Slappin’ Glass sits down this week with the Head Coach of Florida Atlantic University, Dusty May! Fresh off a run to the Final Four, Coach May shares his insights on true coaching education, the randomness of winning, and talk deceptive off-ball screens and defensive communication during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Inside the Episode
“I think, as coaches, sometimes we use the cop-out that ‘I’m just being me, this is who I am, I have to be me’, and if our players did that, then we would have an issue with it. And so we watch the response of our players. If I say something that I don’t agree with, then the next day, I simply apologize to the player and say ‘Hey, I probably didn’t handle that the right way. Here was my frustration. It was more of a compilation of other things that got me to that point and I’ll do the best I can so it doesn’t happen again. But our expectations and standards aren’t changing. The level of intensity that you played with yesterday was unacceptable, but I am not going to justify my behavior because your intensity wasn’t great yesterday.'” – Dusty May
We completed what has been a truly memorable October of podcasts this week with FAU Head Coach, Dusty May! Fresh of a run to the Final Four Coach May dives into:
- The Education of a Coach: How he’s learned from each stop in his career and how a coach can truly continue to master their craft.
- Deceptive Off-Ball Screening Actions: During “Start, Sub, or Sit?!” we discuss FAU’s use of off-ball screening actions for their shooters and the ingredients that go into making those sets effective.
- Teaching Defensive Communication: Another “SSS” question revolved around the difficulties of defensive communication and how he prefers to teach players to be more vocal on the court.
Chapters
0:00 Coaching Education and Mastering the Craft
12:20 Coaching, Learning, and Handling Wins
18:39 The Evolution of a Coach
22:42 Effectiveness of Off-Ball Screens for Shooters
25:41 Deceptive Actions and Screens in Basketball
29:25 Player Development and Offensive Strategies
32:43 Attacking Space and Shot Priorities
37:11 Effective Offensive Strategies and Defensive Challenges
41:18 Switching Defense and Communication in Basketball
46:28 Wrap Up
Transcript
Dusty May: 0:00
I think, as coaches, sometimes we use the cop out that I’m just being me, this is who I am, but I have to be me, and if our players did that, then we would have an issue with it. And so we watch the response of our players. If I say something that I don’t agree with the next day, then I simply apologize to the player, say hey, I probably didn’t handle that the right way. Here was my frustration. It was more of a compilation of other things that got me to that point and I’ll do the best I can so it doesn’t happen again. But our expectations and standards aren’t changing. The level of intensity that you played with yesterday was unacceptable, but I am not going to justify my behavior because your intensity wasn’t great yesterday.
Dan: 0:45
Hi, I’m Dan Krikorian, and I’m Patrick Carney, and welcome to Slapping Glass Exploring basketball’s best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today, we’re excited to welcome Florida Atlantic head coach Dusty May. Coach May is here today to discuss coaching education and the true ways that coaches master their craft, the thin line between winning and losing, and we talk deceptive off-ball actions and defensive communication during the always fun start, sub or sit. The season is here, but we know that many coaches are already looking ahead at international trips in 2024 and 25. Ourselves, along with a number of former podcast guests, cannot say enough great things about our experiences working with Josh Erickson and his team at Beyond Sports. I’m handling flights, hotels, game scheduling, excursions, service, learning opportunities and more. Josh and his team provide unmatched service and support throughout the entire trip. To learn more about why more than 650 programs have trusted Beyond Sports, visit beyondsportstorescom and tell them. Slapping Glass sent you, coach May. Please enjoy our conversation with coach Dusty May. Coach really appreciate you coming on. Congratulations on all the success. We’re excited to talk to you today.
Dusty May: 2:22
Oh, thank you. It’s an honor to be on. I’m a big fan.
Dan: 2:25
Thank you, coach. So, coach, a lot’s happened For you over the last 365 days or so and, as we’re recording this right now, you’re right in the middle of preseason, getting ready for this year, and we wanted to start this discussion on coaching education and how a head coach eventually gets educated, or what are true ways that coaches can become better at their craft on the floor and off the floor and you’ve had a very interesting upbringing in the profession and then, obviously, now on the court, all the things that you’ve learned over the last few years at FAU, and so we wanted to start there with you on how you go about and how you think about how a coach educates themselves to somewhat prepare for this crazy profession we’re in.
Dusty May: 3:06
Most of my development has been a result of ineptitude and a certain asset, and it began when I grew up in Indiana and played for a great high school coach. We ran Flex and all the variations with Flex, and then I went play Division II one year where it was true motion, and then I worked for Coach United in Indiana for four years. So even our player development was flare shooting back screen downstream reading of the defense. And my first job after college was a Southern California under Henry Bibby and I moved to LA and I realized I knew nothing about player development except helping players get better within the motion system. And player development is obviously a very broad term. But and so that’s when I realized that I needed to really improve as a young assistant who loved being on the court, in the gym and so being in LA it’s the mecca of world renowned trainers and I remember Coach Bibby would let me go leave for a couple hours in mid mornings in the summer mornings in the springs to go rebound basketballs for Tim Gurdrovich and Neil O’Shea and Rick Carlisle was out of it at that time training guys in our gym and LA fitness. So I would bounce around probably five days a week trying to get better player development, and then I was at that time watching every video and we had a large library of VHS tapes at the time. I’d watch a video every day of Pete Newell and guys like that. So that’s kind of where it started, and from then on, about every year or two, I would simply just dive into a topic that fascinated me, that I knew I needed to improve on, and studied the heck out of it until I felt like I was the least at a good spot, and then I would wait until the next aha moment and I would dive into another topic. So, but it usually starts with something I feel like that I’m inept at.
Dan: 4:40
And I think you hear coaches a lot saying, hey, I want to dive into something, the off season or whatnot and you talked about something you were potentially inept at. When you’ve come across something that you want to dive into, where do you find that comes from? Is that something that you study your own team and you think, okay, I got to find out more about this, or is it some coach gives you something or you hear it on a podcast? I mean, where do you find the topics that you want to dive into?
Dusty May: 5:02
All of above. When coach night left Indiana, there was a coaching basketball class that he taught. It was pretty much handed into my lap. I started at that point trying to dive into different subjects and it might even be offense where the basket is unguarded. At that time, the one for UCLA offense I’d studied the triangle offense in Los Angeles because the Lakers were running it. It could be just hearing a guest on a podcast and it’s just like when you go to the library you don’t choose a book. A book usually chooses you, and I listened to all these speakers, podcasts, whatever I can get my hands on, and then usually randomly, someone will really speak to me and make me think in a different way. And then I usually just try to search and listen to every podcast Ted talk, they’ve been on and then I try to call them and wear them out and ask them a million questions and then if they’re within a five hour drive, then I’ll ask if I can come meet with them or whatever the case. So just really try to learn from curious, interesting people.
Patrick: 5:56
Coach, what have you learned is the difference between, let’s say, understanding a concept, studying it, and then being able to teach it to players on a court.
