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Coaching the Read & React

29 Oct

Posted at 18:27h in Coaching the Read & React by
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During recent clinics, I’ve mentioned Kevin Eastman’s quote about the future of basketball – that it will be “position-less”. He’s not yet seen the Read & React and so I find it interesting that one of the best basketball minds in the coaching community “senses” where things are headed. I would love to see him wrap his mind around what you and I already know: the future is already here. The Read & React is position-less, formless, unpredictable and yet totally accountable and teachable. There’s no telling how Kevin would operate it – just like all the Tribe coaches; it looks different in everyone’s hands. But that’s not what I want to point out today. His quote about “position-less basketball” brought other terms to my mind like “formless” and “unpredictable”. It reminded me of a quote about how your team should be like “water” and adapt its form according to the defense… I found this quote today in THE ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu – and it struck me how close his language is to ours. You’d think he was talking to his Read & React team just before a game:

24 Oct

Posted at 16:31h in Archive, Coaching the Read & React, Drills and Practice by
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“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought” -SUN TZU The questions that Read & React coaches collectively have on their minds as they begin their respective seasons seem to be centered around practice planning. For those who have the Planning the R&R Practice DVD Set, you are probably ahead of the game already, and have a great idea about how you want to operate your practices. The number one thing I am asked as a High School Read & React coach is, "How do you prepare for your first game with only 12 practices to do so?" We work very hard to collapse time frames and have put 3 years of trial and error into our Master Practice Plan. It outlines everything we want to cover prior to tipping off against our first opponent. We use this plan to stay on track while scheduling our individual practices, and alter it slightly each season based on the experience and skill level of the players we have returning. We view every drill in each practice as another brick we want to lay perfectly on our way to building something special over the course of the season. Please feel free to download the Master Practice Plan I use with our team. I will be discussing each brick in more detail beginning today. To further get the mental juices flowing, here are some past Tribe Posts with video that talk about practice planning:

16 Jul

Posted at 14:33h in Coaching the Read & React by
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In traditional basketball offenses, a selfish player can kill what the team is trying to accomplish. Ultimately, that player will force the offense to break down and lose five-player coordination. This means that traditional offenses are only as strong as the weakest link - a selfish player. Even your trustworthy "team-player" can occasionally stray from the herd and do his or her own thing with the same results - a loss of teamwork. This is not the case with the Read & React Offense. Layers 3, 4, 5, and 6 are engineered to absorb selfish player actions and turn them into opportunities.

07 May

Posted at 23:00h in Coaching the Read & React by
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I define a "situation" as an offensive action that engages two or more defenders simultaneously. For example, most screening actions create situations, an attacking drive generates a situation, and many times just feeding a competent post player instigates a situation. If your opponent lacks cohesion as a defensive unit, a single situation may be enough to break them open for a score. The reality, though, is that most defensive teams are better coached and more prepared: they are capable of helping and recovering as well as double-teaming and rotating back without giving up a scoring opportunity. Read & React Offense Basketball Pick and Roll But, just because a team can handle one situation doesn't mean they can handle two or three in a row, or even two or three simultaneously. Set this as a goal for your Read & React team (especially when you come up against better defensive teams): every possession, force the defense to handle more than one situation back to back or at the same time. Below are a couple of examples of how you can do that.
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