The Evolution of Basketball Coaching with Coach Nick at BBallBreakdown

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Hello and welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. On today's episode, we have a very special guest, Coach Nick Houselman. He is the founder of B-Ball Breakdown, a leading platform for in-depth NBA and basketball analysis. He has over 20 years of coaching and consulting experience.

Coach Nick is a breath of fresh air, and today he's going to share with us— you have a new coaching course on defense, Coach Nick, and what he's learned over the last 20 years. So welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

So I'm curious, how did you firstly come across Alex and his work?

It's an interesting question that I'm kind of racking my brains. It had to have been on Twitter, just seeing his stuff. And then, you know, whenever I see things I like, I'll generally try to reach out and connect directly. And so it had to be that, or maybe like Instagram, some, some sort of social media platform.

I think pretty quickly when people of the same, you know, fellow travelers meet each other or connect like that, they kind of realize quickly that, you know, there is the same wavelength and we'll get along. So that's what happened pretty quickly with Alex and I.

Yeah, man, absolutely. And I'm curious as well, you had a, I was looking at your YouTube, obviously, you know, B-Ball Breakdown. Since I started basketball, like started knowing about basketball, I've kind of known about B-Ball Breakdown. Kudos to what you have done with that platform.

It's amazing. So I'm curious, you have a video there. It's one of your more popular videos on shooting techniques. How have you— maybe your approach changed from that video till today?

Wow. Yeah, I mean, that one, I think it's the one you're talking about that's gotten like millions and millions of views. It probably should even revisit it because it'd be kind of going to a museum. And I think that, you know, a lot of the time, even back then, the big war that we fought about shooting starting around 2010, 2011, when I started D-Ball Breakdown, was the turn.

And before that, most coaches would teach you to be 10 toes pointing to the rim, square to the basket, which as a historian of the game, it makes sense to me because that's how we used to shoot the ball as a 2-handed set shot.

And you don't jump from, you know, from deep, even deeper than we see now. And that's of course why you'd want to be square to the basket because both hands are on the ball and they're both influencing it on the way up. But when we went to one-handed shooting in the late '40s and early '50s, you'd see like Kenny Sailors, who's one of the presenters of the jump shot.

He had a beautiful turn. His feet would turn to the left as a righty shooter. And nobody for decades upon decades had ever thought to look at that as part of what the ground fundamentals should be for shooting. And so I have a feeling that like, I, and I know that's in there, a lot of it's the hop shooting that I was talking about back then in that video, but I think my evolution now has gotten to a couple of different things.

One, I solved my issues with the 1-2, which I didn't like as much as the hop. And when I did, when I solved that, I now teach 1-2 as much as the hop anyway, because there was a big sort of pushback against the hop for absolutely no reason other than people don't want to ever change or look at things differently.

And the hop is still better for like the natural built-in rhythm that we're looking for and speed of release. But the other thing I think that I've also changed then would be variability training, which is Tommy Topesta is a huge influence on me.

He's a brother from another mother, B Biomechanics on Twitter. And he works with NBA players and he has been on the forefront of pushing the boundaries of how to train and unlock everything from performance to shooting, to dribbling, to everything. And so we spend every day, several, you know, a lot of time each day discussing these things, pulling it apart, sharing videos to see, you know, figuring out what best methods.

And so that kind of variability training has been really profound. And basically what it ends up meaning is that we will kind of adjust every part of the mechanics from the dip to the upswing, to the feet, to, you know, the sway, everything that you do in part of your jump shot, we will look at and adjust and change.

And we're not looking to groove this Klay Thompson perfect form, perfect arc every single time. And as a result, because we're exploring different ways of getting that shot to the basket, we might realize that that other way that we would, we did that might make you try, we might've tried to make you feel uncomfortable, might end up being a better, more optimal way for you to shoot the ball.

And we never would have known that had we just been grooving the exact same shot textbook the way we've done it. And so that's been really powerful in a way of unlocking things. It's kind of like, you know, in baseball where you put a weight on the bat and then you swing it when you're waiting to go on, you're on the deck circle.

And then when you take the weight off of the bat, that feels so good. Oh my God, this is what I want. So we kind of are doing that. We're adding weight to like the different parts of your shot. And then either we take it off and then you're like, oh, this feels so much better.

I can find that rhythm I'm looking for. Or we discover that that weight is actually more optimal than not.

