Mody Maor on Layering Offensive Actions, Evaluating Competitiveness, and Weekly Practice Planning {NZ Breakers}

Transcript

Mody Maor: 0:00

I like the manifestation of competitiveness that comes to play with your action, meaning you do things harder than the other guy. I’m sprinting the court, I’m sprinting faster than you, or at least I’m trying to sprint faster than you. You might be faster than me. Your 70% will beat my 100. But I’m looking for guys who kind of their natural inclination is to go give us 100. 100 in the speed of going from A to B, 100 in the level of effort getting through a screen, 100 in how much I want to be focused on in the moment, these behaviors being not words or off-court stuff, but actually things that happen in the game or in practice.

Dan krikorian: 0:40

Hi, I’m Dan Krikorian and welcome to Slapping Glass exploring basketball’s best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today we’re excited to welcome New Zealand Breakers head coach Modi Mahor. Coach Maor is here today to discuss the value of multiple actions in an offense. Drag screen reads and we talk weekly practice planning and evaluating competitiveness during the always fun start, sub or sit. Unique and absolute must the most helpful and highest quality coaching content anywhere.

Dan krikorian: 1:26

These are some of the comments coaches are using to describe their experience with SG+. From NBA and NCAA championship coaching staffs to all levels of international and high school basketball, sg Plus is designed to help curious coaches discover, explore and understand the what, why and hows of what the best in the world are doing, through our easily searchable 750-plus video archive on SGTV, through our live coaches social Las Vegas. Sg Plus is the assistant you would hire if your athletic director didn’t already give the stipend to football. For more information, visit slappingglasscom today. And now please enjoy our conversation with coach Modi Mour. Coach, I wanted to start with this and it’s layering in adding multiple actions within an offensive flow, whether it’s a set design or just your overall offensive flow, and how you think about layering in actions and adding them to whatever it is you’re doing, and I guess we’ll get into more than details of why and how.

Mody Maor: 2:32

From there, the main value of playing with multiple actions for us is that the offense always has where to go. You always have an outlet to kind of keep building your advantages. Or if you lose it, there’s a way to kind of keep building your advantages. Or if you lose it, there’s a way to kind of keep finding them and creating them within the progression of the possession. That’d be kind of very big picture. This is basically the foundation of everything that we do offensively.

Dan krikorian: 2:57

I guess the first thing for me is where to go, is starting to think about what types of actions to put in that help your team know where to go whether it’s dribble handoffs or picking rolls or whatever it is and how you think about kind of starting to add that to the offense.

Mody Maor: 3:10

Okay, so we’ll take this a step back before we go step forward. Our emphasis on multiple actions is things that happen after the first advantage has been created, so we call it tipping the nominal, but it’s just our terminology. It’s nothing smart about it. Whatever the entry into the possession is, can be transition, can be a drag screen or it can be any action that you want. The floor balance and the personnel for us will lead to kind of a set progression into different actions, which we call our flow offense. This is basically our arrive offense. What happens when we bring the ball across half court after a miss and we don’t have anything super fast. So everything kind of connects to this. What are these actions for us? They’re mainly second side pick and rolls, but not necessarily. It kind of depends on where the person is and what the floor balance was initiating into the action.

Patrick Carney: 4:05

When you start to build this out, are you already giving them the advantage and starting in those spacings and working from there and then building backwards? I guess like, all right, it’s a transition. Is it an ATO how the advantage is actually created From a teaching standpoint, you mean?

Mody Maor: 4:21

Yes, a hundred percent. We kind of start at the end, we start after the advantage has been created. Obviously, the first layer of a multiple action is a shoot, drive pass decision. If a big enough advantage has been created and now you catch the ball, whether you’re open or there’s a gap or there’s a hard closeout, then this can lead to multiple actions just being a bunch of dribble drive sequences, with the right spacing and the right kind of counters to where the drive ended. It can lead to an extra pass or a ping pass, doesn’t matter if this is a cross court one or just you know the next open guy, but we definitely start with the first player catching the ball, with, let’s call it separation, a solid amount of distance between him and his player, which we hope transfers into a bad cover, into the next action, whatever that is.

Patrick Carney: 5:04

I’m pretty sure it’s probably player dependent or your personnel. But how many spacings do you usually start with or work out of to help build this familiarity or so guys know where to go we?

Mody Maor: 5:15

will start with one. One. Spacing would be basically a four-round one, where the main action takes the ball away from two and then brings the ball towards two players and now there’s a decision to be made on let’s call it loaded side. So player at the wing, player at the slot, somebody in the opposite dunker, somebody in the weak side corner, and from there this can flow into different continuities that are based on who is where. So if that player on the slot is our big, this will lead to a set of options. And if that player on the slot is our big, this will lead to a set of options. And if the player on the slot is our guard and then the player in the corner is another guard will be a different set of actions. Or if it’s a guard and a big in the corner, then that will be a third option If you have, let’s say, the guard in the slot.

Patrick Carney: 5:57

what are some of the actions? Maybe you guys prefer to run and get to if it’s a guard slot, guard corner so guard slot guard corner has led us towards the complicated version.

Mody Maor: 6:08

Was you have an option to choose between slipping, ghosting and screaming and rolling, based on the angle that you kind of get from? If you’re coming from the top down, we’d like you to either cut or slip. If you manage to drive that flat and kind of get to the elbow, so now you’re parallel with the guy looking out of the corner, I’d like you to screen and roll. You’re coming with a flat angle, there’s a chance you can keep the guy with the top etc.

Mody Maor: 6:28

Obviously predicated on the fact that most of these will be switching was a little bit more interesting for us that we played this year with our fours in the corner, so that led to a kind of an inverted pick and roll between a guard and a foreman. Our fours weren’t classic pick andand-roll players so this didn’t really lead to the regular domino effect from a pick-and-roll, but it led to some interesting drive-and-kick situations and to very separated high pick-and-rolls from the foreman. After Foreman comes off the screen, nine out of ten times his defender went under, which led to the defense being really distorted when this went into a high pick-and-roll at the top, the defense being really distorted when this went into a high pick on the top and you mentioned it led to just some interesting penetration or driving out of that Again, just to scratch that itch.

Patrick Carney: 7:10

What were you guys finding? What were the interesting situations being presented in that kind of four inverted screen?

Mody Maor: 7:19

The foundation of this is teams don’t really know how to defend, so don’t invest so much time in defending inverted actions that happen kind of in the flow of the offense, not kind of as a set play. So this led to just mistakes that lead to big gaps that we were able to just take advantage of. The geography of the court means that if you catch the ball kind of on the break and your defender makes a mistake and you’re just driving straight line towards the sideline, you’re going to find yourself in the middle of the bank. That’s a good thing.

Dan krikorian: 7:43

Preston Pyshko. Coach, you just mentioned something about that action being harder to guard in the flow of an offense versus a set play and I guess, going back, pat was talking about how you start to think about the spacing or teaching If you want some of these inverted actions just to happen naturally within your flow. I think that coming from the corner, like you just mentioned mentioned, can be maybe more unusual, or a lot of times you just see more of the delay zoom action or someone coming out of it. How do you think about making that more natural or in the flow for your team?

Mody Maor: 8:11

so the progression of this came from two years ago. We were a fairly slow team. The nbl the australian nbl is a fairly fast league and we were on the slower side. Our offense was solid, but we felt that there’s some gains to be made by picking up the pace a little bit. And our import point guard was Parker Jackson Cartwright, who’s kind of too fast for anybody. So it felt that we needed to find a way to be faster without losing our structure.

Mody Maor: 8:38

And one of the buttons that we pushed was except for the fives who had a very strict kind of lane that they need to run in the middle of the court one to four, doesn’t matter where you run.