Dusty May: 6:05
In years past before I had major knee surgery last year we would pick up noom ball almost every single day, and a lot of times the staff would play together against managers and GAs, and there’d be a lot of days when we would be talking concepts or running an action that we had studied in a scout order report just to see how it felt, see how it looked, and then also just trying to always think a lot about does this make sense for us? Does this complement what we already do? Does this contradict any habits that we’re trying to teach every single day? And so then we usually spend a lot of time digesting and trying to shoot holes in it and then, if we like it after all, that, we stay with it. If not, hey, this was fun to study. We know more about it now. Maybe we’ll be able to attack that defense later, or maybe this will be something to make sense in the future, but right now it’s just not for us.
Patrick: 6:51
Does it come down to being able to know it and teach it really depend on, I guess, your ability to teach the reads out of it. So it’s not necessarily you’re just basically turning it into a set play, but rather making it an actual, let’s say, living, if we talk offense or concept.
Dusty May: 7:06
Absolutely. Even if it’s a set, we tell our guys we’re not looking for perfection, the defense is going to be disruptive, the timing may be a little bit off, but this is what we’re looking for. This is the timing, the spacing. This is the objective of this. And now to relieve pressure, if it doesn’t work, of them being disappointed and them being stagnant. Afterwards then we just say we don’t care. If any of our plays work, as long as the defense is off balance throughout another show, then we’re in position to play ball and hoop. And so, even when we forget plays, we don’t really care, because typically we pause the film and we say, look, we just butchered this play but because so and so sprinted to the short corner or sprinted to the weak side corner, now let’s pause it on their defense. And we know, look at all this space we just created on a play that didn’t work. And because we have good players, because we read space, now we’ve been able to attack and generate good offense, even though what we designed didn’t work. I think a lot of it is just trying to decide does this concept match your personnel, does it fit how you want to play? And then just deciphering that. And we spent a lot of time thinking about that and figuring out if it’s easy to remember, because we don’t want them thinking on the day of the game, we want them pooping, and so it’s a balance. But we like new concepts that we think are difficult to guard and also can set up other actions.
Patrick: 8:21
You spend this time, you get better at the things like you said that maybe you’re an updad, so you start amassing this knowledge as understanding. And then, when you get your team, how do you I don’t know simplify or how do you decide then what you want to use and bring to the court?
Dusty May: 8:34
We break it down into entries and what we’re trying to achieve at all times is simply attack space. And with our entries we’re usually trying to create some type of space advantage, whether it’s over the top to a big guy, whether it’s an isolation drive to a really good driver strong hand, or it’s to set up an elite point guard for a reject against a slow defender. So typically it comes down to everything we’re trying to do is create space for our best players and then after that it’s just concepts of how your defender’s playing you and what this is the ball do, Where’s the ball going? And then we give our guys a lot of freedom and creativity to figure some things out. And what does the game tell you? You’ll hear us say that a lot. What did you see there? What does the game tell you? How are you being played? And we can’t give you all these answers because during the game we would be distracting. If we’re trying to help them read their defense in the game, Now, two minutes into the game or one minute of the game, we might remind our guards they’re going under DHOs, they’re switching all the off ball screens. Typically we know in advance, but they’re really good defensive teams. We don’t know in advance what they’re going to do to us. We can anticipate how it will defend us, but we don’t know, and so usually a couple of minutes into the game, we’ll remind our guys that they’re in a drop coverage in the middle, they’re icing the sidelines, whatever the case, and then our guys should know at that point how to try to attack all those different coverages and all those different spacing opportunities.
Patrick: 9:51
And coach, can I pose kind of the same question to the defense event, how you think about filtering all those different ways you can defend ball screens off ball screens, handoffs, and again filtering it to your players.
Dusty May: 10:01
Same thing we’re 90% of our packages. We’re attempting to play the ball screen two versus two, with perceptual help from the other three defenders and based on their certain cues that we found that guards aren’t looking here in this type of situation. They’re not looking here, and this is a great opportunity for you to go make a play, for you to be disruptive. If it doesn’t work, it’s on us. We’re comfortable giving up an occasional basket on this type of gamble. I think our staff is very clear at what we’re willing to give up, what we want to happen, what we want to force and we live with the results, and our goal is 70 possessions each night. So you’ll see our staff trying to trick our players. We played the money baits last year and he said in 18 foot fadeaways and those are shots that we want you to take. I think we’re second in the country at forcing those type of shots and so he’s hitting highlight real shot after highlight real shot, after four or five of them are. Staff is still clapping and standing up and our players kind of half clapping at that point and our message is guys, because we can score, because we can defend, we can remember, just keep forcing these tough shots and over the next 35 possessions. They’re not going to make enough of these to beat us. Let’s just keep trust in the system. If we lose, then it might be anomaly. If we continue to lose, then we’ve got to figure some things out. But we’re very comfortable giving certain things up and living with the result.
Dan: 11:18
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Dusty May: 12:53
I think it begins number one. I’m really hard on myself if I make a mistake in practice, if I don’t treat some of the right way. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about what I should have done differently and I feel bad about it. So I’ve always been very, very critical. I think after I do an interview, if I don’t like the way that I sounded, if I don’t like the way I enunciated words, then I try to listen to speakers that resonate with me, that are great performers, that are clear speakers, that are great communicators. So I’m continuing trying to evolve as a person and as a learner and it’s usually because I’m self critical. I don’t know if that answers, but no, it’s good, I’ve learned. If I meet anyone, I try to take something from that person and it might just be the way they light up a room, it might be the way they have a high level of confidence. It might be a way that they just make everyone around them feel. It’s tough to say, but I’ve taken a little bit from it Every assistant, every player, every coach I’ve been around and just try to take the best and what would work for me and what wouldn’t work, and eliminate what wouldn’t work.
Dan: 13:48
When you mentioned that if you feel like you treated someone not the right way and it kept you up at night as a head coach and trying to get players to play hard, and there’s times, obviously a lot of times during the season where there’s conflict within a team, I guess about yourself how you’ve learned to still be tough, whatever it is you need to do as a head coach, but then also treat people fairly at the same time, if I’m making sense with that question.
Dusty May: 14:10
Absolutely, and I think that the simplest way for me is that I think, as coaches, sometimes we use the cop out that I’m just being me, this is who I am, I have to be me, and if our players did that, then we would have an issue with it. We should all be trying to be the best version of ourselves and try to improve and try to be, and so we watch the response of our players. If I say something that I don’t agree with the next day, then I simply apologize to the player, say, hey, I probably didn’t handle that the right way. Here was my frustration. It was more of a compilation of other things that got me to that point and I’ll do the best I can so it doesn’t happen again. But our expectations and standards aren’t changing. The level of intensity that you played with yesterday was unacceptable, but I’m not going to justify my behavior because your intensity wasn’t great yesterday and a couple of our guys went through the NBA draft process and we listened to what they said about us, to the NBA teams, because they told us and one of the things that really stood out was that our staff, that we encourage our guys to be themselves but also to fit into the team structure and the organization, and I think that’s a really unique thing where we all have such unique gifts. We all have strength and weaknesses and we try to get our guys to really appreciate why they’re successful, and it’s usually because of the strengths of your teammates. If our big guy gets a dunk in a game, then we pause it and we say why did you get this dunk? Well, usually this goes a great pass from him. It was a great screen here. And then usually the defense is out of the paint because you’re playing with two really good shooters on the weak side as well. So, just trying to get everyone to appreciate each other’s strengths and all of us trying to be the best we can be, as opposed to just chalking it up that, hey, this is me being me, because that’s not a great excuse for behaviors.
