This week we sat down with the Assistant Coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, Matt Brase! Coach Brase has extensive experience as a coach at various levels of pro and international basketball, and we dive into his thoughts on Bench Production and Management, and discuss Drag Screen Angles and Post Game Analysis during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Transcript
Dan 02:19
Matt, the thing we wanted to start on is your bench and trying to maximize the production that you get out of those players coming off the bench. And you know, you at the NBA level, you’ve been at the G League level, you’ve been in Europe, and all the different combinations and all the different decisions that staffs have to make to try to maximize whatever it is, whatever you have coming off that bench, and just ways that coaches might think about it. So we’ll jump off there.
Matt Brase 02:47
Yeah, that’s a great topic right there. You know, it’s one of those things where it always seems easier when you’re not making the decision of what someone should do as the head coach. You know, I’ve been fortunate to be a head coach, like you said, in the G League in Europe, and there are a lot of hard decisions to be made in terms of substitutions and your bench and who’s going to play with who. And, you know, I kind of would always start out, you know, the game with a, like a substitution pattern. And I would have a sheet that me and my assistants would make and kind of just charting out the minutes of when guys are going to come in, when guys are going to come out of the game. And it works 0% of the time because there’s going to be foul trouble. There’s going to be, you know, someone gets tired or some guy is playing really, really well, and you just don’t want to take them out at the time he has to do. But you got to be cautious with that, especially if it’s early in the game. So they don’t run out of gas later. It’s one of those things for me, I always like going in with a plan, but it’s not necessarily a script that you have to stay by.
It’s more of kind of like a guideline. So, you know, during the game, when there’s a timeout, you know, one of my assistants would be, Hey, someone, so it’s been in for seven straight minutes. We got to get them out and I’m okay. Yeah. Who’s going in for him? Like, where do you have that plan based off what combinations we want? And then that kind of just goes into, you know, through the planning process is some teams have more really, really good players than others. Like if you’ve got three, you always want to keep two in at a time. If you have, you know, only two, one at a time, I don’t like having your best players on the bench, but at points to the game, they have to. So, you know, in a perfect world, like your three best players are, you know, different positions and you can stagger them where you always have two in at the same time. And so that means one of them has to come out pretty early in the game in order to make that combination work throughout the game. Obviously they’re going to start, you know, the first and third quarter together and probably finish the second and fourth. So in that middle time right there, you’ve got to create blocks where they’re going to be in and out. And, you know, that’s kind of talking about the starters now. And then the bench guys, it’s like important to pair with who they want. So for example, if you’ve got a team and your backup bigs, a roller lob threat, you probably want to pair them with your point guard that’s best coming off screens and making the lob pass, whether if you’ve got that guy on your team, most likely you do, and he’s probably one of your best players that you want to keep them involved, you want to keep that pairing together. And it just kind of helps with the whole flow of the game. If you can get those certain combinations. And then, you know, as a coach, you kind of have different plays and different ways of getting into your actions based off the different lineup.
Matt Brase 05:16
So you got to plan that too. And kind of put guys, I would say like guys who have their strengths, have them do it all the time, their weaknesses, try and never expose it. It’s never perfect. You’re never get, you do this all the time. You do this never, but like you want to try and paint that picture to do it. And the things you do good all the time, the things you struggle at or are inefficient, like you might be okay, but it’s less efficient than your other stuff. Let’s do that zero. So we can just maximize efficiency for your guys. So like try and get guys like that. If you’ve got a guy that’s, you know, doesn’t handle the ball well, doesn’t pass well, but he’s an awesome shooter. Then you pair them with a group that has a good screener that can get them open. So you can go off a flare or a guy that is a good drive and kick guy to produce the shots for them. And you don’t want to waste a really good shooter with a guard that rarely passes the ball. You want to put him with a guard that is going to come in and get him the ball. So, you know, that’s kind of the thing you juggle as a coach is, you know, putting the lineups together that you can be the most efficient within, you know, the whole group, you know, making my assistants, it was, you know, it would be a pretty good conversation, pretty good length going into each game of combinations.
I think a really important thing is you said it at the beginning was at this point in the season, developing your bench and doing this because every team has injuries too, right? Every team is missing good pieces, roll pieces at some point of the season. So you also got to develop these guys. So when they’re putting a higher role, they’re able to help you win basketball games as well. And, you know, I remember like Popovich was always really, really good at developing his bench because he’s like in the playoffs, we don’t know who’s going to be healthy, who’s going to be ready. So that’s the thing I thought about too. You’ve got to like develop these guys too. So they have confidence, your bench players and give them fair opportunities because you’re going to need them at some point throughout the season, most likely. And, you know, it’s easy as a coach to just have a lens of like, I just need to win this game right now and then like worry about the rest later. But if you get in that and it hurts you long-term as, you know, a head coach, my first couple of years, I struggled with that in terms of playing guys too many minutes because you’ve got to win this game right now because you just feel like that’s all the weight in the world right there. I remember one of my GMs when I was a G-League coach, it was like after the game he was like, you know, you played so-and-so like the last 16 minutes of the game. I was like, yeah, I was trying to win the game. And it’s like, you know, I was like losing the game. I’m like, that player was like exhausted the last three minutes of the game. So it was just, you’ve got to like trust your bench, develop your bench, trust your plan, and then get back to it later.
Matt Brase 07:44
It’s like, I made those mistakes and I was just like, I got to learn from that. You know what I mean? So it’s part of just the growth and knowing your team, knowing who they are.
And a big thing with the bench player too is clearly defining their role. What is your role when you come in the game? Are you a guy that comes in and, you know, you’re a six man of the year type guy and you’re coming in and like, we need you to score and we’re pairing you with guys that are just going to crash, get offensive rebounds and defend it. Like you’re the primary or like, are you the guy that comes in? You just need to be neutral. That’s it. You got to open shot. Great. You got to be awesome on defense and rebound. I think that’s also part of, you know, the hard part of basketball is everyone wants more shots. Everyone wants more touches. Everyone wants more points. Everyone wants more minutes. But like you can get more minutes by just doing less sometimes and eliminating mistakes and just being very, very solid. So I think when we talk about developing a bench, it’s also developing what your role is off the bench, because if you’re got a nine man rotation, those four guys off the bench, probably all have different roles and different ways you want to use them and incorporate them into your offense and your defense. So I think that’s a lot of stuff going on when you’re like developing a substitution pattern, a culture, and on top of that planning for a full season, whether it’s in the NBA, that’s 82 games or a college season, which is, you know, less games of just making sure that through that whole marathon and that journey, that you keep growing and you keep going up. So when it’s time at the end of the season, you’re playing at your best and you’ve got your identity, I think is what’s important as a team. If you know who you are and your players know who you are, like you have the best chance to win.
Dan 09:15
Talked about. Your best players who start and when they should come out of the game, if you’re trying to keep them fresh throughout the game and how you and your staff, you talked about guidelines and plans before a game, what you would discuss about when, let’s say, top two or three guys would actually come out of the game. And I’m thinking about early before media, rest through media, come on the backside, like all the decisions you got to make of when they’re actually coming out and what the plan looked like with that.
Matt Brase 09:44
So the plan, you know, it’s kind of be like, say you’ve got your two best players, you’re going to keep one of the two in at all times. I think in the NBA, we’ve got the media at 6:59, kind of that mark of that first dead ball after that time is when your first guy comes out. And so he plays a little over five minutes. And then you run the other guy until the 2:59 media timeout, the mandatory timeout. And then that’s when you flip them right there. And so then the first player that subbed will come back for like the last two minutes and change, usually what it is right there, while your others will get a break. And then you’ve got to take that guy back out, just for like a short stint from seven to four, maybe in the second quarter, second and fourth. And then the guy who you took out at like the 2:59 mandatory, get him back in at the seven around there right there. So he’s out for like five of those minutes, you’re getting those guys like 38 minutes when you stagger it like that, with some breaks with media and stuff like that. And then, you know, obviously being as fresh as you can to start the first and the third quarter to where they get those, they should be, you know, as fresh as possible right there, you know what I mean?
