A basketball player sent on the court with rusty fundamentals is a good bet to fail

Got an early copy of James Johnson's soon-to-be-released book "The Dandy Dons."

It chronicles the University of San Francisco basketball teams from the mid-1950s that were coached by Phil Woolpert and featured Bill Russell and K.C. Jones. USF won the NCAA championship in 1955 and 1956. [Coach Woolpert later coached at my alma mater, USD.]

As a side note, Phil's son, Paul, has had a long and successful career in the CBA and D-League.

Here's a good excerpt from the book:

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When practice opened in the fall of '53, Woolpert was ready. So were the players, but they didn't know what the coach had in store for them -- in practice or during games. Woolpert had a plan: First he was going to use defense to break up the opposition's attack before it could get set. On offense he wanted to use a balanced floor, with his players working the ball around the court until they got the right shot.

Woolpert had always been a strong advocate of defense and he saw an opportunity to develop his players into an aggressive defensive squad.

"I can't see just standing around and letting the other fellow shoot. To me, it's common sense to try to stop him from scoring. There is a science and a skill to defense. It's what makes the game interesting, not a race from one end of the court to the other for one more basket."

He was also fond of saying, "We figure to have the ball only about half the time in a game, so in practice, we work on defense half the time."

Woolpert was without a doubt a defensive-minded coach. In Woolpert's system, if you couldn't defend, it was unlikely you would get much playing time. He disdained "jackrabbit basketbal," once remarking about the up-tempo offense becoming popular then: "It just isn't good basketball. I wouldn't know how to go about coaching it. You can't expect to execute scoring playing when you're running up and down the court like madmen."

Practice included what Woolpert called the "hands-up" drill. The players would line up with their feet in position, bend their knees, and put one hand high above their heads and the other one out to the side. Then they moved quickly forward or backward, to the left or to the right, at Woolpert's direction.

It was the same drill that Hall of Fame coach Pete Newell used when he was at USF and in 1959 when his Cal team won the NCAA title. Most players introduced to the hands-up drill lasted about three minutes before they begged for mercy, but eventually they could go twenty minutes nonstop. That kind of stamina paid big dividends during the season.

Woolpert was also a stickler for making his players pick up the fundamentals of the game -- dribbling, passing, footwork, and shooting. "A basketball player sent on the court with rusty fundamentals," he said, "is a good bet to fail in his operations."

In addition to sound fundamentals, a team needed talented players and a simple offense and defense. Woolpert believed that regardless of what offense a team used, "the essentially important need is for simplicity and efficiency of operation. If the players know what they are doing, and why, and are impressed with the importance of each move in an overall pattern, the chances of that pattern creating good shot opportunities are excellent."

Improvement in any sport depends on physiology, technology, coaching, and equipment

Today's NY Times asks how it's possible that, when it comes to free throw shooting, basketball players today have about as much success as the players of 40 years ago.

We run faster, jump higher, have better shoes and uniforms, train harder (and smarter), eat better, yet in four decades, we've still not improved as FT shooters.

The general expectation in sports is that performance improves over time. Future athletes will surely be faster, throw farther, jump higher. But free-throw shooting represents a stubbornly peculiar athletic endeavor. As a group, players have not gotten better. Nor have they become worse.

According to Southern Utah coach Roger Reid (pictured above), "A lot of coaches give it lip service, but when you say that games are won and lost at the free-throw line, you better back it up." Coach Reid contends that "individual players and teams can improve free-throw shooting through better technique and repetition."

One reason why more teams/players don't work on FT shooting is that "there is little correlation between free-throw percentages and winning percentages. Only one of the 25 best shooting teams, No. 2 North Carolina, is also in the latest Associated Press top 25 rankings."

That is why, despite accounting for more than 20 percent of scoring in men’s college basketball and just below 20 percent in the N.B.A., free throws receive a fraction of the attention from coaches, players and fans. That is, until something considered free proves costly. [Like when Memphis missed "4 of 5 free throws in the final 72 seconds against Kansas, which had made a late 3-point shot to tie the game and won in overtime."]

One professor who's studied sports statistics extensively has found that "widespread improvement over time in any sport... depends on a combination of four factors: physiology, technology or innovation, coaching, and equipment."

Those factors can help explain why swimming records seemingly fall at every international event, runners broke through the four-minute-mile barrier, field-goal kickers are more accurate than ever, bowling a 300 game is not as unlikely as it once was, and home run numbers surged in major league baseball.

As the professor puts it, "There are not a lot of those four things that would help in free-throw shooting," except for coaching.

Coaches admit to baselines of acceptability for their players and teams. The average, apparently, is about 75 percent in the N.B.A. and 69 percent in college basketball. When numbers slip, time is devoted to improvement. When they rebound, the game’s other facets take precedence.

D-League guard Blake Ahearn, the best FT shooter in NCAA history (95%) says that rather than devoting time to free-throw shooting in practice, coaches "want to work on defenses and offenses and schemes."
But as the NY Times article concludes, "even practice has never made perfect."

The general rule is that players, in games, shoot 10 percentage points below their practice average. The difference is pressure and fatigue, hard to replicate in an empty arena.

18 Old-School Values

From Coach Silver's email, a great weekly read, comes coach Herb Welling's list of "old school basketball values.

[Here's a story about Coach Welling, pictured here.]




Basketball's Old-School Values

1. We value the ball.
2. We take good shots.
3. We share the ball and make the extra pass.
4. We sprint back on defense and we don't give up lay-ups.
5. We defend the ball and help our teammate guarding the ball.
6. We contest shots without fouling.
7. We box out.
8. We rebound and run the floor.
9. We dive for loose balls.
10. We take charges.
11. We respect the game, officials, coaches, opponents, and our teammates.
12. We have good body language.
13. We compete hard and we play with passion.
14. We have no excuses and we have "next play" mentality.
15. We listen with our eyes and our ears.
16. We only care about one stat -- the final score.
17. We are responsible and accountable to the team -- on and off the floor.
18. We play as a team -- the we is great than the me.

God didn't bless me with athleticism; he blessed me with intelligence and fundamentals

Maryland center Dave Neal is listed as 6-7 on the roster, though he admits he's closer to 6-6.

The only senior on the Terps roster, Neal is "a vital element and an embodiment of an underdog Terp team."

"I would love to have athleticism - just a tiny bit. And if I did, I think it would make me a whole different player," he said. "But God didn't bless me with athleticism; he blessed me with the intelligence and the fundamentals of the game."

Growing up, Neal was a standout goalkeeper in soccer, an outstanding swimmer, and, as a 6-foot-3 12-year-old, a homerun-hitting baseball player. ("He was so big that if he just made contact he would hit home runs," his mother, Kathy Neal, said.)

Despite friendly advice to push their son to play football, Neal's parents had other ideas.

"All of my friends all said, 'Why are you wasting your time? Get him into football. The kid can never make it [in basketball]. He doesn't jump very high,'" the elder Dave Neal said. "I said, 'I think it could work.'"

After a s0-so high school season as a junior, Neal had a break-out year as a senior, averaging 20 points and 13 rebounds to lead his team to a 31-3 record. Neal's father remembers when Maryland coach Gary Williams called to offer his son a scholarship.

"It was kind of a tear-jerking experience," his father said. "Dave has internal expectations, but he probably doesn't share them because sometimes they're a little high-standard."

During his first three seasons at Maryland, "Neal was relatively ineffective (due mostly to a lingering shoulder injury), averaging 1.6 points in 62 games. When he entered the game, he was often greeted by the fans to mock cheers. He was the slow and heavy white guy whom people poked fun at. Yet he was the Terps' lone player in his class."

One of Neal's teammates notes how much Neal has developed in four years.