Absolutely. We had Cal on, Cal Bode, and he was speaking about how you add weight to kind of expand the action capabilities of the athlete. In training, and then you remove it and then you can kind of, you know, see how now they can perform the same movements, but obviously they have more freedom, freedom of movement, more degrees of freedom.

You know, it's exactly what you're talking about. And I'm curious to just to dig into the variability a little bit more. Can you give us some practical examples of what that may look like with the variability in shooting?

Sure. And again, 'cause I'll never really want to have a player just standing still at the 3-point line. catching the ball and just shooting it over and over and over again. In fact, I got in trouble on Twitter last week when we saw Klay Thompson make 90 in a row or 70 in a row.

And I said, you know, there are a lot of like elite D1 shooters that could do some version of that. They can make 40, they can make 50, whatever. If you're just going to stand in place and just shoot the ball from the same angle, no defense.

It's, you know, it's almost like, you know what that's more like? Going to the therapist and just having a therapy session and it's like a mental You know, thing that you're doing. But for me, what it looks like for variability training would be, okay, we're going to spend the next 5 minutes.

You're going to shoot the highest arc possible. I'm talking about moonball. I want to see, you know, a lot of times kids have a hard time with that. And then I'm going to be, okay, now we're going to do 5 minutes with the lowest arc.

Literally, I don't care. It shouldn't go in. You want to hit the front of the rim and it should bounce right back to you because the best shooters can adjust their arc within 1 or 2 degrees on command. And you have to know how to be able to change your arc.

And explore that. And then we'll go back and say, okay, now just shoot regular. And a lot of times they're like, oh, this is so much better. But sometimes I'll tell them, I want you to shoot the highest arc possible. And then they shoot what the optimal arc is, right?

To them, that's way too high when in reality it's what it should be because they're shooting too low normally. They've grooved that. And it's hard to break that without doing extreme things like, you know, I want you to moonball that thing, hit the ceiling if you can, right?

Those are, that's a good example there of what we'll do to kind of vary things. And that's just such the tip of the iceberg of what we'll do, you know, and it gets kind of fun in that way where it's almost like silly sometimes, but obviously the monotony of training can be that way where you need to be able to inject some forms of fun into that, what you're doing.

Yeah. I think even like I've done, you know, we call it DL shooting and I've done ones where like, all right, you have to shoot and then turn around like Steph Curry, you know, where he doesn't look what's in the basket. And then it's like, you know, we shoot with different size balls to work on their touch.

And then we, you know, with the monotony point, it's like we shoot and you have to dance before the ball goes in just to, like you said, make it fun and like find ways to make things light in practice.

Yeah. You actually, you start making more shots, right? When you get focused on the result, like I better make this or else coach is taking me out, you know? And then that's a, that's not that uncommon of a thought pattern. The shot's missed before you take it.

Right. So when we can kind of groove the internal cues of what's going on with your body first and try, I'm like, I'm not going to say, oh, I'm not nailing this shot next. I'm going to say to myself, I'm going to get that rhythm perfect.

I'm going to make sure that bottom of the dip and the right foot plantar sync perfectly. Right. And so when you do that, and then you're not focused on, oh, I got to make this shot, the shots go in more often. And so that's a great ancillary benefit from that.

On top of that, then you get like a much faster release time without ever having to address that or talk about it. The effortlessness that you can develop out of this, which is a real key for me, is I want to make sure that they're not— there's little effort in being able to get the ball from where you are, the 3-point line, into the basket.

That, by the way, that also then increases your distance and your range. And then, you know, the farther back you are, the more open you are, and then it all fits together in a nice, really nice package and then rooted in that variability.

So You know, the mental aspect of this is the whole other thing that we can get into as well, which ends up being very significant and I think overlooked.

Yeah, I think, you know, there's that Inner Game of Tennis book and, you know, it speaks about the mental side of it. I just have to ask you about, so you spoke about the focusing on like, you know, the movements patterns. So I have to challenge you on, you know, maybe how do you get the athlete?

So instead of focusing internally to get to them some external cues So that they can still, like you said, focus on their, their movements so that then the results come after, but they're not overly focused on where their elbows should be, for example, and how much they should bend their knees.

Like, how do you, how do you get them and address giving them those external cues?

Yeah. I mean, for one thing, the more I learn about shooting, the less I actually do. So I used to torture players by twisting and turning and stretching and like trying to get their their wrists to be right where Klay Thompson would be.

You know, it was ridiculous. And I've called players years later to apologize for doing that and torturing them for that. So, you know, the more I do this, the more I learn, the less I'm doing. I'm always looking at alignment. I'm looking at rhythm.