So they finished the second quarter, they start the third, but there’s that break in between, you know, kind of similar with the three stars or whatever you’ve gotten trying to keep two in, I think it’s always good to kind of take one out like a five minutes into the game mark, and then just start staggering them from there, keeping two of them in there. It’s one of those things, you also want to like feel the game too. I’ve always had this color coded thing with like green and red of like stops and like go in and go out. Well, after the game, we’d like look at it like, yeah, we weren’t that close. We’re like, we were pretty close. We got to like here and then like this happened. Or, you know, it’s an emotional game where you’ve got a guy that now let’s run a little bit more like you’re coming out of the timeout, he should be coming up. I want to draw play a form real quick. Like I want to get him another look right now. Like we got to get some action right now. So sometimes you’ll run them a little bit longer. But you never know if you take them out. Right? You never know what’s up next. You leave them in, you could score feels good. But then you also have the you leave them a little longer, you lose the game, and then you feel bad. He wasn’t fresh enough. You got tired in the last two minutes. Is it that minute, minute a half extra, we tried to squeeze out in the first quarter that got to it. It’s one of those things to kind of knowing your players knowing the flow and just kind of trying to not run them out of gas at the end because you know, it is the tough game, you got to be in, you know, really, really good shape and guys can only play a certain amount of minutes in a row.
Dan 12:09
Matt I’d like to follow up on your thoughts on developing your bench and maybe also then looking at how deep you go on your bench so when you’re looking through the developing your bench can you play nine and develop those four guys off the bench can you play ten you know what is your preference when looking at trying to develop the bench but also not giving your starters making sure they’re also getting their minutes?
Matt Brase 12:28
I’m kind of a nine guy. I think it just fits.
So your starters do get enough minutes and they get enough time and your bench gets enough of a run too. I’ve just feel like you get to 10 and like 11 especially it’s guys get too short of a stint and they don’t get that feel of the game. They’re in there for three, four minutes in the first half, three, four minutes and second, they’re only like eight minutes. It kind of gets hard to like establish who you are unless they’re just like a unique, unique player of just revving engines, crashing the glass and just you’re pressing and like picking up your defense at a certain time or doing something like that where you just like have like an energy guy in there. But I’ve just always been like a nine guy. I think it flows well with like substitution patterns and you’ve always got three to four of your starters in throughout the middle chunks of quarters instead of maybe only having one starter and four bench guys. If you have like a 10 man rotation or something like that, I think it’s the juggling act just gets a little hard. It’s a rhythm game. It’s a feel game. Like it’s hard for guys to just check in and check back out and then have to do it again later in the game. We got a good run for the guys. I think it’s important. Like I talked about earlier about kind of like knowing your role, also knowing your time slot, I think helps a lot of guys of preparing for the game. And I mean, you’ll see some guys that are on like the bike getting ready and they just know six they’re going in, you know what I mean? It’s just like you’re ready to go like the mindset’s there, the engagement and they know I’m going from here to here and not to pace themselves, but they know where like the start and finish blocks are. I think that helps guys out a lot just based off my experiences of working under some coaches and then being able to do it myself of doing that. And then, you know, again, like back to the blocks, like it just helps of getting guys the minutes you want them to play instead of like, Oh man, we didn’t play this guy. Like what happened? You know what I mean? So I think nine has always been like the most manageable number for me.
Dan 14:17
Matt, within this conversation too, also thinking about in the history of you as a coach and coaching with some of the best minds in the game, what the bench tends to look like for the most part as far as does it skew guys that really play defense and don’t turn it over? Does it skew some punch off the bench with some offense? I know you’d love to have both, but sometimes as a coach, and I know it depends on the game and all that kind of stuff, but what like productive, trustable bench ends up looking like a lot of time and you talked about roles earlier, like what those roles, what they fill most of the time.
Matt Brase 14:50
Withinin the roles of each individual, as you’re developing your bench, also comes consistency, knowing what you’re going to get, for the most part, each and every night. I think it’s important and part of its conversation, it’s coaching, it’s teaching, it’s all that.
You don’t want to have starters as well, but bench guys are erratic. Are they going to come in this one game, and just every time they touch it, they’re looking to score, looking to get a shot up because whatever. Someone’s telling them they need to score more, they think they need to score more, and they think the way to get elevated minutes or go from the bench to starting is to score, to me, isn’t the way to do it. You sign a player, you know who a player is, you go through pre-season, you know who they are, for the most part, as a coach, where they can fit in. Being a star in your role is very, very important. When you say, what does your bench look like? My bench is in a perfect world. I know when I put this guy in, these are the things he’s going to do, and in this conversation, we can’t throw out what exactly each person is because each one’s going to be different, right? If you’re like a pick and pop five, I want you to pick and pop, and you’ve got to be a consistent shooter, you’ve got to get back on defense, and you’ve got to be a defensive rebounder. I love a rolling lob catching big. You’ve got to make sure you do that every single time you’re in the game. You’re going to catch the lob one or two out of 10 times, but you’ve got to roll all 10 times to create shots for other people as well. Part of the role is to open up shots for other people, too, put pressure on the rim without the ball because then the help will come in, and then there’s spray-out passes available. I’m big on defining the roles of the guys, knowing what they are, and then once that bench goes in, if you’re confident in your bench as a coach, you go into a game very comfortably, and you go into that end of third quarter, start of the fourth quarter when you’re waiting to put your two or three best players in, and then you’re finishing unit at the very end of the game that you can hold it down in that time frame. I’m big on just consistency. Part of our jobs as coaches are to put them in the best scenarios, in the best areas where they can succeed, so the situations we’re putting you in, be great at them and keep doing it over and over again.
Dan 16:50
So earlier you talked about being a head coach and making some of the decisions on when the subs come in. And we talked about the plan, the guidelines. Have you found that as a head coach or your role as assistant, who is actually doing the subbing during the game? Because as a head coach, you got a lot going on.
You’re trying to think about the flow, all that. Do you offload that to assistants trusting that they’re following the game plan? Or as a head coach, you like to have a little bit of, say, still in the game. I know it varies per coach, but what are your thoughts on actually in-game decisions?
Matt Brase 17:22
I love making the call of yes or no. Going in with our plan is great, and I’ve always have an assistant that’s in charge of it. He’s also has the substitution pattern of just, hey, so-and-so is time to come out. I’ll be like, yep, get them, and then they’ll go tell which player to go on or whatever. When we first meet during the time out, the coach is getting a little huddle at the free-throw line before you go into the huddle with the team. I always write on the clipboard the initials of who’s in the game or who we’re putting in the game. I’m like, okay, who are we going? We go to this? Okay, yep, that’s what we want to do. Then I go in the huddle with the initials on the whiteboard, but I always like making the call.
I know some teams have the assistant that’s just throwing guys in at certain times, and the head coach isn’t necessarily saying yes or no. It’s just their way, and there’s no wrong way to do it, and there’s no right way to do it. It’s just what you’re comfortable with. But because basketball is such an emotional sport too, there’s always a reaction when a guy comes out of a game, for whatever reason. Maybe they ask to come out and they’re just exhausted or something, or they know it’s their time and they’re playing well, and they know it’s the flow, or sometimes they’re just mad at something that happened on the court, they’re upset. But to kind of help with the emotion, I’ve never taken a player out for a turnover. If you are aggressive, turn the ball over. I’ve had guys turn the ball over multiple times around. My assistant’s like, get them out, get them out. No, no, no, just wait. It’s a long season, it’s a long game. We can’t think turnover equals coming out of the game, because then the way I like to play is fast and up-tempo.