"It's unbelievable - I came here [his sophomore year], he didn't play at all. [Last year] he played a little bit. Now he's just our center. It's funny, but he works hard. A lot of people don't give him credit, but he's a smart player."

On a typical night in the ACC, Neal faces centers who are two-, three-, and four-inches taller than he is. "Without the size or leaping ability to collect droves of boards, Neal focuses on boxing out his assignment and lets his teammates control most rebounds."

Before the Terps played North Carolina for a second time, Neal said he'd use his intelligence and positioning to stop leading scorer Tyler Hansbrough. He did just that, limiting Hansbrough to 11 points and drawing a key charge from the reigning player of the year in the second half. [Down by nine at halftime, Maryland won in OT.]

According to this article, "Neal has held ground by acknowledging his shortcomings. He fronts his opponent when he can to deny entry passes. When stuck behind, he nudges and prods his man ever so subtly, until the basket is further than an explosive power move away."

"When you're not as big or whatever, then position becomes important," Coach Williams said. "If you're much bigger or much quicker or you've got much greater leaping ability, then you can kind of use your athletic ability to play against a player. But Dave's not that type of player, so Dave has to work hard on maintaining his position with his man and the ball."

Offensively, Neal utilizes what Williams has described as "YMCA moves," because they're typically in the arsenal of rec league players twice Neal's age. His shots are based on timing and leverage, rather than brute force. And by now, opponents have learned that leaving Neal open along the perimeter is unwise. He is shooting 32.3 percent from three-point range, third best on the team.

Neal's impact has been felt beyond the box score. His teammates say he's the genuine leader of a scrappy Maryland team.

"Dave puts this team together," sophomore forward Dino Gregory said. "He puts the team on his back when he can. He's an extremely hard worker, and that shows on the court."

Says junior forward Landon Milbourne: "He's always one of those guys to speak up and tell what's on his mind and say we need to calm down or we need to get focused or we need to do this and that. And it really helps, especially coming from a guy that's been here so long and has been through a lot with this program."

26 Winning Basketball Principles

Hall of Fame coach Alvin "Doggie" Julian led Holy Cross to the 1947 NCAA Championship.

During his 41-year coaching career, he also coached the Celtics and at Dartmouth, where he won three Ivy League titles.

The following is from Jerry Krause and Ralph Pim's book, "Basketball: Beyond the X's and O's."

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26 Winning Basketball Principles
by Alvin Julian

Success in basketball is dependent upon 26 principles. These winning principles are fundamentally sound, simple to teach, easy to remember, and apply to any style of play or age group.

1. Protect the ball. Bad passes and low-percentage shots are the trademarks of a poor team.

2. Be careful on a lay-up. More games are won on lay-up shots than on any other, and more games are lost because of poor lay-up shots than by any other shot.

3. Basketball is a game in motion. Motion on the court is vital. Too many players stand still and beg for the ball. Players should always pass and move. This action will take their defenders away from the ball and open up the court for a teammate.

4. Always fake direction. Faking is important because it tricks opponents into making mistakes.

5. Move to meet the pass. Moving and meeting the pass is the stamp of a good ballplayer. Players who move and meet passes make it easy for teammates to get them the ball.

6. When in trouble, make a V-cut (i.e., "clear out"). A player in the wrong position on the floor should make a V-cut. This will open up the floor.

7. Don't think for the opponents -- be yourself. Play your game and do not spend time trying to figure out what your opponents are thinking.

8. One player cuts at a time. Always remember -- only one cutter at a time. Two players cutting at the same time allows the defense to be in a position to either double-team the ball or stop the play.

9. Grab it -- don't tap it. Effective rebounders grab and secure the ball rather than tapping it.

10. Never force a shot. Never shoot a shot if closely defended. Before attempting a shot, make sure that you have teammates in rebounding positions.

11. Dribbling is an emergency measure. Nine out of 10 players dribble or bounce the ball before they do anything else. This is a bad habit because it limits a player's opportunities.

12. Talk to your teammates. Talking on offense and defense builds team play. Talking encourages teammates. Talking on defense is vital when picking up loose opponents.

13. Never turn your head on defense. Players should never turn their heads to watch the ball when playing man-to-man defense. When players change from offense to defense, they should backpedal so that they can locate their personal opponent or help in case of a fast break.

14. Don't cross your feet on defense. Successful defensive players move their feet in short steps when playing defense.

15. Hands up on defense. Tight-rope walkers use their hands for defense, and the good defensive player does likewise. Movement of the hands and feet discourages passing and shooting and shows that the defensive player is on the ball.

16. Watch your opponent's belly-button. We like our defensive players to keep their eyes glued to a part of the offensive ball-player that can't fool them -- the belly-button.

17. Pick up the first man. When you are back or coming down the floor ahead of the rest of your teammates, pick up the first offensive player down the court, whether it's your assigned player or not.

18. Don't leave your feet on defense. Good defensive players keep their head up and their feet on the ground.

19. Get position for rebounds. Instinct and sensing the direction of the shot and the angle of the rebound enables players to move into the correct rebounding position.

20. If you can't rebound, you can't win. Good rebounding limits the opponents' shots and this is the key to winning basketball games.

21. The first fast-break pass must be perfect. The fast break must get started with a quick outlet pass. If the first pass is a good one, the fast break is underway. After it's started, it's hard to stop.

22. You must make 70 percent of your free throws. There is no excuse for being a poor free-throw shooter. Practice, confidence, and the proper technique are the keys.

23. Keep the defense busy. If all five offensive players keep moving, their opponents cannot afford to sag or float. Moving with or without the ball forces the defense into making mistakes.

24. Don't cross the backboard to shoot. A player should learn to shoot from both sides of the basket and with both hands.

25. Never underrate an opponent. Be ready to play every game. Overconfidence can affect a team's play. It is wise to remember that it is only the underdog who can do the upsetting.

26. Practice does not always make perfect -- if you practice the wrong thing. Players often work long and hard and make little progress because they are practicing incorrectly.

Notes from Dick DeVenzio's book "Stuff Good Players Should Know"

Over the past year or so, I've received notes from coaches who've read Dick DeVenzio's book "Stuff Good Players Should Know."

Over the last month, I read it myself. Incredibly well-written, it's a must-read for young players.

For those who don't know Coach DeVenzio, he was a 5-foot-10 point guard who played for Duke from 1969-1971. The son of a coach, Dick played professionally in Europe and ran basketball clinics and camps around the U.S. Sadly, he died of colon cancer in 2001 at the age of 52.

Dick's brother, Dave, continues to operate the National Point Guard Camp, one of the top specialty camps in the country, according to ESPN The Magazine.

Following are some highlights from Coach DeVenzio's classic book.

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-- Five guys working together doing the "wrong" thing have a better chance of winning than five guys all doing their own thing because each thinks he knows best.

-- No team ever lost by playing the wrong defense. They lost by playing that defense poorly.

-- Thousands of players go passively for offensive rebounds, and coaches often let players get away with that passive effort. Perhaps the reason is that defensive rebounds are expected, or easier to get. But in most cases, the reason more offensive rebounds are not grabbed is simply that players don't try hard enough to get them.

-- Placing blame and make alibis is really not much more than a simple bad habit. It is not something you really want to do. It is merely something you do. But good players lose this habit, and good players learn not to look for alibis. They learn to accept responsibility. They learn to look inward. They learn to ask themselves, "What could I have done better?"

-- Bad shots, probably more than anything else, lose basketball games, yet bad shots are ridiculously common. Go to any playground and you will see more bad shots taken than good shots. Players seem to love taking bad shots. Winning teams are most often the teams who pass up shots and wait for better ones. What is the difference between a 45% shot and a 60% shot? Not much. A bit more time. A step closer in. A bit more confidence and certainty about the one. Yet again, the 60% shot wins and the 45% shot loses.