Dan: 15:46
One of the other things we wanted to discuss with you within this coaching education conversation was about winning and losing, and I’ll kind of paint the picture here. In the first round Last year, you guys squeak it out against Memphis, a couple close games along the way and then the final four obviously comes down to a tough jump shot. That doesn’t go your way and throughout the whole process, you, your staff, everything you do is the same, but the perception of you as a coach and your staff and all that kind of hangs in the balance on a jump shot going in or not. Right, pat, I were talking about this and what a crazy profession we’re in that. That’s the case a lot of times and I guess what you’ve learned about handling all those things throughout your career whether the ball bounces your way or not, and how you view yourself, your program and all those things you’re building- I heard this recently and a lot of times we chalk things up to luck a lucky bounce, a lucky this, a lucky that, and even Ken Palm has a luck quotient.
Dusty May: 16:42
And late last season, two years ago, we were, I think, second to last, like 358. And what we’ve kind of termed it now is the randomness of winning and losing, and so much goes into it. So our motto last year was every possession of every game. It wasn’t just the possession, that was frame by frame, and all we were focused on was doing things the right way. Every single frame of every single game. So when you pause the video, it’s on a frame and then you pause it in 10 seconds on a frame. How do we look on that frame? How are we communicating? How is our intensity level? How’s our energy level on that frame? And as long as it’s up to our standards, we’re 100% fine with the outcome at all times, over 40 games, over 10 games, and we’re always searching for a better way. We’re trying to grow and prove every day. But as long as our frame by frame standards are good, then I don’t want to say we don’t care about the result. We just trust that because of the people that we have on our team and in our program that we’re going to be on the right side of the win-loss column and a lot of, I guess, confidence based on us evaluating our processes and the principles which we work at every single day.
Dan: 17:49
Just adding on to that too, find some of the toughest situations are in the locker room, when you address your team right after a difficult loss or something like that and you obviously had a ton of great, probably post-game locker room moments last year, but then you had a big one that was probably very difficult and I guess, as a leader with your staff, how you address that and how you think about addressing tough losses with your team.
Dusty May: 18:11
If our effort was great, if we were excited to play. You typically play better when you’re excited. If all of those things check out, it’s usually let’s get out of here, let’s digest all this, be ready to work tomorrow, come with a great attitude. And a couple of our older players have told us in the past that they were shocked at how we responded after losses early in their careers. They would walk in you wouldn’t watch your clips, you wouldn’t get some shots, whatever the case, it was almost as if we were exactly the same. After wins and losses, I didn’t know. As an assistant, you get to this point and you wonder especially this past year when I had more time to kind of think, wow, like this has really happened To call people that have invested in you and say, why me? Why did you invest in me? I wasn’t a great player. The only redeemable quality that separated me from anyone else is the two things the absolute love of the game of ball and then a really strong work ethic. I enjoy working, even if it’s not basketball related. I don’t like to sit around. I do my own yard work, even not very well anymore, and so those are the only redeemable qualities. So when I talked to other people. I was curious of why they invested in me, and one of the things that came up several times was number one was my intensity, the way that I was in practice, even rebound, and the focus and intention. And then the other thing was just the consistency. If we lost by 35, it was the next morning Film, broken down, meeting with players trying to figure out a way for us to learn and grow. If we won by 50, it was exact same response. And so almost that robotic approach to the development, to the process of trying to do what we wanted to do, because it’s a lot easier when you are who I am. I don’t have this big name and this reputation, so it’s very, very simple for me just to be me and I love to learn, I love to grow through it. And the winning and losing I really, really believe it is a byproduct.
Patrick: 19:57
Coach with your consistency and intensity. Is that who you are, or was that something that you’ve learned just through experience and your path to becoming a head coach?
Dusty May: 20:06
It’s more of who. I am Very routine. I’ve always been routine based. I enjoy the mornings much more than nights, and so I just developed a routine. At an early age and it probably started when I was at Southern California. I asked for every responsibility Coach Bibby would give me so I could add value. I wasn’t making any money, but I wanted to make it in this business. I was 23 years old. I was probably a little bit too personally ambitious looking back, but I asked for everything, anything that he would give me, any responsibility, any duty. I wanted them all just so I could simply add value, to learn and grow. And then Mike Davis would call me every morning at 7 am in the office and he just wanted to know Coach Davis is the guy that liked conversation and he would just say what did you see in practice last night If he had the guys been through? And I’ve always been more productive in the office. So I spent my downtime in the office and so that became just part of my routine when I worked for him, where I would get in and I’d already had my work done and then I’d be prepared to do the people side of it, which is talking to the other coaches and trying to formulate a plan or spend a time with the players, and if you already have good insight and information for them, they’re probably going to want to come back the next day or the next post game, whatever the case, you mentioned personally ambition and I guess what you’ve learned about that coming up as young coaches who obviously you want to grow your career.
Patrick: 21:16
But so I guess the balance of being ambitious, maybe being over ambitious, also being happy where you are, or knowing when to make the next steps to advance your career, just how you build relationships, versus for lack of a better word like stepping over people because you’re so ambitious.
Dusty May: 21:30
I probably leaned towards the ladder when I was younger, For example, I wasn’t going to coach college, I was going to coach high school. And when I found out I could coach college, I went to my counselor, changed my major, stopped going to class and started coaching AU and driving the assistant coaches on the road, recruiting to try to learn the business. And so I was so driven and focused I wanted to be an assistant coach at 25. I wanted to be a high major assistant by 30. And I wanted to be a head coach by 33 or whatever was. And I always said, if I’m not there, then I’m going to reevaluate my career and just see what I haven’t done. Well, and then you realize you don’t have that much control who you work with, who you cross paths with, All those the randomness of winning in a profession, all kind of take over. And once I had kids and it changed me because I changed how I coached, I changed how I interacted with the staff and at that point it just became about enjoying who you’re coaching and enjoying who you’re working with every day. And after that I didn’t really care.
Dan: 22:23
Coach. Just to round out this part of the conversation, I actually love to go back and just ask you about something you mentioned a few minutes ago and that was that you mentioned you changed quite a bit when you had kids as a coach and how you treated your staff. I just would love to double down on that and ask you more on what it was that you felt really changed and why.
