George is joined by Antony Distras, a championship-winning coach and England U15 assistant, to explore how shifting from traditional drills to a decision-based,…
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In this episode, George is joined by Antony Distras, a championship-winning coach and England U15 assistant, to explore how shifting from traditional drills to a decision-based, game-realistic approach can transform player development. Antony shares how trusting players, embracing mistakes, and designing practices around real-game chaos helped lead his U14 team to an undefeated championship season.
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Esta transcrição corresponde ao áudio original em inglês.
This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast. This is the podcast helping coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to provide the ultimate resource for making sense of applying contemporary skill acquisition ideas within basketball. Within this podcast, we unpack how an ecological dynamics framework Impacts our perspective of the game.
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Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Today's guest is Anthony Distress. Anthony is a championship-winning coach now. Congrats. That doesn't happen to too many people. And he's serving as the England assistant coach for the under-15 team. He is a specialist in talent transformation. And at HeronGate Heat this past season, I guess a couple months back, he led the under-14 team that he coaches to the national championship and undefeated in the London Conference as well.
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And as well as that, he was also 2025 Aspire All-Star Champion. And I know the Aspire stuff, you know, it comes with a lot of different coaches, but nevertheless, It's been a good year and a half for you, Anthony. Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, George. Yeah, really humbled to be invited because I know you guys have so many great coaches on here. So I'm excited to be here. Thanks.
No, awesome, man. It's great to talk to you. Just before we got on, we were just talking about the kind of London ecosystem there. I'm curious, you know, what have you learned, I guess, from the start of your basketball journey till now, you know, being in that environment in the London ecosystem?
I've learned a lot the past, the past 2 or 3 years, I would say, is when my coaching's changed quite a lot. Because I think probably like a lot of coaches, when you're a new coach in England especially, like, it's quite easy to pass your coaching qualification.
You don't learn too much, and then you're kind of on your own after that unless you have like a mentor or someone to, to be guided by. And yeah, probably the same as many coaches, it was a lot of just Seeing things on YouTube, you know, copying a lot of drills or things that look good, and even from professionals.
Like I would watch, I would go on YouTube and type in you know uncut practices from like NBA teams, college teams, and I would just think okay they're doing it so I should probably be doing it. But I've definitely learned recently that that's not always the case.
It's mainly just knowing the why to what you're doing, and not to not just copy someone. Even if they are a high-level coach, like, they have their reasons for why they're doing it. You need to know your reasons.
Yeah, I mean, I remember watching NBA teams open practice, and they were doing 3-man weave, like 5-on-0, and I was like, oh, wait a second.
Exactly.
This is what they're doing?
And then even recently, like, I would look back at those videos that I watched and think about it now, and I'm like, it's true that they're not getting challenged in those sort of things, like the 5v0 or 3-man weave. There's no challenge, there's no thought process, there's no decision-making.
I watch all of the Transforming stuff as well as other coaches who have similar approach. And when I first was watching it, I was like, oh, I was, I was a bit confused. I was like, are they trying to reinvent the wheel kind of thing?
But the more I watched, the more I was like, you know what, it makes so much sense. And it's actually such a, such a more simple way to coach because the game is not, it's not patterns, it's not A 3-man weave pattern. It's not a dribble up against the cone, do a set move, and then do a set finish.
The real game is, it's physical, it's messy, there's decisions involved.
Chaotic.
So it's chaotic. You have to be able to be controlled in that chaos and know how to adapt and stuff like that.
Absolutely, man. You know, now that you've, I guess, a couple months now removed from having the success of Winning that championship with the under-14s team. What did you learn going through that process and not just winning? Because I think it's really easy to look at, oh, we're, you know, we won, everything was good.
What did you learn going through the season and watching the players develop? Because the players on that team had no previous national team experience. So like, you know, I would imagine that you developed them a lot. You put them in a lot of small-sided games and developed them.
What did you learn? What are some of the biggest takeaways that you had? In the lead-up to winning it?
I learned a lot of things, but I think the main thing I learned was to actually just trust my players more and give all of them, like, understand how important it is to give all of them an environment where it's okay for them to make mistakes.
