"Yankee" – Part 1

Tags

Bill Foster, Execution, Fresno State, Yankee

One year, while I was coaching at Fresno State, we were going through a rough patch and needed something to get us going.  We had good personnel, but really had two players who stood out.We had noted several years earlier while watching Virginia Tech win the NIT with Bill Foster as coach, that we really liked the secondary break they ran.  We called Coach Foster, and asked if he would be willing to share it with us, and he obliged.

“Yankee,” as he called it, was designed to get the ball in the hands of your two best players early in the possession on every trip down the court.  It is a very simple set of actions, but with precision execution, can be devastating to a defense.  He took us through the in’s and out’s of Yankee, and we decided to use it.

We had a 5 day break from games, and used that time to install the new secondary.  After the break, we won 11 in a row and came one field goal away from winning the league.  We went on to beat BYU and USC in the NIT, but ended up losing to Kansas State. Installing Yankee to complement our “2-Game” had turned our season around!  We believe Yankee will benefit you in the same way, and have diagrammed its basic initial actions below:

• Frame 1 – 1 enters the ball to 2 up the sideline.
• Frame 2 – 2 swings the ball to 4 as 5 screens 3’s defender. 5 looks to seal defender with a foot in the lane.
• Frame 3 – 1 and 4 set a double on the weakside for 2 as 3 and 5 set up the 2-man game.
• Frame 4 – If 5 can’t get position, 3 can drive to the basket as 5 slides up the lane.

We used this secondary break with great success the rest of my career, and found that it greatly enhanced our “2-Game” offense.  We will be explaining Yankee in detail next week, broken into two parts.  First, we will discuss the “Boss Man” theory (the Boss Man is designated in the above diagram by the “3”). The last part will take you through options against a Zone and several “Specials” you can add.

"Yankee" – Part 2

Tags

Boss Man, Dwayne Wade, FastDraw, LeBron James, Miami Heat, Mike Miller, NBA2K12, Post, Simplicity, Yankee

We had an incredible response to Part 1 of ‘Yankee’, and much of the feedback surrounded the fact that it seemed too simple. Many wanted to know about “what-if” scenarios, ways to tweak it with options and counters, and how to drill it.  Great questions, and we will address them all, but first let’s emphasize the most important part of Yankee: Simplicity.

As a coach, I crave simplicity. Too often, coaches crave control, and their players are not given any freedom to create or play loose. Yankee is simplistic, just as the Triangle Offense is simplistic. Both provide a framework for teaching players spacing and how to run good offense, and then let the players play.

The beauty of Yankee is that it is simple, and it puts the ball in the hands of your two best players every time down the court. How often do you see teams go 3 or 4 possessions (or more) without their best players getting a significant touch? Yankee designates those two players as the ‘Boss Man’ and the Post.

The Boss Man
The Boss Man has to be a good player (a scoring threat), should be a player who can run all day, and needs to understand how to read the defense.

The Post
The Post is the player on your team who either dominates with their back to the basket, or else is the player you feel has the biggest mismatch down low in a particular game.

To illustrate, imagine if the Miami Heat used Yankee, and put LeBron James on the block as the Post, and ran Dwayne Wade as the Boss Man with the double happening for Mike Miller (as indicated in the diagram). They would be set up to have their two best players touch the ball every time down the floor with actions on the back side keeping the defense honest. James would be a tough post matchup for any defender, and Wade’s ability to read and create would be amplified.

This could then flow into any offensive set or system they chose, but would give them a large number of possessions where the ball starts in the hands of two of the most difficult players in the NBA to defend.

It would be fun to see the creativity that LeBron and Wade would harness from these situations, and the simplicity of the actions would allow them to spend their mental energy devising ways to attack the different defensive schemes they would see.The greatest teams of all time have always allowed their best players to be creative within an offensive framework. It is what makes their stars so difficult to guard.

We fell in love with Yankee because of its simplicity. We felt our players were not burdened with having to think too much while running it, and were free to play the game to the best of their abilities. This allowed us to get the most out of our best players and set up our ‘2-Game’ (which will be featured in a future blog).

In the next part of the Yankee Blog Series, we will go into the options, counters, and “what-if’s” that our fans are curious about, but it is important to first let the simplicity of Yankee settle in to your thinking.