Mody Maor: 8:48

So that led to the fact that many times our fours was kind of on the perimeter and on defense and then if they run ahead and they’re the first guy, so they’re filling one of the corners and we needed a continuity for it. So this led from us wanting to run faster and kind of the most frequent part was okay, run as fast as you can and if you’re the first guy, go fill that corner, and then a drag screen happens between our ball guard and our five, ball goes ahead and now there’s a guard at the slot and the foreman’s in the corner, just because this is how they ran in transition and we needed to find an action to get into from there. So this is how it happened naturally for us, and then it was good and we piggybacked on it in a bunch of different other kind of deaths or wrinkles. But in reality this happens to us out of our flow.

Patrick Carney: 9:33

Coach, quick detour with the drag screen. In the situation you just talked about, what are you working with your bigs? Like when they should set the drag screen, what angle you want them to take and how maybe the angle changes if they’re even or if they’re behind the screen and like getting to an angle where they can attack and it’s not really just like a lateral ball screen that teams can easily go under so three layers for me for teaching this, and some of this has worked well, some of this hasn’t, so take it with a grain of salt.

Mody Maor: 9:58

If the big is coming from above the ball, so the ball is ahead of him, we teach the slip. I don’t want the ball to stop, so I don’t want the ball. So the ball is ahead of him, we teach the slip. I don’t want the ball to stop, so I don’t want the ball to kind of hang out at the flat and you need to kind of run down to the three-point line and then you come back. So if you’re behind the ball, you’re running into this and you’re slipping out, you’re not making contact. Get as close as you can, sell it as best as you can. If you can stop on two feet and kind of touch him a little bit on the back and make him feel like you’re triggering a cover, fantastic. But if not, then this kind of blur brush slip is usually enough for our guard to be able to turn the corner, specifically when our guards are kind of fast and stuff like this.

Mody Maor: 10:33

If you are paralleled with the ball, so you’re kind of running and you decided not to rim run aggressively for whatever reason which our five minutes allowed to do, whether the paint was full, or you were hunting a ball screen because it looked like the right thing for you and you were separated from your guy, or the ball guard was separated from his, then set a screen with your butt kind of pointing towards the basket.

Mody Maor: 10:52

On this one you’re going to hold. So if you’re paralleled or kind of below a step or two, then you’re going to hold on this and kind of make real contact and roll it only after the guard comes off. This is all with the corner filled. For us, when the corner isn’t filled, the screen doesn’t happen so fast because we play it below the free throw line. So in all those cases the big is going to have time to set his angle right, clip the guy or at least set the right angle, make contact and if you slip, then it’s a decision based on how the guard defender is defending the ball screen and not just because of your angle.

Patrick Carney: 11:24

We have been noticing, and you see it a lot but, the value of on the empty side ball screen, why you want it below the free throw line.

Mody Maor: 11:31

First thing is to just get away from the first layer of defense. So if you’re coming off a drag screen like an empty corner one and the whole floor is kind of flooded ahead of you, the higher you play this, the closer you are to the choke. And flooded ahead of you, the higher you play this, the closer you are to the choke. And if we connect this to multiple actions, then if you play this high and the choke is on the ball, kind of disturbing you getting into the paint, but you played this, let’s say, on the slot, then the distance now between the guy who’s choking and the guy that he needs to defend is pretty small.

Mody Maor: 11:59

I feel it’s not a big enough advantage to kind of put the defense in a bind in the next action that they’re going to defend. On the other side of the court Everything’s kind of congested, there’s no driving slots and getting into the next action, I don’t think you’re going to get to it separated If you play it below the free throw line and the next man up is now on the rim line and that’s a sizable gap where the defender kind of needs to make a choice. He’s either stopping the ball and then paying a price on the other side of it, or not stopping the ball, and then we’re in the paint or whatever that cover kind of gives us.

Patrick Carney: 12:29

With that location? I mean, I know you have automatics for the coverage, but have you found getting that low that if teams are able to ice you, you’re kind of pinning your point guards too far in the corner or working with your point guards against the ice?

Mody Maor: 12:49

Has that been a problem or have you run into any kind of struggles there? We have run into some struggles there. Basically our foundation automatic for ice or down doesn’t work in the deep corner, so we usually flip, just like we fix the angle and flip. And if you do this in the deep corner you don’t really get a lot because that angle doesn’t really get fixed and you can’t cut back or beat your guy on the baseline. So that wasn’t the right thing. The layer we needed to add it like everything, came from something that we couldn’t defend so a few years ago.

Mody Maor: 13:11

I find myself icing a very deep corner ball screen and the slow dive to kind of play for the pocket, just the kind of guard creeping on the baseline and the big not flipping the angle, just kind of drifting into that pocket and holding. There was impossible for us to do, because if you play it deep enough then this flow dive puts the big in the paint, on the verge of the paint or in the paint, and if you want to take away this pocket, pass now. It means the kick out’s open. So if you again this weak side defender, the guy who was the choke, if the ball goes middle now is a real decision to make. Am I sinking all the way in and taking this pocket pass, or am I staying out and taking the kick out? And for me, that’s it. If you need to choose between one of those, then we need to make this read and then we’re out.

Dan krikorian: 13:53

It’s possession’s kind of done coach kind of staying on this empty drag below the free throw line. The other three players on the side away as they flow into that ball screen, does it matter to you? The two in the corner, the four? Do you want them to rearrange, or that’s where I’m guessing. The multiple actions doesn’t matter where they run to.

Mody Maor: 14:10

They know where to go to next and I guess how you think about those three players be as fast as you can to your spot, be in the accurate spots that we want to be in, and kind of the progression for us has been be super aggressive with your catch-up, shoot thhoot threes when they’re there, be super aggressive driving your close-ups. This has been a little bit of an evolution for us. When you play with multiple actions, then the team kind of falls in love with just going to the next ball screen or going to the next action and kind of dampens your aggressiveness a little bit. So it’s something that we wanted to find. This year we actually did pretty good. So, catching the space where you can shoot, catching the space where you can drive, and, if not, you know what happens next based on where the players are. Every person who catches the ball, the next guy to catch it on the slot knows exactly what will come, based on who’s the guy he sees next to him.

Patrick Carney: 14:57

On that note, one thing I did think about is when you have multiple actions and you hit on it, I mean teaching them to be super aggressive, but the difference between it’s a connecting action versus an action to score, and how you worked with your guys, that let’s make everything a threat versus it’s just a DHO, just to look pretty and move the ball.

Mody Maor: 15:14

No connecting actions for us. They don’t exist. If there’s a connecting action for us, then it’s an entry to a set play and there’ll be a reason for it, which would not be just to find the right spacing, and there’ll be a reason for it which would not be just to find the right spacing. It’s not part of our vocabulary. We don’t go about it like this. Every action needs to be an action, that’s, go towards creating an advantage. If you didn’t, for whatever reason you’re not a good shooter and somebody went under, so no advantage. Or we made a mistake, so no advantage Then you can go on to the next one. But if we have fluff, fluff like the balls just going side to side without triggering anything, we’re not going to score then the follow-up.

Patrick Carney: 15:48

You said you want your shooters to be super aggressive and hunting their shots. I guess for me it’s just what you define with your guys. I mean, of course, super aggressive. You’re open, pull the trigger, but what is the good shot versus now be more aggressive and willing to take that shot and then, on the other end, how do you look to solve it against non-shooters on the perimeter? Teams were sloughing off of them let’s start from the end.

