Coaching and Curiosity with Jon Yu

Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. On today's episode, we have Jon Yu, and John and I are going to talk a little bit about how he's going on with his season right now. It's underway and some of the challenges he's facing this year and how he's been overcoming that with what he's learned, you know, as a Transforming clinician at the summer camps, all the things he's picked up.

And then we're also going to answer some questions that you guys have left us on socials. So all of the questions that people have posted on Instagram, TikTok, X, all of that, we're just going to get into some of the questions we get asked a bit more often.

So we're going to go through that on this episode. So John, welcome to the show once again.

Thanks for having me, George. Excited to be here. Menan.

I'll pretend like I know what that means.

It's let's go in Finnish. I'm disappointed you forgot that one.

Ah, that's right. That's right. We had to cut that out. It's so embarrassing. Well, no, it's great to have you on the show, man. Obviously, like, we met in person for the first time at the Transforming Camp 2025. And it was just a great experience, like, learning from you and just working alongside you.

Not to mention, you know, playing volleyball during the hours that we got outside of the practice times. Just a great experience there. And I'm glad that now we get to actually have this kind of basketball talk here on the show. I want to ask you before we get into the Q&A, John, like, how's the season going?

Season's going all right so far. So I took a head coaching job with the varsity boys team out here. It's a, it's at a small private school called Crescent Heights Academy. No one even in the city knows who we are, has even heard of us.

It's an interesting situation. We're a very small school. In the graduating class this year, they have 15 students total. So we don't have our own gym. We have to rent a church gym down the street. So it's definitely some challenges, but it's been a lot of fun to try to build something from the absolute ground up.

And in terms of like just installing your principles of play, I guess, in limited practice time, how is that challenge for you?

We practice 3 times a week. We get an hour and a half time slot at the church 3 times a week. So trying to get the principles of play, it took a bit for sure, especially these boys being, you know, 16, 17 years old.

And so whatever they've done and the habits they've created this far in their life are pretty well ingrained, where coming in trying to do something a little bit different conceptually and teaching the principles of play, it's taken a bit of time, but that's expected.

Learning is nonlinear, like we always, we always always talk about. So the big thing was spacing. That was the number one thing that I wanted to attack from the start was getting them to understand, okay, these are the spacing templates we want to be in.

These, you know, give us the best chance of driving lanes and understanding where their rotations are probably going to be and where openings will potentially open up. So the big thing has been spacing.

In terms of the spacing, did you, you know, obviously at camps, and I guess for the longest time, it's like, you know, turnover or floor is lava. It's such a great one, right? Is there anything else you've done that's kind of really helped you teach your players the spacing?

The turnover one is a big one, floor is lava, but just like they like to, maybe they like to start out in space and then they'll start moving randomly. So that was kind of something that I realized pretty early on that a lot of random movement, a lot of random cuts.

And so when we tried to, when we tried to install kind of other principles and kind of some ideas on what we want to do when we attack on the weak side and things like that. It's taken a while to kind of get that habit installed and them understanding, okay, it's okay to hold a spot.

It's okay to hold the corner. We don't need to cut in or take 3 steps in to take 3 steps back out, which we get into a bit of a habit of. So we're still battling through it. Another challenge that we have is we only get 5 regular season games, which is completely different than anywhere else in North America, where probably most teams are going to get 35 or 40 pretty quick.

Especially AAU and high school season now starting up. These kids play a lot of games, but my kids, they love basketball. I don't know how much they've been coached themselves, like individually. A lot of them don't play club or anything outside the school.

So it's a lot of just street playground basketball with their friends, which is definitely a good thing, which we always talk about is free play and kids being able to organize themselves into games and figure things out. But one of the interesting stories I heard was because That school, they ban cell phones and they enforce it pretty well.

So these kids that have been going there since kindergarten or grade 2 or something, and it's the same boys together, they just played basketball every lunch. Probably not the prettiest run, but, you know, they're hooping. They fell in love with the game organically.

And so coming in, they were pretty excited that it was something a little bit different. The whole time in practice, we're playing. Everything is a competition. Everything has a defender in front of you. And so One of the feedbacks I actually just heard from one of my players yesterday was he's talking about buy-in.