And then from there, we, you get creative in how to unlock those things. You know, so we do interesting things like the springier the jump, which is why the hop is best, is the higher percentage, the better rhythm you can get. And the more that you plant like your foot as you're ready to jump and then bend the knees and then try and jump is suboptimal.

So we have plenty of ways of trying to accentuate like that feeling of when you plant that right foot in the left-right jump, that right foot's got to be firing into the ground and you're pogoing off of the floor from there. And so, you know, a lot of it can just be demonstration and sort of talking about it.

And a key is 5 seconds, 6 seconds. You don't want them standing there. And tuning out or losing momentum, athletic momentum from just standing there listening for 60 seconds. It's too long. And believe me, I wish I was perfect at this and I'm not.

I'll get into discussions. I'll start talking way too much, too fast, whatever. But when it's really clicking, it's like, yeah, I'm doing very little talking and quick cue. You know, I'll have them sometimes balance on their left foot with the right foot over the floor.

And then I'll just have them drive the right foot down and then, you know, try and blast off the floor. This is what the terminology I use. And so, you know, I'll have them do that a few times, no ball, just do that.

And then I give them the ball and they get them going. You know, a lot of times what I'll do is, or all the time, I'll turn to a player and I'll say, after a great workout, I'll say like, who's your best shooting coach?

And a lot of times they'll say, you know, me, or they'll say so-and-so, whatever. And I'm like, I'll shake my head no. And they'll be like, so-and-so. I'm like, no. And then finally they'll look at me and go, is it, is it me?

And I'm like, yes, you're your best shooting coach. You just need to listen and know how to listen. And I'm a Sherpa and I can help you and I can help you on that path and help you listen to what your body is saying.

But in reality, there's nothing better than your body teaching you how to shoot. And I say this all the time. If you were 10 years old and you didn't know how to shoot a basketball and I locked you in a gym by yourself, you would be an infinitely better shooter after X amount of time than if you had what we would call bad coaching, which would be 10 toes to the rim, square, Maybe no dip, 2-motion shot, which is what we taught for a long time.

If you, you know, no coaching is infinitely better than bad coaching.

Yeah, no, I agree completely. It's, it's funny to think, isn't it? Like if a player was to just shoot by themselves their whole lives, they would probably be a lot better shooter because they wouldn't be forced to shoot in a way that's not comfortable for their bodies.

I want to pivot a little bit and move on. Before I ask you about your defense, I'm actually curious, you Got a chance to cover the Summer League. You cover a lot of NBA, you know, a lot of professional basketball, NCAA. What are some of the things that you look for when you're watching these professional players to kind of, you know, know if they're a good shooter, know if they're, if they're on the right trajectory of improvement?

You know, just what are some things that you're looking at as a, as an observer, as a coach?

Yeah, I mean, I, I would think alignment of rhythm is what I'm looking for right away. And so there's a lot to glean from even the misses, right? Like, how do they miss? You know, the good shooters will in and out, you know, they're straight.

They're like a few inches short. And I think there's a great— the guys from Respect who had this awesome piece of tech that go on top of the backboard and tracks where the ball goes in, you know, like Noah. But either way, I had met with those guys years back and they had discovered that the best shooters bunch their shots within a 4 or 5 inch radius.

Now it doesn't necessarily have to be like the center of the basket. But they're so consistent that that ball, the center of the ball ends up splashing in almost the same spot every time. And then the bad shooters or the suboptimal shooters spray it all over the place.

And there's a, when you look at it, they look at it like, you know, when you're shooting a rifle at a paper target and you have the holes in there, they look at it like that. Right. And so, you know, the great shooters of rifles also do the same kind of thing.

And so you can glean a lot even from the misses and how they miss. And that's a big one. And then rhythm again, I spent a lot of time going frame by frame to measure The distance between, or the number of frames from when, let's say it's a left-right, how many frames of video does it take for them to, when they plant the right foot to when the knee is now straightening up into the jump?

Honestly, I know, and I write this stuff down and I chart this. And the longer, the higher that number, the more frequently that they miss. Okay. And so Donovan Mitchell, for instance, is a guy who, and I did a great video about him because he was a 15-point-a-game scorer in college, maybe as a sophomore.

