How to Build your Man Defense

Here is an outline to help you build your man to man defensive philosophy.  

What do we want our identity on defense to be?

What are our target stats?

What habits will we reinforce?

Full Court principles

           Turning the ball handler

            Forcing to the weak hand

Half Court principles

            Denial

            Pack Line 

            Help rotations-help and fill system

Communication

             Terminology

Transition

             How are we guarding the advance pass?

On ball positioning

            Stance: top, wing, corner

                   Are we forcing baseline or middle?            

            Ball pressure

            Hands

            Jump to the ball

Off ball positioning

            Open or closed stance

            Position on the line from the ball to defender

            Bumping cutters

Closeouts

            Approach: straight up/force baseline/force middle/to dominant hand

            Distance

            Hands

            Slides vs. penetration-be able to guard your yard

Post D 

            How we guard the post must be aligned with how we are playing on the perimeter.

            Positioning: top of the key, ball above the FT line, ball below the FT line at wing, & corner.

            Footwork

            Trapping

Help and Rotation

            Stunt and recover vs. penetration

            Rotations based on penetration from the top-wing middle-wing baseline

Screening: How are we guarding screens?

            Downpick

                        Strong side

                        Weak side

            Back screen

                        Big to little

                        Little to big

            Cross screens 

                        Little to big

                        Big to little

                        Like size-big to big, little to little

            Diagonal

                        Little to big

            Pick and Roll

                        Who is the ball handler? 

                              Shooter, driver, both

                        Who is the screener? 

                              Shooter, driver, both

                        What is the angle?

                              90/45/flat/step up/baseline

                        What part of the floor is the screen?                        

                              Side-middle-drag-elbow-corner

                        There are at least 7 ways to defend the pick and roll.

      Ice or Down

      Switch

      Jam

      Trap

      Soft hedge

      Flat hedge

      Hard hedge 

                Basic Play Actions

                              Flex
                              UCLA
                              Zipper
                              Horns
                              Iverson-1-4 high set guards go over top and other under
                              Elevator-top or side
                              Floppy-single double

                              Staggered
                                    Big-Big for little
                                    Little-Big for little
                                    Big-Little for little
                              Hand offs/dribble weave
                                    Big to little
                                    Little to little dribble weave
                                    Big to little dribble weave

            

Rebounding

               In the paint

               Outside the paint

               Outside the 3 point line

Creating Culture

Jack Welch: Winning the Game

Listened to another great podcast this week by EntreLeadership with Jack Welch, former CEO of GE and the vice president of basketball operations for the L.A. Clippers, Kevin Eastman.  They both spoke about creating culture. Here are some of the takeaways:

Jack Welch

• Make sure your employees have purpose. Give them the why of the organization.
• Create a growth atmosphere.
• Concentrate-do not dilute. Do not focus on too many things. Become a master of a few things not good at many.
• Leaders must be transparent.  Don't have an environment of secrecy. This will help when your organization has to face adversity. Transparency leads to truth and trust.
• Truth and trust leadership is a mentality and methodology. Create this atmosphere in your group and as a whole organization.  Trust will get you answers quickly. Trust is a muscle-it will get stronger in time. 

Kevin Eastman

Building an organization is a delicate balance of culture and people.  If you have the right culture and the wrong people, this will kill the organization.  On the other hand,  if you have the right people and the wrong culture this one still has a chance because the right type of people will try and do what they can to keep trying to change the culture.

Culture should be seen, heard, and felt.  One way it can be seen is just by looking at the physical environment.  As you walk around the office space and you see that it is clean then you know that the details matter to that organization.  Also, when you are strolling around pay attention to the sounds you hear.   If you hear please and thank you then you know is a place of respect. If you hear laughter then you know it is a healthy environment.

3 Things Critical to any Organization:
Culture
People
Belief

The 4 C's of the Clipper's Culture:
Character
Class
Committed
Communication

3 Groups of People in Every Organization:
Bought-ins:  have complete buy in of vision
Give-ins: have not bought in but will do their jobs because supposed to
Not-ins:  will never believe in vision

He stresses the importance of spending time on the "give-ins" group.  Leadership must work to get rid of the "not-ins" group. Once you can eliminate the "not-ins" and some of the "give-ins" then the "bought-ins" will thrive along with your culture.

Leaders must understand that people will follow you based on their eyes and ears. People are looking at leaders to see if your actions match your words and that your words match your actions.

To help deal with the fear of failure make sure and not just focus on what the consequences are if you fail but also give the same value to the consequences if you succeed.

"Leadership is a position of power and responsibility. On the way up it is all about you but when you get to be the leader it is all about them."

Innovation

"Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this.  For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward." Henry Ford

An excerpt taken from https://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/hf/default.asp:

"Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. He didn’t even invent the assembly line. But more than any other single individual, he was responsible for transforming the automobile from an invention of unknown utility into an innovation that profoundly shaped the 20th century and continues to affect our lives today.

Innovators change things. They take new ideas, sometimes their own, sometimes other people’s, and develop and promote those ideas until they become an accepted part of daily life. Innovation requires self-confidence, a taste for taking risks, leadership ability and a vision of what the future should be. Henry Ford had all these characteristics, but it took him many years to develop all of them fully."

Henry Ford is a great example of an innovator who was not afraid to fail.  His curiosity of how things worked began as a young boy on his parent's farm. Both of his parents encouraged his innovative mindset to tinker with the machines on the farm to make them better. This early encouragement taught him to not be afraid of failure but instead to learn by trial and error. Teach those around you that it is okay to fail. As John Maxwell preaches, "the best teacher is not experience but evaluated experience."

From his failed experiences Ford learned to persevere through setbacks. His first two companies failed before he found success with Ford Motor Company. He learned from each of those failed attempts and had the faith and belief to keep trying.

Ford recognized early that people mattered.  He had an ability to identify and attract outstanding people that believed in his vision.  Another great quality was his ability to learn from others. His idea for the moving assembly line came from the meat-packing industry.  His innovative and outside the box thinking helped stabilize his workforce.  The company was having a problem retaining employees so his solution was to double their wages. Problem solved!

My greatest takeaway from Henry's Ford experience, is that as a leader, do not accept the status quo; this is the way things have always been done.  Be an example for your followers and become a creative thinker and problem solver.  Make it a habit to challenge your own assumptions.

"Don't do things the way they have always been done.  Don't try and fit the system. If you do what is expected of you, you'll never accomplish more than what others expect." Howard Schultz Chairman and CEO Starbucks