-- All coaches seem to want players to get in a lower crouch than players want to get in. All players seem to want to stand straight up. So how low should you be? A good rule to follow is: Make sure your head is always lower than the head of the guy you are guarding.

-- Good defensive position means, unless your coach gives you some other rule, not so close that the player with the ball can step by you with one step, yet close enough that you can slap the ball if the man holds it in front of him. In other words, you are close enough to be able to bother him and to make him worry that you may touch his next pass or block his next shot or steal his next dribble. From eight feet away, regardless of what you do, you will not be the ball handler's primary concern. Good defense is a matter of learning to get in a player's bubble, in his private territory, and of being able to stay there.

-- Don't be beside your man all the time. Don't be there when the ball is on the other side of the court. In this instance, you need to be in a position ready to help a teammate. Remember: the closer the ball is to your man, the closer you must be to your man. Be where you can worry him and bother him and make him aware that "Oh no, here you are again." Your objective is not to steal the ball and block shots; it is to stay in that bubble all night long and irritate and distract and bother.

-- Good players beg for the ball, not so much with their tongues (though they do sometimes shout) as much as with their body movements and facial expressions. Good players want the ball, and that want is obvious to whoever has it. The average fan would likely say that all players want the ball, and they do, but not like good players want it. Good players want it in a way that they are always close by, always popping out, always looking at the guys with the ball with a sort of desperation.

-- If you want to play good defense at the end (of a game), you have to make it very difficult -- ideally impossible -- for your man to receive the ball. If you realize that your objective is to stop passes and, if anything, give up the risky lob or backdoor bounce pass, then you will get your share of comebacks. Good players know their job is to prevent perimeter passes in spite of screens and other diversions. When your team is behind near the end, it takes guts. Stick to your man and don't let him touch the ball.

-- If there is ever a time to take the ball aggressively to the basket, it is near the end when you are behind. Resist the urge to flip up long jumpers at the end when you are behind. Take the ball to the basket aggressively. You'll get easier shots than you could ever expect to get in the first half.

-- Criticism is going to be a large part of any basketball experience if the goals are excellence and winning.

-- In basketball, where no one is allowed to touch you, there is no reason that double-teams have to bother you. It is merely a matter of how you think. If, at the moment you see a double-team form, you think, "Oh no, a double-team," you are likely to panic and throw a lob pass somewhere that someone can intercept. Your thinking should be, "Oh, here's a 4-on-3 opportunity." All you have to do is be strong with the ball, be patient, stay low, pivot, and look.

-- You should learn to score from everywhere with one dribble. That means, when you get the ball in shooting position (at a distance you can shoot from) you should expect to be able to get to the basket in one dribble. It is a matter of wanting to get there in one dribble, practicing, and developing the habit.

-- Most basketball players, even the ones who usually don't dribble very much, dribble too much. For many point guards, the problem is one extra dribble, the failure to pass at the right time because of the desire to show off that dribbling ability one more time. For big men inside, often even one dribble is too many. A move should be able to be made effectively without any dribbles at all, so the defensive guards have no chance of stripping the ball on its way up from the floor. Analyze your game. Chances are you often take unnecessary dribbles. Unnecessary dribbles may not seem as though they hurt you, but they always end up hurting a team. Unnecessary dribbles give opponents extra chances to steal the ball or get into defensive position.

-- Against a zone, you want to receive the ball each time in a position where two defenders feel they need to take you.

-- Faking, almost all fakes, work great in games, and there is a very good reason why. Most players, even a lot of good ones, don't fake, or at least not very often. As a result, very few defenders have had the opportunity to react to fakes, so when they meet one in a game they fall for it and get faked out. The most important rule on faking is, "Use fakes."

-- A 2-on-1 is an advantage situation. When you have more players than they do, you don't need a great pass or fancy play. You simply need to give the ball to the player who is unguarded. The same is true of a 3-on-2 or a 4-on-3 break. These situations don't require great plays. The best way to win is by learning to do simple things simply.

-- Most players, even lazy ones, give the impression they are ready to play good defense during the first five seconds of any defensive play. As a result, any shot taken after only one pass is likely to be well defended and followed by five men blocking out for the rebound. Two to five seconds on defense, no cuts to guard, no man to chase, no screens to get over or through, no fakes to worry about. One pass and the shot goes up. It should be obvious, when you think about this, that the first-pass shot should be refused -- even if it is a good shot.

-- Never leave your feet on defense -- not even to block a pass, not even to block a shot. For every pass you block by jumping, two will get by you and you will be slow getting to good defensive help-position. You have to wait until you come down to move. For every shot you block, twice you will foul unnecessarily and another time or two the shooter will miss but be able to run by you for the rebound, since you cannot block out in the air. Jumping is not a valuable skill on defense (unless you are a gifted, intimidating center). Don't jump. Never leave your feet. Keep your feet on the floor at all times on defense.

-- Never foul a difficult shot. Game after game players go driving into the basket and get themselves underneath or stretched out, and their only opportunity to shot is some off-balance whirling, loop-dee-loop throw and then some eager but stupid defender swings at the ball and fouls. Don't try to prevent a shot that you are happy for them to take. Let them. Whirling, loop-dee-loop throws don't go in that often. But they are constantly fouled.

-- If you want to help alter the passers' priorities, try these reactions:

1. Compliment a pass all the time.
2. Throw the ball back often to the guy who throws it to you.
3. Move to get open constantly.
4. Yell, but don't nag, to let them know when you get open.
5. Go aggressively to meet the ball when it is thrown to you.

-- Scientific experimentation has show conclusively the value of setting goals. When you walk onto a court to practice alone, you shouldn't just "shoot around." You should count your shots and have definite objectives.

-- Many players are mediocre because they try to make great plays. They want to score a fancy layup, and they miss it. Or they try to throw a lightning quick pass to a cutter six inches ahead of his man, and it goes out of bounds. Mediocre is sometimes just another name for erratic or inconsistent or "always striving to make great plays." It may surprise you to learn that good players don't strive for great plays. Great plays come to them occasionally, but only in the process of concentrating on their job, trying to do all the little things right. Good players are not gamblers, they are performers.

-- If you decide to go one-on-one, do it immediately after you get the ball, or don't do it at all. The longer you hold the ball and look around or jockey for position, the more time the defense has to get in good help-position to stop you and clog the lane. A good rule to follow is this: When in doubt, pass. Or, if you've held the ball, pass. Seldom does a team lose for having passed up open shots. You lose by missing shots, by shooting too fast, by taking bad shots, and by shooting tentatively.

-- You don't get open with head and shoulder fakes and quick pumping feet. You get open by running hard in one direction and hard in the other direction. Whatever you do, make a decision and go hard.

-- Any time you get the ball, and often before you get it, look to your basket. It is astonishing that players need to be told such a thing, yet players fail to do this constantly.

-- After you lose you should think. Thinking is always valuable. Did you give your best physical effort? Were you fully tuned into the game mentally? What things could you have done better? What would you do differently if you had it to do over? There are a lot of questions to ask yourself, and those should come in place of the more common comments like "The referees were terrible," "The coach was stupid," or "If only Jones hadn't tried that stupid shot."