"Yankee" – Part 3

Tags

Counters, Jerry West, Lakers, Los Angeles, Simplicity, Yankee, Zone Options. Drills

I have been both humbled and delighted by the feedback and praise given to Part 1 and Part 2 of this Yankee Blog Series.

It has reminded me that coaches are in love with learning about the game, and it has made me feel good to be able to share some of what I learned in my career.

My good friend, Jerry West (whose new book, ‘West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life‘ hits stores this week), is one of the most detail-oriented people I have ever known. After looking at Yankee, he offered valuable insight based on something he had success with in his days as a player for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Jerry would run down the floor, put his head underneath the rim, and face out toward the action (back to the baseline). He could then read the defense and decide whether to use the single screen from the 5, or use a double screen from 1 and 2 on the other side (‘Floppy’ Action) to get himself open.

The simplicity of Yankee makes it very easy for players to make adjustments like this without having to think too much. This simple tweak got me thinking about other options and counters we used.  Here are a few to consider:

Counters
One way defenses would try to defend Yankee was to stop ball movement by denying the reversal to 4.  Some defenses would even go so far as to deny both 2 and 4.  When this occurred we used these simple counters to get the ball reversed:

• Frame 1 – If the defense works hard to deny the ball to 4, immediately go to a ball screen for 1 or 2 to get the ball reversed.
• Frame 2 – If the defense works to deny both 2 and 4 down the floor, 1 enters into a dribble handoff with 2.

Zone Options
Another way teams would try to neutralize Yankee was to play Zone defense and get set quickly in Transition.  Our adjustments to Yankee against a Zone are detailed below:

• Frame 1 – We look for this quick hitter every time down the floor. 5 flashes to the high post looking for a hole. The key is for 1 to push the ball quickly up the floor and for 3 to try and seal the defender. We are trying to create an advantage by overloading a side.
• Frame 2 – If nothing is open, we swing the ball quickly to 3 who has made his cut. 5 resumes spot on the block and 2 cheats to the short corner.
• Frame 3 – If we don’t have anything, 4 pins down in the lane for 5 and 1 cuts to the top to receive the pass from 3.
• Frame 4 – 4 seals low and 5 looks to hit 5 in the high post for a high-low or pass directly to 4 in the low post.

Drill Work
The key drill we would use to practice Yankee is, like Yankee, incredibly simple.

Coach starts with the ball. Boss Man (3) runs normal Yankee cut (stopping under the basket to read how x3 will defend), and the coach enters the ball to 3 or 5. You then let them play 2-on-2 live. Run this drill 5 to 10 minutes per day and let them read, suggest and play.

I hope you have gotten something you can use out of the three parts of this Yankee Blog Series, and if there are any questions or discussion you would like to involve me in, please feel free to comment at the bottom of this page. The next Blog Series will be on our ‘2-Game’ Offense which we would go right in to after running Yankee.

"2-Game" – Part 1, Overview

Tags

Jim Saia, New Mexico, Oregon State, Paul Halupa, Ralph Miller, secondary offense, Steve Lavin, UCLA, Yankee

After finishing the very popular Yankee Blog Series last week, there was a large number of coaches who asked, “What do you run if you don’t score out of Yankee?” The answer, is another very simplistic offense we called, “2-Game”.

Like Yankee (and most of the great things in coaching), we stole 2-Game from someone else and worked hard to make it our own.

Ralph Miller was at Oregon State running the original version that we saw, liked, and decided to implement at the University of New Mexico. We went to some of his practices, and had his assistants come to UNM and help us with our practices until we had a firm grasp of the teaching points.

The best thing we did was get a brilliant high school coach, named Paul Halupa to spend a lot of time with us. He is a genius in a lot of areas, especially basketball, and he knew Ralph’s system better than Ralph knew it.

We implemented and ran the 2-Game offense from that point forward, and years later, while playing one of Ralph’s Oregon State teams, we shot 81.3% from the field for an entire game. As we walked off the floor after the game, Ralph joked that he, “…had powder burns on his jacket from our shooting so well.”

I see the 2-Game pop up around the country every year, and love seeing the tweaks that other coaches come up with. Most notably, I have seen Steve Lavin run it. One of my former assistants, Jim Saia introduced it to him at UCLA. Lavin even mentioned Coach Miller and I in an interview back in 2002.