And they get to, then he gets drafted. Now he's scoring 20 a game in the NBA. Like, how does that happen? And you could tell that, you know, a lot of the suboptimal things that we see in college, and I've had certainly plenty of college shooters crying on my shoulder for what their coaches made them do that were just old, old stuff that doesn't imply that shouldn't, doesn't work anymore or is detrimental.

And so like for him, I can remember going through it and realizing that even on the finishing, there were things like on the floaters where he was just jumping off one foot a lot or drifting more where I knew that if he just moved and got together with an NBA trainer, you know, for several months, he would, you would be able to clean up a lot of those things and then let the, all of his other natural abilities shine.

So you have to be able to wade through that stuff and maybe even sense if you can get to a practice or not that like, okay, this coach is 50 years old or 55 years old is coaching like it's 1994. Like that's the ground zero for me is 1994 where like everything that, you know, if you were a coach before that, you kind of get stuck.

And it's hard to evolve. And then after that, we've realized so much more and I'm kind of bridged that. That's when I graduated college. So kind of bridging both worlds, you can kind of just see like when you walk in right away, a lot of times either coaching, like communication methods or just screening methods, you know, right away that you either, you know, you're in 1994 or you're in 2025.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's interesting. And I mean, just to ask, Is there anything you can share from what you're, what the players have said that the coaches have done that, like you said, is outdated? You know, things that come to mind is just, you know, form shooting, like repeat, repeat, repeat.

But just anything else that you can share that coaches are insisting on?

A big one that I keep hearing even now is like, they don't want you to hop on your shot. And I'm like, as soon as I hear that, I'm like, okay, you know, I don't even know what to tell you. Like maybe just keep, just say yes, coach, and then keep doing it.

Or I don't know. But that's a big one. You know, square to the basket, I think I've won that war, but you might still counter people. No dip, I think I've won that war. Like step sliding on defense, closing out choppy steps, you know, these are things that are not what we've discovered what the best defenders do.

The traditional box out, when you, you have to turn your back to the, from the, away from the rim, armbar, and then try and pivot back. And meanwhile, you give up the offensive rebound because the ball went right where you were or right where you could have just grabbed it if you would have gone after it like the best rebounders do.

So. You know, diving for loose balls is, you know, a big thing, you know, that I try to try and help coaches, which is hard because they've all been conditioned that that's a get my team motivated. And I'm like, yeah, I know, but you end up on the floor with the ball, which is the worst position you can be in basketball.

And I'm not saying you don't dive, but the inane diving drills where you condition every possible loose ball has to be dove for when there's, I would say, 80% of those, no, you could scoop and then get a layup on. Because of that, where you would never get that opportunity.

And then, so, and I trained it where, you know, you can stay on your feet, even if you don't get it first, the guy that does have it is on the ground with their back on their back, holding the ball and you just rip it out of their hands.

Right. Or you're getting forced to jump ball. So there's a lot to be gleaned from a lot of these things that we've learned. And sometimes it's nice to go back. It's like, I consider it going back to a museum. You know, I want to know what it's like, how they coached back in 1980, you know, and that's kind of nice.

People like going to museums. But at some point you got to evolve.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, there's a lot of science where we've moved on, you know. And so I think it's important to look back and say, you know what, I've had success this way and that's great. And, you know, I think as coaches we should give ourselves a pat on the back for making do with what we had, right?

But now we're advancing and we're advancing and there's more information, more conversations like this. There's more, there's a lot more podcasts available. There's just a lot more information readily available. So it's out there. So I think we can, for us as coaches, we always tell players, you know, they have to work harder, they have to put in the time.

And I think as coaches, we have to do the very same thing. So we have to study, we have to research, and we have to challenge ourselves to keep getting better as well. And the information is out there to do that. And it's interesting what you're saying.

Like, there's a lot of, you know, little tiny details that I don't think maybe you don't pick up. From watching, like if you're watching a game at first, but if you're going back and watching the video, you know, it's super important. And another thing I always say, and I think I've said it before on the podcast, is if you can, you know, get yourself, get a phone, get a tripod, it's cheap on Amazon, film yourself at practice and just observe how practice is going.

Observe the little subtleties of practice that you're, you know, not recognizing the way players are shooting, the habits that players have that you have. And that in itself is going to make you so much better and advance you so much. But just from watching how practice is going.

Oh, wait, let me interject real quickly. How about asking the players how you did? There are coaches who would never— their ego couldn't handle it. I know I wouldn't have been able to handle that when I was younger either, and I'm still a little trepidatious.