-- Have you ever noticed that good boxers don't miss very often with wild swings? Inexperienced boxers are constantly missing with big swings that look like they could knock out an elephant if they connected. It doesn't pay in boxing to swing wildly or lunge forward and get off balance. A boxer is too vulnerable when he is badly off balance. And so are basketball players. Good ones don't lunge and get out of position very often. It is the mediocre player who tries to show the coach he is hustling by making flamboyant attempts to steal or block shots when obviously it is too late. The problem is, basketball players don't learn this as quickly as boxers. When a basketball player lunges out of position, it only results in a five-on-four situation, and the eventual shot may seem to be someone else's fault. Too bad basketball players can't get a solid rap on the chin when this happens. If they could, they would learn faster.

-- A mistake is a common event in the game of basketball. It happens all the time. Good shooters miss shots, good passers toss the ball off legs and throw it out of bounds, and good defenders get beaten backdoor or beaten to the ball. Since it happens to everyone in every game, it hardly seems like cause for foot-stomping or finger-snapping or head-holding. When you make a mistake on offense, you should do exactly what you would do if you had scored on offense -- make the swift, abrupt transition to defense, and play the best defense under the circumstances.

-- It makes sense to respond to momentum. If your team is "hot," go with it, keep the pressure on, keep shooting, and let the game flow. But don't let the game roll along when the other team is getting the best of the flow. A good rule of thumb: When the other team scores two consecutive baskets, slow down the game, throw more passes, and keep them on defense longer until the momentum breaks.

-- Whether you are a point guard dribbling and looking for an open man, or a forward wanting to drive in for a layup, the important thing that you must do is move the defender who is guarding you. Your purpose, very definitive, is to move him. Make him go places. Make him do things. Make him move to guard you. A real offensive threat moves his man. He makes that man do things. His man is constantly being forced to go here and there and then recover and come back.

-- Before a big game or any game, you're likely to feel nervous. You will probably control your nervousness better, and be sure that it helps rather than hurts your performance, by enjoying your nervousness instead of trying to hide from it. Let yourself feel your nervousness fully and be grateful that you have it. Do you know how many people live their lives day after day without ever having the opportunity to feel nervous? They have hardly experienced any emotional highs the way you feel before every game.

Sports contests have that unique ability to raise people, fans as well as players, to emotional highs that they rarely get outside the arena. Be nervous, enjoy the fact that you have a game to play, a contest to win, a challenge to confront that is right out in the open, in front of people who care whether you succeed or fail.

Nervousness is part of the life of an athlete. Every athlete trains for the big game, the big confrontation, that special time when the fans will be gripping their programs and biting their nails and sitting on the edge of their seats. The athlete chooses this condition, and strives for it. Regardless of whether you succeed or fail, you have to enjoy the opportunity and all that goes with it.

-- Good players recognize not only the situation they are facing, but also the situation which will arise as a result of the entry into the play of the next man. You should always assume the arrival of a next man, and know whether it is going to be your teammate or opponent.

-- When your coach tell you how he wants you to do something, if you understand what he is telling you, nod to him. Nodding to the coach tells him you understand his instruction, and more importantly, it gives the coach a good feeling about telling you.

-- So many players stand around bouncing the ball on the floor, going nowhere. But few are probably aware of how devastating are the results of go-nowhere dribbles. The more go-nowhere dribbles that are taken, the fewer passes that are thrown. Especially, there are fewer split-second, perfectly-timed passes because the ball is usually coming off the floor at the moment a cutter is free. The result is that few cuts are attempted and therefore fewer people get open.

Many coaches talk of the importance of moving without the ball, yet few players learn to move without the ball if they play with [go-nowhere dribblers]. It is discouraging to cut free while your teammate is dribbling, going nowhere, and not ready to pass. Few players are likely to sustain their effort when they aren't rewarded with quick passes and teammates looking for their movements.

One of the best ways to be sure that you are not one of those players... is to promise yourself not to dribble at all unless you are going forward.

-- Good players often think about the possibility of losing. In fact, many of them think more about the possibility of losing than they think about the joy of winning, and there is a very good reason for this. Good players are usually accustomed to winning, so for them winning carries with it no great joy. A certain measure of satisfaction, yes. But not jumping-up-and-down joy. What motivates a good player is not so much any thrill involved with winning, but instead the wrenching disappointment -- the agony -- of losing.

-- Certainly against a press or pressure, and anytime you are not wide open, you should receive a pass by running through the ball. Don't wait for the ball to come to you. Go and get the ball. Many passes are intercepted because the receivers wait for the ball. Get in the habit of going to the ball with your body, not just leaning or reaching toward the ball with your arms.

-- Lose the idea of stealing a ball from a man. You can only get a ball from a man if he makes a mistake. Trying to take the ball from a man is likely only to get you a foul or throw you off balance. Your thinking is to force a mistake, not get a steal. When you think of stealing a ball, you should think of stealing it from the air. In other words, think of stealing a pass, not a dribble or a ball being held.

-- Good players get their hands on the ball on defense. They deflect some passes going inside, they hit a dribble in the lane, and they touch one or two of their man's passes.

-- A used-up dribble changes all the rules of defense. Suddenly, no one needs help, the ball cannot penetrate to the basket, and a pass must be thrown in five seconds. That means it is time to climb all over your man. Overplay him so he cannot get to the ball. If you're guarding the man with the ball, get in his face... and try to deflect the pass. Don't double-team a man who has already used his dribble. Stay on your own man and prevent the pass. Don't be content to let your man use his dribble and then just stand there, off him, as though you still respect his speed and dribbling ability. When a man has used his dribble, get on him -- all over him.

-- When you see a player use nine terrific moves to get the ball upcourt, don't be impressed by his dribbling. He doesn't know how to play. You can't afford to use nine or even three or four moves to get the ball up the court. You are making yourself more vulnerable to a mistake the more times you reverse or go behind your back or through your legs, and most likely do not have a sufficient awareness of the court during all that activity.

Watch any good player with the ball and usually all you will ever see is one move, one burst of speed, or one change of direction. One. Not nine. Many players throw a great fake and then, instead of taking advantage of it and beating their man, they throw another fake, obviously because they are not aware of the effects of their moves.

Switch-dribbling and reversing and reversing back and going through the legs and behind the back -- all that -- just to get the ball into the front court is a waste of ability and a lack of savvy.

-- A few concepts are all you need to be excellent without the ball. First, you need to drift constantly -- not run hard and sprint everywhere, but keep moving all the time. Second, you need to make short bursts of speed to the ball or the basket from time to time. That is simple enough and describes your movement -- drift and burst, drift and burst, hardly ever coming to a flat-footed spot. Where and how to move are dictated by one simple concept: Stay behind the head of the guy guarding you, and be prepared to burst out for the ball anytime you see the opportunity.

The trouble with "hero basketball"

In D.C., injuries have forced younger players to step up quickly.

According to coach Ed Tapscott, young players typically " have two or three years to watch, observe and work their way into the rotation - rather than learning through such a heavy dose of trial and error."

"It becomes an object lesson in learning how to play the right way, how to play winning basketball - even when you're not a winning team," Coach Tapscott said. "And there is a right way to play, even when you're not winning, and that's what I kept stressing throughout the game. And we had episodes of good, solid basketball - winning basketball - when you play the right way, and then we have episodes of very poor basketball."

According to this article, Coach Tapscott "has stressed the importance of driving to the basket to generate higher-percentage scoring opportunities. He also wants his guards... to penetrate and draw defenders toward them and then kick the ball out to teammates. But while the Wizards got the ball into the paint, they got caught up in what Tapscott calls hero play, otherwise known as one-on-one basketball."

"Hero basketball is jackknife dunks, reverse layups, plays that make the late-night highlights on sports programming - but they become low-percentage plays," Coach Tapscott explained. "You might make only three or four; what happens on the other six? They're dunks the other way. Great effort, bad percentage basketball. I remember having the same conversations with an old coach a long time ago," Coach Tapscott said with a chuckle, shaking his head. "You get it sooner, or you don't and someone else gets your minutes."