Dusty May: 22:42
Early on I worked for coaches that didn’t encourage the assistance to have their families around. It was just this is work and that’s home, and it wasn’t as they controlled all their hours in the office or whatever. I was fortunate to work for guys that valued me having my sons around a lot and I took the one recruiting trips. I had them in the office. If I was working out a player at night, they were with me in the gym. If I was working out player in the morning, they got up and came with me so that. And then observing your kids when they play sports and seeing the impact of if you have an emotional son who’s intense and they’re hard on themselves, maybe the coach simply puts his hand on the shoulder and tells them to breathe and then they feel better than puts their arm around them, what that does for their confidence or how they respond to that. And then you just realize that it’s not just about teaching and imposing what you know on them, but letting them figure some things out, letting them be themselves, but also the timing and the feel that comes with all these things that we do every day. So having sons and watching them, and also that’s when we actually learn humanity and the ultimate sacrifices when you have kids. So I think all those things just changes as people. Fortunately it did for me, because I feel like I became much more empathetic, just a much better coach in person after I did have kids.
Dan: 23:52
A quick thank you to our newest partner here at Slapping Glass, one of the best tech companies in the world of sports, Huddle. As many of you know, Huddle extends an array of useful products to coaches, from their auto tracking camera, Huddle Focus, live streaming tool, Huddle TV, wearable athlete performance tracker, WEMU and their newest offering, Huddle inStat, an all in one data powerhouse platform that combines advanced tagging with the global film library. For more information on all that’s offered with Huddle inStat, visit Huddlecom slash Slapping Glass today. Thanks to Huddle for the support, and now back to our conversation. Coach. Well said, and thanks for going through all that stuff with us. We want to transition now to a segment on the show we call Start, Sub or Sit. Those maybe listening for the first time will give you three options around a topic ask you to start one, sub one and then sit one, and then we’ll discuss from there. Coach, you have not heard any of these, so if you’re ready, we’ll dive in. Let’s do it, Alright, Coach? This first one has to do with effective off-ball screens for your shooters, One of the things that we liked in going through your film last year just some of the concepts you’d use to get shooters open for shots. We wanted to give you three kind of broad topics on when you think about devising, say, a set or an action for a shooter, what goes into that to make it effective. So Start, Sub or Sit. The first option is adding some sort of deception before the screen for your shooter. The second option for effectiveness is just the area on the floor that you’re going to run that set for. And the third option is the type of off-ball screen that you’re going to run for your shooter, so connecting how they come off of pin versus flair or whatever it is. So start, sub or sip those three different options for effective off-ball screens.
Dusty May: 25:41
I would say start deception. I think with offense, if you have any type of patterns, then the defense recognizes these patterns and it’s much simpler to counter those patterns to get a special shot or special situation. So I would say start deception. Sub I would say type of screen, obviously screens that the defenders can’t see coming back screens, flair screens. We prefer those just because we’re so. Everything we teach is perception based and so the screens that you can’t see coming are the ones that we prefer to use. And then the last one sit the areas on the floor, because typically the hardest areas to shoot are the areas that it’s easier to get the shots. So we’ve actually taken some tough areas and really ripped the heck out of those shots because we felt like we could get a clean look in that area. So we just had to practice more at those shots and they may be odd movements, but we felt like we really worked on it. Our guys could adapt to those movements and figure it out.
Dan: 26:35
Love those answers there. One of the ones I’d love to follow up on first is your start and going through your guys film. You do have some nice deceptive actions and one of the things was turning what would be normal, say, cuts or rolls, into a screen. A pick and roll becomes a veer, or 45 cut becomes a pin down, things like that, where it just kind of blurs the line between a cut and a screen and for those things calls, reads, sets, all of the above. How do you think about those?
Dusty May: 27:04
All of above. We’re trying to keep it simple for our players and we adopted the term this off season splash screens where we’re cutting and it’s like the wave is going towards the beach. Here in Boca Raton, florida, where we’re less than two miles from the beach Well, shame was plug and they’re riding the wave in and all of a sudden you stop, the splash happens and it becomes a screen and usually it’s based on. Our guys are very selfless. They want to create shots. So if they see a help defender and they hold their defender in with them, then they’ll like to stop and simply get in the way and we just feel like if you don’t allow that guy to sprint and close out of the straight line, then you’ve created a heck of an advantage. So our guys are aware of that and then we try to study the other team’s defense. Is it a sagging packed in defense or is it a defense that they’re going to stay at home on our shooters and they’re extended and they’re trying to play the pick and roll two versus two? So we try to have an idea going into the game and in our player development and warmups we try to work on those concepts. It’s a little bit of all that, but we do feel like our guys. They want to sacrifice their cuts to get their teammates open. They take a lot of pride in it and then, as far as you know, a lot of teams will bump rollers and tag rollers and usually that throws off the rhythm and the timing of the play. So we’ve simply told our rollers if they want to bump and tag us, that’s fine, let’s round the roll a little bit more and just we’ll screen them in and we’ll play off of that close out. It’s usually just an evolution of how we’re being defended as the season goes, because we do a lot of self scout. If a team does something really well against us, then we have a lot of respect for our profession and the teams in our league. We’re probably going to see it again. So we need to start figuring out some counters and other options based on what we think they’re going to do.
Dan: 28:41
I love what you said about certain teams being more packed in versus extended on shooters and I would imagine this is more of a scout thing but with the read and the splash screens and stuff, if you know a team is going to be more packed in pack line versus, you know, maybe more extended repping and working with your players on how their screens might change or the cuts might change based off of what kind of defense that you’re going to face that night.
Dusty May: 29:03
Maybe you’re looking to screen in. On the weak side you’re going to be thinking screen in If you cut and your guy bodies, you then screen them in and then we’ll sprint to space behind you. It’s okay if we’re wrong because it gives us variety and diversity. But if it’s a team that’s going to stay at home and shoot, those cutters are going to try to find open space for catches, for short shots, lamps around the rim or for shot fake paint, touch, kick out type of plays. So it’s our guys making reads on the fly, it’s not our staff. During the game we will give them some reminders of this guy turns his head so we can cut behind him and find some back doors and things like that. But for the most part it’s up until the game. We try to prepare what we think we’re going to see when we’re doing these things all summer, all fall. So we feel like once the game happens we cannot be over. I guess given these guys too much information where they’re thinking and not just reacting to their defense, because it goes back to what I learned from coach night and day one that, on offense, you’re simply reading your man first, so your man is going to tell you what to do at all times, and then obviously, with switching and things like that. It’s a little more complicated now, but our guys are always trying to decide how they’re being guarded.
Patrick: 30:04
You mentioned tough areas and now you’re thinking about helping your shooters be more efficient in these areas. What are the tough areas and then how are you thinking about helping your players in these areas?
