Stan Van Gundy University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

STAN VAN GUNDY: DEVELOPING A PHILOSOPHY/DEVELOPING YOUR TALENT | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

– The best coaches are not necessarily at the highest levels. You can learn something from every coach.
– Good book, Coaching the Mental Game by Harvey Dorfman.
– Best book he ever read: Smart take from the strong by Pete Carril
– Building a basketball philosophy:
Put your philosophy down in writing because it takes more thought. Your philosophy is not a style of play or a system.
– Your system changes but your philosophy stays the same

What makes a winning team?

– This question helps develop your philosophy.

Stan Van Gundy’s philosophy | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

1) Players win games.
– Develop your players.
– Skill development rather than playing a lot of games.
– He spends 20 minutes per practice working on offensive skills.’
– Get your players in the weight room.
– Teach your players to teach each other.

2) Players very rarely will be more committed than the coach.

3) Develop a program and a culture.

– Have high expectations
– Preparation
– Build habits
– Play harder in practice than you do in the game.

Last season the Celtics had the best defense ever in the NBA. They started from day one. They didn’t turn it off and on.

Things coaches can impact or control | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

1) Conditioning
2) Attitude
3) Coachability
4) How hard we play
5) How selfishly we play
6) Defensive mentality

If a player is coachable he will do the things you teach during games.
Don’t just preach defense. Spend time in practice on it.

5 musts defensively | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

1) Get back
2) Protect the paint
3) Close hard and contest
4) Aggressive without fouling
5) Block out and rebound

Defensive stats | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

1) Fast break points
2) Lay-ups/paint points
3) Field goal %
4) 3 point field goal %
5) Free throws attempted
6) Defensive rebound %
7) 2nd chance points

5 offensive musts | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

1) Solid and fundamental
2) Play unselfish
3) Push the pace
4) Attack from the inside out
5) Play with confidence

Offensive stats | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

1) Turnovers
2) Field goal %
3) Fast break points
4) Free throw attempted
5) Paint points
6) 3 point field goal %
7) Free throw %

Defensively, wants 2 guys back on the release of the shot. This helps your transition defense but hurts your offensive rebounding. You can’t do everything.

Don’t deny passes from the point to the wing. This allows you to protect the paint but you can’t force as many turnovers.

Work everyday on closing out and contesting shots. You must work on this if you pack it in on defense.

3 best shots in the NBA game based on NBA averages:

1) Free throws at 75% = 1.5 points per possession
2) Lay-ups at 62% = 1.24 points per possession
3) 3 point shots at 37% =

This is why we want to protect the paint, play without fouling, and closeout and contest.

The NBA teams that force the most turnovers are usually the worst defensive teams. This is not necessarily true in high school and junior college.

Ball pressure: as much as possible without giving up penetration. If you are getting beat then back up.

The Pistons were the best team at being aggressive without fouling. They do a good job of keeping their hands back. If you foul you give up high percentage shots. Fouling also forces teams to sit their best players. Fouling is an under rated stat.

Rebound defensively with all 5 guys. Don’t leak out. After we get the rebound we want to run.

Solid and fundamental:
The most important stat on offense is turnovers. This is the first thing he looks at. One hand passes and one hand catches increase the risk of turnovers. Stay on the floor. Don’t leave your feet to pass. These are turnover plays.

Push the pace:
Always run because it is the best chance to beat the best team in your league. Scoring in the half-court is difficult so try to score before the defense is set.

Inside-out:
Free throws, lay-ups, 3’s = shots that we want. The midrange shot is dead in Orlando. 2-12 ft. shots in the NBA are shot at 38%. 12-18 ft. shots in the NBA are shot at 38%. These are highly contested shots. The NBA 3 point shot is shot at an average of 37%. Play the percentages. Feed the post and drive the ball in order to attack the paint. 3’s stretch out the defense.

Play with confidence/Shot selection:
Don’t be too hard on this. Take the shots that are there. Don’t pass up open shots especially with the 24 second shot clock. If you have a guy on the floor that cannot shoot, you will be playing 4 on 5. If you pass up an open shot you will have to work to get two open shots in the possession. Ball movement from the inside out is more effective than ball movement strictly around the perimeter. If you shoot 37%, you either can’t shoot or you have bad shot selection.

Idea he got from a high school coach: Tell your players they must shoot 50% or higher or else they won’t play. This forces them take shots that they can make.

Ways to maximize talent | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

1) Play to individual strengths. Example he used was Jameer Nelson who plays point guard but is not a traditional pass first point guard. Jameer Nelson is more of a scorer so do you change his game into a traditional point guard or do you play to his strengths? Van Gundy will let him attack and be a scorer in order to play to his strengths.
2) Develop a strength. Have something that is tough to play against and will give teams problems. Don’t worry about balance. For example, play 3 point guards at the same time. Find out what group of players you can get on the floor at the same time that will give the other team problems.
3) Get the best players on the court together.
Forget about positions. Get creative. List your best players in order 1-8. Find ways to play your five best together no matter what positions they play. You want to get your best players the most minutes.

4) Play your best offensive players and coach your defense.
This is not an absolute. In the playoffs, if a player can’t score, they won’t guard him and now you will be playing 4 versus 5. It is easier to teach defense rather than teaching players to score. It’s not the offenses that are tough to guard it the players that run the offense. For example, the triangle offense is not what gives teams problems. It’s guarding Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan that is tough to defend.