Coaches don't win games during games, they win before games

About five years ago, author and sportswriter John Feinstein wrote a book titled "Let Me Tell You a Story" that captured his many conversations with former Celtics coach and president/GM Red Auerbach, who won nine NBA championships and 938 games as a coach, and another seven titles as GM.

Coach Auerbach died in 2006 at the age of 89.

Here are a few highlights from the book:

~~~~~~~~~~

You can't control every single play. Coaches today figure you can't control a fast-break the way you can control a half-court offense. These guys don't want a running game because they lose control if they have one. They want to walk the ball up the court so they can stand up and control every possession, every pass. They feel more secure that way. That's why we're getting all these games now with teams scoring in the sixties and seventies.

As a coach, you have to go out and get the best players you possibly can, coach them as well as you possibly can, and then, ultimately, like it or not, trust them to know how to play. You can't micromanage the game.

One thing [Phil] Jackson does well is he trusts his players, which is one of the reasons they play for him. He's not up on every playing pointing to where the next pass should go. And then, when the Lakers lose, people get on him because he wasn't up screaming or calling a time-out the minute the other team scored two straight baskets.

A lot of coaches get up and scream or call time-outs so they look like they know what they're doing. Does it work? Maybe for some guys, but the thing that always works best is winning.

The biggest mistake coaches make is overcoaching. When you see a guy up, especially in the pros, trying to control every play, that's overcoaching. If you guys don't know where to throw the ball or who they're guarding or where they're supposed to be on defense once the game starts, you're in trouble. Like I said, though, it's about control and about looking like you're in control.

That's not to say you don't pay attention to detail. I used to always go out with my team for warm-ups because you never knew what you were going to pick up by watching the other team. Maybe someone is limping just a little. Maybe someone looks listless, like they're sick. Maybe you see that something looks wrong with one of your guys. You never know.

I always said you didn't win games as a coach during games, you won games as a coach before games. Choosing your team. Preparation. Practice. Knowing the other team's strengths and weaknesses going in. Once the game starts, if you haven't got all of that under control, you aren't going to win the game by being an X and Os genius. Players win during games, not coaches.

When I coached, during the season, my practices always got shorter and shorter. Why? First of all, you have to rest guys as the season goes on so they can be fresh for the play-offs. Second, they shouldn't need as much practice late as they do early. You can only go over things so many times before they stop listening.

Now if the guys didn't come in prepared to go hard, I might keep them longer. But they knew that. They understood as long as they came in ready to give me their best effort, we were going to get them out of there in an hour and a half tops, maybe less than that late in the season. I go to college practices and I see a guy in January or February keeping his team out there three hours. That's crazy.

I watch a lot of college practices. First of all, they're too long. Kids can only concentrate for so long, especially if they're being asked to go to class and study too -- which a few schools actually insist on. And even though they keep 'em out there forever, they never seem to teach them fundamentals.

I always believed that you teach guys to do what they can do. These days, everyone has all these assistant coaches. Honestly, I don't know what they all do. I look at some NBA benches now and there are ten guys over there. Ten guys! That's almost one for every player. So why are they all so weak on fundamentals? The college coaches blame it on the high school coaches, the pro coaches blame it on the college coaches.

I know you can still teach guys. Larry Brown does it. Lenny Wilkens does it. You just can't accept a guy saying he doesn't need fundamentals. Everyone needs them. Guys don't learn to box out because it isn't sexy. A good box out doesn't get you on SportsCenter, does it? But it wins games. A good pass -- a simple one -- doesn't make the highlights either. Only the spectacular one.

Coaches today drive me just a little bit crazy. When I hear one of them say after a game that he's going to have to look at the film to figure out what happened, I bust out laughing. I mean, who do they think they're kidding? You lose a game, you know exactly why you lost the game. You know who screwed up, and if you don't, you shouldn't be coaching in the first place.

When I coached, we didn't have film or tape or anything like that. You think I didn't know who could play and who couldn't play? These guys today want you to believe that what they're doing is some kind of science.

Coaching is simple: You need good players who are good people. You have that, you win. You don't have that, you can be the greatest coach who ever lived and you aren't going to win.

It's the execution of the skills necessary to make the system function

In its Friday edition, the Long Beach Post had a Q&A with 87-year-old Lakers assistant Tex Winter, who's best known for his Triangle/Triple Post Offense and nine NBA championship rings, but who also coached college ball at Long Beach State, Northwestern, Marquette, Kansas State (where he went 261-118 in 15 seasons), and Washington.

A couple of highlights from the interview:

~~~~~~~~~~

"[The Triangle Offense] evolves all the time. Phil [Jackson] had put in some of his wrinkles, tweaking it here and there. But basically our concepts, the principles of the offense have remained the same over the years. They don’t change. What matters is not the system so much, it’s the execution of the skills necessary to make the system function – that’s really the key to it. So we’ve always spent a lot of time on the fundamental skills, basic skills of the game. My methodology is such that everything sort of works itself out.

If you have time to teach it, I think it’s better suited for college. They’re at the stage where they really need development, and work on their fundamental skills. If they can learn to execute the skills necessary to make it function, they can be reasonably successful with it. I think it’s a very sound offense, that’s the reason we’ve stuck to it all these years. I still preach that.

[Over the years] they’ve bastardized it – that’s the way I put it. They use parts of it, but they don’t use the total system of play or philosophy of play. Because I don’t think they know how. If they’re going to be successful with it, you have to spend a lot more time on the drills necessary and sometimes I think – particularly in pro ball – coaches don’t feel like that’s necessary. And to an extent, it’s not. These players have so much natural ability, they more or less like to just run the screen and rolls, something very simple and forget the execution.

Seems to me that an awful lot of [teams], in the NBA anyway and I notice it in the college games I’m watching, we’re all playing pretty much with the same thing. Spacing the floor and running a side screen and roll out of it or a top screen and roll out of it, that’s got to be the most common thing I see. They’ve become very stereotyped in my mind, that’s one reason I think we’ve had the kind of success we’ve had with the Triangle. It’s different. It’s not stereotyped. It’s continuity. We try to react to the defense a little bit more. You have to read the defense. Some players can do that a lot better than others."

The 33 Elements of Toughnesss

ESPN's Jay Bilas, a great player at Duke in the '80s who also served as an assistant to Coach K in the early '90s, says that when he'd come up against a "a tough opponent, I wasn't worried that I would get hit -- I was concerned that I would get sealed on ball reversal by a tough post man, or that I would get boxed out on every play, or that my assignment would sprint the floor on every possession and get something easy on me. The toughest guys I had to guard were the ones who made it tough on me."

Toughness has nothing to do with size, physical strength or athleticism. Some players may be born tough, but I believe that toughness is a skill, and it is a skill that can be developed and improved. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo always says, "Players play, but tough players win."

When I was playing, the players I respected most were not the best or most talented players. The players I respected most were the toughest players. I don't remember anything about the players who talked a good game or blocked a shot and acted like a fool. I remember the players who were tough to play against.

Here are Jay's 33 elements of toughness:

1. Set a good screen: The toughest players to guard are the players who set good screens. When you set a good screen, you are improving the chances for a teammate to get open, and you are greatly improving your chances of getting open. A good screen can force the defense to make a mistake. A lazy or bad screen is a waste of everyone's time and energy.

2. Set up your cut: The toughest players make hard cuts, and set up their cuts. Basketball is about deception. Take your defender one way, and then plant the foot opposite of the direction you want to go and cut hard. A hard cut may get you a basket, but it may also get a teammate a basket. If you do not make a hard cut, you will not get anyone open. Setting up your cut, making the proper read of the defense, and making a hard cut require alertness, good conditioning and good concentration. Davidson's Stephen Curry is hardly a physical muscle-man, but he is a tough player because he is in constant motion, he changes speeds, he sets up his cuts, and he cuts hard. Curry is hard to guard, and he is a tough player.

