Jeff Van Gundy’s Basketball Plays

I am going to talk about a bunch of different things.  I am going to talk about my basic philosophy and how I believe that it is important to have your team can repeat back to you.  The first four things that I have are quotes from coaches and even Albert Einstein.

I really like Albert Einstein’s first statement and I always try to do this quote.  “Being as simple as you can….. And no simpler”. You can be really simple and just run one offense and one defense.  I think that is too simple.  I think most coaches make this mistake and that is not narrowing down to the most basic concept that you need to achieve each day and we waste practice time on needless drills.  We try to waste too many possessions in a basketball game trying to trick people way too much.

I was an assistant coach and we were coming in to play the NBA Houston Rockets.   They beat us in the NBA Finals. We had an old assistant coach named Dick Harter and he would have been a great coach in any sport.  We were double teaming Hakeem Olajuwon the first three games and doing a great job, but game four then he started to bust our ass.  Pat Riley was the Head Coach of the NBA New York Knicks and was so frustrated with Hakeem Olajuwon.  Pat Riley said what we are going to do with him.  Dick Harter said that we would “substitute”.  We are the New York Knicks and not the New York “Tricks”.

I am not sure that you have to be that simple, but being simpler is better.  A quote from Bill Parcells is “You have to know what loses….. Before you understand what wins”. I really believe that.  I think that most players don’t understand what loses games in any sport.  You have to know what gets you beat.  You don’t beat yourself then you will over-achieve.

Bill Walsh had a third quote that is my third one.  “You have to get players to do what they don’t want to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve.” In a basketball sense, then you have to get them to guard which they really don’t want to do.

The next one is a Tony Dungy quote.  “You can be uncommon as an athlete.  Be born with un-natural athletic ability or be un-common with doing what every should do or won’t do”.   I have a daughter that is a sophomore and I tell her what I think.    She thinks that I know nothing about nothing.  She tells me that I can’t shoot.  I tell her that you haven’t earned the right to be upset.  You haven’t practiced on your jump shot.  You don’t deserve to be upset.  She thinks that she is supposed to make shots since she plays in the game.  She hates Tony Dungy because I quote him all the time.  What could you do and should you do to be a better shooter?  You could practice before or after school   just turn off the Facebook, the phone, the music, and go to the gym.  Just get better.

The last one is this quote.  It is great for high school coaches that want to coach on the collegiate level.  “Know who you can coach successfully”.  Larry Brown said that a long time ago.  I don’t come to the conclusion that I don’t do “soft, selfish, or stupid” well.   I don’t mean stupid like as academics.  One of the smartest players from the NBA New York Knicks taught me this stuff.  We would have older men trying to get autographs to sell them all the time when we got back home.  They would bring their kids at 3 am to get autographs.  They wouldn’t care if their kid had school the next day.  Not a big priority for them.  This kid runs up to this great player and says, “Can I have your autograph?”   Sure what is your name, “Marc with a C”?  The great player wrote “Mark with a K”.  My point is that you don’t have to be a rocket sciences, but just a smart player.  I didn’t make that up.

Here is what I believe in.  I believe in pop quizzes.  I make them recite back what we believe in.  If they repeat the question back to me then.. Then I ask them do you not have a clue what we believe in.  If they ask a simple question back to you then they have no clue what you believe in.

Here is what I believe in:

1)      Defend

2)      Low Turnovers

3)      Inside / out play

4)      Best shot.

That is what I recite back to my team all the time.  Our goals  in defense are that we have no layups, limit free throws, and limit three point attempts.  If we did that then we will leave teams with contested two point jumpshots.  You win that way.

I became a high school coach after college and thought that I knew everything.  High School coaches think that they know it all.  I had a good team and was 1-7.  I realized how important that it was to give my players a good plan.  We had good players, but I didn’t have a good plan for them.  We were a tad slow, but smarter and better shooters than everyone.  We would play athletic competition and I had them pressuring the ball and deny the wings.

Everyone says “ball pressure and deny the wings” everywhere I go.  If you aren’t more athletic then why would you would want to open up the floor and let people drive to the rim?  Which leads to layups, free throws and foul trouble for your better players?  It ended up bad defensively and 1-7.  I thought I had all the answers, but had to change.  I decided that we would pick up at the three point line.  Help defenders had a foot in the paint. It seems simple, but very effective.  We got good very quickly and didn’t have the foul trouble.

