Slappin’ Glass sits down with former the Head Coach and current President of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics, Brad Stevens. The trio discuss the foundations of making adjustments, running great practices, the Spanish PNR, and talk Ted Lasso, mental health, and Dribble Drive Motion Offense during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
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Inside the Episode
We were excited to be joined on the podcast this week by former Head Coach and current President of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics, Brad Stevens. We had a blast picking Coach Stevens’ brain on a variety of coaching, leadership, and tactical concepts. Here’s a look inside the episode…
Ted Lasso, Mental Health, and Growth Mindset
During a fun segment of “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”, we gave coach Stevens three Ted Lasso (the hit sports/comedy show on Apple TV) quotes to chose from, and the conversation eventually flowed into the important topic of mental health for both athletes and coaches. “The reality is, you’re still going to have the ups and downs, whether you’re a 44-year-old coach or a 19- year-old player, and you have to be able to navigate those. And it’s not easy. Everybody has their own experiences, and everyone’s their own person, and we want to very much normalize the idea that working on yourself, working on your own mental state, your own mindset, is just as important as getting in the weightroom and working on your strength.” – Brad Stevens
Coach Stevens provided some great thoughts on the importance of both coaches and athletes to find ways to handle stress, pressure, and the inevitable ups and downs of life.
For coaches and athletes interested in learning more on this subject, we recently partnered with Bret Burchard, a former G-League Head Coach and the founder of the mindset training company, ChampionShift. Coach Burchard’s “1-Hour Mindset Mastery” Class is available for free today on SGTV covering:
- The 4 factors affecting your success and progress
- The most powerful tool in your arsenal that most people neglect or underutilize
- 3 actions to get the most out of your mental skills.
Guarding the “Spanish PNR”
One of the most popular and difficult to defend actions being run across multiple levels all over the world is the “Spanish PNR”. The alignment, where a shooter and big are placed in a “stack” formation, and the shooter often sets a backscreen on the defending big during the ball screen (or slips out early), can cause all sorts of problems for a defense if coverages are not communicated properly.
During our “Start, Sub, or Sit?!” segment we discussed with Coach Stevens his preferred way to guard the “Spanish PNR”, one of his favorites being “trapping” the ball handler and rotating defenders to cover the role. Our follow-up question was “what do you do if the ‘Spain’ screener (the shooter) slips out early?” Coach Stevens explained how he’d have the defender guarding the shooter stay with the slip out, have the opposite corner helpside defender come across the take away the short or long roll, and be looking to steal a skip pass.
Here’s Coach Stevens in his own words…“The opposite corner is the most important person in the play. That person protects everything. So as that guy slips out, and you’re blowing up the ball, he’s there to protect the roll and you play off of that.”
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Beyond these two concepts the episode also packed with great coaching wisdom from Coach Stevens including:
- Leading People both on and off the court in his new role as President of Basketball Operations
- The art of planning and executing great practices
- Why Coach Stevens dislikes most meetings and what he includes in ones he does have
- Making adjustments and the building blocks that must be in place “before the adjustments”
- Flex, Motion, and the Dribble Drive Motion Offense
- The best investment he’s made in his career
You can listen to the entire episode with Coach Stevens below, and while you’re there, if you’re enjoying the show we’d appreciate a quick rating and review. Thanks for the support!