Dusty May: 30:15
I’ll give you a great example. When we were in Louisiana Tech we had the nation’s leading assistant and speedy Smith and our offense he was our quarterback, 90% of the game was him pushing tempo, reads, things like that and we would do a lot of the trips ball string on one side it would be a logo, or just on a wing ball stream with a three side and we had big physical wings and our backup guard was an elite shooter and he probably 80 to 90% of his attempts for threes. And what we found was on that trip’s action, if the two big physical wings would simply cut and run into their guys accidentally because that would be an illegal screen if they did it on purpose then the guy in the corner simply lifts straight up the sideline and he’s shooting a 25 foot three without his balance going towards the basket. But he’s going to be wide open and we’re going to be able to get him that shot at all times. And then what it does, it starts getting that low man big defender out of the hole which now is going to open up. It’s an overreacting play and so we felt like with him if he can make this shot, so we would do. Maybe 15 a day makes in that sprinting up the sideline, shoot a 26 footer with your feet set and banging that in. If he can do that every other time in a game then it’s going to create an overreaction by the defense and we’re going to get a lot more offense based on him being able to do that. Even though there’s very few players. You have to already be a really good shooter on your way to being a great shooter to make those. But usually we have one or two and we work extensively on those types of shots not a lot of them, but a few of them that are very, very difficult. But we know if we rep them every day for months, three years, then it’s going to be somewhat of a makeable shot when the lights are on.
Patrick: 31:44
A little bit broader question you mentioned at the top of our conversation. You went to SC and you learned a lot about player development and now, as we’re getting into off ball screening and tough areas and helping your players get better, what’s important in the general sense to you when you think about player development and kind of how you want to build concepts or skill within these sessions?
Dusty May: 32:03
Well. Number one is focusing on their strengths and how they can expand based on what they already really do well, and we don’t teach the same guys the same moves. We try to take what they do well and I think that’s one of the strengths of our staff we really appreciate what guys do well as opposed to what they don’t do well, and then we just try to build and expand on that. And we have small guards and they run you off the line. We’re going to look at step backs, we’re going to look at the lateral threes and it creates passing lanes where, if we have big physical wings, we’re going to have them get to their spots and they can play in tighter spaces and they can jump over you. And so it’s really trying to figure out how each guy fits in with how we play and how he meshes with his teammates and then just trying to convince guys to live in those areas. We have some guys that shoot a lot of floaters. We have some guys that never shoot floaters even though they want to, and our shot priorities are just like everyone else’s Usually the free the line is usually because you got to the rim, so we want to get layups and we have shooters and we have post guys, so we usually find a few layups. We want to get catch and shoot threes, but two of our best shooters shoot better off the bounce, and so really, our fourth shot is simply mastery shots. If you show us that you can master a shot, then you have the green light to take it anytime, except if you see another defender’s chest.
Patrick: 33:12
With smaller guards. You mentioned maybe side steps with getting shots, but how do you help smaller guards with playmaking and scoring in the paint when they’re going to drive in their amongst, let’s say, the trees? How you work with them in terms of them being able to maybe finish but also make passes out of the paint against bigger bodies?
Dusty May: 33:29
You solved our turnover issue. For four straight years we were towards the bottom of our league and turnovers and we were first last year and the biggest reason was we stopped over penetrating. And the over penetration, in our opinion, is a direct result of eliminating the mid range. And if you see our numbers, we shoot very few mid ranges. But when you do shoot mid ranges then typically you don’t over penetrate and you don’t get too deep and you don’t have all those big bodies to work around. So we’ve done a few things differently. We don’t run to the corners anymore. Now if the ball’s coming at you, we will sprint to the corners to create the space, but we lift everyone up because of the no middle teams. We were getting funneled to the midpoint too much. We weren’t giving our drivers and playmakers enough space to create. So we’ve tailored what our sets look like, how our regular flow offense looks like, just to try to give our guys more space. And the over penetration thing is and you have smaller guards on 5, 10 on a great day with the new Adidas, with the high platform shoes and I know I was in very good and tight spaces. So I can empathize with guys and I remember coaches saying you know he’s open, why didn’t you throw it to him? And in my mind I’m saying because I’m really short and I can’t see that. I wish I would have, but I’m sitting in the sun, very empathetic towards small guards. So now we work a lot on step back threes. You try to pierce the paint, step back and look at the rim and if you’re a good shooter usually pulls guys towards you and open up some passing lanes. Or we’re fine with those guys shooting step back threes because they’re good at it. And the same thing with the lateral threes. You’ll see our guys come off and punish drop coverage just at times because they can shoot lateral threes and those quick step back threes off of drop coverage. So we just try to tailor everything that what we think is the best way for us to play and it changes a lot.
Patrick: 35:00
With the over penetration. Are there spots on the floor, maybe visual cues you tell your guys like, hey, you’ve over penetrated here. Or make your decision before the elbows.
Dusty May: 35:08
We don’t have a piece of tape on our court. We have nothing on our court. That signifies our spacing. We live in the gray a lot on offense, defense and transition and what we’re trying to do is always attack space and where there’s bodies we want to try to attack the other way, and sometimes I might have to manipulate that with a spindra, or where I sell that I’m going in one direction, my defender can’t see what’s behind him unless we’re static, so I sell it going one direction and I attack space the other. Those are the things we’re trying to teach our guys every day, and usually the only time we get angry on the turnover is if it’s a high risk play where there’s very little reward or a guy drives into terrible spacing, because that’s the one area the game has changed so much. There’s not much denial and these guys are really really good at being in the gaps, raking at that ball and getting back to shooters, whether to take the shot away or to get a contest and change the shot. So we’re always trying to prepare to go against the best teams.
Dan: 36:00
Coach, you hit a good nerve for us here. You just mentioned about attacking space and I know your upbringing is the Bobby Knight. The motion, pass and cut move and now sometimes attacking space may require guys to take extra dribbles or to be a little bit more attacking via the dribble. How do you marry those two thoughts in your head of the old motion, pass and move versus attack space via the dribble?
Dusty May: 36:22
It’s actually more similar than most people realize, because when you came off of a flare screen you shot it or you drove it. You didn’t post for an extended period of time. If you didn’t get a good hit on the back screen, then you turned and re-screened and used his momentum against him. So it was still the same concept with screeners of attacking the open space, whether it’s for the drive and I remember Coach Knight was, if we had a big who could drive it, he would set a quick back screen for your best shooter and he would sprint through and then that guy who set the back screen would catch it and be catching it and ripping it and driving tractor trailer and putting two fouls on a guy like that in the first two minutes of the game. And then obviously that changes the complexion. So I do think it’s much more married than we think when you watch true motion and then you watch the spacing in the cutting and a lot of what we do is to try to open up double gaps or just a lot of space for our guys.
Patrick: 37:11
Coach, another interesting thing you said to attack the no middle defenses, you’re getting your guys lifted off the corners and not spacing to the corners. You hit on a little bit, but again why you found that to be effective and limiting turnovers and attacking, and then also how the rest of the positioning on your floor looks when you’re keeping guys off the corners.