I watch my daughter play these fall games and can’t stand to be around these parents.  They know me and asked me why their kid isn’t playing.  I am honest with them and tell they she sucks.  They can’t understand why I would say that.  Here is what I would tell my NBA players when they asked it.  “I feel that he gives us a better chance to win”.

How do you get more playing time?  Give us a better chance to win.  I am watching my little girl that is 5’5’’, slow, and can’t rebound in her life.   Their team shoots and my little girl goes to the boards.  She has never gotten an offensive rebound in her life.   The other team is getting numbers every time.  The other team crashes the everyone to the boards too every time.   I told her after the game that she could help her team if she got back.    She says, “I thought that you should follow your shot?”  I said listen, I have never heard that you should follow your shot except for an inside player.  You heard that from the parents, right?  Yes, daddy.  It’s a stupid thing like when parents say “hands up” Are you kidding me?  I can’t believe that more coaches haven’t killed parents.  “Hands up” is stupid, now “hands wide” is ok… Who comes up with this stuff?

It starts with Transition Defense.  Your best defense is a good offense.  Your best offense matches your defense.  I guarantee that you aren’t giving enough attention to transition defense.  I am not talking about doing a bunch of drills.   I will tell  you all that all the “2-1, 3-2, adding a person in” drills are good, but I think they more that you  narrow down drill wise and up the responsibility  and level of accountability doing their 5 on 5.  My big thing is transition defense.  I am not giving up layups, limit our fouling, and limit three point attempts.  Every shot is a contested two point shot.

For Transition Defense, You need to not turn the ball over, get reasonable shots, and get floor balance.  Floor balance is an old fashion term.   We send back as many players as needed so we don’t have transition layups, free throws, or three point attempts.  I don’t care if I have to send everyone back.  I am not getting beat back.  Everyone has a set amount of players to send back, but if we are over matched then I will send the whole damn squad back.

I don’t believe that you can only send one or two players back for transition defense.  I don’t think that you can guard the transition “three point attempt” with two.  I believe that it must be a triangle.  If you commit to transition defense then you must send three back at least.

I had players in the NBA like Steve Francis.  He was a nice guy and funny guy.  I would be up his ass about driving it and getting back.  He would say that it is hard to drive it to the rim and get bumped and knocked down…. Still getting back.  I would say that is why I pay you $14 million.  Lol.

It’s not that damn hard!  Let’s say it goes to the wing and they shoot it.  You have to ask yourself when you are sending your team back.  We are going back on the raise of the shot.  The offside two perimeter defensive guys are sprinting back to the block.   Every good transition offense will try to outlet it high than three point line and have a rim runner.  They will push it down the floor.

The top defender picks up on one step above the three point line.  The ball side defense inches out to defend the three point attempt.  X 3 steps in to cover the paint.  X 4 will kick X3 out to guard the three point attempt.  X4 will yell “kick out” and body the post player.   Even numbers are always to the advantage of the offense.  The key to transition defense come down to good decision by perimeter players and great effort by your bigs.

X5 will “load” and try to help out the ball defender at the free throw line.  X5 will also help on any ball screens and talk.   The trail “big” needs to help “hit” the point guard.  If we ever get the ball out of the point guard’s hands then we deny it back.  It’s the only time that we do it.

I want to get the ball out of a superior point guard’s hands.  The “Hit” is when the trailer big comes over “stunting” and trying to get the ball out of the superior point guards hands.  We don’t want to get in a “trap and rotate” where we over extend our defense.  We want to come at the point guard very slow and decise where we get him to pick the ball up and throw the ball to a Big.  We would rather have the Post player making a decision with the basketball than the superior point guard.  We would stunt and get active hands and when the ball goes to the trailer “big”,  X3 will stunt at 5 when 5 attacks the lane.  X3 tries to slow down 5 so that X5 can recover.

This is one of the few times that I would be in denial defense.  When we “hit” a  point guard then we deny the ball back to him.

I hate how most teams “deny”.  Something like up the line, on the line.   We always want “contact” denial till the big man throws another pass. I don’t think that 3 on 2 / 2 on 1 happens as much as 4 on 4.

Good offense starts with getting the ball in the paint.  Good defense starts with keeping the ball outside of the paint.  We are in contact denial until the 5 man passes the ball away from the point guard.

This is how we would drill transition defense.  When we are going to drill transition defense then we are going to run 5 on 4 scramble.

This is part 1 of a two part series on Jeff Van Gundy and Defense.