Because I think in previous years where I coached, I used to, you know, anytime, I don't know, they were playing and I didn't like the look of it, I'd stop it, I'd correct them and stuff like that. But this season, I've really understood the importance of Just letting them play, letting them— it's important for them to get it wrong, to make mistakes a couple times.
Obviously, I'm not gonna, you know, let them make mistakes for ages because obviously, you know, we need to get it right soon. So, but if they get it right— if they get it wrong once and then the second time, that third time I'm kind of looking out for, have they, have they recognized that they need to adjust?
Most of the times they do, and then if they don't, then maybe then you can step in and stuff like that. But That's really where they improve the most.
Yeah. And what did you do specifically to make them feel comfortable with failure?
I think it's just the feedback I give them. Like, let's say someone takes a shot and they miss. I'm not going to say to them, oh, why did you shoot? That sort of thing. I said to them at the start of the season and reminded them throughout the season that, you know, especially under-14s, no one, for example, shooting, no one's a lights-out shooter.
But they're not going to become a—
Shooter, yeah.
They're not going to become a lights-out shooter if I don't let them take those shots. So I would praise their decision-making. So make or miss, I would say, you know, good shot, that's the right shot. Or I don't know, maybe they make a pass that gets turned over, but if it looked like they were looking for the right player, you know, I'd say to them, unlucky, good idea, because I can see that they're trying to do the things that we talked about in practice.
And that's the main thing. It's not going to be perfect straight away.
Yeah, quite the contrary. It's going to look real messy, man, especially at the start. Just to circle back on the question, like, what are some other takeaways? I know you said like you want to create this environment where the players feel safe to fail.
And we had a previous guest on and he made a great point where it's like sports are such a, you know, they're so important for young people because contrary to life, in sports you can fail and it's a safe environment for you to fail so you can learn, recalibrate, get better.
Right.
Whereas in life, sometimes, you know, you can't. Maybe you're in a situation where you, maybe your parents don't want you to fail, or you, maybe your teachers at school, you know, you get bullied for some kind of failure. So sports is so important for that.
But just some other takeaways that you had from this past season.
Making sure that I'm not teaching them too many set plays. Again, we were talking a bit about like making sure kids aren't just learning patterns, just Teaching them how to play, really, why they're doing certain things. If they drive, get a paint touch, and kick, why is it important to space behind the 3-point line after that?
Because you kick, if your teammate drives, you need to make sure you're out of the way to give him space. Otherwise, you're bringing your defender with you. Just really explaining the why to them with a lot of things, and being efficient with it as well, not overcoaching.
I think that's an important one as well.
Yeah.
To just take a step back, like we said, let them play a lot. I think initially it feels like you're almost not doing your job when it's new to you, coaching that way.
Yeah, yeah.
From the sideline, it might look like someone's coaching lazily, but it's for a reason. You want them to figure it out. That's the most important thing. If you hold their hand through all of it, on game day when it's loud and they can't hear the coach, and they don't understand what they need to do, they're going to struggle.
Yeah, I oftentimes let them, like, to your point, I let them play and then it's, you know, I could step in and have an intervention, but I just let them keep playing and let them keep messing up. And of course, having success as well.
But then to your point, it's like they're figuring it out by themselves. I could maybe give them a timeout and they'll figure it out even more. But it's like trying to really take a step back at times. I think other times when you're teaching something and they're learning something new, You know, it's probably better, you know, if you step in.
And at least for me, I can step in and, you know, really get to the principles that we're trying to work on and the intention of the small-sided game. But I just think sometimes, like, just letting them play and, like, really shutting my mouth, it's the best thing I do as well.
Yeah. And I think when it is time to step in, um, I've got a lot better this season that instead of giving them the answer, just asking them questions to, like, you know, maybe they're struggling with a question that can guide them to figuring it out by themselves instead of just them getting used to being told the answers as soon as they're struggling.
Yeah, making them think. Anthony, you have loads of activities on Instagram, social media, some of the small-sided games you use. I'm curious, do you have favorite small-sided games, whether it's for individual skill development or for team concepts? What are some of your go-to?
I would say for individual skill development, My favorite is probably 1v2 finishing or shooting, just because there's loads of different ways you can tweak it. You know, you can start the game with different types of advantages off the catch, off the dribble, to make them work on their handle a little bit.
The defender can be in front, behind, side on, just any sort of game situation that you want to try replicate. And then obviously you've got the help defender.