He was explaining about how the buy-in has now increased now that we're 3 games in.

Players were talking about this?

Yep. And it's something that I didn't even really think about because I just assumed you have to buy in. I'm hoping that my energy and my passion is kind of rubbed off on them a bit and they can kind of tell that I really care and I treat this like it's a professional organization, even though it might be One of the worst situations in my whole community where not many teams don't have a gym.

I don't know any team that doesn't have a gym.

And lack of games. Oh, we always talk about too many games. Your issue is the complete opposite. I think it's amazing the fact that they're all growing up together and, you know, they're forced to be a bit, I guess, more closer to each other because they can't hide behind their cell phone screen.

That's a very interesting situation. I'm sure that, you know, they're getting a lot of it just having more structure within the practice sessions, being able to communicate, use their leadership voice, getting some autonomy and things like that during the actual session. I'm sure that carries over to, you know, school and regular life for them as well.

Definitely hope so.

Yeah. And you touched on something that we're going to get into it here with the questions, but maybe something, I don't know if there's going to be a specific question, but the pass and cut. Just recently I've been answering a lot of questions on our socials, like, you know, pass and cut, pass and cut.

And coaches are, they're like, you need pass and cut. It teaches spacing. It teaches players how to create advantages. And, you know, we're not saying, I guess my main thing is, and I'd love to hear your take on this, is like, we're not saying that the pass and cut is, it should be banned, like, or it's a terrible play.

But as youth offense, pass and cut is broken in the way that it's taking away space from the players. So, you know, a player passes the ball and then cuts. So now that player that maybe could have an advantage, drive the gap, can't anymore because that player that's cutting is there and the defender is there.

So that's number one. And then number two, they're, you know, with the pass and cut offense, they're just following a pattern. So it's just pass and cut, pass and cut, pass and cut, pass and screen away. So it's just a pattern. They're not actually looking for advantages.

They're not actually looking to create advantages. What are the coverage solutions here? What are the triggers that they're using? You know, why am I spacing here? So to stretch the defenders out. So they're not actually learning about Domino's principles either. So that's like, you know, it's not that pass and cut is wrong.

It's great if it's in the right moment of the game, but just to have it as an offense, I think does the— especially youth kids— a disservice. So I'd love to hear what you think.

Yeah, I mean, I'll preface it. I say I grew up in read and react. I coached it up until I started learning about conceptual offense, you know, 3 and a half years ago or whatever when the course first came out. I bought it the first day and it changed everything.

The one thing I remember as a player where in read and react, it's like the baseline guy is always running the baseline, right? Because everyone's moving in the same direction. So if the ball is at the top and it's driven right, right corner is cutting all the way across baseline to left corner.

And I remember going 5-on-0 in practice back in the day and, you know, we'd go through the different passes and whatever, but sometimes the baseline would be running back and forth, you know, right corner to left corner because the ball gets driven the other way now.

And I'm like, just in my head, I'm like, this doesn't make sense.

Yeah.

You're making this kid run back and forth. Like, he's taking up, especially on the baseline cut, like, he's— there's no room. There's no room to even make that pass if he's open because, you know, defenders are in help or whatever. Like, it— but I remember just doing it because it was what we wanted and what our coach wanted and how I coached it too.

Because, you know, you take what you learned and, and that's what you start with. So I pass and cut, like, it's Again, like you said, it's an option to pass and make a cut if they overplay it or whatever. It's like a backdoor reject, right?

But they have to read, right? Versus, you know, the automatic of pass cut. And then now we're taking away space. The big thing when I'm talking to my guys about holding spots and, you know, not doing the pass and cut stuff, it's like we want to make their defenders make a decision.

And so by holding space and creating driving lanes, like we put people in decisions and close out situations that This is where dominoes will start for us, right? If we just cut through and we bring bodies in and we take away driving lanes and passing lanes, and then the ball just gets passed on the outside, we're not— yes, you might be shifting the defense, but we're not shifting it with a purpose.

So that's kind of my thoughts on pass and cut. Like, it's again, just maintain space and let's see if we can put someone in a decision.