Mody Maor: 16:08

Non-shooters, multiple actions is a great blanket to kind of cover your deficiency. So if I’m a non-shooter and all we do once the kind of first action has happened is kind of play out of dribble, drive now, or regular kind of closeout reads or 0.5 reads, whatever you want to call them and I can’t shoot, then I only have two options I’m either driving it or patting it, and if the guy who’s defending me is defending me the right way, then there’s really nowhere to drive. All that’s left for me is to be a connector, and now there’s not a lot of things that can happen. So with the fact that we can flow into another action where you are now becoming either a screener, a slipper, a ghost, whatever it is, then there’s another thing that you can do to give some kind of gravity and most of our actions. If you are defending away, meaning if you decide to just play off a non-shooter and you’re going to be in a very big disadvantage defending the next one, you’re not going to be able to have two players connected defending the action. You’re going to be late to this, which will dictate the kind of covers that you get or that you can use and will be easier for us to exploit. So it’s part of the reason that we like it.

Mody Maor: 17:11

As far as what a good shot is, man? That’s a loaded question. Who you are, what you work on, how big of an advantage have we created, time and score. It’s a lot of layers that kind of go into this. If you’re very open, shoot. If not, get us to the next one until you’re very open.

Patrick Carney: 17:27

What are the conversations you’re having on an individual basis and with those players? What has been?

Mody Maor: 17:31

meaningful for me or at least what has worked for me is the idea that every time you take an average shot, the opportunity cost of a great shot that was waiting eight seconds later and it can be your shot, it can be somebody else’s, but kind of the idea that every time you settle for something that’s average early, you kind of give up in advance on something that’s great. The kind of shots that we take in the first 12 seconds are not the same shots that we take in the last seven seconds and this has been something that’s been good. I’ve been lucky to coach guys who kind of care about winning and I’ve been very lucky with guys who are not hunting their own agenda and stuff like this. So this has worked. I’m assuming at some point it won’t.

Dan krikorian: 18:12

That was a little bit. My follow-up coach is just the shot profiles you talk about with your team in the first 12 versus last 12 seconds and then if a great shot is not open in say the first 12 on early advantage, how you then re-space the offense or re-trigger the offense to then try to get to another great shot profile, like kind of in the back half.

Mody Maor: 18:32

That makes sense 90 of the time, the offense will find itself back to the middle of the court, which is why I prefer kind of our main actions to be and they will bring together what one of our target players with somebody else. Now, this target player can be a nice little guy, can be a pick and roll player, can be an off-screen shooter. It doesn’t matter how or who it is. They all have their package of what being a target player means. We have two or three guys like this on the team every year. It’s not like there’s 10 of them. And then, when the ball gets back to the middle again, you’re triggering a coverage through an action, whatever that is, and this cover will trigger a set of responses from us. Then, at the last eight seconds of the clock, you’re going to do your best to get the best shot you can, and if this is now a mid-range shot or a floater or contested step back three or whatever, then next time we’ll run something different.

Dan krikorian: 19:21

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Dan krikorian: 20:05

From 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 beyondsportstourscom and tell them Slopping Glass sent you Going back to non-shooters or average shooters and talking about their shot profile and what they would or would not look for first 12 versus second 12. And I’m thinking of. Everybody has those kind of average three-point shooters that are 30, 31%, where you really don’t want them taking shots, maybe early, but then when you would be okay with maybe them taking certain types of shots. Within all this, versus just moving to another advantage, some actions are terminal right.

Mody Maor: 20:55

Let’s say ball went into the post. Trap came, ball swung out, went all the way out to the opposite corner. Usually you’re not going to get great spacing here for a drive. The ball was in the paint. The trap is coming. The rotation is usually coming out of the paint towards the perimeter. You’re going to need to shoot those.

Mody Maor: 21:10

Sometimes possessions die in the corner and if I put you in the corner it means I trust you to shoot it. If you’re really a guy I never want you shooting, then I’m never going to put you on the perimeter. We’ll play in different spaces low gap, high gap, whatever. We’ll change our floor lines. But if you’re on the it and hopefully you get the right close on next time, that maybe gives you something else.

Mody Maor: 21:38

If a player is on the perimeter, then there needs to be a real discussion about what other advantages look. Maybe you’re getting short close outs but you’re a super powerful driver and you can use this space in order to just catch a runway and bump somebody out of the way and go and finish. Or maybe you’re an incredible connector who can take this space into making a read or a pass or connect us into a step-up screen or a different pick and roll and then take advantage of the space this way. But then you’re getting into the point where now it’s not scripted, it’s not. You can only do A or B or C. We give you a bunch of priorities.

Mody Maor: 22:17

Okay, best outcome is this, and this is secondary, and this is the third, and this one I’d kind of like you to avoid. But, like the catch pump, fake, hesitate, don’t do anything, then shoot, let’s say that this one is dead. You’re not allowed to do this. So, out of the four options now, we’ll do our best to teach you when to choose what weapon whether this is breakdown or feedback, or five on oh or whatever it is we’ll do the best we can to get you comfortable making the decision that we kind of want you to make the most coach with a great connector, is it basically the characteristic of that player or is it your preference in terms of connecting to a go to a DHO, or do you prefer like the pitch ahead and go into a ball screen?

Mody Maor: 22:59

I’m a huge fan of DHOs. I find that it’s easier to kind of neutralize, to get out of it without getting exposed. I mean they feel harder to defend, but it’s me.

Dan krikorian: 23:09

Right now, we’re talking about flow and connecting, getting things without a set. When it comes to designing a specific set now, after it made shot, whenever it is, ato, I guess where your mind goes on alignment, structure, all those things that maybe go into a great set design for you, it really depends on.

Mody Maor: 23:27

What’s the button that we want to press? What is this go-to for our target player? That he is good at creating advantages consistently from the floor balance around him will lead to that action being the most effective. Let’s say, parker Jackson Cartwright, great driver, was really good attacking go screens and slip screens out of guard-to-guard situations just from the nature of him being really fast and people not wanting to switch with him because of it.

Mody Maor: 23:54

We played with different floor balances. Where would we put our four men? Strong side or weak side? Strong side led to a lot of chokes which kind of took away some stuff. Weak side led to kick outs that led to multiple actions. Great Found him on weak side. Then we played around with where the second big is. Where is our five? Does he need to be low when this is happening? His guy comes over, helps, opens up the dish or opens up the kick out, doing one in high kind of elbow and then cutting down to maybe make the help be kind of late. We ended up playing with both different sets, with the only difference was where the five man was stuff like this, and every set that we run ends with our flow. So if you didn’t create an advantage or the advantage is not big enough from the kind of main action, then this will lead to the same continuity that you will get out of your lanes in transition. It doesn’t matter who’s in the slot and who’s in the corner. There’s kind of an automatic continuation.

Patrick Carney: 24:43

Building off of your target players and when it’s late shot clock or the offense is maybe stalled, and so you said you want to get them in the middle. Third, your target players. You mentioned the go screens, but if you are going to send maybe a big and I assume you probably would face with a lot of switching, what were you thinking about if you wanted to run a pick and roll with your target player and kind of combating the switch late clock last year?

Mody Maor: 25:04

was an interesting test case for this. We had two maybe three very different kind of target players. We spoke about parker, who’s very small, he’s not tall, making reads over the top is not something that’s very comfortable for him. And the other side was Will McDowell-White. He’s like a 6’5 point guard who’s very comfortable making reads over the top and kind of seeing the floor.

Mody Maor: 25:23

We tinkered with kind of back pocket screens for Will versus the switch, which kind of open up short roll stuff. So if I’m coming into the late screen I’m screening it flat, I’m trying to force the guy who switches to stay over them, trying to force the switch over basically. And this opens up same passes like you would get over a show. So if the ball goes down to the big and four and three, and that’s right, parker couldn’t make this pass on a consistent basis.

Mody Maor: 25:48

So we went into the late screens with Parker. We’re all slips. We didn’t want to kind of trigger the full cover, get as close as you can. Hopefully you can force the guy to kind of open up and kind of negotiate to switch under over whatever they want and this will lead to kind of a driving lane work. But we were able to. It took us a little bit. Every time there’s more options, then there’s more mistake, right? So anytime you give the players more than one option or the ability to read and decide or need to adjust, then the learning process is a little bit longer and you’re going to live with a little bit more mistakes.