3. Talk on defense: The toughest players talk on defense, and communicate with their teammates. It is almost impossible to talk on defense and not be in a stance, down and ready, with a vision of man and ball. If you talk, you let your teammates know you are there, and make them and yourself better defenders. It also lets your opponent know that you are fully engaged.

4. Jump to the ball: When on defense, the tough defenders move as the ball moves. The toughest players move on the flight of the ball, not when it gets to its destination. And the toughest players jump to the ball and take away the ball side of the cut. Tough players don't let cutters cut across their face -- they make the cutter change his path.

5. Don't get screened: No coach can give a player the proper footwork to get through every screen. Tough players have a sense of urgency not to get screened and to get through screens so that the cutter cannot catch the ball where he wants to. A tough player makes the catch difficult.

6. Get your hands up: A pass discouraged is just as good as a pass denied. Tough players play with their hands up to take away vision, get deflections and to discourage a pass in order to allow a teammate to cover up. Cutters and post players will get open, if only for a count. If your hands are up, you can keep the passer from seeing a momentary opening.

7. Play the ball, see your man: Most defenders see the ball and hug their man, because they are afraid to get beat. A tough defender plays the ball and sees his man. There is a difference.

8. Get on the floor: In my first road game as a freshman, there was a loose ball that I thought I could pick up and take the other way for an easy one. While I was bending over at the waist, one of my opponents dived on the floor and got possession of the ball. My coach was livid. We lost possession of the ball because I wasn't tough enough to get on the floor for it. I tried like hell never to get out-toughed like that again.

9. Close out under control: It is too easy to fly at a shooter and think you are a tough defender. A tough defender closes out under control, takes away a straight line drive and takes away the shot. A tough player has a sense of urgency but has the discipline to do it the right way.

10. Post your man, not a spot: Most post players just blindly run to the low block and get into a shoving match for a spot on the floor. The toughest post players are posting their defensive man. A tough post player is always open, and working to get the ball to the proper angle to get a post feed. Tough post players seal on ball reversal and call for the ball, and they continue to post strong even if their teammates miss them.

11. Run the floor: Tough players sprint the floor, which drags the defense and opens up things for others. Tough players run hard and get "easy" baskets, even though there is nothing easy about them. Easy baskets are hard to get. Tough players don't take tough shots -- they work hard to make them easy.

12. Play so hard, your coach has to take you out: I was a really hard worker in high school and college. But I worked and trained exceptionally hard to make playing easier. I was wrong. I once read that Bob Knight had criticized a player of his by saying, "You just want to be comfortable out there!" Well, that was me, and when I read that, it clicked with me. I needed to work to increase my capacity for work, not to make it easier to play. I needed to work in order to be more productive in my time on the floor. Tough players play so hard that their coaches have to take them out to get rest so they can put them back in. The toughest players don't pace themselves.

13. Get to your teammate first: When your teammate lays his body on the line to dive on the floor or take a charge, the tough players get to him first to help him back up. If your teammate misses a free throw, tough players get to him right away. Tough players are also great teammates.

14. Take responsibility for your teammates: Tough players expect a lot from their teammates, but they also put them first. When the bus leaves at 9 a.m., tough players not only get themselves there, but they also make sure their teammates are up and get there, too. Tough players take responsibility for others in addition to themselves. They make sure their teammates eat first, and they give credit to their teammates before taking it themselves.

15. Take a charge: Tough players are in a stance, playing the ball, and alert in coming over from the weak side and taking a charge. Tough players understand the difference between being in the right spot and being in the right spot with the intention of stopping somebody. Some players will look puzzled and say, "But I was in the right spot." Tough players know that they have to get to the right spot with the sense of urgency to stop someone.

16. Get in a stance: Tough players don't play straight up and down and put themselves in the position of having to get ready to get ready. Tough players are down in a stance on both ends of the floor, with feet staggered and ready to move. Tough players are the aggressor, and the aggressor is in a stance.

17. Finish plays: Tough players don't just get fouled, they get fouled and complete the play. They don't give up on a play or assume that a teammate will do it. A tough player plays through to the end of the play and works to finish every play.

18. Work on your pass: A tough player doesn't have his passes deflected. A tough player gets down, pivots, pass-fakes, and works to get the proper angle to pass away from the defense and deliver the ball.

19. Throw yourself into your team's defense: A tough player fills his tank on the defensive end, not on offense. A tough player is not deterred by a missed shot. A tough player values his performance first by how well he defended.

20. Take and give criticism the right way: Tough players can take criticism without feeling the need to answer back or give excuses. They are open to getting better and expect to be challenged and hear tough things. You will never again in your life have the opportunity you have now at the college level: a coaching staff that is totally and completely dedicated to making you and your team better. Tough players listen and are not afraid to say what other teammates may not want to hear, but need to hear.

21. Show strength in your body language: Tough players project confidence and security with their body language. They do not hang their heads, do not react negatively to a mistake of a teammate, and do not whine and complain to officials. Tough players project strength, and do not cause their teammates to worry about them. Tough players do their jobs, and their body language communicates that to their teammates -- and to their opponents.

22. Catch and face: Teams that press and trap are banking on the receiver's falling apart and making a mistake. When pressed, tough players set up their cuts, cut hard to an open area and present themselves as a receiver to the passer. Tough players catch, face the defense, and make the right read and play, and they do it with poise. Tough players do not just catch and dribble; they catch and face.

23. Don't get split: If you trap, a tough player gets shoulder-to-shoulder with his teammate and does not allow the handler to split the trap and gain an advantage on the back side of the trap.

24. Be alert: Tough players are not "cool." Tough players are alert and active, and tough players communicate with teammates so that they are alert, too. Tough players echo commands until everyone is on the same page. They understand the best teams play five as one. Tough players are alert in transition and get back to protect the basket and the 3-point line. Tough players don't just run back to find their man, they run back to stop the ball and protect the basket.

25. Concentrate, and encourage your teammates to concentrate: Concentration is a skill, and tough players work hard to concentrate on every play. Tough players go as hard as they can for as long as they can.

26. It's not your shot; it's our shot: Tough players don't take bad shots, and they certainly don't worry about getting "my" shots. Tough players work for good shots and understand that it is not "my" shot, it is "our" shot. Tough players celebrate when "we" score.

27. Box out and go to the glass every time: Tough players are disciplined enough to lay a body on someone. They make first contact and go after the ball. And tough players do it on every possession, not just when they feel like it. They understand defense is not complete until they secure the ball.

28. Take responsibility for your actions: Tough players make no excuses. They take responsibility for their actions. Take James Johnson for example. With 17 seconds to go in Wake's game against Duke on Wednesday, Jon Scheyer missed a 3-pointer that bounced right to Johnson.

But instead of aggressively pursuing the ball with a sense of urgency, Johnson stood there and waited for the ball to come to him. It never did. Scheyer grabbed it, called a timeout and the Blue Devils hit a game-tying shot on a possession they never should've had. Going after the loose ball is toughness -- and Johnson didn't show it on that play.

But what happened next? He re-focused, slipped a screen for the winning basket, and after the game -- when he could've been basking only in the glow of victory -- manned up to the mistake that could've cost his team the win. "That was my responsibility -- I should have had that," Johnson said of the goof. No excuses. Shouldering the responsibility. That's toughness.

29. Look your coaches and teammates in the eye: Tough players never drop their heads. They always look coaches and teammates in the eye, because if they are talking, it is important to them and to you.