Yeah, no, well said. And I think like probably the something I never really see in practices And I'm sure there's many, many coaches that do practice this, but it's like probably the most common thing that happens in basketball games are closeouts and closeout situations.

And it's like, how often do we actually put, like, instead of running a set play, how often are we creating opportunities for players to not only learn how to attack a closeout, but also learn how to defend the closeout? And like, it happens like 100 times a game, if not more.

So, you know, I've always thought of Greatly like that.

One thing, one thing we talk about is just a long flow shot is the worst position to be in as a defender. So if we could create as many of those as possible over the course of the game, like a big thing, my kids are all very academic.

It's a small private school. So they're all, they all want to go on and be doctors and things like that, which is really cool. So then it honestly, my defensive teaching is like, let's play percentages, right? Like let's just put them in situations and let's just over the course of 40 minutes, let's just put ourselves in a position that the odds will favor what we're trying to do.

I think that kind of stuck with them where it's like, you know, we're locking left because we just want them to make decisions and stuff going left, right? We want to create, we want to create closeouts because that puts them in a tough situation.

And so we're putting the odds in our favor that, hey, we can probably find our gold or silver medal or rob shot or whatever, whatever shot that we're looking for. We can find that in a closeout situation. So I guess it's good my kids like percentages and numbers.

Exactly. And that's a great way to use it is like, all right, this is how we're going to win by making sure that it's the analytics, right? You're starting them early, I guess.

The analytics. But yeah, like another thing is like right from the start, it's like I told them, we're not shot blockers. Like none of us are. We're not super athletic. We're fairly tall for our group player or whatever, like our conference or school size, but we're not shot blockers.

So it's like, okay, well, if he makes a shot over us and we're skyscrapers hands up, like We live with that. It's a percentage thing, right? How can we, how can we take away as many clean looks as possible and then just force them into things that we're okay with contesting and letting them shoot that?

Yeah, man, absolutely. It's like, you know, the shots that we want to get on offense, on defense, those are the shots that we want to not allow. And then how do we do it? It's a good way to work like that. All right.

So let's actually get into the questions here, John. So we'll start with some skill questions. So. One of the coaches says, how do we respond to coaches who believe you must master the movement on air before applying it against the defender? What do you have to say to that?

I mean, everything that happens on air, you want it to happen in a game. So let's just put it in a game or put it in some sort of constrained defender. And the big thing for me is always teaching about space. So every time that there's a defender in front of you, I want you to think about space.

Where is open space? How can I protect the ball in space? How can I Create more space away from this defender, right? That's, I think that that's true ball control, ball manipulation, things like that. Being able to, you know, do 50 crossovers or whatever at a cone.

Yes, that can be considered good handles, whatever, right? But in the context of a game, can you keep the ball under control in a situation that's dynamic, that's chaotic? Can you still manipulate the ball, therefore then manipulating your defender or space or time or whatever you need?

Well said. I'll add to that and just say, you know, it's like you can train the on-air before adding a defender, but then after you add the defender, the movement is different. So it's just like, how many times in a game do you see a player, to your point, you know, do 10 crossovers in the same spot?

Like, you don't. It's just, it's so dynamic. They have to turn their bodies. So that's number one. And then number two is like, how many times do you see a perfect chest pass? Right? You don't. The players, like, they react to what's in front of them and they self-organize and find those solutions.

So it's like, why are we wasting time doing it on air? We could already just be combining the both. And then we can simplify the task to make sure that they still get the, you know, the appropriate challenge point. And then, you know, get better as opposed to— it's like, I remember Dwight Howard was like, why don't you go to college?

It's like, well, if I went to college, I just thought I'd be pushing back what I was eventually going to go to, which was the NBA. Just like for me, it's the same thing. Why are we doing like isolated drills on air? It's like, well, we're eventually going to need, you know, to be using it in the games.

Why not just start with it like that now and simplify the task? So that's my take on it. So next question here. How do we explain the difference between technique and skill to coaches wedded to this traditional view?