Patrick Carney: 26:18

But once it works, it works I guess you start the season only giving them one option and do you really want to kind of just stick with maybe one or two throughout the whole season, or is it let’s start with one and just keep adding as the team develops? There’s a package it.

Mody Maor: 26:31

It’s not just one. It’s not as simple as this. There’s a package that can either grow or shrink, based on a few different things. A is it working? Maybe it stays the same. B, is it not? And then, if it’s not, why Is it not working? Because we don’t have the right package for the guys that we have, so we need to add more options or change the options, or is it too much and they can’t kind of comprehend how to choose what? So maybe we’ll narrow it down for a few guys, but we’re not married to any of it and this should change Like. This is probably the most meaningful buttons that we can press during the season to tinker with our offense. I find this to be more effective than adding a set or something like this Within 5-on-0, is Within 5-on-0,.

Patrick Carney: 27:08

Is there anything you’ll tinker around with in terms of a drill structure? 5-on-0 to help your guys build this flow.

Mody Maor: 27:15

Yeah, like everything that works, I said before, everything happens by mistake.

Mody Maor: 27:22

I said something when we were building into a regular 5-on-0 segment that the players interpreted as we need to go play this for 24 seconds now and the shot clock was on, so they kind of went through the whole 5-on-0, whatever the set was and were kind of went through the whole five on whatever the set was and we’re kind of counting the last five seconds of the possession. I didn’t understand what they were doing. I asked them on the way back and you said to shoot in the last five seconds. But okay, cool, this led to a lot of multiple actions. So we like half of our five by no segments would be like this, where you need to maintain perfect spacing and integrity and speed and you’re reading covers that whatever the practice team or the coaches are giving you, but you can’t have it terminal until the last five seconds of the position, so you’re basically forced to do everything aggressively but then find your way out of it into the next one while not fucking up too bad. So that helped us, yeah solid amount.

Dan krikorian: 28:02

Great stuff, coach. Thanks for going through all that. We’re going to transition now to a segment on the show we call start, sub or sit. We’ll give you three options around a topic ask you to start one, sub one and sit one on the bench, and then we’ll go from there. So this first one has to do with thinking about weekly practice planning, trying to figure out what we’re going to do, say week to week, to maximize our practices and what’s most important to you, the hierarchy of what’s most important to you in that weekly practice planning.

Dan krikorian: 28:32

So option one are the scout days, or days where you’re really going to prepare for an opponent. Option two we just termed our us days where you’re not worried about an opponent, You’re just worried about yourselves and working on who you are. And then option three would be like player development type days, a little bit less five on five but more just honing some skills. So start, sub, sit. When it comes to practice planning, You’re not getting off the hook so easily. Where are we in the season? Yeah, we thought that might be a follow-up. Let’s talk, maybe, Pat, kind of mid-season.

Patrick Carney: 29:05

Yeah, I would say, let’s go mid Great, keep it vague.

Mody Maor: 29:10

We have a week.

Mody Maor: 29:14

How we have a week. How many days do I have between games? Let’s say you’re going weekend to weekend, weekend to weekend, but my fun one middle of the season we’re sitting player development. It will have its place but it won’t be part of the main team structure, will probably be very kind of personnel oriented and will happen post or pre kind of practice but won’t be part of the team stuff. I have to sit someone down, I’m starting us and I’ve been done. But in reality those are very connected. For us the opponents are kind of our best teachers because our stuff is always connected to the covers that we get and the more opponents we play against who have different covers, the better we get at us and playing our. So they’re never really disconnected.

Dan krikorian: 29:57

When Pat and I were discussing this question for you, we were talking about whether we should ask you about week to week or month to month or the whole year and I know something you think a lot about, I guess just pulling out of all this for a second how you really think about how you want to structure your practice plan, when you’re looking maybe at a little bit larger picture rather than just straight week to week, and what’s important to you I mean a few things that are kind of.

Mody Maor: 30:16

The foundation of this is, I believe reps make you better. We don’t come from the school of doing minimal touch points and hoping that things kind of fall into place. I think the more you do something, the better you become at it. Now, the more you do, you need to do things the right way and you need to be able to kind of stimulate in different ways and you need to make it not boring and you need to make there needs to be a progression with the learning but you like working. The second part of this and the dangerous part of this is finding the right low and finding the sweet spot where the instruction that I give to our performance team is tell me how long and how much I can practice, give me the max number that I can hit while still getting our guys fresh to the game. And that’s kind of the balance that we try to maintain. We don’t want to pay a price, physically or mentally, coming into the game. The game is when we want to perform, so we want to do as much as we can in the buildup for this, and this is true for all segments of the season. This is true for off-season and in-season and in between back-to-backs and for the players. So those will be kind of our guiding questions in both what’s the most we can do while still staying fresh and the idea that we want practice, we want rest. It’s not something that we kind of want to avoid. How does this go for us in the structure of these three things, kind of us, them and player development they’re very much intertwined.

Mody Maor: 31:30

We barely work in player development on things that are kind of something you will use in two years or something that you don’t do a lot.

Mody Maor: 31:39

We’re looking for the intersection between what’s frequent and what’s efficient. Is there something that you do a lot that you’re good at that’s become great? Is there something that you do a lot that you’re bad at that’s become good? If there’s something you’re great at and the frequency is very low, then it’s either something we look to add or something that you’re going to need to park and you’re going to use it at some other point in time from a player development kind of standpoint. So this leads a lot to how we play. If you’re our foreman and you’re running the court fast and you get to the corner and now there’s a progression that comes from the ball, finding you in the corner and the guard coming and setting a screen for you, and there’s a bunch of options that can come from this and that’s what your skill work is going to look like the technical skill, the decision-making, and then the tactical aspects that come after this.

Dan krikorian: 32:22

I love the thoughts on player development and it’s not a tangent, I don’t think. But when you find that a non, let’s say, you kind of say like target players, or when maybe your three or four best players, when you find a great thing that maybe your fifth, sixth, seventh man does well, trying to figure out, do you fit that in the offense? Do you just tell them you’re going to park it? What do you decide? You’re going to try to add something because you mentioned. If they’re really great at something, you might try to add it. But if it’s not a key, do you think about when to add something that someone does pretty well, or how you think about that whole thing within the player development realm?

Mody Maor: 32:57

The nuance of this question is how are you going to make this person feel right? What’s hiding behind this question is how is this sixth guy going to feel if I use his skills, and how is he going to feel if I don’t use his skills? Skills, yeah. Does he need a post-hatch to defend? And I don’t fall into this trap.

Mody Maor: 33:12

The way I cut off this is just is this going to help us win? Is this going to help us win the next game? Do we need another action? Is our offense struggling? Do we need another kind of source of offense for some reason? If we do, then maybe this is the one that we push. This is the button that we look for. If we don’t, then I’m happy.

Mody Maor: 33:29

You’re right off turnouts. It’s not part of our package and in the future, maybe this is something that you’ll do. Now this can also be dynamic, because maybe we don’t need him for anything for 10 games, and now we’re coming to play someone and their best offensive player is going to be defending him because he’s not great and I want him involved. And now there’s an ATO that comes from this, so it’s not like it will be parked forever. Maybe I keep it in the back pocket for something. But the only question I’ll ask is is this going to help us win? Because everything that you bring in comes with a cost. There’s practice time costs. There’s teaching costs. There’s effort costs. There’s fixing mistakes costs. There’s not running something else. There’s the opportunity cost. So I’m always going to be very selective about it.

Patrick Carney: 34:09

You know you mentioned you guys are always trying to measure the load you can put on these guys, and you mentioned also the mental load. How are you guys tracking the mental load of your players, making sure their minds are also fresh to push them?