30. Move on to the next play: Tough players don't waste time celebrating a good play or lamenting a bad one. They understand that basketball is too fast a game to waste time and opportunities with celebratory gestures or angry reactions. Tough players move on to the next play. They know that the most important play in any game is the next one.

31. Be hard to play against, and easy to play with: Tough players make their teammates' jobs easier, and their opponents' jobs tougher.

32. Make every game important: Tough players don't categorize opponents and games. They know that if they are playing, it is important. Tough players understand that if they want to play in championship games, they must treat every game as a championship game.

33. Make getting better every day your goal: Tough players come to work every day to get better, and keep their horizons short. They meet victory and defeat the same way: They get up the next day and go to work to be better than they were the day before. Tough players hate losing but are not shaken or deterred by a loss. Tough players enjoy winning but are never satisfied. For tough players, a championship or a trophy is not a goal; it is a destination. The goal is to get better every day.

His whole game is predicated on players playing for each other

Just a quick note:

Came across a Gregg Popovich quote from 2005 about Bobcats coach Larry Brown, who was coaching the Pistons at that time (and won an NBA title in 2004).

"I just think that Larry loves the pure part of the game. His whole game is predicated on players playing for each other, feeling the responsibility they have toward each other."

Notes from Pete Carril's book, "The Smart Take From the Strong"

Earlier this month, I posted some notes from Hall of Fame coach Pete Carril's book, "The Smart Take From the Strong."

It's a terrific, highly-readable book written by a remarkable coach who's given his whole life to the game. As coaches, we should appreciate the contribution Coach Carril has made not only to basketball, but to the lives of the young men he's taught over 50 years -- in high school, college, and in the pros.

Here are some additional excerpts from Coach Carril's wonderful book:

-- Whatever you emphasize and to the degree that you do, you get better at it. It's results that count, and they should determine your principles. It is a mistake we all make as coaches to think there is only one way of doing something. There is not. Whatever works, works.

-- There's a tendency for players to believe that because the coach is talking to someone else, they don't have to listen. If they're all listening, the coach won't have to repeat the same thing to the guys who weren't involved.

-- I always spent a good half-hour every day on basics. And one thing I noticed: Sometimes in an effort to shorten our practices, we cut out the basics. If we did that for a long period of time, the guys began to slip. The basics remain the key to success on every level of the game, and you can teach them.

-- There is a difference between teaching and coaching. When you are instructing your team about the actual game, you are teaching them, transmitting knowledge and information to them. The best situation of all is to be able to attract the best talent and be a teacher; that is what distinguishes coaches like Mike Krzyzewski, Bobby Knight, Rick Pitino, Dean Smith -- although it is unfair to single them out because there are another 150 like them whose schools are not as prominent so they can't attract the talent.

-- As a player, you want to be good at those things that happen a lot -- that cannot be overstated. What happens a lot? You dribble, you pass, and you shoot -- you want to be good at those skills. If what you are doing -- what you are good at -- doesn't happen that often, then there's no real benefit to being good at it. A wise player understands that.

-- Les Yellin [the former coach at St. Francis College in Brooklyn] summarized the main virtues [of players we value] as "IQ," "EQ," and "RQ." IQ means what it always means -- the function of intelligence. Behaving intelligently covers the whole realm of knowing what to do. EQ is energy quotient, which means having the energy to work at what you're doing. When your EQ is good, you practice harder, play the game harder, and when it looks as though you cannot move anymore, you find a way to move some more. RQ stands for responsibility quotient. You know what to do, you have the energy or EQ, and now you have to know that whatever it is, it must be done.

-- I tell my guys that if they work hard every day, then they don't have to worry about game plans, or where they play, or whom they play, or about rankings and so on. The quality of their work habits can overcome anything: praise, criticism, good or bad coaching. They have their daily behavior to fall back on.

-- I can check the level of your honesty and commitment by the quality of your effort on the court. You cannot separate sports from your life, no matter how hard you try. Your personality shows up on the court: greed, indifference, whatever, it all shows up. You cannot hide it.

-- Kids are not learning the basic skills of the game because it takes too much time to teach them, because coaches and players alike want immediate results, and because the number of coaches who can and will teach you kids is declining. It is hard to teach things that take time to learn. The players themselves, when they're young, are impatient, and they don't want to take the time to develop other skills if they see right away they what pleases their coach, what produces immediate results like winning and success, is performing one particular function. So they don't learn the skills, and it becomes hard for them to adjust and improve.

-- If a guy cannot pass, the ball stops moving. If he cannot shoot, he will always be open. If he cannot dribble, he cuts his value to the team by one third. Furthermore, if he cannot dribble, the defense will attack him. If you want to become a better dribbler, dribble. Dribble on a court, with a man guarding you. You would think that at the highest level of player -- the NBA -- everybody could dribble. But they can't. It's one of those skills we are not paying enough attention to.

-- No drill is any good unless it's used in some form in the game. There is no transfer of learning. I emphasize to my guys that anything we do in practice is not a drill. If they get to thinking it's a drill, they won't notice it's the same thing that goes on in the game. I have to tell them that what we're doing in practice is exactly what happens in a game. Everything we do in practice must show itself somewhere in the game, or else we don't do it.

-- Passing was the single greatest attribute of my teams over the years. A passer who can see people open is the same guy who sees where and when to screen, avoid picks, helps on defense -- in other words, he can see. The passer is the same guy who knows where weaknesses are, where the drives are, and where everybody on the floor is. To score, you gotta move the ball. We pass to move the defense, and every pass counts. What I also love about passing is how much it helps to build team morale. Passing takes the tension out of a game. Passing makes everybody feel a part of the game, a part of the team. No single aspect of basketball does more to develop good team play than passing. The first thing I look for in a high school player is, Can he pass? If he can, he's the same guys who can cut, and can defend.

-- If you want to learn how to shoot a specific shot in basketball, get the mechanics straight, then go out and practice hard. Once you have the right basics, you can teach yourself how to shoot.

-- Here's the thing about teaching basketball: It's just like teaching a subject in school. You stand in front of the class saying the same thing to everyone, and yet you have these differences in their ability to learn and utilize the information. The same is true in basketball. There is a limitation to what you can teach.

-- When a player is told what he has to do to become a better player, does he get mad at the coach, or at himself? If he gets made at the coach, he'll never get better as a player. If he gets mad at himself, he will get better.

-- There's a difference between the guys who play to win and those who play not to lose. A big difference. When you play to win, you do all of the extra things that maybe aren't visible, but the results is that you come out on top. Playing to win [means] subordinating [your] needs to those of the team. Remember, some guys walk out of a losing game having scored 25 points and are perfectly content. If you have guys like that on your team, you're not going to win too many games. You cannot ever forget the human equation in sports.

-- The essence of character is what I call mental and physical courage. Everybody has the potential for courage, but some people -- because they have had to demonstrate it all their lives -- are good at it, whereas others are not until the need suddenly arises and they have to learn to react. Basketball brings out the need for courage.

-- Everybody makes such a big deal today about team play because there's such a scarcity of it. Greed is a reason. You have to understand the influence of greed. A player has to be selfish in the pursuit of the development of his skills, but he cannot be selfish when it comes time to blend them in with what's good for his team.

-- Defense is the heart of our game. Good defense is recognizable even when you're losing. The object of my defensive strategy is to contest every pass and shot, to force the opponent to move the ball under continuous pressure. I want the other team to play offense longer than they're used to. Defense is not a variable. It's a constant. Defense has to be deeply embedded in your attitude. It's something you can do well every time -- both the individual and the team. Skill is a variable. Work is not a variable. It's an attitude. Defense is head, heart, and legs.