I mean, skill shows up in the game. Like, at the end of the game, there's 5 people trying to stop you from doing what you want to do. So skill then becomes, can we make this happen with 5 people trying to stop us from what we're trying to do?

Technique, and going back to like the 1-on-0 stuff, like the technique that you practice without a defender, it completely changes when there is someone trying to stop you. And so then it becomes, can we navigate that environment, which is the game, and can we perform in the game, and can we find results in the game?

That's how we should be evaluating our players and our coaching and everything that we do. Ultimately, we're preparing kids to play a game or our players to play a game. That's skill to me.

Yeah, I agree. Skill, the relationship a player has with their environment. So next one is form shooting debate. So recently there's, you know, we made a post on form shooting and it wasn't even about how form shooting is bad, but it was more so what are some different things that you can do with form shooting?

To make it even like, you know, make it efficient. So the question I have is like, you know, we constantly see the comment, Steph Curry does form shooting every day, so why shouldn't kids? How do we address the difference between a pro's routine and a youth player's motor learning process?

Well, first, the way that we do form shooting, the way that, you know, we grew up doing form shooting, biomechanically it's a completely different movement because in shooting you always have your whole body as a kinetic chain moving as one. In form shooting, you might be isolating your elbow, you might be isolating, you know, your follow-through or whatever, but the rest of your body is completely still.

We can say that maybe on a free throw that, you know, it could be kind of close, but then at the same time, well, we're not 3 feet away or 1 foot away from the basket shooting that shot. That's the big thing, big change with my kids is like that come in to form shoot.

I'm like, hey, you can form shoot or whatever, but shoot from the free throw line. Just come in cold and just start shooting free throws and figuring things out and seeing how they feel. But And then from there, let's move around a little bit.

I get my kids shooting 3s like right as they're coming into a gym and it's like ugly sometimes. And then I'm like, okay, but in a game, how many players are playing and how many of us are on the bench? And then how many of us come in off the bench and sometimes you might have to shoot a 3 right off the bat?

It's like, okay, well, let's just get not uncomfortable. Let's learn how our body moves when it's cold. Let's learn how it feels to try to generate force and power. And, you know, when maybe our muscles aren't as warm as we want them to be.

I mean, with form shooting and pros and that comfort versus confidence and things like that, right? And yeah, a pro wants to do what they need to do to get locked in for the game, cool. But I think DL and CLA stuff, it brings a lot of value in building that adaptable athlete.

The cool part about being home is working with a lot of kids that are like about, let's say, under 14. So, you know, kids that are going through puberty. And so I think the really cool part of DL is like you're getting them to move so different.

And then, you know, a couple months later they might have grown a bunch. So now they're learning how to move their body as it's growing. They're learning how to, you know, balance on one foot or hop on one foot and take a bit of contact and try to find steadiness in chaos while they're growing, which I think is really cool.

And I'm now starting to see players that are now hitting that growth spurt or going through puberty now that like they're moving differently, right? And it's because we're challenging them to move differently while they're going through such an important period of their growth, the coordination that develops, that they're able to do things that they couldn't do even in a smaller body.

Yes.

And players, they always have these entrenched movement behaviors just naturally. So like you getting them to move in a different way will really help them self-discover what is more the most functional for themselves. And you just look at the way people walk, no one walks the same.

So then you look at the way people shoot, no one shoots the same. So then why are we Why do we teach players to shoot like the exact same? You know, it doesn't really make sense to me. And the whole thing with professional athletes' routine is different to, you know, this is something that like gets them mentally prepared for the game.

So it's not necessarily, you know, maybe there's a more effective way to do it. And then, you know, you see it, you are seeing it now more and more. Like you see players adding some DL into their task, like Kevin Durant spinning around.

And then I'll even say just, you know, with the Steph Curry point. Like his shootarounds look the most super variable. His shooting routine, if you look at his workouts on YouTube, they're super variable. Like he's shooting from different locations. He's, he's off the move, off the dribble.

So it's like, it's completely different to form shooting. So that's what I'd have to say to that.

