allows players to discover solutions, build instincts, and shape your system in real time.

Defensively, Bryant flips the script: great teams don’t rely on perfect execution—they prepare for when things go wrong. The edge comes from solving breakdowns, rotations, and chaos better than your opponent.

In Start, Sub, or Sit, Bryant identifies off-the-dribble shooting as the most dangerous variable in isolation—because it forces defenses into difficult tradeoffs: stay home, force direction, or commit to a trap.

Then, we close on culture—where Bryant explains why vulnerability is the hardest skill to build, and why without it, communication under pressure will always break down.

What You’ll Learn

• The one stat that should drive every late-clock ISO decision
• How NBA staffs use constraints to build decision-makers, not robots
• Why most teams fail at communication—and how to fix it

Key Moments

• 2:30 – Why constraints create better players
• 4:30 – Letting players shape your system
• 9:30 – Reading spacing vs forcing structure
• 13:20 – Defending chaos, not perfection
• 21:45 – Start, Sub, or Sit: ISO decisions
• 22:00 – The #1 ISO metric
• 23:30 – When to trap vs stay home
• 25:00 – The risk behind every double team
• 29:10 – Why teams struggle to communicate
• 33:00 – Training communication in practice
• 36:45 – Coaching personalities that actually stick

Listen to the entire episode below...

Together with Hudl

Hudl Powers Every Possession

If you’re already using tools like FastDraw, FastScout, or FastRecruit—you know how essential they are to your workflows. And now that they’re fully part of the Hudl ecosystem, they’re more powerful than ever. From film and play diagrams to scouting reports and custom recruiting boards, everything flows together. One system. Built for high-performance programs.

​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.

Tactical

📺 Iverson Entry - "Snap" • Burn • Gut Screen​

"Using the "Snap" action to pull the ballhandler back and flow the Iverson cutter into a gut screen."

✚ Pair With: Using the "Snap" action to generate a shot for the ballhandler initiating the Iverson entry.

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

🔒 Horns Entry - RIP • Iverson • Elevator​

"Entering the possession with a Horns RIP dribble entry, followed up with a space clearing iverson cut for the elevator screens."

🔒 Pair With: Using the Horns RIP screen to flow into a Spain ballscreen with the second Horns screener.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown on using off ball screening to punish a tag defender.

Interesting Reads

📚 Disrupting the Spiral: A Lesson from March Madness​

Frese was trying to do one of the hardest things in coaching, get an athlete to stop spiraling. We’ve all been there. A race isn’t going your way so you start giving into that voice that’s telling you to slow down or stop. Or maybe the shots aren’t falling, and your instinct is to pass the ball instead of taking the next shot.

📚 Months After Losing Game 7, John Schneider Found a Letter From an Admirer: Steve Kerr​

The handwritten letter came from Warriors head coach and nine-time NBA champion Steve Kerr. The two coaches have never met. The letter was dated Nov. 2, 2025 — the day after Toronto’s Game 7 loss.

“I don’t know you,” Kerr wrote, “but I felt compelled to reach out after watching your incredible leadership on display during the World Series.”

Got a coaching question? Ask us.

Our Youtube Mailbag on YouTube is your chance to bring real coaching questions directly into the Slappin’ Glass conversation.

We will be selecting and breaking down your questions from across the game—covering tactics, team concepts, leadership, podcast topics, and anything else you want us to dig into.

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

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, and Eric

info@slappinglass.com