Then they might think making this decision or this read, if it doesn’t work out, might mean I come out of the game. And it’s hard sometimes, she’s like, man, I gotta take this dude out, what’s he doing? As long as it’s with the right mindset and aggressive, I’m cool with it. On the other side, I’m a big shot spectrum guy and where we shoot from, bad shot, you might be yanked right away. When I was in the G League, we didn’t shoot non-paint 2s. You don’t do it, the team knew it, player development, we didn’t work on it, we didn’t shoot it. None of our actions ended there, it’s just what we did, right? But there was a rule with one of my players that if he shot a non-paint 2 and he missed it, sub, if he made it, he could stay in the game. So I was like, hey man, it’s like Russian roulette right now. It’s a 40% shot for you, right? So if you shoot that thing, there’s a 60% chance.
Matt Brase 19:33
you’re coming out of the game. It’s your call. You’re doing it. And it’s so funny because if you watch our games as hes rises and shoot the sub that would be coming in would already hop up on the bench. He missed you, run to the score table, and he made it, he would be like dang. Again, it’s like establishing a culture, establishing rules, expectations, like we don’t shoot that shot. If you do, there’s consequences to it. If you miss, I think that’s how you like whatever your philosophy is, whatever your beliefs are as a coach, you know, there’s got to be accountability if it’s not done the way you intend to do it. And not saying that’s the only way to play the right way to play, but like that’s our way to play. And that’s what we’re doing with this team.
And like I said, I’m huge on pace and shot spectrum. So it’s just like one of those things we’re playing with pace and you make a turnover, but it’s with aggressive in the right mindset. I’m cool with it. Like we’re going to keep rolling with it. But if it’s a decision you make within our offense to shoot a shot that we don’t shoot, then there’s going to be, you know, some sort of consequence attached to it. That’s kind of a way of having some substitution stuff that could mess up your original plan. It also teaches guys and it was established kind of early in the season. And then we trended a lot better and got away from that as the season went on.
Dan 21:50
I’d like to ask about when you are sitting with your staff and kind of mapping out the substitution pattern. And like you said, very rarely do you stick to it, but when mapping it out, are you mapping it out for the whole game or is it just like a half of them will copy paste it? And then secondly, when you look at, okay, well, when to sub and how long the spurt of the guy, the sub playing or the starter sitting, how much of considerations are going into, well, okay, if we do this, we’re gonna get caught with a lineup that really can’t score or a lineup that can’t really defend or even like a lineup that probably gives us a bad matchup based on the opponent substitution. It’s a lot I’m throwing at you, but I guess what is kind of like your guys’ thought process when you start to then look at the lineups that are developing when you map out the substitution pattern?
Matt Brase 22:40
So the first part of your question, you know, it’s just like a grid that we made. And it just goes minute by minute down. And it’s the first and second mirror, the third and fourth. So like you’re referring to like kind of like copy paste or just like, this is what it’s going to do.
And then we talked about early about the nine and 10 man rotation. What I have that like nine and 10 are kind of, you don’t know which one you’re going to go with sometimes I have done like the, you know, one gets a stint like in the first half, if he plays well, like he gets that same stint in the second half, but if he doesn’t, then maybe I go to the next guy and he gets bypassed in the second half. If he didn’t have the stint that I expected, I have kind of incorporated that into some of my substitution patterns to just, okay, we’re going to play nine, but like, if this guy doesn’t do his job and stint one, then stint two might get rewarded to this guy. And then maybe we like flip it the next game or whatever and just kind of go that way. So based off my head coaching experience, my teams are bad lineups could not defend. We didn’t have a lot of trouble scoring fortunately, and the teams I’ve coached. So it was kind of like, we’re going to struggle on this end defensively, but we just got to find a way to like score more and play faster.
The teams that I’ve had and, you know, with roster construction, we’ve been able to do things as a lot of scoring. And so sometimes we had some struggle defensive lineups, which were challenging, but you just kind of know what’s going to happen and you just kind of adjust knowing that on offense, you’re going to be able to, you know, hopefully keep it going. One thing that not as a head coach, but as an assistant coach with teams that I’ve done is pairing players with the other team’s player. You know, if you’ve got a great on ball defender and they’ve got a guy that has the ball a lot and you want to pair all those minutes together, I think that’s a really good thing.
I just never got to that as a head coach, but I have as an assistant with some teams I’ve been on where if they’re still on their team and you want this guy on on the whole game, you just pair it. So you don’t know how many minutes your guy’s going to play that game. You know, you kind of have a clue when the other guy’s going to come in and out, but just kind of pairing the minutes together. If it’s a, it’s a big, that’s tough in the post and you got to have a guy in your best defender in there for the post as well. Those are some kinds of things that can mess with your lineup because now their coach is holding the cards a little bit more when you’re making your moves and when you’re making your subs. And I think for defensive reasons, that’s like the way to go to help it. You know, like I said, in my head coaching career, I didn’t get that advanced with it. And I think another thing you kind of alluded to is just knowing their substitution patterns. And I think that’s something that is a very interesting topic of just knowing when their guys are going to come out. You talk about guys, are they like a two-stint guy where they play a long chunk out back in or the three-stint guy where it’s like short out and out in each half, and then just kind of pairing your lineups against the two. I think it’s like an interesting study. It’s one of those things that makes a lot of sense that I think is more like advanced level of thinking of like, you know, knowing their playing, but like also you also want to have your guys in the game too, that you want whatever your strengths are as a team, because teams have different strengths, different weaknesses, different areas where, you know, they know that they can count on something. So I think that’s a thing that I probably haven’t taken into account enough, but something that’s very interesting.
Dan 25:40
When you mentioned as a head coach, you had some lineups where you had good offense, but your defense was a struggle. When you knew you got to those lineups, what were you mindful of? Or did you have any sort of number or something in your head where it’s like, all right, we got to get rid of this lineup. They’re not scoring like they should be and now I know they’re not defending. It was like a marker in your head where it’s like, all right, I got to move off this lineup.
Matt Brase 26:01
I think trying to be more creative on the defensive end when that happens, whatever your base defense is, whatever you believe in, and you teach your team, maybe that lineup’s a little different. Like maybe you play more zone or maybe you have a big than that, you can get to the ball and blitz the ball screen a little bit more, just send double teams at their best player, just throw off their rhythm.
On offense, it’s a very rhythm game and like guys getting rhythm and they get comfortable right. But like on defense, you have the ability to adjust the rhythm a little bit and like blow some things up or switch things differently or just kind of change your coverages. So I think with those lineups, you know, it’s kind of important because you’ve got to play guys during the game, right? You can’t play someone 48 minutes, like we wish we could. So you got to get to some of those lineups. And so I think it’s just important, just not be afraid to make a change. So I think for those lineups, it’s, you know, kind of fun to mess up their cadence on offense and kind of make them do something that they haven’t been able to do all game.
Dan 26:54
Another interesting topic, as you mentioned, two stints versus three stint guys. And so maybe this is more of a topic like when looking at your starters and maybe, so if I kind of have you put on when you’re with in Berezia, your European hat when it’s more of a 40 minutes, a shorter game and how you think about like if it’s a two stint guy in the first half, but maybe then he’s going to have to be sitting out to end the first half, which is fine, but you obviously don’t want your starter to be sitting out to end the game. So how do you think about managing if he is a two stint guy, but then making sure he’s finishing the game in the second half, or is it simply just moving them to a, he’s going to be three stints in the second half.
Matt Brase 27:32
My whole philosophy is just making sure that you have like two of your best players on the quarter. One of your two, if you’ve only got two that you have kind of in that category. And for like a 40 minute game, when I was over in Italy coaching, it was, I would take out one of my players three minutes into the game. So he knew he had the start, he’d play like three minutes. My point guard, who was my other best player, he’d play like the first quarter, if I could get him to play all 10 minutes. But then the other guy would come back in three minutes to go, four minutes to go in the half. So he’d get like two, three minute break right there. So he’d be with my best player to finish the first and then starting the second by himself. And then my best player would get the quarter break in between the first and the second. And then he’d come back in at around eight, seven. So he’d get the timeout, the long timeout, two or three minutes of game time and then back in. So he’s getting like, if you’re going 10 and seven, he’s getting 34, you get him or 35 out of the 40 minutes, which is probably like a good level 40 minute game right there.
