Slappin’ Glass sits down with the Head Coach of SE Melbourne in Australia’s NBL, Simon Mitchell. The trio dive into the areas of generating pace on made and missed shots, building DHO’s and “GETs” into transition offense, the foundations of great cultures, and talk Olympic National Teams and late-game strategy during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Inside the Episode: Simon Mitchell
We had the opportunity this week to sit down with a fantastic coach in the NBL, South East Melbourne’s, Simon Mitchell. Coach Mitchell led SE Melbourne to the NBL playoffs this past season in only the second year of the club’s existence. Here’s a peek inside the episode…
3 Key Tactical Concepts:
- The Fundamentals of Great Cultures: Coach Mitchell discusses the planning, implementation, and execution of SE Melbourne’s basketball culture both on and off the court. We dove into the types of players and personalities he targeted in his first two seasons at the helm and how he worked with all members of the organization to establish a winning culture. One of our favorite conversations on culture yet.
- Generating Offensive Pace: SE Melbourne has been an offensive powerhouse in the NBL the last two season thanks to an upbeat and entertaining style of play. We go into detail on Coach Mitchell’s thoughts about generating pace early in the offense and why he believes it’s so important to do so.
- Transition “GET” Action and DHO’s: Within our conversation about generating pace we also discuss Coach Mitchell’s love of “GET” Action and DHO’s early in an offensive possession. Some terrific insights on when, why, and how he teaches these actions.
2 Key Quotes from Coach Mitchell
- On holding people accountable: “Culture in a nutshell is behaving. Walking the walk, talking the talk. If you’re going to hold anyone in your organization accountable, one, you go about it respectfully, and two, that the other person that you’re holding accountable knows where you’re coming from. That you’re coming from a place of ‘I want this to be better, and I want to win’. And it’s from a place of trust and a place of respect.”
- On the “flip or toss to PNR” action: “The little flip or toss pass…it’s such a hard one to defend. I love that action because teams will come in to a game (saying) ‘we’re going to defend a DHO this way, we’re going to defend a pass-and-follow action this way’. But when you get that little ‘toss-pass’ or flip, that’s somewhere in between, and you might get a little miscommunication from the defensive side of things.”
1 Interesting “Start, Sub, or Sit”
- Topic: Favorite National Team to Study
- Choices: Spain, France, or Italy
- Coach Mitchell’s “Start”: France