Hasn't he come out and talked about that too? Like how his workouts like are so chaotic and just so like always shooting different stuff and challenging his movements. Like he's talked about that, I'm pretty sure. So. He's like, the stuff that where I'm shooting like 95 out of 100 or 98 out of 100, like I thought he's even talked about how that, that's not what he normally does.

Like that's not how he gets better shooting-wise in the offseason.

Yeah, exactly that. And to build on that, it's the same thing. It's like having a routine to get yourself mentally ready is a lot different than like having something that's actually going to make you improve at something, you know? So it's like warmups.

You can always use that time. It's like 20 extra minutes to get better. Versus just going through a routine where, you know, you're just form shooting because it's part of the routine. Like, you know, no, use that time to actually get better. Let's shift a little bit here.

Talk about tactics, structure versus chaos. How do we answer the accusation that CLA teams look headless or disorganized in transition once the defense clamps down? Is there a middle ground between running a pattern, running a set? Or, you know, running a conceptual offense?

I mean, everything starts in spacing, right? And principles of play. So, you know, you install your principles of play, your 2-side fast break or whatever transition system you want to run, right? Then you have, then you're hopefully arriving in, in that spacing after, you know, if the defense resets you back to neutral, then you can start running into your triggers and things like that.

So I would argue that it becomes as organized as me telling guys, you're going to be my right corner, you're my left corner, whatever it is. Well, you don't have specific positions, but we need to fill these spots and we need to fill them as quick as possible.

And especially they should be filled like as we're transitioning from green to yellow or right as yellow hits, we should be in our pretty close to our correct spacing. I took the mantra from Liam Flynn. I remember watching one of his clinics in the pandemic, you know, 5 years ago where he talked about spacing before advantage, advantage before shot.

And so that's something that we talk with our team quite a bit about and our kids like This is how we want to live. This sums up everything that we're trying to do this year. We need to have space, then we need to create advantage.

When we have our advantage, we'll find the shot that we're looking for. But if we're missing any of those things, or one or two of those things, like it's, it becomes a lot harder. And then that's where it becomes disorganized and headless. And I would agree with that then, because that's where my guys were.

That's what exactly what they were doing before they started buying into the spacing and stuff where they was maybe starting the spacing and then they would start moving around too much and cutting behind the ball and things like that where. Okay, we are headless, but that's on us as coaches to hold them accountable to the principles and the spacing that we want to have them in.

And so from there, that we can create the advantage and then from there find our, you know, gold and silver medals.

Yeah, and get that buy-in like you said. I also think that practice is super important here, and I think that's the beauty of using the CLA and using constraints. So it's like something that we did even at the camp was, you know, you have 4 dribbles to create an advantage or you have to get off the ball.

So if you take 5, it's turnover. And then obviously, if you're not in the correct spacing while the dribble, the trigger is happening, it's a turnover, right? And it's as simple as that. But you, as a coach, this is the trick. Like, you have to be super on it.

So you can't just go rock into practice, you know, set up a game and let them play. You have to be super on it about, you know, officiating your constraints so that you can really guide behavior in that way and having those immediate consequences.

So, you know, I think Running the conceptual offense, I think that is maybe the biggest challenge is like ensuring how do we make sure that everyone's on the same page. But then again, if you just have those constraints at practice and if you're really on it and locked in, then what becomes maybe disorganized is now this like, you know, beautiful basketball that I think every coach really wants to see happen.

Agreed.

All right. So next question here, sticking with the tactics, traditional coaches argue that teaching specific patterns like the pass and cut. So we spoke about this. Recently, but how do we shift the mindset from wanting patterns to reading advantages without the coaches feeling like they're abandoning their structures?

I mean, structure starts in spacing. It's everything we've talked about, right? So once your spacing is aligned, and then that, that challenges the thing with CLA and conceptual offense and everything, it— because none of us grow up really learning the game this way, we have to put in time on our own to learn this stuff and really understand it.

And in order for us to teach it, Like, we really have to get it. And so that would be my thing was, yes, we can put them in spacing and stuff like that. But if we as a coach don't understand the reason why we're putting them in this space and what driving lanes and what rotations we're actually, we want the other team to make, like, it doesn't help our team out to the same level.