So kind of, I would try and run him the full 10 on the first and the third, and then the second and the fourth, get him like seven and a half, seven minutes to get in with that. So it’d be, you know, 34, 35 minutes a game. And then the three stink guy, just kind of the bookends of the first and second, and then the middle part in between the first and second quarters.
Dan 28:48
What do you think about a three stints with your best players if it’s your best player they’re gonna get the two stents the longer chunks
Matt Brase 28:55
I love it with your best player if your best player is willing to do it because my style and my philosophy is your best player also gets the two for one at the end of the first quarter and he’s also in at the end of the second. So like he could in theory have the two for ones in three of the quarters and then who knows what happens in the fourth quarter right there.
So you get the ball under 38 seconds and you’re rushing down, getting one off, like he gets a free shot there and then he gets the last ISO pick and roll, whatever action you’re running at the end of the quarter to get another shot too. I’m a big best player, get those three stints in, everyone’s different. Some guys play the whole first and third quarter, some of the superstars in the league. So they get those two for ones anyway and then they just take a longer break to start the second and the fourth. So everyone kind of does it different and players have a certain, everyone’s in a different kind of shape, everyone’s in a different kind of rhythm, everyone has a different kind of mindset of what keeps them in the best mindset and frame of playing each game. But three stints for a superstar I think is awesome because you can still play in the same amount of minutes. It’s just how you get the minutes.
Dan 29:56
Matt, thanks for all your thoughts on that. That was awesome.
We wanna flip over to a segment now on the show we call Start, Sub, or Sit. We’re gonna give you three options around a topic, ask you to start one of them, sub one of them, and then sit one of them, and then we’ll discuss your answer from there. So if you’re all set, we’ll hop in this first one.
Matt Brase 30:12
Let’s go.
Dan 30:13
All right, first one has to do with post-game analysis and the thing that’s best in a post-game analysis with your staff to help with team growth, basically. So, Start, Sub, or Sit, option one post-game analysis, is it looking at your game plan execution? Whatever it is, the keys of the game, did you execute? Option two is looking at your main principles or identities on offense and defense, whatever the main thing. Those don’t change from game to game. Do we hit those, analyzing those post-game? Then option three, we just call non-box score stats. So maybe internal cultural stats, shot spectrum, hustle stats, whatever, things that are on the box score but are important to your team, analyzing those post-game for growth. So game plan execution, main principles, or non-box score stats.
Matt Brase 31:05
Main principles, number one, it’s who you are, it’s your identity, it’s your consistency, it’s what you’re doing throughout the course of the year, it’s kind of like your foundation is. However strong your foundation is, how much you can build. And with that, shot spectrum is part of it, so I know that was part of your number three right there, but that is included in the foundation right there.
One of my big staples, game plan execution, number two, I think that’s important. Whatever you want to try, whatever your emphasis was for that game based off their offense, your coverages, what you were going to run, how are you going to run it, you know, your offensive kind of plan going into it and what you were looking to create, did you do it? And then just defensively, did you do what our plan was because, you know, it’s ever changing. I think that’s very important. And it’s also important going in because you play teams multiple times. We executed this, we did it really well, we struggled with this, we needed to get better and then just kind of as part of figuring out your team too, like you figure out what you can do sometimes, what you can’t do sometimes, you know, it sounds good when you have the plan together and you’re watching film and you’re like, oh, let’s just do it this way. And then sometimes your team is capable of doing it or like it’s a one off that something happened and it’s not repeatable over and over again sometimes. So game plan execution, I think is good to, you know, analyze, you know, kind of as you build your team throughout the year and then, you know, non box score stats, I think we’re sitting those. I think they’re important. But again, it’s kind of game by game. There could be some random outlier things that happen that aren’t duplicatable over and over again. So it’s kind of like keep your main stuff, the main stuff.
Dan 32:31
for sure. Post-game analysis, you’ve been involved with great staffs. When and how they stay effective. I think we’ve probably all been a part of post-game chats with your staff where you just end up going down the rabbit hole of, we need better players or whatever it is, and how the good staffs can sort of stay on task and be even keeled about what needs to be done, what needs to be changed, whatever it is.
And you’re part of a large staff right now, so there’s a lot of voices, I’m sure, about how those things stay on point so you guys get better the next game.
Matt Brase 33:03
talking about, you know, basketball is like such an emotional support. When I was, hey, coach, and I learned this through other coaches I had worked with was just after the game, it’s just like, we’re bringing it in. Okay, when awesome, bring it in, lose. Hey, keep your heads up. Let’s go stay together. See you guys all tomorrow.
You don’t want to say something as a coach that is a maybe too emotional or reference something that happened in the game that when you watch the film, like that might not have been the reason you lost and you made it a thing. Players want to win. We want to win. We all hate to lose. That you don’t want to say something that’s necessarily like not true or not the reason, or like you might think someone didn’t play well and like you go back and watch the film, like, Oh, they’re actually pretty good or blame something that maybe wasn’t the big issue of the why, and then, you know, I think, you know, coaches hang on to like that last play a lot too. It’s important. Yeah. But all the plays are important throughout the course of the game. So like, how can we get better here? I was interviewing for the G league job. I was talking with Daryl Morey and he was, I was like, I want to be really good at our end of game execution. The placement he’s like, why, like, why don’t you just be better at the things you do the most during the game throughout the course of the game, and then just like be up by 12 with a minute to go. I was like, makes a lot of sense. Allocate your time to the things that happen all the time and the things a little like still be good and prepared and ready for it because it can win or lose the game, but like the things that happen all the time, you’re really good at those that resonated with me.
It doesn’t resonate with everyone, but like it made a lot of sense to me. So me after the game is kind of just wash it. We’re out staff. You go meet real quick. And then it’s just when we’re all going to hang out, we’re going to have fun. We’re going to laugh. I’m big on when I’ve been head coach, when we win, especially on the road or somebody else, we’re all going to go grab dinner, we’re all going to hang out. We’re going to laugh. We’re going to, you know, just be coaches hanging out.
And then I’m a very sore loser. So I don’t like talking to a lot of people after losses. And so that’s usually like, just go back, watch the film, try not to be too emotional with it. How do we improve? How do we get better? And then our real post-game analysis will happen the next day in the morning when you can like push that aside, look at it, all the coaches can do our film.
And then, you know, when I was head coach, we have offense and defense improvement, like how can we get better? I didn’t like using the word like bad defense, bad offense. I’d rather be like, how do we improve? What’s the solution? Like, how can we get better? I’ve always had the offense coordinator, the defense coordinator. I’d watch the film too. We’d all get together, watch the clips.
Like, how can we get better? How can we improve? We got to like highlight what we do good, because we want to do that more. And then how do we improve and how do we get better at it? That was kind of our staff meetings the next day. We’d go through the film and the coordinators would show their video and whittle it down to what we’re going to show the team and then show that to the team. So I think to your theory on post-game analysis is celebrate all the wins. Cause it’s tough to win in basketball and everyone wants to win and everyone tries really hard. So I’m big on celebrate everyone you can and learn from losses and hike better. And that discussion is to be had, you know, the next day when everyone calms down a little bit and everyone’s got their thoughts in mind and not saying anything erratic and really thinking about what we can do to get better type thing is kind of how I was approached.
Pat 36:03
Matt, if we take for this question the defense event, Marrying kind of your main principles to your game plan, how complex or varied can you be, or is it easier to be complex and varied when looking at maybe a specific player that you’re game planning for, or maybe looking at a specific action that this team does that they’re either really good at, or maybe you just don’t see a lot, they’re doing a lot of cross-screen stuff, or flex, I guess where, when you see game plans that gone wrong is that we got too complex and just this sort of action versus maybe we can be a little more collect some players and the game plan will still have clarity.