But, you know, there's coaches in England who have done this player base and they get the feedback after every practice. And by the way, that whole notion of what they're trying to do to get the players to be more Vocal in, in the process.

It's not easy because most players are just trained to stand there at attention and look at the coach in the eye and just listen. They have to, it's only one way. And when I tried doing it, like in a huddle, in a timeout, I'll be okay.

What's going on on the court? I'll ask that. And a lot of times they don't have the vocabulary. They don't know how to express themselves. And you have to be able, I think it's better when you can teach that and let them become more empowered to understand.

And have agency in the whole thing, it ends up being better. So part of that would be then to get the feedback from the players, like after every practice is what they do.

Yeah, it's super smart to let the players speak. And also as coaches, we're obviously teaching them how to play basketball, but we're teaching them how to communicate. And I think that in itself, asking them for their opinion in the basketball court isn't something like you said that many coaches, I think they're scared to do, right?

For A lot of different reasons. And I've been there. I'm sure, you know, many coaches can relate. But if you just ask them, and I think this is why it's also important to have a language, you know, that way we're all speaking the same language at practice.

And then players can give, you know, feedback.

My favorite moments of coaching are when I'll, we'll be in a practice in a scrimmage and one player gets mad at another and kind of yells at them. I don't know. I love doing it where I'm like, I'll break it down and I'll say, okay, let's look at this for a second.

You're mad because they didn't pass you the ball and they took a bad shot, right? And he goes, okay. Okay. Now, so what is your goal? And then, by the way, having the goal obviously is really, really important. And too many coaches might not have a goal in whatever interaction they're having.

And I said, well, your goal is you want them to pass you the ball more. And okay. And you are now being inflammatory towards them, right? You were calling them names. You're angry. You're, you know, whatever. Will that get you any closer to your goal of having them to share the ball with you?

Probably not.

I'm like, okay, so now what can we, how do we, how can we achieve that goal? And then eventually, you know, then you get a lot better of a A language with the teammate in between teammates and a lot more of a harmonious team culture, right?

It gets you a lot farther that way when you can understand like, what is the goal? How can you go about it? What's the quickest way, most efficient? All those things tend to also be the best, best way, right? In terms of, you know, achieving a culture that you want and just having players like each other.

So I think that's really powerful as well. And that's, those are my favorite moments.

No, I agree completely. Being able to Express your, I guess, feelings and your concerns about, because at the end of the day, we want to win, right? And maybe the bigger issue there is like, if you don't pass me the ball, how are we going to be successful as a team?

And, you know, they're trying to address it. So they care about the situation, but they don't necessarily. And this is where, you know, a coach is great in what you, in your example there, you know, let's put this out and let's talk about this in the open.

And now you're giving them those life skills. That it's not only going to help the team get better, but then help them as human beings as well.

It's hilarious. My son has just started playing at 16. He's now 17. So he's only the last year and a half he started playing basketball. So I don't know if people can relate to that, like trying to learn a sport from at that age.

It's rare. But if you knew my son, it makes perfect sense. And so he was playing 2-on-2 at this new school he's going to in a workout yesterday. And they put him with the best player on the team. And so of course, and my son doesn't finish well.

He's just barely, every shot he takes is like the first time he shot that shot.

Right.

And so he doesn't finish well. And so, you know, obviously the best player, he's like doing a lot of scoring. They're playing 2 on 2. The goal is to win. They're able to get to 7 or 8 in these mini games. And, you know, you could see him getting a little frustrated that he wasn't really passing it to him.

And I eventually at the end, I pulled him over. I said, well, listen, you know, the expected field goal percentage from him when he is anywhere near the rim, which he was getting to. Is a lot higher, is the highest percentage you're going to have from your 2-man team.

So, and what is his goal? He wants to win. And so, you know, you have to understand that and why, and that's why he'll take those shots a lot more than he might be passing it up. Now, that said, there are times when he has to realize, I have to let him have the ball.

I have to keep him engaged defensively. I want him to be part of this whole thing. And if it means we don't score on that possession, okay. It might even give him more incentive to score a couple buckets to go up by 2.

And then I can feel a little bit better about giving it to him. So that's a learning experience for the best player as well. But, you know, it didn't have to be me getting mad at my son for being frustrated and then having that come out.

You know, it's more of a mathematical equation there. And then we can kind of figure out ways where then how can you then, you know, benefit your team defense, tipping the ball. He shot an airball, went right to his teammate though, and he scored.