The diagram below gives you an introduction to the basic alignment and initial actions of 2-Game:

• Frame 1 – Wings must be high (hash mark was a good point of reference). Spacing is key. We start any action by passing to the wing or post on either side.
• Frame 2 – On a pass to the wing, 4 and 5 work up and down the lane, and sometimes cross. In this action the 4 back screens for 1 cutting to the basket. If open, 1 should call for the ball by putting a hand up. 5 is looking to pin the defender for a quick post up.
• Frame 3 – If 1 and 5 are not open, 2 swings the ball to 4 at the top. As that pass occurs, 1 cuts to the wing and sets a lane screen for 5.
• Frame 4 – 4 quickly reverses the ball to 1 who looks inside for 5 coming off of the lane screen and posting up. All of these passes must be quick and precise (no bounce passes!).

That should get you started thinking through 2-Game. In Part 2, we will go into greater detail regarding the Post Series and Specials we ran.

"2-Game" – Part 2, Post Series

Tags

2-Game, FastDraw, high post, post series, Yankee

In Part 2 of this ‘2-Game’ Blog Series, we will focus on our Post Series. This series was started whenever our point guard was able to enter the ball to the high post on either side.

Many of these actions are simple, but difficult to defend when run with precision and executed repeatedly in practice.If you have post players who are good passers and guards who can read the defense, these series will be very effective for you.

The key, just as it was in ‘Yankee‘, is to make sure the players have the freedom to create within a framework that teaches them spacing and ball movement.

Post Series

The diagram below breaks down our Post Series:

• Frame 1 – 1 enters to 5. While the ball is in the air, 2 cuts hard to the rim, and 5 looks to hit 2 on backdoor if open.
• Frame 2 – 1 jab steps and then cuts off of 5. If 1’s defender goes behind, 5 hands to 1 for a jumper and rolls to the basket.
• Frame 3 – If 5 does not give 1 the ball, 5 takes 1 hard dribble toward middle at 3, who is cutting hard across the top as 4 rolls down the lane. If 3’s defender goes under, 5 hands the ball to 3.
• Frame 4 – If 5 still has the ball at this point, 4 is sealing defender down low and 2 elevates on the wing. 5 can hit 2 or 4. If 2 receives pass from 5, 2 looks to enter to 4 in the post.

That sums up the simplicity of 2-Game Post Series. In Part 3, we will go through four specials you can run out of 2-Game as well.

"2-Game" – Part 3, Specials

Tags

2-Game, specials, switching defense

Whenever we ran ‘Yankee’ into ‘2-Game’, teams would try to find ways to take something away or take us out of a particular series in order to slow us down. As is true with any offense, a good defensive team can force you to be creative and come up with different ways to score out of your base offense.

Over the years we saw teams try different things to make us uncomfortable, but usually a simple tweak or a special to counter their scheme was all we needed because the 2-Game was so simple for our players to run.

Today, we bring you four of the main specials and counter we ran to get shots or counter defensive schemes.

‘Box Up’ Post Series Entry

On occasion, teams would overplay our posts to try and keep us out of our Post Series, and we would run the following entry to get the series started:

• If your posts are being pressured to keep you out of the Post Series, align in a box set, and have the 2 and 3 break out to the hash marks, then flash 4 and 5 up the lane.
• Once entered to the post, 2 makes the back door cut for a layup or you go straight into the 2-Game Post Series.

2-Game Counter

When teams tried switching, we could run this counter and force them to stop defending cuts with a switch:

• 1 passes to 2 then gets a back screen from 4 for a basket cut.
• 3 Jab steps and comes back. 2 passes to 4, then joins 5 in setting a double screen for 1. 4 passes to 1 coming off the double.

Simple Iso

This was a simple isolation set we ran if we felt we had a mismatch or wanted to give one of our best players room to create late in a game:

• 1 enters on the dribble. 5 sets a back screen for 2, who must cut over the top to opposite corner.
• 1 passes to 5 and the isolation is set up.

Quick 3

We ran this play to get a quick 3 for a shooter when we needed it:

• Put your shooter in the 4 spot, and start by having them set a backscreen for 1 after the pass to 2.
• Now 5 sets a screen the screener for 4 coming off for a quick 3.

Those are just four of the Specials we ran in our 2-Game. You can see that it is very easy to create new set plays out of the alignment, and still give players the freedom to create on their own.