Matt Brase 36:42
I think sometimes you do get too complex because we watch a lot of film, we see the other team play a lot, we know all their plays, we know what they’re going to do, we know how we should guard them and how we stop them. But the most important thing and the thing that matters the most of the outcome is how well can we relay that to our players?
How well can our players comprehend it in real time when it’s happening really, really fast and then do what we need to do? So I think when you talk about the game planning and then grading it at the end of looking at it as kind of just, I think you put in the biggest bucket of do we do what we do as a team? Whatever philosophy is, our defensive transition routes, how we get back, how we present ourselves to the ball, how we get into the ball, what we do with pick and rolls, you want to be really, really good at that. I think the next thing is how well did we do our non-base coverage, our specialty stuff that we run and as a season you want to try and grow it. So it is who you are, that you have options and different tools that you can use against different opponents. Because you got different teams, everyone’s got a different weapon that they’re going to use the most against you. Play the vanilla defense all the time, you’ve got to take away their strengths in the chess game. I think it’s one of those things is you kind of grade and look at, are we who we were in certain aspects and the adjustments we’ve made or against their star player, did we do what we wanted to do against them? And some games that might be like, hey, they’re their best player, they’ve got to score 50 to beat us. Or like, hey, they’re their best player, like we’re not letting them get a shot off in the first quarter. There’s different ways because the other team doesn’t know what you’re going to do, but like you’ve got to have a plan and a vision of, we want to do this to this guy or the others will not like it if he has the ball all the time. So like, let’s just keep him have the ball all the time. Then like the others as the game goes on, we’ll be like frustrated. You know what I mean? So like you want to play the mind games to whatever way it will be. Like it’s not the same against every superstar or you might change it on the superstar mid game, or you might have a different plan the next time you play him or something. Like you might have had success one way and do it a different way the next time.
Pat 38:37
Matt, you talked about with the game plan clarity, helping your players kind of recognize actions. Maybe it’s in the course of an NBA season, like with the games coming, it can be hard on the court, but maybe in a playoff situation or in your time in Italy, when you had a week to prepare, what would you do, I guess, implementing the game plan in a practice setting on the court and helping your players recognize the action?
Matt Brase 38:59
In Italy, we typically just played on Sundays. So we’d have like the full week.
So beginning of the week, we’d focus on ourselves, how we’d get better. We’d take Thursday off and then Friday, when we come back, like we’d start introducing the other team with our personnel is who are their main plans. So that was like Friday. So we had extra days to prepare, and then we would have our second unit guys run the plays and learn them and try and over here, we’re an advanced scout, so we basically know the names, the actions of all the plays. And, you know, in Europe, we don’t have an advanced scout. So we’re just trying to figure it out. And the second time you play him, it’s better, you know, because you played against them, but just kind of putting them through situations. Film first, breakdown groups, whether it’s three on three, two on two, depending on what the action is, and then bringing all the pieces together to like five on five Friday would be working on at that game speed and getting our guys moving, getting, you know, some bumps, some guys hitting each other, you know, stuff like that. And then Saturday, it was not contact, but everything going through at a certain speed, just so everyone could kind of hear it, recognize it. You know, my assistant coaches were awesome and they were verbalize it, put it out there, just kind of hit the antennas. And then we’d say in our terminology, one team calls it snap and one team calls it nose and one team calls it 52 or whatever teams call it. We would always relay it, like have the players relay it to our bench and then we’d relay it back in our language. So they knew what it was. Most players could be smart enough to know, but we just had like where we’d echo it all the time. The players would echo it to our bench and we’d just go back with our language. So everyone was on like the same page. Like we had like the play call and early enough that we could yell it. So, yeah, it was just kind of just like film was big, like stop film, show it, be clear, okay, when we see this action coming down, like we’re going to try and, you know, communicate so you can hear it, see it in front of you. And then that Friday was usually like a good day where we could run it with some pace, have guys guard it and teach it and keep working it and like get everyone on the same page with it.
Pat 40:56
So on that Friday when you’d introduce the film, so when the players are seeing the play for the first time, was it more about them just trying to understand what the opponent is doing, the patterns of it, or would you also walk through how we’re going to defend it as well when you’re on the film?
Matt Brase 41:11
So on the film, like, Hey, this is their action. This is what they’re running. This is how they do it. You try and find film of another team defending it the way you want to defend it. So visually it helps our guys instead of just pointing at the screen and telling them, and then they might not be thinking the same thing you’re thinking. It’s very important to find that right clip of the team doing it the right way.
And maybe you don’t want to do it. So it’s like compare, kind of like back to back clips of like, okay, this, uh, this team guarded it. We’re not going to do it this way, but like they like to run it. And they have success when they run it this way. And you have the clip that finishes with them at the rim or a kick out three or something, and then the next clip, this is how we’re going to guard it. And this is why they see it on the film. And then to the practice could be three on three when you’re going through it. Or when you get to five and five, they’re going, because all players learn differently, like all humans learn differently. Some people you can just talk to and they understand it. Some people will watch film. They understand it. Some people have to do it on the court at game speed. Some people can just walk through and get it. Some might need all three to like finally get it to click in. And it’s just how learning goes, you know, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. There’s plenty of things I struggle learning on certain things, but it’s just like, I got to see it a different way and from a different lens. And I think when you have a team, not everyone learns the same way. So you kind of got to hit all sides for it to click.
But the most important I think is, you know, once you’re on the court, there’s the spatial awareness of where it’s happening on the court, where people guarding the action should be, where the help should be, all that stuff. I think with the spatial awareness, like on the court really helps those guys a lot.
Pat 43:27
Matt, our last start subset for you. We’d like to ask about when you have a bad screener in the drag screen, in the drag pick and roll, ways to just help the screener or still find ways to make it an efficient action. So start, sub, or sit. The first option is just telling them to slip out every time rather than they’re struggling to find angles or struggling to hit body. So just tell them slip out, get on the rim. The second option would be just automatic and auto rescreen, knowing that they’re probably going to miss it. Let’s rescreen it. Maybe on the second attempt, they hit a body and we can build an advantage. Or the third option is kind of in the same vein of your screen. Just like, all right, if there’s someone in the corner, just run off the drag and again, try to occupy hit on the second screen.
Matt Brase 44:18
I’m going the first one, the slip out option, I’m envisioning a athletic big. That’s a lob catcher, you know, it goes into getting into it quick and getting out of it quick, I think is how you maximize that type of player. And, you know, the guards are so good in this league. They just need the defense have a little indecision. Like, is there going to be a screen or not? And like, usually they can get by their guy, you know, their primary defender, and then they got to make the read going down. The sub would be the re-screen. I think that would be the sub just because, you know, you miss it. You turn it back around. You still have your best handler and they’re not necessarily your best player, but making the decision to make the read. And, you know, a lot of times you re-screen and under if you miss it. So maybe the defender goes under and then you re-screen it and then you can attack downhill and still get a roll and rim pressure from your big after that. And, you know, again, with these, it’s a lot of reads of like what the defense is doing too. I know the question was the bad screener. So that would be my second. Then the last one would just be like the veer. I like bringing, you know, shooters out of the corners and bringing them up. But if he’s the bad screener, he might miss that one too. But I do like, you know, that action out of certain wrinkles when they know you’re doing something to, you know, go get a free screen on a guy, got a two on the ball, or you got a big retreat and just to go crack a defender and have your best shooter coming off. So all three are really good options, but yeah, that one’s got to get benched.
Pat 45:41
Fair enough. Matt, you alluded earlier that you like to play with pace. So when looking at the drag screen and looking at the synergy between the point guard and the screener, I know there’s a lot of nuance that can go on in angles, but I guess from a very base level, what is important to you? Are you stressing between your ball handler and your screener to like get the ball handler going downhill, get the screener on the rim?
Matt Brase 46:05
There’s going to be synergy between the two of them. Like you got to find a relationship between the two of them that makes sense. I’m very big on within your season. I call it system development where those guys are working together a lot. It’s like quarterback wide receiver type thing. They got to be together.