Mody Maor: 34:23

Data is important. The ability to have some kind of reference point that’s not just your feel for this has been beneficial for us. Your feel for this has been beneficial for us. So you’re basically filling out like a six seven kind of question questionnaire. When you come into the gym in the morning, how do I sleep, how do I feel, how ready I am to practice stuff like this and it doesn’t catch everything. But when things are deviating from the normal, then the numbers will deviate. So rank one to 10, how ready am I to practice? After three weeks? Then the numbers will deviate. So rank one to 10, how ready am I to practice?

Mody Maor: 34:58

After three weeks, then each person is going to have some kind of range of normal, Doesn’t matter what it is. Yeah, your normal might be five and my normal might be nine, that’s not important, but you’re going to have a normal. And then if your normal is nine and then one day you rock into the building and you’re at a three or we see like a steady decline, then I know that something’s up and we need to talk, kind of figure out what’s going on. And that’s a metric that helps us. In reality, you kind of have a pulse for your team. When you spend enough time around them and you get a pulse for your guys and you know what’s regular behavior and what’s not, and what’s engaged and what’s not and that doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing for everyone but for each person you kind of get a feel for it and when things deviate, then usually there’s a red flag that needs to be investigated and that’s their mental side.

Dan krikorian: 35:37

You said that your start and your sub are so intertwined for the most part the us days and the them days. Could you just go a little deeper on that and how they’re combined for you and what that might, I guess, look like in a week-to-week basis?

Mody Maor: 35:49

The simplest way to go about this is you want to start offense or defense, because they’re intertwined on both ways.

Dan krikorian: 35:54

Let’s go defense. We were talking about offense earlier, right?

Mody Maor: 35:59

So we defend a ball screen. We have a package of how we defend ball screens. It can be one of three different covers. It doesn’t matter what it is now because it’s not the point. One of these covers really doesn’t fit the opponent. Whatever opponent, whatever they do for this, this cover is great. So this one has gone down and now we’re left with two left. They were either showing on this one or we’re dropping.

Mody Maor: 36:19

These players have certain characteristics on how they play and there’s certain characteristics with the floor around them. Whether this start is great with this kick out. So he’s great in the pocket. He’s going to hostage you. They get to the rim, whatever the kind of reach that they have.

Mody Maor: 36:29

Then we get to work on one of our three covers in a way that is nuanced and tailored towards the opponent that we’re playing. But this is going to transfer to three games down the road when we visit this cover again, because we’re always choosing within a package of things that we have. We’re not really inventing the wheel when we go play a team. It’s one of the whatever. We’re talking about ball screens, so one of the three covers that we use. There’s going to be a nuance there that maybe gives us an advantage for this specific game, but the ability to toggle between nuances is kind of what makes a team good down the stretch, like if you’re going to pick up one little tidbit from this game and another one from that game and another one from that one, then you become pretty complete with and how you defend and within a cover.

Patrick Carney: 37:10

So it’s always us and them in that regard you mentioned that if an opponent’s really good at attacking this coverage for that week, you won’t use it offensively. If they’re really good defending a situation, or let’s say, maybe what could be one of your strengths, are you thinking about, okay, well, let’s find another area to exploit? Or how do we play within this strength and attack their coverage?

Mody Maor: 37:38

We want our initial playbook to be one that can allow us to attack in at least a few different ways. So if you’re good at taking away something we’re good at, then we have other normal, regular avenues within our offense. We’re not putting in new stuff, we’re just kind of sharpening and saying, ok, this is our toolbox for this one and this is for the next one. So a hundred percent, there’s plays that you will see versus some teams that you won’t see versus others, or maybe the frequency really changes and stuff like this.

Mody Maor: 38:02

The interesting part is the assessment of it. So I’m really good at something and you’re really good at defending it. So kind of my job as the coach building into this week is to decide who’s better is. Is your defense better than my offense or is my offense better than your defense in this space? And you might be really good at it, but I think we’re better than we’re going to hit you where you’re strong because it’s meaningful, and if I think you actually have the advantage there or you’re going to be able to dull how effective this is for us, I’m not going to touch it.

Dan krikorian: 38:33

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Patrick Carney: 39:05

All right, coach we’ll keep it moving. Our last start subset has to do with evaluating players, or evaluating talent for roster building and signing new players, and we call this the tough to evaluate. So of these three, which option would be the toughest for you to evaluate when looking at a player? Option one is that this player’s mental toughness.

Mody Maor: 39:44

Option two is this player’s leadership, or option three, is this player’s level of competitiveness, competitive fire. It means that the layer that we need to go to for evaluating it is more than just circus. It means it’s not something you’re always going to see on film Some people it’s very easy to see on film but it means there’s another kind of layer of investigation that needs to go in this. What was the first one? Mental toughness. Define mental toughness.

Patrick Carney: 40:07

We thought resiliency, deal with failure and bounce back, Maybe to be coached hard.

Mody Maor: 40:15

Maybe two to be coached hard. Maybe two to be coached hard, yeah, so this will sit in sub for us, I guess very circumstantial from my feeling, not sure this is always as intrinsic as we think. I’ve come to see that different environments kind of really foster these kind of behaviors and some really don’t. You might be in a place where it’s very acceptable to make mistakes and to fail and come back and you’ll respond one way and you’ll be in a place that it’s really not acceptable and respond in a very different way. I haven’t found that this has been the intel and whatever I think I know doesn’t always pan out that way.

Patrick Carney: 40:43

I’d like to follow up with your start, which was competitiveness and what you value in a competitor. You’re in a professional level, so everyone has competitiveness in them, but how you differentiate and the competitor you seek out.

Mody Maor: 40:57

I think the first thing that we differentiate here, the thing that’s been helpful for me, has been why you are competitive. Everybody is competitive to a degree, but the reason is it I really want to win, or is it I really hate to lose? Or do I want to prove that I’m better, or do I want a bigger contract or whatever? The motivation for you being competitive has been something that’s been meaningful for me. Some of them, I feel, last longer and go survive the season better and survive turbulence and also survive my style of coaching a little bit better. When the reason you compete is because you really want to win or you really hate to lose, then we’re usually speaking a language that’s kind of similar, where it’s easier for me to relate to you, it’s easier for you to relate to me, it’s easier for me to get the behaviors that I want out of you, because our motivations are aligned. In different situations sometimes it can be a little bit harder.

Mody Maor: 41:46

So that’s the kind of first thing I like the manifestation of competitiveness that comes to play with your action, meaning you do things harder than the other guy. I’m sprinting the court. I’m sprinting faster than you. Now, it’s not because or at least I’m trying to sprint faster than you. You might be faster than me. Your 70% will beat my 100. But I’m looking for guys who kind of their natural inclination is to go give us 100 100 in the speed of going from A to B, 100 in the level of effort getting through a screen, the speed of going from A to B. 100 in the level of effort getting through a screen, 100 in how much I want to be focused and in the moment, kind of these behaviors being not words or off-court stuff but actually things that happen in the game or in practice.

Patrick Carney: 42:24

How are you finding that out about a player? Is it through conversations with the player, through the coach, or what you see on film? I’m sure it’s a mixture of everything, but what do you rely on? I guess, more so than others, rely on praying, and hoping I didn’t get it wrong.

Mody Maor: 42:40

That’s like the biggest foundation. I do all of them and sometimes the answer is really clear and staring you in the face, and sometimes it’s not, and when it’s not, then I assume that we’re getting it wrong. There’s so much variance on a human being’s behavior in different environment, different situation, different league, different country, different coaches, different whatever. So if this is not something that’s glaringly visible, comes out from your teammates, comes out from talking to you, comes out from understanding it from your coaches, you see it on film, then I’m already assuming that maybe it’s not as big of a character trait in you and I kind of operate under the assumption that it’s not going to be there or that we’re going to need to kind of bring it up.