Yeah.
As well, which always happens in the game. You know, if you started with an advantage, most of the time they're going to score that layup. But when, when there's a help defender, it makes it more challenging. And again, you can just tweak it so much.
Even with a younger age group, maybe you can say to them, okay, help defense is there, but they can't jump, or they stand still, or something like that. And then you can do the exact same thing with under-18s and say that they can jump and just tweak the difficulty.
And then maybe with a team, a bit more of a team setting, probably my favorite one would be, again, any sort of advantage drive and kick 3v3. Because just because it happens so much in a game where someone's on the wing, there's 2 weak side players, corner and the wing.
The guy with the ball can drive middle, he can drive baseline. Defense has to rotate, help the helper. It works on defense, it works on offense, it works on ball movement. It works on paint touches. You tick a lot of boxes with that drill.
Yeah. And just to build on that, I think like with a drill like that, like it's such a simple drill and we were talking about this before we got on, like just, you know, keeping it simple at practice. But to your point, like starting a game, like it's an advantage start and then you're working, maybe you're, the focus is on working on the creating an advantage off the 2 side, or maybe the focus is defensively getting back to neutral after giving up an advantage with Field switch.
Exactly.
And then it could be like, okay, you know, now we're doing that really well. Now we're going to change the focus to retriggering, uh, within 2 seconds if defense get back to neutral. So it's like with one drill you can work on, change the constraints and work on so many different things.
Exactly. And then you can do that a lot in the season, but like you said, it's not going to feel repetitive because you'll have different focuses each time.
Yes.
And you know, you mentioned like the retriggers and the stuff. Sometimes we'll do something like I don't know, offense gets extra points if they score straight off their first trigger, because, you know, sometimes players might get caught up in, I don't know, just the explanation of a re-trigger and things like that.
Just that reminder of when you come off a handoff, when you come off a screen, we're trying to score. And then just naturally by doing that, it makes defense better as well, because they don't want to get the extra points scored on them.
So they'll play better defense, and then offense works on their re-triggers and—
Yeah.
You just end up working on a lot of things all at once.
Yeah, absolutely. And is there anything like you with your offense, you guys, I would, I don't know, like, could you just share a little bit about your offense? Was it like, did you run like the solo one-on-one trigger? Maybe you had blast cuts, pick and roll, handoffs.
You just mentioned like, what was, you know, the offense like? Could you give us a little summary of that?
Yeah. So we mainly played 5 out, sometimes 4 out, 1 in. Where they can get into split-action type stuff. But most of the time, it was just me explaining to them, look, when we rebound, or when we get a steal, or when we inbound, you know, we have all these options, but we're trying to sprint down the court and score a layup.
Like, if the point guard can just go coast to coast, or if he can kick it ahead to a wing, then just do that. I think it was really important that we emphasize that because a lot of teams—
Transition.
Yeah, they'll just cross the halfway line and just run something just because the coach said, but they're not being a player. They're not looking at, oh, oh, actually I can go 1v1 and just score this. So I was kind of explaining to them like, look, we've got all these triggers within a spacing so that we're all on the same page, but just use them when you need to.
If you see something easier, then obviously take it. This is just options for if you don't have anything easy, if you don't have a numbers advantage, we're gonna go pick and roll, we're gonna go handoff, or—
Yeah.
A reversal into a zoom action where, you know, we now create advantages. A lot of it was just playing through the trailer, saying to the point guard, you have that trailer to create an action for yourself. You can reverse it to him, and he can create for teammates.
And it was a lot of just explaining how everyone on the court needs to be a playmaker, not just the point guard. For example, like I was explaining this to Mitch, if you're the trailer, Maybe you're trailing the play, you're looking at the point guard in the slot, but, you know, don't just wait for the point guard because maybe for whatever reason he doesn't get into something quick enough.
And as soon as you see that delay, then you need to start calling for the ball or you need to go set a screen. And we need to make sure that offense is just flowing as fast as possible.
Yeah, even it was Leo. He ran a lot of, a lot through the trail. I remember at Loughborough and, you know, he showed us some videos and to this day, I think it's very interesting, especially if you have the personnel, because if you, Give the ball back to the middle, you can, you know, run a variety of things.