Like you can’t just have your point guard in there doing individual workouts all the time, then doing practice. You’re big, just rolling with your coach, throwing them lobs or something. Cause there’s touch, there’s rhythm, there’s angles, there’s all that stuff. So, you know, when we did kind of our system development stuff, you know, in the G league and over in Italy, it was like a lot of it’s sometimes it’s like guard, guard workout in the morning, the wings are together, the bigs are together. You know, when they’re doing their workouts, not the full team setting, but then someday it’s like, okay, it’s the point guard and the big are together for like these two days this week. And then he’s with this guy this day to kind of get the most energy.
So I think that’s a, the first part is making sure that you utilize your time with your players and their development times that you pair different positions sometimes that are going to be working together within the actions. And then it’s just like, I like guards bringing it up the outside of the court. Like don’t bring the ball up the middle, get on one of the sides, push it up bigs. You know, you don’t want offensive foul. So like, I like slip outs, like just creating a little bit of advantage, but like with pace, it’s hard to guard. You’ve got their biggest probably calling out screen, their guards probably looking over their shoulder, the faster you can go to get out of it, the better. You don’t want that illegal screen. Cause you don’t get a shot up. The other team gets the ball. So what I call it is hit the lower third. So you’re running in your defender, the lower third, you just want to hit the ball, like all you need is him to step up a little bit, just react a little bit to the screen to try and get over it. And then you’re out and you’re down. So I think that’s important when you’re going at a good pace coming down. It’s not always perfect. Sometimes they’re going to pick up your guy earlier. They’re going to chest them. They’re going to send them to the middle. Then you got to know what the bigs going to do. So like, this is like where the synergy comes in.
Hey, it’s like scouting game prep. You never know. They could change their defensive coverages too during the game or going into the game. So if it’s a little bit slower, you still want to hit that bottom third. Now you want to set and hold it a little bit longer and like free up your guard a little bit, if it’s more stagnant. If we’re running, we’re rolling like slips are awesome. They’re great. That’s the ideal world. But when it slows down a little bit, now we got to like help our guard and set it. We got to get them open and set it higher. So he can come off to shoot a three, or if the bigs coming up, he can just rush the outside and get by.
Matt Brase 48:31
But I think, you know, those are the things that you kind of talk about with your guys, giving them solutions. And, you know, as the season goes on, you get better because now you’ve got more reps, more film, more everything with your guys to make the reads. And like, they just kind of get on the same level. You know, I just think it’s important.
It just goes all back to like how much you’re working on it with them. You can’t just run drag and expect everything to happen perfectly. Go through it and practice and have whatever. If you’ve got player development coaches that can guard it or anyone else that can be there to kind of give them the same feel, I think it just really enhances what they do, but I like them higher up on the court just because the guard has more options at more space. You know, if you have really, really good spacing with your other three guys, the passing solutions are there. Whatever. Like you’ve got options. So yeah, just higher up. And then that’s kind of like the two mains and then they go under, are we going to snake it and go around and do like that, that highway gortat screen? Like how are we going to do it with like the big back? If they blitz us, where are we going to go? Then that’s like the next level stuff teaching. And when you get to stuff blitzing or stuff like that, then you kind of incorporate the whole team. Now you need passing outlets to get out of the double team. You need to have safety guys. You got to have a guy ready to attack stuff like that. The simple part of the drag is one thing that you want to create that as much as possible, but then you also got to be prepared and work on, you know, all the different coverages that could be thrown at you.
Pat 49:58
When you are doing the two-man groups in your individual sessions, from a drill perspective, what are you working on with them in the practice setting when it is a big in a guard working on the drag screen?
Matt Brase 50:10
is making that pass, whether it’s a low pocket pass bounce, if it’s the lob up top, if it’s kind of like corral and you keep pushing the late drop off to the big, it’s a lot of passing when I got the two of them together. So it’s the point guard making the reads of how the defenders are doing it. And then once you just have those two, you could have like another coach out there too, and then have like a low man or a help guy in there too. And then that might be a pass out. But when I have the two men, it’s a lot of passing and timing and rhythm.
And I think it helps the big of like getting their feet right too. So when they’re ready to get their launch area, they know what foot they’re going off. Are they going off one, going off two, depending on how the rhythm of the pass is. Like if they just slip out and go, it’s probably like a one foot go off of it. It’s a little later, like they might have to like gather down a little bit and it might be a late drop off and it’s like a straight up catch and go up. So just kind of different rhythm with that. I used to always tell my coaches, coming off and like shooting in the three is like an awesome option for guards to come off, but like do that when it’s just the guards together. But when you have the guard and the big pick, we’re doing that like let’s work on all the passing because the guard needs it just as much as the big needs the timing for that kind of relationship and synergy that they need.
Pat 51:17
just looking at spacing through the course of the game. We can’t control it always, but if you’re wanting to play this drag, do you prefer like the empty side with a loaded three man side? Are we for that corner filled?
Matt Brase 51:28
There’s kind of like two different ways of it. You can’t control that much where you start when you go out and transition. You could be on this side, this side, you could go for the rebound, you could go for a 50 50, but whatever. As you’re running down the court, there’s going to be a couple of things that happen. Say the point guard’s coming up the left side of the court. So facing the basket, the left, you’re either going to have like a perfect world where you have both corners. You have a guy trailing flowing into the wing and you have the big coming down the middle, like ready for a drag. That’s like the perfect world.
I like that. Great. And I want these drags kind of set pretty high, right? Get downhill rollers run the outside. There’s a single tag on the backside. There’s two guys in front of you. If the right side of the court’s pulled in defensively, boom, boom. Then like, there’s the other option of get it. You get the defensive rebound and I don’t want to be like the two runs there, the three runs there, and you have to run to your spot because you might be crossing. You might just like fill the spots. Like you can like organically run into it, right? So there’s that first option. The second option, okay. It happens. My point guard’s going up the left side of the court. Everyone else is running on the right side. Yeah. So now you’ve got corner, got a wing and like slot guy, your big still coming down the middle and your guards got it now. So now I want you to rush and push that ball as deep as possible and get inside the three point line, basically, but like in the corner. And then I want that screen happening really, really low. So now it’s not like a drag. Some people call it like a logo pick and roll or like a low pick and roll, whatever you call it, but it’s past the free throw on like way down, like down towards the baseline.
Then when the guard comes off over the top, if you can get over the top with the coverage, however they play it, but in a perfect world, he gets over the top. Now you’ve got like three guys on the weak side. You’ve got a roller. If you throw to the slot guy, the first guy, you can have a middle cutter and a swing and then like, you just teach your guys like different actions and going. And then there’s the other one where if the rebound, there’s two guys running in front of the point guard on the left side, the big still trailing. And now there’s one guy on the right side. And so he’s sprinting to the corner. Like if you’re the first guy on either side, you’re running to the corner. There might not be a guy on either side, right? But you’re running up the right side. You’re sprinting up there. So as the guard comes down, you could do drag and it’d be like a double tag. But like for me, it’s like now you just throw it to the big. And then the big just goes to the next side and plays with that guy that’s in the right corner. Then you still have like the mirror just on the other side of three people there coming off, getting middle slight.
Matt Brase 53:56
And those to me, like just aren’t set plays. They’re just the rhythm of your early offense.
So like how you’re playing, getting guys to understand we can start in all these different places on defense. We get the rebound, we get the steal. They make a basket. We take the ball to the net. We shouldn’t be all confused. We’re going just like flow, like run wide and keep going. And then it was like all the pieces will fall into place. And then the ball just makes decisions. And like where the ball goes decides kind of your movements, kind of like how I’ve always taught the early offense. So it’s drag could happen on multiple of them or that deep one or drag could still happen with the double side one, but I like just like flow and get to the other side, like side to side movement, paint touches are like very important to me.
Dan 54:36
Well, Matt, you’re off the Start, Sub, Sit, Hot Seat. Thanks for playing that game with us.