Dan krikorian: 43:20

In your process. We’re kind of talking about like good traits right now. In the podcast past we’ve talked about what we call like yellow flags or things that maybe are not terrible but you got to be aware of. Is there anything in your evaluation process that are either hard nose for you you’re not going to coach them or things that are on the border where you’re okay with dealing with, if it’s at a certain level, guys that don’t like?

Mody Maor: 43:43

to practice. No go for us doesn’t mean you’re a bad player, doesn’t mean you’re lazy, but I’m a gamer, I like games, I don’t like training. We’re not going to speak the same language. It it’s not really going to work out. So this is something we stay away from.

Mody Maor: 43:54

Yellow flags for me, probably the two kinds they’re kind of connected either very selfish or selfish to a degree where you’re kind of not capable of being happy for somebody else’s success, being greedy about your own success. Not a problem, handle this. It’s not the best thing, but it’s something that we can work through. We can find kind of a thread of motivation. But if you’re incapable of being happy for somebody else doing well, then we have a problem. It’s going to be an issue for us kind of coming together as a group. This kind of makes you stand out and be separate, and that’s something that we’re going to try to avoid as much as we can.

Mody Maor: 44:29

Players that have an answer for everything, always a willingness to, willingness to kind of learn, a willingness to make mistakes. It’s not a red flag, but it’s definitely a yellow one, meaning I don’t think you can have too many of those. You can have one or two, but if the overarching kind of theme is that we question everything and this limits our ability to just get straight up buy-in and the intent of trying to do what coach asked me to do the best I can. If there’s too many people like this in the locker room then it becomes hard to teach. One or two is actually a great thing, by the way. If you can get one or two really smart guys who are like this, it’s fantastic. It elevates the level of discussion, it brings up questions. It creates the conflict that you kind of need to resolve in order to create real buy-in.

Patrick Carney: 45:15

If you get too many, I think you get lost. I’d like to ask about the greedy player who’s greedy for himself, and how you will work with that player then, or what in the past you’ve been mindful of like. All right, I know this type of player. Here’s what I got to do how we have a staff have to try to treat him and get him into the fold.

Mody Maor: 45:27

The first, if this is a greedy player and you’re planning a skinny role for him, then it’s not going to work. It needs to be aligned right. It needs to be. If this is a guy who wants to score and wants to be an impactful offensive player, then we need to want to sign him for those traits. If he sees himself as a bucket and I want him to be a defensive stopper, then it’s never going to work. There’s no magic here to be done.

Mody Maor: 45:53

So first is being aligned on the role and being super, super clear about it early when kind of are your boundaries, et cetera. The second thing is leveraging all the behaviors that we want towards individual success, towards your own motivations. You pass in this situation because this will make you a better player. The ball will find you in a better situation. You’ll have a better chance of scoring a half percent shot or if you keep whatever. We can choose a player in a covering situation, but if you’re doing low efficiency things because they look good every now and then when they happen, then you’re never going to play higher level or you’re not going to get the contract that you want or we’re not going to win the amount of games that you want us to win.

Mody Maor: 46:36

So there’s a give and take kind of on a selling basis that is connected to their own individual success and not necessarily the team’s.

Dan krikorian: 46:45

You said something a minute or two ago about sometimes having one or two of those smart players that bring things to the surface can create problems for your team to solve. That create real buy-in or something to that effect, because you maybe go a little deeper on like problems that when you solve them, that creates real buy-in and what that means.

Mody Maor: 47:02

I’m talking about a problem we’re not talking about a basketball problem yeah, it’s not how we solve this kind of cover but for real buy-in, like the real kind of deep-rooted belief in the fact that doing things in a certain way will allow us all to achieve our goals.

Mody Maor: 47:16

If it comes without any friction, then there’s just a bunch of followers there and there’s just a bunch of people who are kind of walking in line and this won’t hold up against, like the real life challenges of the basketball season the real opponent, the tough gym, the quality competition, the whatever a game, the tough gym, the quality competition, the whatever a game after tough travel or whatever you get punched in the face in the first quarter.

Mody Maor: 47:39

If it’s just a bunch of people who fall in line with everything that you say, just because you’re the coach and they’re the players, then I think the level of commitment to it is never going to be high enough.

Mody Maor: 47:46

But when people challenge what you define as right or wrong whether it’s a read or a spacing or a counter or a shot selection or a cover, whatever it is if you tie them something and kind of stress test it, stress test it can be with your words, your behaviors, whatever. I want you to make this kick out and you don’t do it for three games and our efficiency is dropping Maybe we lose a game because of this Then this will lead to a very kind of heated film session and some training sessions come from this and hopefully then the reason why it’s important will kind of shine through and then we can get the behaviors to change, and usually when you go through that kind of process you don’t lose it. If it got stress tested through whatever the season brought and we landed on the same solution at the end, then this will be something that really sits in our pocket and we have it and we can call upon it whenever we need it.

Patrick Carney: 48:36

You set leadership and just saying that, you know that’s probably one of the harder things to evaluate. How do you, or are you trying to evaluate leadership when, yeah, you don’t necessarily have the guys in your locker room through a practice or a season and you’re, kind again, talking to people looking at film?

Mody Maor: 48:55

good question and such a hard one to answer, because leaders can come in so many shapes and sizes. You can be an incredible leader that doesn’t say a word, just his behaviors and his actions kind of set the tone by example, and you have this quiet, strong charisma that people just follow. And some peoples are extremely and some people are extremely verbal. Some players are extremely verbal. They want to go catch everybody in the room, close the door and have a players-only meeting and talk their talk, and some of them are fantastic with this and can create real changes in behaviors or camaraderie or whatever it is that they’re looking to lead towards.

Mody Maor: 49:31

So the nature of this is that, because it can manifest in so many different ways, I find it almost impossible to really get an answer, to really understand if somebody is or is not a leader. And when we talk about leader, then okay, does he exemplify the behaviors that winning kind of entails? Is he willing to confront the behaviors that it doesn’t, that we don’t want to see? And if he does confront, then how? Yeah, it’s been a question that I haven’t really been able to answer and I’ve been lucky enough to not really need to lately. I’m gonna need to now, by the way. So I’ve been lucky enough with the breakers to have really one of the best captains, leaders and probably all professional sports. Tom abercombie has been a one club guy playing for the breakers for 17 years 16 years and it’s really as good as it gets, and he retired this off season and yeah, it’s a void that I’m terrified of filling and maybe because of this I’m just sitting with, so it’s too scary to deal with and let’s leave it aside and hopefully.

Patrick Carney: 50:29

I get lucky. You think there’s like a formula like you said it’s good to have the guy who leads by example, it they’re lucky. You think there’s like a formula like you said it’s good to have the guy leads by example, it’s good to have maybe one guy who’s a confrontational leader. Is there a mix though that you are thinking is important to team success?

Mody Maor: 50:41

My thought process on this is kind of different, specifically because I don’t feel comfortable with my ability to identify this and for us to quantify this.

Mody Maor: 50:47

Before we want to train our leaders, we want to kind of teach them what it means to lead and we want to give them tools and give them mechanisms whether it’s skills that we teach them or like proper team meetings or like opportunities with the group to have a voice and to say things.

Mody Maor: 51:04

So we don’t go about this like this is an intrinsic quality that you need to either bring or not bring. After the season starts a little bit, we’ll identify the guys that we feel are the leaders for this group and have established themselves as people that can change behaviors doesn’t matter in what way and then we’re going to try and give them as much tools as we can, put in time and effort around this and try and make them better. Like I said, I’m really shortcutted this process the past two years because I had the best of them, but the way we’re going to go about it next year is that I’m not going to go into the market with. One of the goals is to go find a leader and try and find the best basketball players and people that I can, and then within that group we’ll identify the guys we feel can lead and then we’re going to try and make them better.