Either go for the get, or you can maybe screen away and you have delay action there, you know, or you can pass it to the second side and go set the pick and go for a side pick and roll. So like, there's just a lot of options, and, you know, not to mention one-on-one things like that.
Yeah, and I think when you, when you have that thought process, it's so hard to guard because, you know, if someone's running a play, then eventually you'll recognize, okay, they reverse it and they always do this.
Yeah.
But when you just know your options, I said to the players, like, you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you're on the same page. And as long as you know what you're trying to do, then just go for it.
Create an advantage however you want. Space correctly. Try to get paint touches. Try to create open shots. And we'll live with it. If they start making mistakes and stuff, then I can always call a timeout and guide them to, oh, you know, look on the weak side or something that they haven't looked for.
But—
Yeah.
For the most part, they get quite good at, yeah, figuring it out, finding the 2-man games, 3-man games by themselves.
Yeah, man. It's like, this is the way I described it to my team last season. It's like, you know, you work 9 hours a day, 8 hours a day, whatever, and you get paid for that time. It's like, so imagine that you could work for 1 hour and get paid the same amount.
Wouldn't you want to do it? And then, you know, they'd be like, yeah, absolutely. And then I'd be like, well, that's exactly what offense is. That's what we're trying to do in offense. We're trying to create an advantage without going going through all our options.
Like, if we can break the play straight away and create the advantage, then we're in dominoes and we can just play with our principles from there.
Exactly.
I want to ask you, you mentioned a couple constraints already in our conversation. Any specific constraints that you think helped your team the most?
Yeah, I think 2 that stand out off the top of my head was, um, we did it in practice quite a lot, just giving them extra points if— oh no, just giving them a shorter shot clock. We tried it with an 8-second shot clock, 10-second shot clock, where they have to find— that's how long they have on the shot clock.
Or we do it where if you get a paint touch within 6 seconds, you get a point. Or if you score within 6 seconds, you get a point. Something like that. That really helped us play fast. And it helped transition defense as well, because, you know, we'd be playing where—
Yes.
If you get fast breaks on, your team's coming off. So, again, you're killing two birds with one stone like that. And then if we didn't do that, we'd always have a principle of play of playing with 0-second decisions. Just the importance of making sure that the ball is just moving all the time, defense is chasing all the time.
And just especially at a young age, explaining to them that, look, you can't, you can't hold the ball for longer than 1 second, because let's say we run a trigger, and it ends up being a driving kick to you, and we've created something, we've created a closeout, you holding it for For longer than 1 second, it makes everything before that irrelevant, doesn't it?
Because defense recovers and you're, you're back to the start again.
Yeah, that's a great point. And when you were talking, what it reminded me of, you know, 6 seconds, you get a bonus point if you can, you know, touch the paint in 6 seconds or score in transition in 6 seconds. It's like you could add that constraint for anything you want to emphasize with your team.
So let's say your team is a bad defensive rebounding team. You could say you get a bonus point or even 2 points for every offensive rebound. And then automatically defensive rebounding is going to get so much better as a result of it.
Yeah, exactly. 100%. We even did it where, um, because there was at times where we'd inbound it too slow. So I'd say to them, I can't remember what shot clock I gave them, but I said like, that shot clock starts as soon as the ball goes through the net, not even as soon as you step behind the line.
To inbound it, just so they quickly take it, inbound it, and go before defense can set up.
No, I love it. Love it. I should have asked you this at the beginning, but what was your aha moment? And, you know, at the beginning, because you said you were researching a lot of coaches, and I'm sure, you know, I would imagine everybody, if not most people, you know, kind of, you know, I grew up in the traditional environment.
I'm sure most, if not everyone, did as well and coached that way. So what was your aha moment that you're like, well, actually, let me try something different, let's change it? And then a second, a 2-part question: what's your advice for coaches that are hesitant to abandon, you know, traditional drills like the 3-man weave, for example?
I think that turning point of my thought process was just, I just started looking at drills differently. Or even like now, I'm trying almost not to look at drills because, you know, like you said, when you're new to coaching, you kind of just, you You look at loads of drills, maybe you have a list on your phone or written down of a load of shooting drills, and then when you want to work on shooting, you just pick some out.
Yeah.