Matt Brase 54:41
You guys can both start on my team too, so you guys are good.
Dan 54:44
I appreciate that. We got a final question for you close the show before we do. Thanks again for coming on today and sharing all your thoughts. This is awesome. Thank you very much.
I appreciate it. That’s awesome. Now our final question that we asked all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach.
Matt Brase 55:02
I think the best investment is it’s availability. It’s like being ready for everything, being available to your organization. It’s a beautiful game, like this is my love, this is my passion, like put everything into it. A lot of people would love to have some of these jobs that we have. I don’t take that for granted, so like for me it’s my availability.
This is what I do, this is what I love, like I’m gonna pour everything into the video, player development, to strategy, to game plan, to post game, and like it’s not saying you’re perfect, you’re gonna get everything right, but like just keep working, just keep doing it. I think is kind of my biggest investment is just making sure you’re locked in, making sure you’re ready, making sure you’re prepared, making sure you’re studying, learning new things, you’re open-minded, because there’s a lot of different ways to win in this league, there’s a lot of great coaches, there’s a lot of ways to learn and implement things that I think just being able to be available and open-minded to everything is just what’s been best for me. I’ve been fortunate to be around this game and sometimes you learn something new, you’re like I never thought of that, but like I’m kind of one foot in, but I’m gonna learn about it and it’s gonna be part of us and then like next thing you know, you’re like I love it, I’m into this, like this is it. I think that’s a big thing for a lot of coaches, especially young coaches, don’t take any of this for granted, pour everything into, it’s a beautiful game and for me it’s like there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing it, I don’t know if I’d be good at anything other than coaching basketball. That’s one of those things that I’ll say and then just one of the things is like bet on yourself, take opportunities. There’s no perfect path to get where you want. I’m very lucky to have the job that I want, but I bet on myself at times. You take a path, you take a different journey to do different things and if you get opportunities like going with two feet, be all in, be the best at whatever role that may be and just put your head down and just work. It’s been an amazing ride so far with hopefully more to come for me, but just bet on yourself, take calculated risks.
Dan 57:03
All right, Pat, always great to get thoughts on a coach that their whole job is to just think about all the time. Numbers, they have all the numbers from the staffs in the NBA and thinking through everything from bench productions, the post game and bad screening. I mean, everything we got into today, fun to have someone on that, that’s what they’re thinking about 24 seven. Yeah, even before, you know, we knew what we were gonna talk about with coach today, just, I mean, our own conversations too about just choosing our benches, rotating lineups, all kind of top of mind stuff that we were super excited to get into.
So as always, let’s jump into our top three takeaways here. And I’m gonna let you do the honors and take away number one.
Pat 57:45
Yeah, my first takeaway, starting with the first big bucket, like we just alluded to with bench productivity. I liked early on when he just talked about his thoughts on like the importance of developing a bench. I know you and me kind of talked before we began this wrap up. You know, it is a little bit different with the NBA, the 48 minutes, the long season, but what I think is applicable and is important is the benches are always gonna win you games at a certain point, no one’s immune to injuries and kind of having what he talked about, like giving your bench some leeway to develop, to grow as a unit and as players individually, because at a certain point, any one of those lineups or players is gonna maybe step up into a bigger role. And, you know, I think kind of fighting the urge is times that head coaches to just yank the bench in favor of the starters as we alluded, especially when it’s like a 40 or a 32 minute game where I think it is quicker to justify like, well, my starters can play heavy minutes, but sometimes, you know, it isn’t the case. And what he alluded to, you gotta be mindful of going after the short-term victory can have long-term effects. And I just liked his thoughts on just, yeah, developing a bench, you know, dividing the roles, giving them several minutes to impact the game and kind of get a flow for the game.
And it’s not just two, three minutes spurts. Well, you know, your guys just get service, get some water.
Dan 59:04
Absolutely. You’re following up on, you talked about planning and kind of a guideline for how you’re gonna sub. With that, he mentioned that it almost never goes to plan that way. And he kind of talked about once the game hits, it always goes awry in a sense. But I took from that, that it’s not so much that you follow the script of the substitution patterns. But if you and your staff are kind of thinking about all the scenarios before, and even if you don’t stick to it, you’ve probably thought through a lot of the things that could happen. So just the act of actually scenario planning with your subs beforehand helps you so that when the game does hit and your star picks up their early second foul or there’s a tweaked ankle, you’ve kind of gone through the process a little bit.
Dan 59:51
And so, yeah, it doesn’t maybe stay exactly what you thought all the time, but just the act of planning is helpful for the staff to think through stuff. So it’s not just like once the game hits, you’re flying by the seat of your pants.
Pat 01:00:04
Yeah, I agree. You talked about like pairings and understanding, you have a really good rim rolling big, getting the point guard that can penetrate and pass or the vice versa, don’t pair a shooter with kind of a ball dominant scoring guard because he may never get a shot. And I think to what you’re talking about, as you map out, you kind of understand what pairings are going to play. Or even later on, we talked about like lineups, maybe lineups that are more offensive minded, less defensive minded. And so maybe it’s in your head like, okay, you know, but then again, the game happens and it’s at a different time later, earlier, but you’re prepared for, okay, it’s this pairing, offensively, we got to start to do this stuff or it’s this lineup. I need to mix up my defense to protect them or vice versa. You understand, like, well, I got stuck with our shooter playing with my ball dominant guard, this is how it worked out. And this is probably why he didn’t get many shots in the first half where I got to try to remedy that. So I think it just prepares you for, regardless of when these lineups get in, but you know what lineups to expect or pairings to expect and how you need to coach to those groups to make them the most effective and productive out on the court.
Yeah, part of this conversation reminded me of when we had coach Martin Schiller on and coach Schiller was awesome at discussing rotations and talked a little bit about pairings as well. And when you have, let’s say, a great player on the other team and a great defender that you want on them the entire game, you know, you’re trying to match the substitutions so that your top defender gets rest when the other top player subs out and coach Brasi mentioned that a little bit about being interested by looking at opposing team sub patterns as well. Yeah, that’s definitely an interesting conversation. Didn’t we talk about some NBA coach about that? Was that was in our second conversation with coach Stan Van Gundy then he alluded to one of his mistakes was he got caught with bad match ups and he sticking to his lineups when he should have just been playing his defender every time, you know, one of those opponents. It sounds like something Stan would say. Yeah, I thought that was also an interesting point as well. And I think on the other side of the coin with that strategy where it could give you a defensive advantage and coach Brasi alluded to it is you kind of also put the power in your opponent’s coach’s hands because I’m sure he’ll figure out and maybe then he can also determine your subs as well. But always an interesting kind of chess match, you know, conversation and strategy. So Dan, keeping it moving here if we can jump to the second takeaway.
Dan 01:02:38
So I’ll jump to the post analysis for team growth question for the start subs set. I enjoyed his thoughts on, and what I kind of thought he might go with which is your main principles and your identity and how they as a staff look at that. Ultimately this conversation led into what I found very interesting, which is again, another coach telling us and talking about how don’t just lose your mind after the game and, you know, enjoy the wins. Don’t overreact to the losses, wait till the next day. And I took that away from that about their post game analysis needing to take place the next day after everyone’s either celebrated or just gotten away from the emotional part of the loss and able to look at things a little more clear headed.
And I don’t know how many times we’ve heard that on this podcast now that more and more coaches like the 20 minute rant after the loss is most of the time probably not helping. Not saying we don’t want to do it.
Pat 01:03:39
I mean, it’s therapeutic for sure but I don’t think anyone’s listening.
Dan 01:03:43
Yeah, well, and to his point too, I mean, I think we all got to coach our own teams and coach off a field sometimes. And if it’s like an effort loss or if there’s things that you feel like need to be addressed in the moment. But I think what he mentioned is you got to watch the film.