I'm like, okay, you know what? You taking that shot led to that basket. So. Anyway, you know, it's just different ways to look at it where we don't have to get into these highly emotional charged conversations that increase the anxiety.

Yeah. And you know, you want to, you want to get better, you stay on the court. You want to stay on the court, you got to win. So, you know, he's got the right mindset there. Just before, I know we're coming to the end here.

I want to ask you about your defense and, you know, you have your own defense and you mentioned a little, you know, you spoke a little bit about the choppy steps. It being outdated and then also the diving on the floor and how you just scoop the ball up.

But can you just talk about some of the principles in your defense?

Sure, sure. So, you know, this all started because as you're charting, you know, the offensive rating of NBA teams over the years, you realize it just keeps going up inexorably higher and higher every year. And so what that said to me was that what we are doing on defense doesn't work, you know, and the more harder you yell and the more you, you know, please focus on it.

You know, the less— there's actually a law of diminishing returns for defense in my mind anyway. And I know like there's college coaches out there that might spend more than half the practice on defense. They're screaming, they're yelling, they're sliding, they're whatever. And then guess what happens?

You get in that game and they get backdoored twice. They give up 5 open 3s. And you know what I mean? It's like, there's at some point you got to go back and work on your offense, right? Like anyway, this is an aside.

And it, but there's got to be a better way to teach the defense. And so. When I started looking at that, I had been reminded that in 2019, a couple of times against James Harden, who was so dominant, we saw the Bucks in the regular season and then the Jazz in the, in the postseason played almost behind him.

And so I thought, well, what's the most radical thing we could do on defense that, that would be in the fly in the face of what we've been doing that clearly doesn't work? Well, that would be playing behind the ball. Let's see if we can design a defense that can handle that with certain rules that you don't just give up layups every single time.

And so I was, I spent about a year trying to invent a zone from whole cloth and I was getting closer and it was kind of working. And every time we ran it with the team, I had every coach that was in the gym stroking their chin and being like, gosh, there's something here.

I don't know if they were completely sold yet, but they're like, God, yeah, there's moments where like, this is causing all manner of havoc. And then I was reminded that I have, I'm an amoeba coach. I love the amoeba because I don't like playing zone.

And if I'm going to play zone, I want it to be really aggressive. So the amoeba defense from Tarkanian. And by the way, let's give Ron Adams his flowers because Ron Adams of the Warriors is the guy who invented the matchup zone, which is what the amoeba defense is supposed to be called.

And then Grgovich, who had seen that zone played, another kind of zone played, which became the amoeba. He gets over to UNLV. He's like, hey, I saw this cool defense. What are we going to— Tarkanian's like, what are we going to call it?

He goes, let's call it the amoeba when it was really just Ron Adams matchup zone. Anyway, so I was playing that and I realized that I had a center who would have had to have closed out the corner in the amoeba and he was 6'5 and 350.

It was like, I didn't want him leaving the paint. So my last year of coaching at high school level, we ran the Dean Smith point zone, which keeps a goalie all the time. It's one player who just stays in between the ball and the basket like a goalie.

And so I remember that and I was like, oh, wait a minute. Maybe this will be a good template to use to play behind the ball. And you know what? It ended up doing more than that. It also is the best zone that I know of to cover the corners, which is what we were really getting burned on with this new zone.

And so I use that template, develop all these methods on how to teach the ball to play behind the ball. What ends up happening is you eliminate all sorts of step sliding. It's all running. And what I also noticed was, is that, like, for instance, when I installed this at Queens College Division II in New York a couple of seasons ago, it was like in the middle of September.

So way before the season started, but like, uh, it was a 6 o'clock practice at night, you know, on a Thursday. And you know that college kids, they all want to go out on Thursday, right? That's their first weekend night. That's their Friday.

And so, I swear to God, it was over 2 hours of just, we were really pushing them all defense, right? All defense everywhere, full court, half court, whatever, all the chase defense. And we blew the whistle after it was, it was 2 hours and 15 minutes easy.

We blew the whistle to wrap it all up. And I swear to God, so it's 8:15 at night on a Thursday in September. And I swear to God, every player that said, coach, We want to keep doing this. Don't stop the practice. And I looked at the other, the head coach, and I'm like, okay.

So we went for another 20-some minutes doing it. And I think what happened was, is that they realized that I don't think that players hate defense because they're selfish and they just want to score all the time. I think that they hate defense because they innately understand that what we're training them to do is not optimal.