Like, we haven't done our homework and prepared enough, then I would say. Creating advantages and playing through advantages is something that I don't know about your experiences, but at least in Canada and from what I've seen is no one really talks about that.

It's something that, you know, some of us might pick up in playing pickup in games and stuff growing up, but it's not something that's taught explicitly. And so then it becomes like on us coaches, it's like, okay, well, if we can inform our whole team of 12 people, understand how to play with space and create advantage and leverage those advantages, like it can take you anywhere and you'll get those possessions.

I had a possession We played an exhibition game 2 nights ago that coming out of the timeout, we wanted to run, we wanted to run rub short, but my guy, and I was talking about flipping screens and my guard comes in, he flips the screen and he short rolls it and he hits our dunker for a layup.

And it was first play out and it's like, I didn't call anything. I didn't, all I just said is like, I want you to go rub short against their zone and my guard flipped it. Right. And, you know, in practice, most traditional practice, it's your big setting a screen, right?

It's your big doing all these things and Like, I'm watching the film back and I'm having multiple of my guards now flipping screens against the zone. And again, we don't have a gym and they're good kids, but they're not all basketball players yet, right?

And now they're doing things and they're understanding, okay, if I flip the screen, well, the defense isn't talking it. And now all of a sudden we have an open lane and now the bottom corner of the 2-3 zone now has to make a decision.

Do I stop the drive and help or do I leave the strong side corner?

No, absolutely. And it's like you, again, the whole point of You can still have structure. I think the whole point is that if you play, you know, use a conceptual offense and you focus on the triggers and how to create advantages, like you mentioned, then when you add, you know, the sets in, which are all the sets is just a combination of triggers.

So let's say you're working on a screen away and let's say you're working on a flare screen. Let's say you're working on a pick and roll. Pick and roll. Let's say you're working on the handoff, then you're going to have, you know, these set plays that are a combination of these triggers.

And then your players are going to be more attuned to how to create advantages from the set plays. So they'll be even better after you kind of give them the toolbox of all the coverage solutions in there. So like, to your point, you teach your players how to flip the screen so they can create advantages.

And then all of a sudden, They're just picking up on this information on their own because they're seeing that the defense isn't prepared for the flip. So that's a great coverage solution to use. So then it's just, you know, as a coach afterward, you can run horns or UCLA, Princeton, whatever you want.

And then the same principles are still going to be there. The only thing I'd say is like, it takes time to get into those spacings. So it's maybe not the best thing to try to do when you're trying to play fast and create advantages and greed.

Which is transition offense. So it's like once the ball or the game slows down, whether that's with a ref touch or maybe it's late in the game and, you know, the game is slowing down, then it's like a great idea to maybe run a more complex combination of triggers.

Yep. And then just getting them to realize like, hey, you can run this set, but as soon as an advantage is created, like, we're done with this. Like, now we're playing basketball.

And like the importance of breaking the set. Yeah, I think that's a big thing too. When you're just focusing on putting the set in, man, I hear it all the time. Coaches are like, run it till the end.

Run it through, run it through.

But it's like, that doesn't make sense because if we can get an advantage straight away without having to run the set, why would you not? I gave the analogy to my guys and it was like, if you could go into work and your shift is 8 hours long, but you could only stay for 1 hour and get paid for the whole day, Like, would you not do that?

Like, of course you would. So it's the same thing when running a set. If you can create the advantage by breaking the set on the first action, then do it. That's exactly what we want. We don't have to run through the whole set.

And I think that's another thing that, you know, the reason why we want to shift away maybe from like the structure so that kids are constantly looking for those advantages.

Definitely.

All right. So shifting now, last kind of topics we'll talk about here is small-sided games and implementation. We're looking for some practical takeaways here for coaches. So when designing small-sided games, do you apply negative points? Like penalizing the defensive team for offensive rebounds?

How do you do that? How does that specific constraint shape the player's intent? How did you use like maybe the consequences?

I haven't used a lot of negative point constraints in mine. I like scoring. The kids want to score. I like to emphasize scoring and do that. I would say in terms of negative points, like, yes, like turnovers and things like that could be negative.