The Assistant Coach

As a Head Coach, the most important people you choose, other than your spouse, are your assistants.  I personally started with no paid assistants and had to recruit within the College and the community, but over the years things changed and I ended up with a maximum number allowed by the NCAA.

I’ve had very good ones in the 25+ assistants that I have had the pleasure of working with, but I would like to call attention to one in particular. Coach Larry Shyatt (he assisted Billy Donovan, Rick Barnes and myself for 10 years at New Mexico, and is now the head coach at Wyoming) was the epitome of what an assistant coach should be. If you ever get to hear him speak about the role of the assistant I urge you do so.

Here are some of the most important characteristics and roles needed in this valuable position:

Number one without a question is loyalty. Your assistant has to have your back at all costs.  He will be tested time and time again with questions and opinions regarding you as the head coach. Assistants who do not understand the importance of loyalty should be dismissed in a discrete manner because their lack of loyalty will just not work.  There is a fine line between them being ambitious and wanting to eventually be a head coach, and them working against you behind your back.  They should want the head position, but work their tails off to help you be successful.  They must never waver in the loyalty department.

Ability to recruit. Their main job is to find the good players and recruit them and their family to your school.  Their number one goal in my mind was to get one very good young player every year.  Coaching abilities are very important, but not number one.  The team with the best players usually wins.

Team player. I, as the head coach, know what I want to teach through our simplistic system. I expect my coaches to follow suit and try to enhance what we are trying to do in our program.  They can argue and discuss behind closed doors with me, but when we walk out from our meetings we are a team and we are all on the same page. Every person I hired wanted to coach and had a little bit of a hard time taking the back seat to what I wanted, but they grew and matured into what was best for our team.

Note: My assistants met separately from me prior to our regular coaches meeting and at that time they broke down to 3 or 4 items that we needed to discuss and they then would bring it to me.  It saved some time for me to do other things that were  necessary for the program.

Offseason workouts. Whatever the rules would allow us to do is what I wanted our assistants to be gung-ho about doing.  Improvement for our players both physically and in their self-respect was very important in our getting to the next level.  Weight training has become very important in today’s game.  Some schools have coaches on their athletic staff solely for that purpose, but a lot do not and the job lies in the hands of your assistants.  Their encouragement is so important for your people to help them grow both physically and mentally.

Academic watchdogs. Education is a top priority and our graduation rate was always one of the best.  We made it pretty simple by dividing up our players among the coaches, and each one of us took three to five players and monitored and helped them towards their degree. We rotated at the end of each month.

Other duties included:

• Public Speaking – to groups regarding our program.  Selling our product.
• Preseason and off season conditioning which included:
  • Weight Training (year round)  Note: more maintance during the season
  • Jump Rope Program (which was very organized with scores always recorded on our 10 different jumps)
  • A Running Program (A lot of running in the sand)

• Discipline– My assistants handled a majority of the problems and came to me only when necessary.  We basically had 3 Rules:
  • Don’t be late
  • Work hard
  • Don’t do anything to embarrass the team or the school

• Initiative – I love those people who are always thinking ahead!!  Note:  When I was an assistant for the Memphis Grizzlies, my main thought everyday was, “What can I do to make my bosses job easier”.

Hopefully some of this can help you, whether you are a head coach looking to define roles for your assistants, or an assistant coach looking for advice on how to do your job the best way possible.

My advice to those assistants out there is to work hard every day as if it were your own program, do everything you can to make your head coach look good, and don’t just try, do it!

Hot Feet Workout

Over the last few years we have done a lot of different exercises before and after practice to increase stamina and team morale.

For instance we did an incredible amount of work with the Jump Rope program. We had 10 different jumps and we posted it and scored it for each player and they became very efficient with the rope. They all carried ropes around with them in their gym bags that the coaches made from ropes they got at the hardware store.

Did it help?

I believe all my ex-players would tell you that it absolutely did help! We had an All- WCC point guard at Pepperdine University named Ricardo Brown, who was later All-Pro in the Philippines, who was so good at Jump Roping that the other 14 players would stop to watch him make the “rope talk”

We did other things like run up the sand dunes on the Malibu beach. We also did a lot of exercises with weighted vests and weighted ankle weights. We also started practice on Oct 15 with the famous mile run according to their position.