5) Go to your best players on offense every time down the floor.
Keep the ball in the hands of players who can score. Don’t make a lot of passes or decisions because this will help eliminate turnovers. The only guys who should be turning the ball over are the best players because they are the ones with the ball in their hands. The Magic run set plays and pick and rolls with Howard and Turkoglu. Their goal is 14 or less turnovers a game. Dick Bennett’s rule: don’t play guys who turn it over. Your role players need to be able to defend, shoot, and take care of the ball.

Special Situations | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

If you are going to beat better teams you won’t blow them out. It will be close at the end. Being good in special situations will give you a chance to beat the teams that are better than you.

If you are a good team, you won’t get blown out so you must be ready for end of game situations. The games that you win by 18 point are no big deal. It’s the close games that matter.

You need to be prepared ahead of time on what you are going to do in certain situations. Football coaches are ahead of basketball coaches in this area because they have cards telling them what to do based on time and score situations. It must be thought out.

You are up 3 and they have the ball at the end. Do you foul? Van Gundy will foul. He calls this “3 defense.”

Out-of-bounds defense: do you put a man on the inbounder. Van Gundy will put a man on the inbounder to take away his vision but also to guard the inbounder after the ball comes in. A lot of times the inbounder is the most dangerous player once the ball is inbounded.

Last possession defense and their best player has the ball in an isolation play. What do you do? Van Gundy will double only Lebron, Wade, and Kobe. He will play everyone else straight up.

What do you switch defensively or not switch? Van Gundy will only switch the pick and roll.

What beat you at the end of games are offensive rebounds. The reason is because all 5 offensive players will go to the glass and the referees won’t call fouls.

Do you call time-out? In the pros you call time-out every time so you can advance the ball. High school is different because a time-out doesn’t advance the ball. In high school, if there is 5-6 seconds left, don’t call time-out because the defense won’t be able to organize their defense. If you call time-out, there defense will be set or they can change their defense out of the time out.

If there is less than 5 seconds left and you are down by 3, advance the ball past half-court and call time-out.

As a warm-up in the beginning of practice, run through your special situation plays. Begin with fundamentals, stretch, and then run your plays 5-0.

If you’re on offense and it’s tied or you are down by 1 or 2 points, it’s better to run isolation rather than a set play or a pick and roll because you can manage the clock better. You want to score with no time left on the clock so they don’t get another possession. If it’s tied you either want to win or go to overtime. You want to make sure that you don’t turn the ball over and they don’t get a shot coming back down.

You need to have specials for 2 point shots and 3 point shots.

Your biggest wins will be close games. The teams you can beat by 20 are no big deal. Be prepared for close games.

You can get a lot of specials from watching NBA games.

You also need to have plays for when you don’t have any time-outs left. These must be a verbal call and you must practice them ahead of time.

All his plays are the same versus man-to-man and zone. If a team zones at the end they still need to match-up as long as you have 5 guys who can score on the floor together.

Loves the pick and roll versus zone defenses because zone defensive teams don’t practice against the pick and roll.

Steve Green (Junior College Coach of the year) | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

– Most important part of the game is shooting.
– No such thing as free shooting. Once you step between the lines its serious business.
– Utilize your team managers.
– Bring in players at night and have them shoot. Have your managers keep stats and then lie to your players and tell them they shot a higher % to give them confidence.
– Only concerned with 4-5 teams per year. Look at the last 5 minutes against those teams.
– Everything becomes a ball screen to create penetration. So he has 4-5 players the same size so he can switch the ball screen and keep the ball in front of them.
– He will switch every screen on the floor because teams don’t take advantage of mismatches.
– Switching made them better defensively. It became easy to scout and stop people.
– Switching makes it simple.
– The biggest problem with the switch is getting the rebound.
– Idea: he once conducted a two hour practice without a ball. This helped their on ball defense because the offense could move faster without a ball.
– He spends a lot of time on baseline out of bounds and sideline out of bounds plays.
– He will end every practice with OB plays and when he finds something that works he will use it.
– In the last 5 minutes of the game you need at least 4 players who can dribble, pass, and shoot.
– Offensive rebounding: 2 positions = 1) get backs, 2) rebounders.
– The best teams have a 4 man that can be confused with a 1, 2, or 3. Can’t be covered by traditional 4’s.
– One of the biggest changes in basketball is that teams now play with 4 guards and 1 post.
– Question: Do you make players fit in your system or do you fit your system to your players?
– Always looking for one thing to beat the top 3-4 teams.
– Plays are easy to guard.
– When teams win big games at the end, somebody plays outside of themselves. Let your players play. Play to win, don’t play not to lose.

Chuck Daly | University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes

– NBA coaches = 2 year job.
– If you coach a bad team, you’ll be fired.
– Pistons have one of the most successful teams the last 15 years and have had 9 coaches in 15 years.
– You must have talent.
– Be hard of hearing.
– Principles to win basketball games: 1) Rebounding, 2) Defense.
– Every play must have a counter. Go to your counter in the 4th quarter.
– As a coach, your job is to get players shots.
– The pick and roll is the essence of the offensive game. He had scripted plays to know how the other team will guard the pick and roll and that would dictate what they would do.
– The next big thing in the game of basketball is slipping the pick and roll and then playing out of it.
– Dealing with pro players: be real with them, know when to give them a pat on the back versus a kick in the ass, know your players, use your assistants, understand that everyone is different, have private meetings with your players, find the button to push, and get your players to like you.
– The easiest players for him to coach were Rodman and Jordan.
– Jordan Rules: at the top of the key = force left and double team. At the low post = double on the box. The double team worked until Pippen arrived.

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Stan Van Gundy University of San Francisco Basketball Clinic Notes