Chad Iske is an assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers, but he was an assistant coach for the Denver Nuggets before that. These basketball coaching clinic notes will talk about different ways to guard a pin-down action, and they are from the NAU coaching clinic in 2013.
Basketball Coaching Clinic Notes
Game Planning for Your Opponent / Guarding Pin Downs / Offensive Sets
- George Karl wants his assistants to be well rounded and to start thinking like a head coach.
- Figure out what teams like to do to disrupt your best players.
- (Ex. Ty Lawson – Teams put size on him, switch his pick and rolls).
- Nuggets want to put Ty in situations that counter/exploit that.
- (Ex. Ty Lawson – Teams put size on him, switch his pick and rolls).
- Have your counters and adjustments to everything already built-in.
- (Ex. Vs. Guard on Guard Switch, Vs. Monster, Vs. Every POB Defense, etc.).
Pin Downs
- Start with great ball pressure from PG w/o getting beat – get the ball out of the middle.
Lock and Trail
- Get into the offensive player, get lower than him, and stick to his hip.
- Approaching screen- step through and around screen.
- Big shows half a second to buy guard time.
- Can’t show too early = slip to the rim, dunk.
- After PG makes the pass, ball in the air, the guard must stunt to buy guard time, plug driving lane.
Lock and Gap
- Lock to man, but shoot gap at the level of the screen.
- Shooting gap too early = flare, and in NBA, 3 points w/ players like Ray Allen.
Top Lock
- Get on top of the man and force him away from the screen in one direction.
- Big must drop and protect, so it doesn’t become back door or lob to the rim.
- Teams will send the shooter off a pin down on the other side to counter.
Switch
- Usually vs. a player like Durant.
- Nuggets had Wilson Chandler, who they liked to have switch off to Durant – whoever was guarding Durant would try to send him to Chandler’s side.
Vs. Floppy Action
- The point would force to weak hand.
- As both sides come off, the weakside post must help off to the strong side, and the guard must help in after his man comes off weak.
- Must prevent strong side slips.
- Offensively, Nuggets would get a lot of lobs to the rim from this action.
Floppy Drill:
- Have guards come off-screen to receive a pass from PG.
- PG then sprints under the hoop with the other guard, and they work to come off.
- Run this 3x, then go live – gives guards a lot of reps to work on getting around screens/ shooting gaps and staying locked to man.
- Miami Heat jumps the floppy with strong side big – forcing the guard to dump down to post.
- They figure that with all the playmaking guards in the league – they would rather put the ball in the post player’s hand to make a play.