One thing I, I've kind of thought about, I haven't tried it, is thinking about what can we emphasize to, let's say you do something and you can take away their last basket, or you can take away, I don't know, I've just, I've been thinking about that in the last few weeks of like what I want to do in, in my small-sided games.

I guess it becomes negative points and things like that, or what do I really want to highlight? Well, I mean, the simple one that We always use is, obviously, if you don't communicate your score, it just doesn't count. The big thing that I've been trying to get through to my guys is understanding time and score at all times.

We've now played 3 games, and I would say our clock management skills are not great. We've been in a lot of situations where we didn't— we shot too early or we ran our trigger too fast. And, you know, so getting them to really buy into that and understanding, okay, like, as a basketball player, you should always kind of have an idea of time and score.

Like, whether you see the scoreboard or not, like, we should kind of have an internal clock coming in and trying to figure that out. So I guess that would be like a negative point in a way of just not counting their scores.

Just to open up this discussion, you spoke about how, how things that you're thinking about trying to do. I remember one time I tried, you know, in order for your score to count, you have to get a stop. So like, you know, Finding ways to think outside the box.

So it's like, instead of winning the game, like, sorry, we're going to, you know, 11 points or 12 or whatever. So you can win by getting there, or you can also win if you get 3 stops in a row, right? So it's like finding these different ways that you can win the game versus just the scoring as well.

As far as like applying negative points, like the only kind of negative point system I guess I kind of use is the score resets to zero if it's something that I'm trying to really get them out of the habit of doing. So it could be like, All right, we're going to play a game to 5 and it's 2s and 3s.

If there's an offensive rebound, the other team's score resets to 0. So then it just makes them really focused on obviously boxing out, making sure they grab the defensive rebound, close possessions. Or it could be like, you know, any other principle of play, but that's just an example of one kind of negative points.

I like that for sure.

So concern with using specific small-sided games in practice. That makes us predictable to opponents who might scout those specific constraints? Let me take this one actually, John. I guess this is more about the specific constraints. So I think I maybe picked up this question, but I think a lot of the times I hear these questions like, you know, with the warmup, why would you work on, because I know we always say, you know, use the time as a practice time, but then if you're practicing during those 20 minutes, then the other team is going to

see you practice. And they're going to be able to scout for you. Norbert Opitz on the podcast, I think it was episode 130, he was like, oh, that's great that the other team is scouting for us because I don't even know what we're going to do with like playing conceptual and creating advantages like that.

So I think that's the beauty as well of using a conceptual offense is that you don't know, even if you are like, let's say, even if teams do scout you, you don't know what you're going to do, you know, because you could like, okay, we're going to top block.

Well, we're going to go backdoor then. Right, exactly.

Yep. I mean, now that my players are beginning to learn how to play basketball, I trust our ability to adjust more than most teams, right? That practice, you know, traditionally, or a little more, you know, fragile or fragility, and they can scout us all we want, but if we've done our job of going over our coverage solutions and things like that, then I think we'll be able to adjust it fairly quickly.

I don't know, maybe that's just me being too overconfident in In what we're trying to teach, but I don't know. I'm not worried about that.

Yeah, my mindset, my mindset is always like, let's do it. You know, if you can really challenge me because you've scouted me, then I think we just need to, you know, get a little bit better with finding the solutions to the problems in the game.

Because it's like the defense is always wrong. So it's the offense's job to find out how. And if you can do a good job of scouting the conceptual offense and how we play, Like, you know, fair play to you. I just think that if that's the case, we just need to get better, whether it's, maybe it's attacking a specific coverage that we're not so effective in.

Maybe it's how can we prevent that coverage so that, you know, we don't even have to deal with it, manipulate it. You know, you saw the Pacers in the finals, in the last year's finals, how they would run more chase or get actions.

And, you know, that's just to distort the defense. So it's like, it's not an aggressive switch now. Now they're more in like going over or under on it. And it's just like finding ways to manipulate the defense like that. That's how I see it anyway.

All right. Fear of bad habits. So talking about, I know we got this a couple of times recently and it was shield tag. Like, are you not scared that your players are going to pick up bad habits with shield tag because they're, you know, moving, it's like a moving screen.