Pat 01:03:57
Completely agree. And I’m with the, I mean, the countless amount of coaches who’ve kind of echoed those sentiments of just post game and just being brief in and out and really kind of approaching it even keeled the next day. The other part I found with the Start Sub Sit I found interesting was just talking about like the game plan clarity and implementing a game plan. I think with everything is like recognizing the actions. I think that’s the struggle, let’s say. I mean, how you show them on film, of course I liked his thoughts on just how many clips, but one, yes it’s part of how are we going to defend this action. But I think the bigger piece is like your team being able to recognize it in game and then apply the strategy solution and just appreciate his thoughts and kind of his process and helping his players recognize the action. I liked the tidbit he talked about when they figure out applying their vocabulary to the action to also help trigger their guys with a quicker response and understanding like, okay, this is what we do and this is what they’re doing and how to then apply the solution and ultimately lead to a better game plan discipline and execution.
Dan 01:05:02
No doubt. Well, Pat, moving on to our third and final takeaway, I’ll kick that back to you.
Pat 01:05:08
Yeah, so I’ll finish with our conversation. It seems to be every year for us, just bad screeners in the drag screens. Maybe it’s probably our coaching at this point and if it’s more than just an outlier, but watching his teams play in Italy and I mean, with the temple they played with, I thought they were really effective in the drag screen. So I was looking forward to this question because all jokes aside, it is something I just think I can teach better and I think it can be an effective weapon, but too many times on what he even referenced, you just say, let’s run a drag screen and it’s just god awful to watch.
Pat 01:05:41
It’s so slow, defense easily go under, the ball never gets off the drag screen and you’ve just wasted like 10 seconds and it was like a nice little dance on the sideline before moving off of it. So I like Karen’s thoughts and he mentioned like hitting the low worth of third and trying to teach her big that way with the angle of the lower third and the importance of the slip out, maybe an early miss for me was kind of, he alluded to it, but one to slip out, one to stick. He mentioned kind of the location of your ball handler or where it is taking place on the screen, dictating like one to slip, one to hit, but I think it’s really interesting. You see some of these, especially with pace, there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of sticking more about just kind of being like an active roadblock, kind of cone, just kind of changed the on-ball defender stances and then just getting immediately out. So liked his thoughts on slipping and what he mentioned, yeah, hitting the lower third.
Dan 01:06:39
Yeah, and I’ll just follow up with the veer and the slip out, you know, are kind of like cousins in this thing where it’s, he mentioned, you know, you might veer and not hit a guy on the screen either on the veer screen, but at least maybe your, I don’t know, you’re at least occupying a tag or the help a little bit. I don’t know where the quote is from, but making bad screeners slip, you got bad screeners just make them slippers, you know, you’re mid-season trying to work on angles and flip here and look at the bottom foot and create the over and yes, that’s part of it. But at the end of the day, if they’re just struggling with it, just slip out, just create a little gravity somewhere.
A rim cut’s valuable. Yeah, just get out of the way, just slip out. I mean, yeah, but the pressure on the rim is probably more valuable than, like you mentioned, trying to twist and stick in that ball screen and create the angle. And then all of a sudden, the ball is in that ball handler’s hands for too long. And the value of a drag screen is the pace and the speed in which you’re entering it and where the defense isn’t set, they’re not really in their shell. Let’s just get that guy out or pop. Slip to the rim or slip and pop and maybe you can throw back to the pop and try it again on another screen somewhere else.
Pat 01:07:49
Yeah, I think another interesting conversation built off of this one within the drag screen is what coach was alluding to was an athletic rim rolling big. But of course, maybe you have a bigger, slower plotting one. I think it probably obviously then flips where it just with his sheer size, you just kind of sticking a screen will also kind of increase the effectiveness and then maybe the more emphasis becomes more on the angle. So I think that’s like the other delicate dance within this drag screen is also with any action obviously too is the ability but also like the physical athletic abilities of your big and yeah, it’s great to slip out if they can come in with pace and exit with pace but if it’s a slower big, like getting them up there with pace could be a while but then like asking them to try to slip out could be also a chore. And it’s just, you know, you got to lay the wood now and like having your point guard maybe get it low on the three point line.
Dan 01:08:42
This sounds like a guy you might need to go back to the potential bench to see if there’s maybe a sub there.
Pat 01:08:49
Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to play pace and drag screens with a slower big but. Maybe that’s been the problem.All right, Dan, so, you know, I mentioned earlier one of my misses, is there anything that you wish we had hit on or that you missed or would have like to have followed up with Coach Brase?
Dan 01:09:06
Yeah, it would have been a tangent. So it was something I just didn’t feel like the conversation wasn’t going in this direction. But we’re talking in the first bucket about the bench production and roles. And maybe you’re having certain guys play certain minutes or maybe taking certain guys out of the starting lineup to pair within all that. It sounds good on paper, but the emotional piece of changing lineups and who goes in and who plays what minutes and if you take it out of the starting lineup, even if it is the right decision on paper, or you take a star out after the first three minutes and they’re playing kind of well, that’s a part of this too that we all deal with and just emotional part of these players trying to play hard, make baskets, win games.
And then when it comes to making substitution decisions, there’s just always emotion in it. No matter what, you know, I mean, you’re not just usually having nine steely eyed players that absolutely agree with every single sub decision and are happily jogging out of the game every time that buzzer comes off. Like there’s just always more in it. And I don’t know, maybe just asking about that, like how you interact with players coming out of the game to get them prepped for their next stint, whether, you know, he talked a little bit about trying to not take players out of the game just for a mistake. I think might’ve been during the podcast. And then we were talking about afterwards to a little bit, you know, trying to let them play through some mistakes.
Pat 01:10:30
And you bring up a great point. And that reminds me another miss he talked about when looking at his ninth, 10th man that he liked a little wiggle room that maybe in the first half he’ll play the ninth man. But if he wasn’t really happy with that stint, he’d go to the 10th man. And I thought that was really interesting because we’ve had conversations where sometimes it is the ninth, 10th man, they’re probably very similar, you know, and we had coaches that will you just got to pick one and stick with it to give him an opportunity. And if it’s not, then you go to the 10th. So I would have loved to maybe dig a little bit deeper on why he liked to have that wiggle room and just like, okay, I didn’t like how we played necessarily or, you know, for whatever reason with the ninth, we’re going to move to the 10th in the second half versus just kind of sticking with let’s give him these next five games and see what we got. If we think that he could be the more impactful player for us winning, wish I’d followed up with as well.
Dan 01:11:21
We’ve discussed it, coaches discussed it too. Like we talked about the ninth, 10th man. And, you know, we’ve talked with coaches about if a player doesn’t play in the first half, it’s really hard to play them in the second half, because at this point, they’ve sat for an hour, hour plus, maybe before they get in the second half, when you talk about end of warmups and halftime. And if that ninth, 10th player is more of a shooter score, kind of tough to get a shooter going after they’ve been sitting there for a while, maybe it’s possible, possible for you. But for a lot of players like now, is it just a defensive rebounding, just go in there for a few minutes and defend and rebound player versus shooter? I mean, these are the minor details of each team, but like, that’s the real thing. Like, so he mentioned, you got a eight minute segment, potentially, for a 10th man, four in the first, four in the second, first half, four minutes didn’t go great for that player. Do you just ride with them the second half? Because they’ve at least seen the game, they’ve been in it versus just pulling the plug and going somewhere else. And then maybe both players run happy at the end of the game.
Yeah. I mean, these are the tough decisions you got to make as a head coach. Ultimately, no one’s going to be totally happy at the end of the day. But yeah, you do run the risk of maybe upsetting two guys. Two sets of parents are upset at you. Do strongly worded emails coming your way. Yeah, right. Just put two in the portal tonight. These are the in-game decisions you got to think about. Yeah. Well, once again, we thank Coach Brase for coming on and giving all his thoughts. We appreciate everybody for listening and we’ll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit SlappingGlass.com for more information on the free newsletter, Slapping Glass Plus, and much more. Have a great week coaching and we’ll see you next time on Slapping Glass.