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 looked at one of the counters emerging against the "Hedge & Plug" ballscreen coverage, the late reject into a Gortat screen. Read the newsletter HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SG Plus Content: Transition Offense - Blur Drags & Veer Screens​

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Scott Wylie Returns! {S2 Cognition}

🔑 The Practice Lab: Decision Density​

🥇 Best of the Week: Post Offense & Brush Screens​

Blur Drags & Veers

Most coaches have a clear idea of what they want in transition. Push the ball, hunt an early advantage, and if nothing is there, flow seamlessly into half-court offense.

That is sound in theory. But basketball is messy, and very few possessions are that clean.

Often, there is a soft in-between: the possession is not quite a true transition opportunity, but it is also too early to slow down and organize into half-court offense. The offense has pace, but not enough numbers, spacing, or separation to attack in a traditional way.

Those possessions can easily turn into lost opportunities.

Today, we’re looking at how offenses are using "blur screens" to stay in attack mode in these semi-transition moments. The tempo may not be at 100%, and the spacing may be imperfect, but the blur gives the offense a way to create an advantage without waiting for the possession to fully reset.

What You’ll Learn

• How blur screens help offenses stay in attack mode during semi-transition possessions without needing a perfect drag angle.
• Why the blur simplifies the big’s technique, allowing them to stay north-south, change pace, and impact the action without having to pivot into a perfect angle.
• How pairing the blur with a veer screen creates pace, ambiguity, and a clean way to free a shooter before the defense solves the first action.

Let’s dive in.

Defining The Blur

A blur screen sits somewhere in the same family as a ghost screen or slip. The goal is not necessarily to stick the defender or create heavy contact. Instead, the screener stays in the action just long enough to force the on-ball defender to navigate around them before sprinting out.

This becomes especially useful in early offense, when the big is running even with the ball and a clean drag angle is hard to find. Rather than asking the big to turn, pivot, and create the perfect screening angle, the blur allows them to stay on a north-south path, change pace, impede the defender, and keep running.

The next layer is the veer.

Because the big is not locked into hunting a traditional ball screen angle, they can maintain vision through the blur and flow into the next screen before the defense has fully solved the first action.

That is what makes the pairing difficult to guard. The blur creates pace and ambiguity. The veer turns that ambiguity into another problem.

🔐To watch the full breakdown, including the timing, spacing, and teaching details behind Blur Drags & Veers, become an SG+ Member to view the complete video now on SGTV.

Additional Study Material

• ​Drag Screen Slips - Plant & Go Footwork {🔒}
• ​Pedro Martinez's Arrive Offense - Empty-Side Step Ups {🔒}

Decision Density

As we continue to roll out The Practice Lab {🔒}, we’ll highlight different pieces from the library and the filters coaches can use to explore them on SGTV.

The goal is to make the library easier to navigate, but also to show the thinking behind the design. The filters are not just labels. They are a way for coaches to search by the type of environment they want to create: the focus of the session, the group size, the amount of variability, and the density of decisions players are being asked to make.

This week, we’re looking at Decision Density filter.

What is it?

Decision density is simply the number of meaningful decisions a player is required to make within a training environment. The higher the decision density, the more opportunities a player has to search for relevant information, adapting, and finding solutions.

It helps to conceptualize this as a spectrum that slides from low {🔒} to high {🔒}. And there is value in working along the spectrum depending on your goals for the session and what you’re optimizing for.

Why we use it?

Traditionally, we measure the quality of a workout by the number of repetitions completed. More shots. More finishes. More volume. While repetitions certainly matter, basketball isn't ultimately a game of executing rehearsed movements. It's a game of navigating situations under changing conditions and varying constraints.

Every possession presents a series of problems to solve. A defender closes out too aggressively. A gap opens and then disappears. Help rotates early. A teammate cuts unexpectedly. The players who thrive are often the ones who can recognize information quickly and adapt their actions accordingly.

This is where decision density becomes valuable.

When we shift the conversation from counting reps to counting decisions, we start looking at training differently. Instead of asking, "How many shots did we get?" we ask, "How many situations did we solve?" Instead of chasing activity, we chase engagement with the game itself.

How do we implement it day-to-day?

If you're optimizing for learning, not performance, the number of repetitions becomes less important than the quality of information contained within them. Add a closeout decision. Add multiple defenders (live or guided). Restrict their vision so they have to find the open space, a defender, a teammate, or where the ball is located.

A player may take hundreds of uncontested shots, but if every rep presents the same problem and requires the same solution, the opportunity for adaptation is limited. Another player may take fewer shots, but if those shots require them to react to defenders, recognize opportunities, and adapt to changing conditions, each rep carries far more learning value.

The return on training isn't determined solely by how many reps are completed. It's determined by how many meaningful decisions are embedded within those reps.

The goal isn't to eliminate repetitions. The goal is to enrich them. The best training environments create opportunities to perceive, decide, and act over and over again.

