Avoid Relaxing

8/9/2019 Avoid Relaxing

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by Aíto García Reneses

Aíto García Reneses was head coach(and also general manager) of Barcelona(Spain) for many years, where his teamswon three Division I championships, threeSpanish Cups, one King's Cup, two FIBAEurope, and two Korac Cups. He has been

head coach of Badalona (Spain) since2003, where he won one FIBA Europe(2006), one King's Cup (2008) and ULEBCup (2008). He also was awarded Coachof the Year of the ULEB Cup 2007-08.

Sito Alonso started his coaching career in1987 with the youth teams of Zaragoza(Spain); then he was responsible for youth

teams at Monzòn, where he also washead coach of the first team (EBA league)from 1999 to 2004. He has been assistantcoach of Badalona since 2006, where his

teams won FIBA Europe (2006), King's Cup(2008), and the ULEB Cup (2008).

Twenty years ago, many people criticizedplayer rotations. The possible explanationwas that people were not used to seeingrotations on the court and they thought that many advantages were lost, such as the possibility of giving the most minutes to the five best players on the team.Currently, however, all good (and even thenot-so-good) teams use rotations. Themost important advantage of this is that

teams can play at the highest athletic lev-els. When a player is fatigued, he can re-couperate and recover his energy on thebench and not on the court.

That said, players still relax on the court.We’re going to describe some typical ex-amples of situations players use that, ifavoided, can clearly raise a player’s effi-ciency and a team’s productivity.

OFFENSE

1. Two-on-one: When the defensive team

double teams and plays two-on-one, thereare two very common "stops" that offen-sive players use. If, in the spot shown in

by Sito Alonso

Avoid relaxing

on the court

page 14 | 32 2008 | Fiba Assist Magazine

coaches - fundamentals and youth basketball



diagram 1, the player with the ball is dou-ble teamed by two defenders, his team-mates run without worrying about theproblems that this defensive situation may

cause. Normally, the teammate shouldhelp the player with the ball. The reactionhas to be immediate and they need tochange the rhythm by looking for a newpassing line. Players, as shown in diagram2, stay in their spots, energically callingfor the ball, but they are asking for a pass that is susceptible to being intercepted.

In such a play, the player typically stays in the same postion after the pass, resting.Instead, he and his teammates shouldchange their positions, trying to defeat the

defenders, and set themselves up for an-other pass from the player with the ball(diagr. 3, 4, and 5).

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Fiba Assist Magazine | 32 2008 | Page 15



2. Free-throws: In many games, playersdon’t struggle for the offensive re-bound after a missed free-throw.Thissituation, simple and repetitive duringa game, is one of the moments inwhich players rest. In doing so, theygive up on possible offensive re-bounds, conceding the rebound to thedefense. Habit turns it into a mistake,

and teams pay for mistakes like theseduring a game. Lack of practice dur-ing training sessions causes playersnot to go for the offensive rebound after a missed free-throw. To break themof this habit, it’s good to stimulate thestruggle for the rebound with practicedrills and games (diagr. 6 and 7).

3. Playing inside (penetrations, high post,low post): This occurs using an offenseagainst a zone defense. Many timescoaches insist on the importance of at-

tacking these kind of defenses withpassing the ball inside. This solution iscorrect, but incomplete, because it’svery important looking for a new pass-ing line (diagr. 8), move, react in themoment when a player drives to thebasket or receives the ball in the highpost, or in the low post. Saying that isnot enough; beside being severe in ourgame five-on-five, get an habit like thisneeds some specific drills, that we canapply easily during the shooting ses-sions of our team (diagr. 9).

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4. Do not stop after the defensive help:Great shooters dominate this type ofplay. Many of them pop into mind, forinstance, Bullock and Rakocevic, in the Spanish league. After a penetration with an advantage, I’m restrainedin my zone because of a player, whodoes a defensive help, who fakes or

recovers or even switches. The playerwith the ball, after the pass stops him-self, a very important thing in order toavoid an offensive foul, but to avoid thefoul, the player has not to stop for fiveseconds. He needs thus to look for anew passing line that may offer thepossibility to receive alone, with an ad-





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vantage, or playing against a defenderwith whom there’s a mismatch due to adefensive switch (diagr. 10).

DEFENSE

5. Two-on-one: Without stopping to de-scribe the technical details of the two-on-one, one of the more frequent anddangerous “stops” in our defensivesystem occurs when the offensiveplayer passes the ball after a double team. Normally, the player involved in the two-on-one reacts well after thepass and tries to recover his man, orelse looks for a free opponent in therotation. However, the player, whoguards the man with the ball, usuallyjust turns his head and maintains his

position; he prefers to rest, instead of thinking of the other responsibilitieshe has after the pass has been made.This player must get into the habit ofgetting back to his proper position asshown in diagram 11. In diagram 12,on the other hand, we can see how the player, after having run to his spot,helps stop an easy penetration to thebasket.

6. Do not stop if the offensive playerdoes: This is one of the hardest actions

to practice in our sport. Here is a verycommon situation in a basketball game,with the offensive team that plays a di-




rect screen on the ball. The defenderof the player with the ball come intocontact with the screen and the of-fensive player takes an advantage.The defender runs, in the best case, to recover his position, but the offen-sive player stops. In the 90% of thecases, the defender stops, too. How-ever, he does this before getting to the

correct spot on the court. This is a bigmistake.Another very common example oc-curs with the defender who pressesfull court. Once the offensive playerbeats the press and gets an advantage, the defender will typically runbeside the player with the ball andwhen he stops, the defender oftenstops, too, instead of putting himselfin front of the player with the ball (dia-gr. 13 and 14).

7. My space: The name of this indicatesexactly what we’re talking about. Onedefender has to guard his opponent,but this is not enough. Many times wesee defenders in perfect defensivestance: they deny the pass, they’relegs are bent, and intently watching

their opponent so he won’t be able toscore. Defensive positioning entails the responsonsibility of the defender towards his opponent, but of equal im-portance, it also means guarding aparticular zone of the court, which has to be protected. Too many times, wesee a defender watch an offensiveopponent drive by and the defender

does not take the initiative of faking,stepping out, or trying to stop him. In-stead, he thinks, “This is not my man,”and lets the offensive player go rightby (diagr. 15).

Defensive players have to be responsible not only for their man but for azone that they occupy. They cannot letplayers drive easily to the basket, ormake uncontested cuts or passes.

CONCLUSIONS

Basketball, like most popular sports, has

undergone an evolution as the game glo-balized and has been tweaked and im-proved through the input of tens of thousands of coaches. These improve-ments are noted today in the technical, tactical, and physical level of the game that’s played at the highest level. For this





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reason alone, coaches have to be pre-pared to change and innovate in all as-pects of game preparation. Payingattention to the smallest detail and insti- tuting change whenever possible can

make the difference in the final outcomeof a game, a game that your team mightwin.


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Avoid Relaxing