Dan krikorian: 51:44

Coach, you’re off the start sub or sit hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. That was a ton of fun. I know we gave you some tough one there today, so thanks for going through all that.

Dan krikorian: 51:53

Fun for you, Fun for you? Yeah, we hear that a lot, Coach. We’ve got one final question before we close the show, Before we do really appreciate your time, all your thoughts. This has been really really great learning experience for us, so thank you very much. Pleasure, Coach. Our last question that we ask all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach? Coffee.

Mody Maor: 52:18

Yeah, good coffee machine that goes with me on the road, probably the number one. Yeah, let’s stick with that.

Dan krikorian: 52:29

All right, pat, one of the great endings of any podcast we’ve ever done. And true, yeah, yeah, yeah, Early Miss should have been. I guess how many cups and what kind of coffee.

Patrick Carney: 52:43

Yeah, what coffee machine he’s buying?

Dan krikorian: 52:45

Yeah, but that was one of my favorite ones we’ve done in a long time, I think you know, know our kind of podcast where it’s just so granular in detail and so much teaching I agree, you mentioned it right as we got off.

Patrick Carney: 53:01

It really reminded us coach marco barrage. Just they’re so hyper focused, hyper specific in the details of everything and I mean, luckily that’s what we love and like us getting into it and kind of I mean, luckily that’s what we love and like us getting into it and kind of continuing to dig deeper and dig deeper. And it was a thoroughly enjoyable conversation and I mean, as we’re going to now get into, trying to keep this wrap up on task, on target, will be a challenge because so much there was, so much we took away from it?

Dan krikorian: 53:29

Yeah Well, let’s just, I guess, try from it. Yeah well, let’s just, I guess, try. So yeah, I’ll kick it to you. First takeaways on our first bucket, which was we wanted to start broadly, the value of multiple offensive actions and just how you layer it. Teach it, I guess, your first thoughts there.

Patrick Carney: 53:47

The first kind of sticking point that stood out to me that I enjoyed we went into is, you know, he mentioned they mentioned they wanted to play faster, but playing faster without losing structure, and he talked about, you know, then they just pulled the four guys except the five men, like you know, then just get out and run first come, first serve, but that led to four men in the corner and some interesting actions with the four men.

Patrick Carney: 54:09

The four men and the inverted actions and kind of the different tours of penetration that led to inverted actions was something we had looked at early on a couple years ago. But just the value of inverted actions and you know I think that discussion was also within two we talked about, like when you have like a guard in the slot too, and then what kind of actions they’ll play to early in his arrive offense, just kind of based on how the spacing they transitioned down and we’ve had several conversations, of course, on these playing out of different spacings and this positionalist spacing so it’s always fun to hear how coaches are teaching and thinking about it and kind of the actions that work for their team and what they found with basically, yeah, arriving with a four man in the corner, or two guards, a garden slot, a guard in the corner.

Dan krikorian: 54:54

So that was the first conversation that we got stuck on that I really enjoyed I took a lot from the inverted actions part of it and he mentioned about how inverted actions and the flow of an offense is just really hard for a defense to account for made me think a little bit about marquette’s flow offense and how they really ghost from that corner to start a lot of their stuff. And you’re just surprised at how many times early mid-season that teams against Marquette just kind of mess up that coverage. Or we’ve done some stuff on late clock flares where you get to that middle of the floor he talked about the target players ends up in the middle again and get to that in a second. But when team gets to that later in the clock and then there’s some sort of just flare being set from behind you and it’s just really hard to account for. And I like how he talked about wanting that to be a part of their flow and kind of working that in. So that was definitely one thing for me that stood out as well. I’ll just go back to what I just said.

Dan krikorian: 55:55

The other thing for me was the conversation we had briefly about target players and I think you got like an insight into how he just thinks so granularly about each player’s specific advantage creation ability I don’t know it’s a long worded way to say like what they’re good at but he mentioned does this player play really well through pick and roll? Do we slip them? Do we go some? Do we iso? And each player is a little bit different and I really like that conversation in and around thinking about like later in the clock, after you’ve tried to flow and get into a multiple action, and then like where does that ball end up? And then what can these players do with it? I thought was a good point. Last point, before I kick it back to you drag screen. You brought it up and I think we got really deep into all the parts of the drag screen, so I’ll kick it back to you before I take it Before.

Patrick Carney: 56:44

I take my fastball Served up for me. Yeah, within that target player conversation and, like you said, knowing the personnel and what kind of screens to set, we talked about slipping or the flat screens. I liked his thought that keeping the reeds, let’s say simple. I use simple in quotes, I mean I think they’re all very nuanced.

Dan krikorian: 57:03

You couldn’t see him doing quotes on yeah, yeah, it’s great for the podcast medium.

Patrick Carney: 57:07

Yeah, okay, yeah, but uh, but yeah, just like giving them maybe one or two options within this. And he said, because you know, obviously the more you get, the more chances for error. And now you know, at this point it’s a short shot clock, so just kind of for the sake of getting everyone on the same page, knowing, like, okay, what we’re going to get to, probably leading to higher success rates or at least generating a higher quality shot. Getting back to when we got into the drag swing conversation, I mean at first I like you know one to slip, one to stick, depending on how the big man’s transitioning up the court. But the general conversation for me was, yeah, when we got into just the empty side ball screen and getting below the free throw line and how that spacing what he kept referring to as that choke or kind of that nail defender stresses him so much.

Patrick Carney: 57:54

And then we got into how he figured out solutions to attack like the ice.

Patrick Carney: 58:00

I won’t regurgitate it because he speaks much better than I ever will on it, but it is something we’ve noticed a lot, like a lot of teams make the effort to drive the ball screen down below the free throw line.

Patrick Carney: 58:12

So it was just fun to hear the benefits of it, why teams are doing it, why he’s doing it, and then when we got into just attacking the ice coverage too and how we thought about solving that, and I mean just the level of detail that we continued to hit on, you know, when he talked about.

Patrick Carney: 58:26

You know, usually against the ice they like to flip the screen, but by flipping the screen so low they’re never really getting the angle they want. So it forced them to find other solutions. And I mean I think the value of all these conversations that we have, are lucky enough to have, is just hearing how great coaches think about the game and their thought process. And so it was fun to just kind of go with them on that journey of how he kind of came to the solution of why, how they’re gonna and why they’re gonna attack, and then I solo below the free throw line so my thing with the drag screen was like the three different levels of it for him and not wanting the ball to stick and get held up, yeah, for too long.

Dan krikorian: 59:04

And so, like teaching the big and the guard, that synergy of you know where where’s the big, where’s the guard? We don’t really want to wait and hold things up too long. I liked how if the big’s coming from above, that’s going to be more of a slip, versus if it’s below, let’s flatten. It made me think of pedro martinez and man resa does that well in transition, where they’ll just flatten that empty ball screen or then, last option, just keep dragging that thing to the corner and then get into, like what we did, like that whole conversation about the 45. And you know, for me I like that really good, just quick teaching points on that drag screen and maybe how to play out of it.

Dan krikorian: 59:39

And then I think, like you know, I know we did a lot on it, but you could then see how, on the other side, where there’s on three man side now, I liked how he said he doesn’t care, doesn’t want, you know, know the four or the five to get specific spots, but that’s where I think you really got the sense of how great this offense in his mind is is teaching everybody, depending on where guys are at. Like we talked about the inverted action from the corner. If the four is in the corner you could do that, or if he’s in the slot, I’m sure you can get into a lot of zooms or you know, like delay type stuff, or if it’s in the middle. You know I’m thinking too back. Nick pasqua on the podcast talked about the foreman was in the middle. It would get like a pin down action or no, I think it’s a fun part.