And because it's a shooting drill that you think is going to help, or you get told that 3-man weave is a fast-break drill, so you do that. But when you actually break it down, it really doesn't. Like 3-man weave, for example, some coaches say it's good because it helps your team play fast and space and work on Making layups fast and full-court passes.
But it's like, okay, well, it doesn't, because you never get to make an uncontested pass in a game, and you very, very rarely get to make open layups in a game. So that's not working on any of it. You're better off doing 2v1 or even, even a 3v1.
So my aha moment was just making sure that everything we do, that it just involves a decision where they have to actually think.
Yeah.
Because in a game, you have to think every single Second you're on the court, you're thinking of something, or you're anticipating something. And I think the best players are the quickest thinkers, that they can make the quick decision correctly, and then obviously have the skill to finish after making that right decision.
It's just drills like, I don't know, even like ball handling drills. You know, you see so many times online and stuff where they just do handles against cones. It's frustrating to watch as well because I look at it and I think like, Yeah.
Kids are, they're paying to attend that session, and they're doing stuff that they could just do at home by themselves. Don't get me wrong, I think there's a time and place for 1v0 stuff, but you don't, you don't need a coach for that.
You can see a video on YouTube and go practice it in your garden if you don't have, you know, teammates and stuff. But I think, as a coach, if you have a session with multiple players and a space, like a proper court, You have to take advantage of that and use defenders, use a coach to add constraints.
Otherwise, you're just— if they're just repping it out, then they're not improving much. And I used to do, when I played, I used to do a lot of shooting reps and think that that was like the best way to help me improve my shooting.
I was quite a good shooter, but I could have been better. But now, yeah, now looking at, you know, again, like I would set up a chair, drive middle, do a step back, and in my head I was thinking, Yeah. Okay, that's game realistic, because I've watched the game, and someone has gone middle and done a step back.
Or, I'm going to rep out the corner 3, because in a game, they shoot loads of corner 3s. But I think that's not even half the thing. In a game, he hasn't gone and done that step back. He's not thinking about a step back.
Create a problem, and then players find the solutions. It doesn't matter how they do it, if it works for them. It's like you do a shooting drill, like hot potato shooting. That drill forces someone to shoot quickly. I don't have to tell them step by step of how to shoot quick.
I'll say to them briefly, you know, have your knees bent, have your hands ready, and stuff like that. But if they get it wrong, they're going to get blocked. It's the nature of that game.
Yeah. And I think like free play is very important. I like, I never want to discourage players from like going to the court by themselves and just hoop it, doing ball handling, getting shots up. I think it's super important. for developing the love of the game.
Just, you know, being out there and just learning more things about yourself and about what you can do on the floor. But to your point, Anthony, like if there's a coach, like let's add some constraints. Let's make the environment more realistic. Let's get the players making decisions.
Let's challenge them. Let's add a little level of challenge so that they can start, you know, overcoming it and learning. Cause that's how learning happens.
No, exactly.
So that's a great point, man. Yeah.
If you do too much 1v0, let's say in like summertime, it can almost backfire. You'll get like that fake confidence, won't you? You'll get fake confidence from your easy spot shooting, your shots will keep going in. You'll do your, I don't know, 2-ball dribbling or 1-ball dribbling against the wall and stuff like that.
And you'll get it right because it's easy. And you'll be like, yeah, I'm improving, I'm improving. And then— Yeah. It's not game representative. You'll go into a game, You'll struggle because that move you worked on goes out the window when there's a 6-foot-6 guy who's just bumped you and you can't handle the physicality and the pressure.
And then your confidence goes right down because you thought you were putting in the work, you thought you were, you're improving, but you're only improving that on that drill. The drill is not the game.
Yeah, like if you're spot shooting, you're improving at being a great spot shooter, not necessarily being a great shooter in game. Yeah, that's a great point. Anthony, I want to ask you before I let you go, we ask this question to all our guests and it's the transformative tip.
What is one piece of advice you would give to coaches that would instantly transform their practice environment?
I would say just be someone who can create problems for the players. The more problems you can create for the players, the more they're going to be problem solvers. And if you have good problem solvers, you're going to have a good team.
Yeah, well said, Anthony. Thanks so much for talking to me today, man. It was really fun catching up.
Thanks for having me.
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