-- Nothing is more intimidating than deflecting passes. It makes a passer very tentative. I say that if you don't use your hands, you're committing a bigger sin and aren't as effective defensively. My view on this is also controversial.

-- The truth is, you can take whatever defensive philosophy you want and reverse it and a forceful coach will make it work. It's mostly attitude and effort that make a defense successful. But one thing -- putting pressure on the ball -- has more of an impact than any philosophical discussion of how to guard a man. If each player, when he guards his man, can press him, put pressure on him, you'll disturb passes and intimidate your opponents.

-- Good players are always moving their legs.

-- The sterner the discipline, the greater the devotion.

-- When you're fundamentally unsound, you inhibit the way your team can play. Poor fundamentals restrict the things a coach can teach.

-- Players who do not compete hard against each other because they're afraid it will affect their friendship have trouble getting better.

-- I don't like to see a guy get patted on the back for doing simple things, for doing the things he should do. You have to be able to tell a player or coach when he does a bad job that it is a bad job. You show respect by praising them when they do the things that deserve praise. They must learn the difference between what is done right and what is done wrong, and if you try to make them similar with easy praise, you'll never succeed in teaching them the difference.

-- When you demand a lot, my experience has been that you get more. If you insist on less, you get that, too. Self-esteem comes from accomplishment, not the other way around. The more you demand, the more they give, the stronger the sense of satisfaction.

-- Speed follows luck and covers a multitude of sins. Wherever fast players go, they always get there faster than slower players.

-- Every little thing you do on offense counts. That means every pass, every cut, every screen, every dribble is part of the end result and therefore require care and concern. We try to make it simple and we work hard to make things easy.

-- Cut with credibility. What I like my guys to do on offense to start a game is pass and cut through the defense. The minute you do, you start to move the defense, a main goal. It also helps to identify the defense, whether it's a zone, a combo, or a man-to-man. It is essential that when a cutter cuts through, he look for the ball. There will be no credibility to the cut unless the player executes it with authenticity, i.e., believes he might receive the ball.

-- Size is not the most important thing about rebounding. Knowing how to use your body, seeing where the ball is going, that's what counts. It is not the guy who jumps the highest. The guy who jumps the highest is all alone. Jumping in a crowd is another story. Just watch guys like Larry Bird. A good rebounder plays for position, but is always attentive to the ball. You cannot lose sight of the ball. You've got to have some idea where the ball is going and how to prevent your man from getting it.

-- Solving a press. When you get pressed, there are three important things you need: First, you need someone who is good at taking the ball out -- someone who can see which man is open and isn't going to get into trouble if he gets the ball. If the guy throwing the ball in panics, or is blind, he's going to throw the ball hurriedly, and because of where he throws it, he's going to get the player catching it in trouble. Second, you need a player who can advance the ball to the other end of the court. Third, you have to have a scorer at the end of the press, someone who knows what to do when he gets the ball.

-- Make a zone run: First, you must recognize the zone: Is it a 2-1-2, 2-3, 1-2-2, 1-3-1, or some combination? Then you must remember that your decision how to attack the zone has to be based on the shot you can make. To say it another way: The shot you can make dictates your offense against the zone. The quality of your passing will determine the quality of your shot. Move the ball and move yourself so that you make the zone "run."

-- Pivoting is one of the most underrated techniques and skills, and when you go to teach it, someone always asks, "Why bother?" We have to teach the player to disregard the feeling that it's not essential, that it's not necessary in today's game. One reason some players disregard its importance is that they do it so easily. Generally, guys with large feet seem to have more trouble pivoting smoothly.

-- Fakes are like lies. The first thing I tell anyone about faking is that if you're going to fake, your move has to look like the real thing. When you go to tell a lie, it has to be close enough to the truth to be believable. Same thing. So often, guys fake so strenuously that they telegraph the fake: Their fake looks like a fake. Young kids have to be actors and develop cunning. They shouldn't work only on one fake; you always want to have more than one weapon. Also, if you're wide open, don't fake -- shoot!

-- Conditioning: I tell my players if you play hard every time you play, you'll be in good enough shape. Once practice starts, we work hard and that's the best conditioning there is. Everything counts. Run hard, play hard, go after the ball hard, guard hard. Everything we do is game-condition because how you play in practice is how you'll play in a game.

-- How do you know if your team has camaraderie? I can tell by the way they walk off the floor at the end of practice. You can feel their happiness vibrating; you can see how they work out together; you can watch it in the shower room -- what they're talking about, the level of excitement. There are many ways you can feel it, and it's better to feel it than to hear it. The camaraderie practically comes out of their bodies. And you don't feel that way when you're losing. Losing reveals things.

-- A bad win is one where you score more points but they've outplayed, outsmarted, and outworked you. It could be a lucky win, or an undeserved win. Regardless, the point is that whatever you call it, a bad win is still better than a good loss.

-- A good high school coach is the salt of the earth. And when his teams are well coached, a college coach is the direct beneficiary of all his work. When players who have had good high school coaching walk on the floor in college, there isn't much that a coach has to do. I cannot emphasize enough what it means to start with that great coach at the sixth or seventh grade who tries to get kids to do things better. Grade school coaches are the unsung heroes of this country and they're disappearing because it takes a lot of work and constant attention. Sometimes it is too much of a sacrifice.

-- I don't recruit players who are nasty to their parents. That shows they are giving less than they can give and can't forge the bonds essential for a good team. I look for players who understand that the world does not revolve around them.

-- Use your assets: You have to take advantage of what you have. Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren did that, and we do it, too. If you have a fast team and you don't run, you're being stupid. And if you have a slow team, you must take the run out of the game.

-- There are so many things that don't show up on the stat sheet, or in the win and loss column, that no one can explain, but you see them and they affect the outcome of games. There are hundreds of them: Players who learn how to do something just by watching compared to those who watch the same demonstration and can't do it; who go after loose balls and come up with every one of them as opposed to someone who tries just as hard and comes up with none. How is it that one guy can deflect a pass over and over again and another cannot? Many times I ask myself the question, "Am I trying to teach this player instinct, or am I teaching him a skill?" Whether you're trying to teach a college player or a seven-year-old, you are looking for instinct.

-- The most important thing that you can do is DO what you are doing well. The most important thing you can do on or off the court is to focus on what you are doing when you are doing it. When you play, PLAY. When you study, STUDY.

-- When I look at coaches like Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, and Don Shula, guys who were so great and maybe in later years did not remain so great, I wonder if they didn't get a little tired. I don't compare myself to them in terms of coaching, I just mean in terms of longevity. If you do something well enough you're eventually confronted with the challenge of sustaining your standard of performance over a long period of time. In the last couple of years, I've seen a little slipping at the edges, and I've found myself thinking, "Whoa, you're not doing what you're supposed to. You let your assistants do too much coaching, you let little things slide." You start thinking this might not be important. And you get tired: Inside yourself, you get the feeling you want to do something that you cannot do any longer.

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Sometimes by losing a battle, you find a new way to win the war

In his self-titled book from 1987, Donald Trump begins Chapter 10 with this line:

"Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war."

It's a concept that applies to the Celtics, who after losing four straight earlier this month, have won seven in a row, holding opponents to under 90 points in six of those wins.

According to Kevin Garnett, the losses helped BOS return to its roots:

"One of the biggest tests in this league is when you lose. You learn a lot about each other. When the season is not going well, some things come out. I've been on losing teams, and stuff comes out. Guys don't like each other, cats are fighting over the ball, bickering and stuff. What we learned is to do it together. That's what brought us out of it. What really brought us back was being fundamentally sound and defense; that's what we did from Day 1 last year."