I mean, with shield tag, I like that it just builds physicality in right from the start. The offensive, the moving screens and things like that, we can teach that. But to get especially teenage, like where I'm coming from, like teenage boys that are very good friends to now be physical and competing against each other and, you know, trying to not kill each other, but, you know, go after each other a little bit.

I'll go down that avenue more before I'm worried about, oh my goodness, this is going to be a moving screen. Like we can, I can have that conversation with my players or we can I can teach that side by getting them to understand physicality and the type of energy that we want to bring when we step on the court.

So I'm not too worried about that bad habits. And for shield tag, at least, you can get a lot of correction done, like just looking at stopping the game all the time or whatever. But at the same time, like, refs also miss a bunch.

Like, I have a clip of one of the players on the other team a couple days ago. He ran us like a lineman. So he goes and they're running their pattern or whatever, and then he goes to set a down screen and he just starts walking into my guy.

Like, Moves in probably 8 feet. And so it's like, well, that's a moving screen too. But at the end of the day, if they don't call it, we got to battle and we got to figure that out. Now, as a coach, yeah, you should be fairly easy to correct a moving screen like that.

And that's something like a big thing that I've been doing this year. So like a bit of backstory is like, I haven't led my own team in about a year and a half, roughly. So I've been itching and I've been wanting to implement a bunch of stuff.

I've been trying a bunch of new stuff that, you know, I've picked up from you and Alex and the camp and The big thing is just like, they got to figure it out. Like, we got to, I don't know, it's like, you can teach so much and whatever, but if the refs aren't going to call it, we figure it out.

And if the refs are going to call it, we'll be able to adjust.

I think to your point, there's a really big advantage of like letting them play. And when I say that, I mean like specifically designing small-sided games where you can't give feedback and you can't stop play and they have to figure it out. I like, you know, one for the kind of the conditioning element of it.

And then, but 2, like to your point, then they're going to figure it out because of it.

Yeah. And like, you know, they might complain moving screen or, you know, if we're playing in practice or whatever, but it's like, figure it out. Like, I don't know, we use the line all the time. It's like, I'm not a great ref, but I'm the best ref you'll have all year.

So play basketball. And if you want to change and you want me to play, I'll play and you can ref. Other than that, you play. Figure it out.

Yeah, exactly that. The only thing I'll add to that is like, it's easier to get them to be less physical. So get them to like, you know, maybe set proper screens. Yeah. Than it is to get them to, you know, be super physical with the contact, you know, to your point.

So I'd always say, if anything, I encourage them to set those moving screens. And I guess the whole point of shield tag anyway, isn't this like the shield isn't trying to screen. They are actually just trying to shield the offense. So they don't get tagged.

So then they can be as physical as they want, use their arms. And then maybe you can change the constraints and say, all right, shield. Now you can only set screens. But then, you know, again, you know, you can always yield it back a lot easier than the other way around.

Agreed.

John, I appreciate your time. Appreciate you having this conversation with me. It's been great. Just because you've been on and the last time you were on, I wasn't the guy on the podcast and we didn't have the transformative tip question. So I'm gonna just put you on the spot.

Before I let you go, what is one piece of advice you would give to coaches that would instantly improve their practice environments?

Going with the mindset that you don't know anything, or everything that you know is not wrong, but there's another— there might be a different way or something else in there. I think just being complacent with your knowledge or where you are in life or with the game, like, I think that's one of the worst places to be.

So that would be my transformative tip is just Come from a position where I don't know much or I don't know what I'm doing and I want to learn and I want to get better at this. You know, that constant wanting to improve every day or every practice.

Everything is a rep. Every time you are coaching a practice or a game or a workout, it's an extra rep and go in curious. And then the second is I film everything, watch it back. I film all my practices, all my games. I make learning videos.

But it's mostly for me to get my reps in and learn that way.

Well said. I appreciate that.

Mené, mené, mené. Shout out to our guy Marty.

Love it, bro.

Thanks.

Thanks again.

Thanks a lot, George. Appreciate you, man.