Dusty May: 37:29
It’s the same thing as everyone else where if I drive baseline one side, the opposite brake or wing, wherever he is, is sprinting to that corner. So I don’t want to say we don’t get to corners, we just don’t start in the corners. I know it’s contradictory. I spent the first couple of years of my coaching career as a head coach probably spent about 20% of my time yelling get to the corners and the corners, the corner. And then I realized now we’re in the corners and we’re still not very good offensively and I thought that was always like the secret of being good on offense you just had to get to the corners and you’re going to be a big dog. So I think it was more just really studying us. And then when we got our big Russian golden, he’s really really strong and physical and he does a great job of scoring before the catch. So what we figured then was when everyone’s lifted up about eight feet out of the corners, now you can play over the top. If he can get below his guy and move him, you can play over the top. And so then it also opened up better angles to throw backdoors, and I wish we had Steve Nash to throw the dice roll cornerback doors, or we had Shioza and Casey Hilt Florida. That did it really well. But what we found is we’d become a much more efficient back cutting team when we’ve moved that guy up to the break and then he simply takes one or two steps higher up the floor and it opens up a much larger passing lane and then when he catches it he has some room for those kickouts for the finishes, because he’s not basically below the backboard and we’re small. I’d say we have a 7-1 center. I think we’re maybe 330th in height. Good.
Patrick: 38:55
All right, Coach, Our last start subset for you. We call this tough to teach when it comes to installing a defense. Toughest to teach what your defensive install. Option one teaching defensive positioning. Option two, defensive communication. Or option three is recognizing actions.
Dusty May: 39:14
I would say communication. It’s difficult and we’re very blessed to have a group that it’s become contagious and we have some strong alphas that talk a lot. It’s kind of become who we are when we’re at our best. It’s not as consistent as it needs to be. And then recognizing actions, I think even you know we all grew up with the pistol stance and we have to break that habit. We have to break the habit of being too focused on either the ball or your man and just simply taking in more information. And usually you can see the ball and your man and you can recognize these patterns if you’re consciously trying to take in information with what’s in front of you. So it’s difficult, it takes a long time and when we get frustrated we just tell ourselves this is going to take a lot of reps and a lot of time and usually maybe that’s why freshmen now that we’ve become a solid program, the freshmen typically don’t play a lot and it’s usually because of the defensive end, because we feel like we recruit pretty good scorers.
Patrick: 40:07
I’d like to ask about how you just think about in practice, when you’re going to work on your defense, helping your guys recognize actions, you know, especially because you’re not going to be able to always scout everything and call out plays, and I think, too, maybe this is a good follow up. You mentioned a lot perceptual help, so I like to just sticking on recognizing actions.
Dusty May: 40:25
You know we switch a lot. We don’t spend a lot of time scouting actions. We know which actions are easy for us to guard and we know which actions are difficult for us to guard, and we can usually anticipate what the other team is going to try to do, and so we simply spend a lot of time working on the ones that are difficult and then we don’t even really talk about the other actions, as opposed to our rules. Take care of this. Remember, this is our two man zone, remember this is what we’re doing when they try to do this, and then we may wrap it for a few minutes, but we don’t spend a lot of time on it because we see it every day in practice and that’s what makes it difficult, sometimes offensively early, as we see switching every day. So then when we don’t see switching in a game, it’s different actions, it’s different concepts. It’s harder to read your man when it’s not what you see every day. So that usually takes more of an adjustment than us having to worry about actions and there’s certain concepts that the ball is there, the goal is there, and we should know there’s a real common sense approach to what we’re trying to do defensively.
Patrick: 41:18
Why the preference to switch? You just mentioned you’re usually a smaller team Not that that’s always the case, but usually teams with great length are going to be more switchable. Why do you like the switch?
Dusty May: 41:28
It keeps your defense on balance, and you know that was one things with Coach Knight when he would sit and talk to Pete Newell and those guys. They talked about the game. It’s a game of balance and momentum and I didn’t know what it meant then, but I do now and it’s just like helping in and then recovering to a shooter. If your balance is going one direction unless you’re just a freaky shathley it’s very difficult to be quick and efficient to go the other direction, and so what it allows us to do is focus a lot of our time and energy on guarding the basketball. Then there’s skill development on the other side of the ball. If you have a good defender guard you and you’re trying to be efficient, then that’s the best skill development we can do, the most realistic looks we can get. It allows us to level you off and shoot shots off the bounce, and we do switch in the passing lanes. We situationally deny, but keeping the ball in front and not getting broken down, especially when you’re small. We just think that if you’re overloaded into hell and you have to move to the side and up to hit an athlete trying to crash, then you’re in a much less advantageous position that if I’m simply between him and the basket already and I can meet him higher on the floor and then we can be quicker to the ball. So it’s once again how’s your team built? What are the best players do? Well, and then, what’s the best way for us to do this? Because we’ve been here five years and we’ve switched two out of the five and they were our two really good defensive teams and I’m not sure they were our best defensive players and the other three years and a lot goes into what you see every day. Switching does make teams stagnant and make you think, and if there’s ever a 50-50 decision in our office, it’s what do you hate having done to you? And I think I speak for a lot of us coaches. We don’t like it when teams switch. We do now because we see it every day, but I think in theory, you don’t like it when teams switch and disrupt the timing and rhythm of the game.
Patrick: 43:07
You also mentioned, within this recognition, that there are a couple actions that give switching trouble and that you guys work on. What are those actions that will stymie your switch?
Dusty May: 43:15
I think we’re all aware of the flare screens are very. Especially if you have a tall pass or who can throw direct passes, flare screens are very difficult to defend. High lows can be advantageous for offense. The other action is simply screening your own of selling a cut and getting in the way and just causing the defense to be confused on or off the ball.
Dan: 43:36
If you can confuse switching coverage and you’ve done a pretty good job, and now our job as switching team is to recognize these patterns so we’re not confused- Coach, my last question just has to do with your start communication, and you mentioned how hard it can be and if there’s any rules, vocab, you know ways that you prefer to teach your team to talk and communicate defensively.
Dusty May: 43:57
We’ve really improved in this area of always trying to use the same words. Even in film a guy will say something and he means and I was always okay with us, all of us just saying what we knew. And since we’ve really condensed our vocabulary and we all try to use the same words, we’ve really improved because we always say and I’m sure it’s a common coaching cliche say what you see, whatever you see, just say it, we’re okay with it. But also we believe that if I’m a top guy of a two-side and I hear the guy behind me talking, then it doesn’t matter what he’s saying. I know he’s behind me because I can hear him and I can’t see him. So we think that constant chatter, even the ball screen calls, we still say left switch, right switch. But in reality if I’m facing you guys guarding you, and I hear a guy screaming switch out of my right ear, there’s only five guys out there. The court’s pretty small. I should be able to send them that direction based on where I hear you screaming from. So the volume and intensity of the communication is actually more important. What’s being said. We usually have bigs from different countries, so we hear some pretty interesting calls and ball screens, but our guys usually know what they are, based on the intensity, where it’s coming from and how we play.
Dan: 45:06
Coach, you’re off the start sub or sit hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. That was a lot of fun. We’ve got one final question for you before we close. Before we do, once again, congrats on all the success. Thanks for making the time out of your busy schedule. You’re welcome back anytime, so thank you.