It's not athletically optimal for what they need to do to move. Step sliding, choppy step closeouts, all these things are just not what the best defenders do anyway. So by unlocking whatever athletic potential they have, doesn't have to be like, I'm not making these people into amazing athletes or pro athletes, but I'm unlocking 30% more of what they can do because we're running places now.

And I'm teaching them how to do a hockey stop instead of these choppy step closeouts. They responded to that and they wanted to keep doing it more. It was fun. You know, now the other thing was I was teaching it when we were going over through it is obviously the goal is to get them to shoot mid-range.

contested mid-range and contested floaters. Don't give a crap what happens to the shot, if it goes in or not. And so I was cheering them, like whenever they got behind successfully with that hockey-style closeout, I was like, yeah, that's awesome. And then if they induced a mid-range shot with a hand somewhere in the area, I was like, an angel gets its wings.

And so they were feeding off of that. So no longer are we using the traditional ways of coaching, which was anger, disgust, ego. Those are the ways we used to teach defense for all those years. And we thought it was justified because it's Instead, we're unlocking the method and the, and the goal here.

And they responded in kind. And I've done, I don't know, 300 Zooms over the last year and a half or 2 years. And it's a high school, college, every level. I'm telling you, the feedback I'm getting is tremendous. And so I, I'm working on this to make this into a wave where it'll become a defense that's more accepted.

By the way, it's not that even that strange to see. If you watch a typical NBA game, 40 times a game for each team, you'll see the ball handler's man behind him. In a pick and roll, in the ball screener's man dropping into drop coverage.

So it's exactly the same position. We're just getting there right from the start. And you know what happens? You eliminate ball screens. You cannot set a ball screen on a player who's behind the ball. Eliminate it. You eliminate off-the-dribble 3s. No one is really going to shoot an off-the-dribble 3 when they're breathing down their neck from behind.

You also eliminate some of the catch and shoots because what we noticed was, is our closeouts, quote unquote, which are really hockey stops to get behind. We don't slow down. We're not going to choppy step and slow down. And I think a lot of the catch and shoot spot up shooters know that they're slowing down.

There comes choppy steps. I'm going to shoot it because I'm going to be open. They pass up some of those shots because they recognize the guy isn't slowing. Like, what's going on here? And we're coming from a little bit weird angles on the way to get behind them.

So we're inducing them to drive. And so you start to eliminate some of the catch and shoot 3s as well. So think about that in the modern game. No pick and roll, almost no pick and roll, uh, no off the dribble shooting from 3.

And then you can reduce some of the 3-point shooting alone on the catch and shoot. Like now we're into something. This is what's going to affect a team in the modern game.

It's wild because it's so different. And I think a lot of the times, you know, you see more and more teams are moving towards a conceptual offense. So they're getting straight into their actions, but you still have so many times where teams are so, you know, they want to run their sets.

And so, like you said, like instead of just getting behind the ball when they're running their set 10 seconds into the shot clock, why not just do it straight away and then see how the offense is gonna react? Because they still want to go through their sets, even though maybe, you know, it's like, it's a 5-on-4 situation, right?

But we're protecting the paint and closing out super aggressively in different angles.

I got a couple more for you. So you can't do a handoff because you're behind. You're going to hand off right to the defender pretty much. You know, by the way, what you might end up seeing is an inside handoff, which is kind of interesting, but the center is right there playing that goalie.

Like he's just going to be waiting for you whenever you're ready to attack. Also, when those mid-range shots are taken, you're going to have 2 defenders behind the other team and you get runouts, go lower off of this. So all of a sudden you realize that it's an ancillary benefit.

You can get fast breaks, buckets from this too, because you're in position and the way we've structured it out of the point zone. You're going to have a nice rebounding position. We haven't really seen that defense get burned by offensive rebounding any more than a man-to-man.

And so again, it's, it's a fun, exciting way to do it. And you can then start having fun with it where you're like, okay, uh, we, what we saw was guys would close out and forget to get behind. And then in the middle of that touch, they go, oh yeah.

And then they get behind. And if you want to see a completely confused offensive player with the ball, do that. Start in front of them like you're guarding. And then in the middle, just go run behind him. And then he's going to be looking around going, what the heck?

Exactly. They want to go through their sets. Yeah.

The more confusion you have, the better. I don't care what it is. And so then you start seeing random, weird offensive one-dribble pull-ups from, from 18, and it's like glorious. And then if you're shooting a lot of 3s, again, the highest percentage you're going to see on a contested 2, and all I want is a little bit of a handup.