Patrick Carney: 1:00:21

I think the other, within this bucket, a conversation that was fun to hear is when we were talking about shot selection. What is like hunting, yeah, good shots, and then that led to the dhos or the pitch okay, you’re more of a connector and all that thing differentiating between, yeah, maybe first 12, we really kind of want that great shot, or, depending on who you are versus the last 12, you know. Then it’s like, okay, it is kind of circumstantial or situational. He mentioned the post double kick out, swing, swing, swing. It’s like, yeah, this is kind of the best thing. But yeah, in terms of this teaching shot selection, I think that’s a conversation. I know it is. It’s a conversation we have repeatedly because it’s a conversation that’s always very nuanced and delicate with players.

Dan krikorian: 1:01:01

So it was fun to get into him with that too and how he kind of framed shot selection yeah, that was really good and not a miss by him, but I had that circled as like that probably could have been its own longer conversation with some of those things. But he did bring up some good points first 12 or second 12 seconds, and then even an average shooter passing up a great shot in the back 12 seconds hurts your team potentially, because what’s the shot you end up getting to if they don’t shoot that? Or he mentioned if I have you on the perimeter, I believe in you enough that in certain situations I need you to shoot with confidence. I kind of like that too is like a way of for players that maybe aren’t really hunting those early threes or whatever it is, they still understand like in their head.

Patrick Carney: 1:01:41

You know where they can maybe get valuable shots probably an early miss, for me too, would be he mentioned okay, you’re not a great shooter, so they’re going to short close out on you, but they are creating a runway for you if you’re a strong driver, which is, and I guess, kind of the myth would just to follow up with that, I guess, how he’s working with those strong drivers that are getting short closeout and maybe for more of a skill, technical, technique standpoint they work with on the strong driver against a short closeout.

Dan krikorian: 1:02:07

Yeah, moving to start, sub or sit two other fantastic conversations here. Let’s start with the first one, which was when I asked about practice planning and we had fun kind of devising this and thinking about it. We know this is something he does well from talking to people that know him is kind of devising the practice structure, let’s say throughout a week or a month I think my big takeaway is really the conversation.

Patrick Carney: 1:02:30

Will his last kind of closing remarks or I think you hit him on like how the us days and the scout days all kind of bleed in and he gave great examples on the defensive end and then you know I followed up with the offensive end, but how it all does tie together and how he then works on okay, the us days are going to be tailored to what they’re preparing for and whether it’s an advantage to attack that they think they have, or you know, I thought I really enjoyed his conversation. Okay, it’s their strength defensively but our strength offensively, measuring and like, but we’re still going to hit you with it versus, yeah, okay, let’s go somewhere else, but how that then kind of dictates the week and when is, okay, we’re going to work on our stuff and then we’re going to get more scout specific. I like just hearing kind of how they’re.

Dan krikorian: 1:03:15

You know, one in the same and almost some extent he had a quote said being able to toggle between nuances is what makes a team great, especially down the stretch. So he was kind of talking a little bit about, you know, working on some specific pick and roll coverage for a team that maybe you’re going to face now, maybe you’re going to face later. And he had that quote about being able to toggle between a nuance is what makes the great teams what they are, and I thought that was really good. He was talking about pick and roll coverages there. I like that quote a ton. And then he also talked a little bit about I had a quote about everything comes at a cost.

Dan krikorian: 1:03:46

So I think we were talking about player development, player development, and I think I asked, like, hey, your fourth or fifth best guy does something really well, how do you? You know, he kind of sussed out what I was really asking, which is how do you have that conversation? And I like, though, his added stuff of whatever you add, if there’s a cost, practice wise, mentally, players remember, and stuff, and I think that’s just a really good point. He kind of threw in there at the end of yeah, maybe your fourth or fifth or sixth best guy does something great, like you mentioned, like coming off floppy pin downs, but it’s like it’s just not something it’s going to make us a better team, or he went back to it’s all about winning, so that’s the most important yeah, I wrote down within that conversation.

Patrick Carney: 1:04:22

he said, like what’s frequent and what’s efficient in terms of working with your guys on a development level and then also incorporating into your team and it goes back to like he, what impacts winning. I thought it was another good thing. He said in terms of, yeah, what you’re going to work on with, I mean even your target players, or your sixth, seventh, eighth man, for sure, dan. Turning to our second start subset on tough things to evaluate with players, when you know, at this point in the season, as we mentioned, I mean for everyone or for someone, this comes out and the seasons are winding down, so it’s going to turn to recruiting, roster building. So I’ll throw it to you, as mentioned, to start in terms of your takeaways with tough to evaluate.

Dan krikorian: 1:05:04

Yeah, you and I talked a lot beforehand. You know, right now for me personally it’s like recruiting, trying to evaluate incoming players for our program. I know at the pro level you’re kind of always in and around that too, and I know he has as well, and so I think it’s kind of top of our mind trying to find winners. I’ll start with, honestly, my favorite part of all of this was what we got into towards the end, which was getting real buy-in, and I think it kind of stemmed from having certain types of yellow flags or leaders like we kind of got deep into that, which was awesome.

Dan krikorian: 1:05:35

But I just really liked his thoughts on what creates real buying and how, like teams that struggle and go through tough times, that’s ultimately what makes you stronger later, and he doesn’t want just a team full of guys that sort of just fall in line and everything’s really easy. Because when it comes to winning big games or down the stretch or whatever it is, that is what creates the buying, is that struggle. And he kind of threw in how certain types of players that maybe don’t have the perfect personality or request you a little bit or will stir things up, handled in the right way, can actually really help your team in the long run. So I just found that to be a fascinating conversation. I actually circled that because it’s a conversation. I think I could have kept going longer on.

Patrick Carney: 1:06:19

Hands down. I thought that was the best part of the conversation Not that there wasn’t anything else enjoyable in there, because I also took away when we were discussing about how he differentiates competitiveness or the competitor he’s looking for. And he started with he kind of always asks the player their motivation, the why, and Emil was finding he always seems to have more success with when that player’s motivation kind of aligns more with his motivation in terms of it’s Kate, to lose or you want to win versus you know. I think he mentioned maybe prove people wrong or you know this is good for him and kind of always, you know, stroking the ego while also encouraging behaviors that help their team win.

Dan krikorian: 1:07:19

Good stuff yeah, it reminded me and this my last thought just our conversation with julie folks from transylvania about a year ago less than a year ago now and her evaluation, her recruiting process, what she looks for, things like that reminded me of this conversation a bit and just the things you’re trying to find out throughout the process, and it’s not perfect. Like he mentioned, you do get lucky or, like he mentioned, with the leadership traits. They evolve over time. So it’s really hard to tell when man, woman, kid, whatever it is, that they come into your program they might have great leadership traits at some place else, but then the environment does shape how they interact at your place or the new place, and so this is a nuanced conversation and it’s really really hard to always know for sure. But he kind of alluded to that throughout.

Patrick Carney: 1:08:07

He mentioned with mental toughness and we didn’t really get to it. Maybe another myth, but how. That is so dependent on the environment to create it and you know the environment will determine, maybe, how the player reacts. And then you can determine, oh, he’s mentally tough in this situation or with this environment, versus maybe in this environment he isn’t. And so, yeah, it was just the variables that go into all these things leadership, competitiveness, mental toughness and you can tell he’s spent a lot of time thinking about this and yeah, like own eastwood with the psychological safety and the creating environments for these, like that was another thing I kind of wrote on the side here.

Dan krikorian: 1:08:45

I felt like we were in and around that conversation too. 100, yeah, so get him some coffee, invite him back.

Patrick Carney: 1:08:52

Yeah, around two, he’s almost coffee maybe we so get him some coffee, invite him back, yeah, for round two. Tease him with some coffee, maybe we’ll get him to come on.

Dan krikorian: 1:08:56

Yeah, so we appreciate Coach Maor for coming on and we appreciate everybody listening. Have a great week coaching and we’ll see you next time.