Dusty May: 45:22
Oh guys, this has been awesome. You know, like I said, I’ve learned from so many of your guests. You guys, your questions are amazing and the preparation you guys put into it. So I don’t know how you have time to do it and coach ball, but I applaud you.
Dan: 45:32
Thank you, Thank you, coach. Appreciate it. Coach. Our last question that we asked all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Dusty May: 45:40
Just the investment in learning, whatever it takes, and also taking jobs to work and learn under certain people, as opposed to taking jobs for money. I have taken one job in my career for money and I regretted it instantly. So taking jobs for the right reason and having trust and belief that the money would eventually find you if you did a great job and were about all the right stuff, and all the ways that I’ve invested in just trying to learn whether it’s books, subscriptions, whatever it is never shine away from spending money. It’s hard for me to spend any money at all, and frugal by nature, it pains me to buy a water bottle in the airport, especially since I got a pain crease. I buy hardback books now, so anything that can help you improve and I try not to shortcut financially.
Dan: 46:27
All right, pat. Sometimes the most difficult thing for these wrap ups is to figure out which part of our notes to dive into. It gave me a little bit of a reminder of recently had Chuse Matteo on from Riyama Drid and a coach that is coming off winning the Euro League title and is just wholly himself humble, open, wants to share, wants to grow, and you get that from Coach May as well. Had an electric run to the Final Four and just willing to come on here and make time for us and talk about all these things. It’s always just refreshing, definitely. So let’s dive in to this first bucket here. You and I went back and forth quite a bit on what to talk about and the thing we landed on was this idea of true coaching, education and the sort of process that it takes in becoming a coach. And Coach May we discussed a lot of stuff, but in his past he’s had a lot of stops as an assistant, as video coordinator and then eventually getting this job at FAU, and we wanted to have a realistic conversation on taking tough jobs, what was good, what wasn’t good, learning from experience, from mistakes, the thin line between winning and losing. So I’ll kick it to you on your first takeaways, on our first bucket.
Patrick: 47:44
Yeah, I was really looking forward to the conversation. No, the question I asked that we got into is you’re a self-learner, you go pursue these avenues, you talk to coaches, clinics, all this stuff, and so you amass this knowledge and then how you take that knowledge and can actually apply it to the court Understanding versus teaching. That’s what I was really interested in and hearing his thoughts on and, like he said, it would be out there with coaches and staff. They’d be running themselves. Because I think it does come down to what we talked about the movement patterns. You can pick up and you can tell guys what to do. But understanding the reads and the if and then and helping the guys kind of develop the concepts within it, I think is the real key to basically taking what you know and then being able to teach it. And that’s what I was most looking forward to and enjoyed that first part of the conversation when we got into amassing knowledge and being able to apply it as a coach.
Dan: 48:34
I agree, I think one of the fun parts about this podcast and our platform that we get to put together is just the incredible amount of information that kind of comes our way daily and we always talk about. You know, of course you can’t use all of it, you can’t use all the stuff we discuss on this, but it is always interesting just to hear how coaches think about their own unique problems with their team or advantages with their team. I think you and I always take away that from these great coaches is they have all this knowledge you know kicking around up there somewhere, but they know what to use and maybe what not to use. Maybe, more importantly, what idea is cool summertime? Let’s talk about it. You know around some coaching circles, but then when it comes to the floor, like what you really need to do or what is true to you and yourself and I think coach may shows that in what he does, he obviously is a hungry learner, curious, all those things. But then when you watch his team play or when you listen to him today, he also understands himself and what’s going to work and what he can teach, to kind of add on to your point. So I really took that away as well. And this true coaching education thing is yeah, you got to amass the knowledge and you got to know it for scouting or just to have in the back of your mind, but then knowing what to do ultimately and what you can teach is the true measure.
Patrick: 49:50
Yeah, and I thought when you followed up with learning from outside basketball other coaches and he got into communication and how you know he was so critical of how he communicates or you know if he said something or he got into if he just felt bad with an interaction with the player. So it goes back to like kind of know thyself and then ways to improve. So I like that communication conversation. I think one of the misses, something I would have liked to maybe hit on a little bit more and what he values within communication. But it’s a real good example of just how it came through the whole conversation that he’s really self reflective and constantly trying to improve himself and be honest with himself.
Dan: 50:25
I know we got into a little bit of on court communication in Star Sub Sit, which we’ll touch on in a second. But I agree as well because he is known to be a terrific communicator. I mean, everybody came back from FAU from last season. You know amazing stat. No one went into the portal and I know his relationships with the players and all that is a big part of that. So my other takeaway, before we move on to Star Sub Sit in that first bucket, was our conversations surrounding the randomness and the thin line of winning and losing, and you and I were excited to discuss this because he’s a unique person to ask, given his recent experience in the Final Four run. But then in the Final Four they really tough ending where San Diego State makes that jump shot. It’s a mid-range jumper to win it and if it goes out you know he’s in the national title game but it doesn’t and it doesn’t take away at all their season. But we were talking. It’s just such a ridiculous profession, coaching. It just hangs in the balance whether or not a shot goes in by a 19 or 20 year old or 15, 16, 17 year old. If you’re the high school level and you know all the prep, all the work and you’re judged by that too, Like you’re viewed in the public, with those wins and losses, and I think just asking him about handling that and the growth as a coach throughout your career of handling those things is just very interesting to us.
Patrick: 51:46
And even mentioned before we came on. The year prior to their run they had a successful season but just the way the ball bounced, no one kind of knew of them. But now, a year later, they have probably just as successful, but the ball bounces their ways and they just blow up. It’s crazy and it is difficult. I mean, it rings true and probably what we thought he’d say consistency is key, but it’s also very difficult with the wins and losses and, as a coach, that all is kind of placed on you and the perception that comes with winning and losing the pressure. It is hard to just remain consistent because you’re human, so you’re going to, of course, focus on the results and it’s just finding a course, like anything that balanced so it doesn’t change your processes or what you do on a day to day basis.
Dan: 52:29
Before Starz upset one quick sec, he gave some really nice antidote. So also about coming up as a young coach and when he kind of shifted his thoughts on when he became a father, that was really a couple of cool things to hear, and also just being a young, hungry assistant and that balance of trying to get ahead versus working with people and I thought that was good, just kind of career advice to, I agree. So, going to start sub or sit, I’ll kick it to you on the effective off ball screens, looking at their analytics from last year, before you know, watching their film, they just do run some interesting deceptive actions and so we were just trying to craft a question to basically get into his mind on running effective off ball screens and because they were so good at it and they did have a lot of, we’ll put some maybe film out when this comes out, but some interesting actions to get their shooters open. So what was your takeaway there?
Patrick: 53:20
I said to you before we hopped on here that this was my favorite part of the conversation. This starts upset I know we’ve talked about why we love this little game we play because of just where the conversation takes us. We started with off ball screening activity and starting deception and I mean I guess I’ll quickly kind of summarize the splash screen round the roll, all these ways he’s thinking about screening and then it just leads into small guard player development and over penetration, attacking space, creating space, and then how they thought about lifting off the corners to attack no middle. So I took away everything from that conversation. I really enjoyed it. I thought it’s what’s cool about these questions. So I’ll throw it back to you as we can maybe dive in and hit on some points.