Our staff liked all of the exercises but the one thing I personally liked was the Three Stages of Hot Feet at the end of practice which I still do with my basketball classes at UCSB. You can do this drill in 7 minutes or less and it is a great conditioner and a big morale boost at the end of a practice.

HOT FEET WORKOUT

1. All players spread out over the gym floor and get in a defensive stance with legs bent and palms up. Now on the whistle they run in place as hard as they can go for 10 seconds. We stop for 10 seconds and rest and go again for 10. We repeat this for 10 repetitions. They clap,yell or whatever during these patter steps.
2. Immediately after the “hot feet” they lay down on their backs with knees bent and do sit-ups for two (2) minutes.
3. Immediately after the sit-ups they roll over and do push-up for 30 seconds. Note: On their finger tips if they can. Total time less than 7 minutes. Conditioning is a “home run”
4. Immediately everyone runs to the center circle at half court and put their hands in the middle and someone counts to three and they yell “Go [Insert Your Mascot]”

I have found that practice always ends on a high note doing this exercise.

5-3-2-1 Push-Push Drill

Dr. David Cardenas, a visiting Professor from Spain at UCSB, has a world of knowledge on the game of basketball with a great philosophy on the fast break.

The number one statistic he gave me is that in the World Championships, fast break shots taken after a make are made at a very high percentage! That’s right, teams make a high percentage converting after made field goals. This blew my mind. The only team I could think of that has done this successfully (running off of field goal makes) is coached by Roy Williams at North Carolina.

Dr. Cardenas tells me that the key is execution and constant practice of the details. This must be done daily and correctly. He teaches footwork on taking the ball out of the net and getting out of bounds (very quickly) with strict footwork and releasing the ball with a two handed chest pass or more of a whip pass with the strong hand being prevalent. The point guard must try to get open at the free throw line or further up the floor as quickly as possible. PUSH-PUSH!! Only dribble if the lane is not clear to pass ahead.

Dr. Cardenas also says that there is “slight relaxation” on the part of the opponent for a second or two after scoring and that is when we attack with the PUSH-PUSH philosophy It is important to practice inbounding the ball quickly every day.

5-3-2-1 Push-Push Drill

• Frame 1 – Run offense against no defense. When offense scores 5 takes it and passes it to 1 going down the sideline. 1 looks ahead and tries to chest pass it further down the court. We are in a PUSH-PUSH with a possible Yankee ending.
• Frame 2 – 5 takes the ball out of the net and chest passes to 1. 1 should be at least to free throw line extended. We are now in 5-on-3 and run Yankee.
• Frame 3 – 5-on-3 until they score or the defense gets the ball on a steal or rebound. They will attack 3 on 2 which will be our 1 and 2 who transitioned back on defense.
• Frame 4 – 3-on-2 and whoever shoots first is back on defense vs 1 and 2.
• Frame 5 – We finish the (5-3-2-1) with 2-on-1. The next 5 set up at the other end to start 5-on-0 and continue the drill

Adding Accountability (with Peer Pressure)
The one thing I never did was have some kind of accountability for our team in our 10 to 12 minutes of this type of drill. Today, I would keep track of the number of shots taken and tell the whole team that they had to shoot at least 50% or suffer a consequence such as starting over or sprints at the end of practice.

Shooting: Simplicity in Motion – Part 2, The Hop Method

Hop vs the 1-2 shot style: “Ball in the air feet in the air”

In 1985 Nelson Franse (Jr.) of the University of New Mexico was changed from a 1-2 shooting style to the Hop Method. He was coming up on his senior year in college and was an above average shooter, but he had a slow release. So we changed him to the Hop. He proceeded to make 100 3-point shots with this new style everyday all summer long. His senior year he was terrific and won several games for the Lobos late in the game.

Matt Stock (Fresno State University) did the same thing as Nelson, converting over to the quicker style and rose to a different level in college basketball. He is now a assistant at University of California Santa Barbara and teaches the Hop whenever he can. He dedicated himself to the change and it paid dividends.

I personally favor the Hop (also used by Ray Allen-Boston/Miami) to the “1-2 shot style” but like the legendary Del Harris said“You probably need both”.

I believe it is quicker but it will take some inner game of trusting in your body and mind to make it work to your advantage. If you asked Ray, Nelson and Matt I’m sure they would say it took hard work and trust.

Here is an excellent video illustrating this method.