And the more meaningful decisions a player makes in practice, the more prepared they'll be to make them when the game starts counting.

​SG+ Members can explore Decision Density inside the Practice Lab now!

Together with the 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.

🎙Scott Wylie Returns! Anticipation, System Fit & the Cognitive Edge of Elite Decision-Making {S2 Cognition}

Scott Wylie, co-founder of S2 Cognition, returns to Slappin’ Glass for a deeper look at how athletes process the game at speed — and how coaches can use that information to better teach, train, and build around their players.

The conversation moves from theory into application: matching systems to cognitive profiles, understanding the trade-off between decision speed and accuracy, and designing practices that help players make better decisions under pressure. Scott also breaks down how stress, fatigue, spatial awareness, distraction control, and improvisation shape performance in real game environments.

In this week’s Start, Sub, or Sit, Scott discusses what elite players do differently: seeing things earlier, processing faster, and controlling impulses and distractions when the game speeds up.

What You’ll Learn

• How S2 Cognition evaluates decision-making​
  Scott explains the nine systems S2 measures, including visual processing, spatial awareness, decision complexity, instinctive learning, impulse control, distraction control, and improvisation.
• Why cognitive fit matters​
  Not every player processes the game the same way. Scott discusses why some players thrive in open, read-based systems while others fit better in more structured environments.
• The speed-accuracy trade-off​
  Playing faster does not automatically mean playing better. Scott explains how coaches can help players toggle between speed and control.
• How pressure changes processing​
  The conversation explores how fatigue, stress, anxiety, and game environment can affect a player’s decision-making.
• Why spatial awareness matters​
  Scott and Dan discuss how spatial awareness can influence shot selection, positioning, passing windows, and a player’s sense of being open.
• How to train adaptability​
  Scott introduces “VEX drills” — practice designs that violate expectations and force players to adapt when the normal solution disappears.
• What separates elite players​
  The best players are not simply faster reactors. They anticipate earlier, control impulses, block out distractions, and stay flexible in chaos.

Listen to the full conversation with Scott Wylie now on Slappin’ Glass.

Together with Hudl

Hudl helps basketball staffs turn film into better decisions.

By connecting Sportscode, Hudl Instat, and Fastmodel tools like FastDraw, FastScout, and FastRecruit, Hudl brings video, scouting, recruiting, and game planning into one seamless workflow. Less time managing tools. More clarity in preparation, teaching, and evaluation, built for how college and professional programs actually operate.

For a deeper look at how these tools can support a program’s workflow, we broke down how we used the Hudl suite to connect film, analytics, player playlists, and FastModel data around one season-long point of emphasis: improving assist rate. You can watch the full breakdown HERE.

​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

📺 Post Offense - Brush Entry • Cross Screen​

"Using the brush screen entry and cross screen to create an early post touch, then flowing the cross-screening guard into a RIP screen for the passer."

➕ Pair With: Clearing the rim off the turnout entry to create space for the post to seal and catch over the top on the lob.

🔒 Pair With: Using the brush screen entry to isolate the empty-side for a wide pin down.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown of Sito Alonso using the post passer to set an inverted ballscreen, freeing the big to flow into an uphill pitch in the middle third with short roll and pop options.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our Film Room session with Grace College Coach Stephen Halstead on Post Efficiency.

Interesting Reads

📚 Play Long-Term Games With Long-Term People​

Long-term thinking does the opposite. It lets the dice keep paying out. The friend you’ve trusted for fifteen years is worth more than a hundred new contacts, because the trust has been compounding the whole time. The skill you’ve practiced daily for a decade isn’t ten times a beginner’s, it’s a different category of thing.

📚 The Hidden Cost of Taking Yourself Too Seriously​

The key to play is what psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan call intrinsic motivation: doing something because the activity itself is the reward. In contrast, when motivation is extrinsic — and the activity becomes a means to an end, like getting a grade or approval — your brain shifts into evaluation mode, and you’re no longer playing.

The most playful adults don’t have a separate “play time” carved out in their schedules. They let it leak into everything: the way they run a meeting, approach a problem, or have a conversation. It’s not about what they’re doing. It’s the orientation they bring to it — curiosity instead of approval.

📚 An Actual, Sustainable Strategy for Growing Athletic Department Revenue? It Starts with Influence​

So if the number of new corporate partnerships you can sign is limited, and there’s also so many times an athletic department can ask the same 18 rich people to open their checkbooks, the next place athletic departments often look to raise more revenue is their fanbase.

Waypoint CEO Matthew Sanders put it like this. "The problem that we're trying to solve is the massive challenge that athletic departments are facing with the House settlement....fundamentally, how do you take the existing power of your brand, your loyalty with these fans, and turn it and connect with the economic ecosystem already happening around your university?"

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, Eric, and Drew

info@slappinglass.com