Dan: 54:02
You’re just wrapping it all up and bring it all home. Yeah, yeah, just put it all in my box. I’m taking it home. All the above is what I like. Yes, I would agree with you. I think people can tell listening by the length of our questions, follow ups after, and we eventually had to cut it off so we can not have a three hour show. But my first takeaway was his start and the deception, and I think that we watched the film beforehand and I just really enjoyed. You know you watch games on TV and you know your basketball coach. You pick stuff up. But then when you really go back and watch things kind of in isolation and when we were watching this off ball stuff in isolation and you look at one when they were running it, who they are running it. For A lot of times it was big time moments of a game or they needed a bucket or whatever it was, and so you know when you run that stuff late game that’s what you believe in, that’s your good stuff. You’re not trying out something you put in for the most part right, and a lot of times they did generate a really good shot, either a make or just a clean look with it. So anytime you generate a clean look, it’s how the heck did that happen? Because that’s hard to come by, especially in these like well scouted, well prepped games for these teams. So I loved just the way that they would turn a cut or a roll into a screen and I wanted to really ask him about that and if it was a read or what they do. And that led to, like you just mentioned, the splash screens and peeling off the roll a little bit. Man, that’s really hard for the defense If you’re taught to be in help and tag and then all of a sudden this guy’s cutting and he turns into a screen and, like he mentioned some anecdotes of, sometimes it’s not even just screening but it’s just being in the way to make them step once to the left, once to the right. That’s often all you really need to clear some space for that shooter and that gap, and so I just really love that. I wouldn’t say this is a miss, but I could have talked about this for a lot longer too. I could have really gone to the nuts and bolts of some of the deception stuff and how it relates to motion and things like that.
Patrick: 55:51
I appreciate it too when he talked about your cutting and there’s a body in your way just to, like you said, just hit him or run into, make it hard and you know, of course the best case is it yields an open shot. But, just like, these are just ways you’re going to create closeouts and if we can just create enough closeouts you’re going to get a good shot. So maybe it’s not off of this action or this off ball screening. You know, that’s what you know when we got into a spacing ways to think about space cut screens that are just constantly creating closeouts. Whether it’s, like you said, just a minor the guy’s got a sidestep once or he’s coming from a lower position makes all the difference in the world over the course of a long season. All these possessions adding up and not just one really cool ATO, but that becomes scoutable after a while and, like he says, what came across? That he’s working on these with his guys and their concept, their player development of understanding, like, yeah, if there’s someone on the inside of you, kind of change that cut into a screen.
Dan: 56:40
I thought that was really good. I know this wasn’t a conversation about DHOs I will not turn it into one, but that is something that like with the DHOs are all that when teaching guys. The DHO that bugs me the most is when it’s just a neutral, passive thing, where the defender doesn’t have to change the line of their angle defending and trying to teach guys. It might not be a clean DHO where the guy goes over perfectly, but, like you, at least need to make him move off of his defensive line, because then we can play the under or we can play the over. But if you just let him cut through in the same thing with the screen or this case we’re talking about these off ball screens like just making them move off their line or getting in their way can be just as good. The last point I’ll bring up from Ion on this was always attacking space and creating double gaps and the conversation about lifting the corners I thought was awesome and just getting into his mind a little bit on really how he thinks about offense, and I think that you saw too that lifting from the corners and creating the space. It’s obviously a direct result of how much time he spends thinking about his team and the game and talking to other people and not just saying, hey, well, okay, we’re just going to corners and that’s good offense and though it is, and can be in certain instances, of course looking at his team and why they weren’t getting better even though they were spaced in the corners and why the middle was bugging them so much, and I just thought it was kind of relating back to him being curious and all that in the first bucket, that little tweak with the corners was really good and I know we’ve been on a kick with your recent clinic about what is the value of these corner drives and decision making and increasing decision make easier decisions, decreasing turnovers with these corner drives, your vision, all the actions in front of you.
Patrick: 58:19
So now, if you’re lifting a little bit to the break, so if you’re giving that corner drive even more space and he alluded to it just the reading decision making is increasing and going back to what he said, they’re decreasing their turnovers.
Dan: 58:31
Yeah, just really enjoy that start subset conversation. I think that’s one of my favorites of the year so far. Yeah, we also had another good conversation we won’t forget about here, but tough to teach. That was something you were interested in asking him just kind of stuff with your own team. Right now I know we’re discussing defensive stuff. Yeah, a little bit more back to you on that one.
Patrick: 58:48
I was interested in the recognizing actions when putting this question together and I thought it led to a really interesting conversation about why he likes to switch. It’s easier to recognize actions. There’s less to really scout. So the whole conversation I mean why then he prefers to switch and the conversation that he got into about just keeping balance on the floor and just it kept them in better position for their helps, their defensive rebounding, and not always chasing or putting being put in scrambles, and I thought it was really interesting. He said that out of the five years there are two best years when they were switching and that maybe he thought that weren’t necessarily their best defenders. I thought that was a real interesting point to make. I like the whole conversation with switching and of course we talked about actions that are hard for the switch, which another miss and maybe again just running out of time. You know I mentioned the flares, the high lows, but then what he’s learned about attacking the switch since they’ve been going against it every day in practice.
Dan: 59:41
Yeah, I just liked his follow up point and you mentioned it. But the switch the reason he’s liked it so much is its ability to stand your offense up and make the offense have to think about these different solutions or try to create an advantage when it’s just Not there. And that’s so true. I think he mentioned when it’s a 50 50 question with the staff, what would you rather not play against? And that usually wins out. And this is why they’ll love this podcast and talking. There’s been some recent discussions. We’ve had coaches who prefer to switch less for various reasons and then coach may prefer to switch with his team and it’s led to better results for him and it’s just interesting to hear both sides so many ways to skin a cat, absolutely. And then the last thing I’ll close up here I did like his communication piece on the court and having players from all different countries and I like that he said about it’s more about the volume and intensity than necessarily what they’re saying, because they can kind of pick up those things and that that was a nice little teaching point. And then I’ll just double down on another miss or something I wish we would have went deep. Run was just communication in general with him. Like I get the sense he’s just very good on and off the court with how he communicates and maybe going back to the point, the first bucket, those kind of critical, tough conversations, just how he prefers to do, it would have been something. Maybe, if we have more time.
Patrick: 1:00:56
I agree. That was something I wrote down as a miss for me as well. We’ll have to communicate better in the future, so we don’t miss it next.
Dan: 1:01:04
Yeah, well, we’ll have to communicate our thoughts. Yeah, because he obviously can’t see our notes on Zoom, but that was really one of my favorite conversations we’ve had. We appreciate coach May coming on and wish him the best of luck this year. Pat, if there’s nothing else on your end, we’ll start wrapping this up. Sounds good. Thanks everybody for listening. We’ll do this again next time.