Thursday, February 19, 2009

If you don't communicate, you'll never be a great defensive team

Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie talked recently about chemistry and on-court communication:

"People, when they're talking about chemistry with a team, they always talk about offense," Coach Gillispie said. "Do they share the ball? Are guys selfish? Do they shoot shots they shouldn't shoot?

There's as much chemistry that has to be established defensively as there is offensively, maybe even more so, because you're seeing so many moving pieces.

You can have an above-average team, probably, if you don't communicate, but you'll never be a great defensive team if you don't. You have to be constantly talking."

According to this article, "great defensive teams can adjust on the fly. Strong defensive units can compensate when one teammate breaks down during a possession."

"You can't adjust if you're not talking with your teammates. Our young guys -- and it's understandable -- don't talk nearly as much as they need to and nearly as well as they need to," said Coach Gillispie.

"That's why you see really good teams playing on TV and they have the best recruiting classes in the country -- not even close, in everybody's opinion -- and all the all-star freshmen are sitting on the bench in the last five minutes of the game."