It doesn't even have to be like a, you know, touching the hand on the release, just some sort of visual impairment or like, you know, like now they can see something in their visual field. 42%, 43% maybe on those. And you don't have to break 30 on your 3s to come out ahead in that equation.

So it's, it's a really powerful thing that, you know, I just want to get more and more guys doing and focused on and try. And if it's a, you know, you do it 10, 10, 12 times a game. Awesome. I know that teams are running it 20 times in a row because the other team simply can't figure it out.

And so it's really a powerful thing. And I think it's going to have to catch on because again, this traditional stuff that we're doing isn't effective anymore.

No, for sure. And I think, like you said, even if you're doing that Once a game or 5 times a game or 20 or whatever, it's something different for the offense to think about and it just throws them off. I know we had one, we call it muck, and it's similar to that goalie one that you mentioned, but we just, whoever's guarding the worst shooter on the other team, and you can't do this in the NBA because obviously you have the defensive 3-second rule.

We just put them in the middle of the paint and they're just, you know, the goalie essentially, and they just protect and you let that, you know, the worst shooter shoot because, you know, they're on the court not to shoot. So you make them shoot basically.

But just moving on, 'cause I know we're short on time here. Coach Nick, I really wanna thank you for your time and sharing your insights. It's awesome to speak to you and kind of put a face to a name. I don't wanna speak for everyone, but I'm sure, you know, I have a lot of my friends as well that are big fans of B-Ball Breakdown.

So I just hope you continue to, you know, keep that page going and offering those really interesting insights like the zone. I actually saw your video. And with that said, I wanna ask you the final question here, transformative tip. If there's one piece of advice or tip that you can give coaches that they can apply straight away to their practice environments, what would that be?

I mean, you know, it's funny. I think that the answer will ultimately be what we mentioned earlier, because, you know, it's hard to get too specific that it doesn't, it might not work for every coach, right? You gotta have something that everyone can take away from.

And so I probably would be like, you know, you have to have a goal for every interaction that you have, every interaction, whether it's just like, hey, how you doing kind of thing? Because when you had that goal, like even if it's how are you doing?

You know, what do we always hear a complaint with is that the players aren't buying in, right? You hear that a lot. And a lot of coaches, the way they communicate will indicate to me that they'll never have that buy-in they're looking for.

And they'll just be frustrated their entire lives. And a lot of it has to do with demanding that the players move all the way towards what they want them to do. You got to do what I'm telling you to do. You got to be part of what I'm saying.

And in reality, you got to meet them halfway, right? Like, and that's not like a real radical idea, but I feel like a lot of coaches will still will coach that way where it's like, they're not understanding, they're not getting it. Right. And it's like, no, no, no, you're not getting it because if you can move halfway and a lot of these things are like, okay, rolling up your sleeves, getting on the court one-on-one and helping the kid improve something.

Right. Because you need to convince the player that you care about that, or you want them to get better. Right. If they believe that you want them to get better, then you have that buy-in. Right. And then there's very actionable ways to do that.

And a lot of it is like, you know, a nice one-on-one session, which you might think, oh, I don't have time. I got all these things, whatever. Grab them for a few minutes before practice, after practice, and just work with them. Give them what they're looking for on that as a one-on-one.

But part of that again is the goal. So if I'm going to ask you how you're doing, I want to know how you're doing. It's not going to be just like, oh, hey, what's up? Right. Because that doesn't convey that I care. Right.

But if my goal is I want to find out, like my podcast partner on the politics side, it's tough because he'll say, how are you today? And he really means it. And he's looking into your soul. He wants to find out. And it makes me feel bad because I don't always ask the same way.

Right.

But I got to tell you, there is nobody in my circle that I know that wants, that cares about me more than he does. Right. And really listens and understands. And so that's a real key here. And again, the extent to that, what that goal is, if you want to talk to the referee about something in the middle of the game, have your goal and not have just raw id, which is what we see a lot of coaches out there.

I've gotten in trouble criticizing some of them and everyone probably knows who I'm talking about. But when you're just, when you're pure ego, id, rage, You know, and without a goal, it doesn't go well and it'll infect your team. They will play off of that and that's not good.

And we've seen other coaches too who have had meltdowns game 7 after game 7 because of the highest pressure. And the coach is leading that charge when they don't need to do that on purpose and they're doing it on purpose. So anyway, have a goal with every interaction, every interaction.

I think that will guide you in a profound way.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you so much, Coach.

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