We sat down with former NBA, NCAA, and G-League Head Coach, and current Consultant with the Minnesota T’Wolves, Mike Miller. In this great conversation we discuss the art of being a great assistant coach, and dive into attacking a Box and One, and building a program through losing season during the always interesting “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Transcript
Dan 00:00
That seat that the head coach sits in can be a lonely spot at times, you know, because you feel the weight of everything. You feel the weight of, you know, if guys aren’t playing well, if the team’s not playing well, if we’re in a bad stretch, something’s not working, the head coach feels all of those things.
So I think being able to give some feedback and be supportive in those things, it’s really important. But I think to be able to do that, you have to have that feel and you have to have that grasp of what we are really trying to do to make suggestions that are impactful.
Dan 00:40
Hi I’m Dan Korkorian and I’m Patrick Carney, and welcome to Slapping Glass, exploring basketball’s best ideas, strategies, and coaches from around the world. Today, we’re excited to welcome former NBA, college, and G-League head coach and current coaching consultant with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Mike Miller. Coach Miller is here today to discuss the art of being a great assistant, including being a generalist, first specialist, when and how to give suggestions, and much more.
And we talk best ways to attack a box and one defense, and how to build momentum even when you’re losing during the always fun start, sub, or sit.
Dan 02:03
And now, please enjoy our conversation with coach, Mike Miller. Coach, you’ve got a tremendous amount of wisdom from your years of coaching. You’ve been number stops, head coach, assistant coach, all the different levels, which we’ll get into. And one of the things we wanted to start with today is ways that assistants can best support head coaches. And you’ve done that a lot and been through it and you consult on it now too. And so we thought we’d start there simply on just your thoughts on the best ways an assistant can support their head coach.
Mike Miller 02:40
First off, let me thank you for saying wisdom. You know, that’s a nice way to put that. I have been very fortunate that I’ve had a chance to do this and really enjoy what I get to do. So that’s, you know, one of the reasons I was excited to talk with you guys.
But I think that’s a big topic because going through the process, that’s what it comes down to. There’s a lot of things that a head coach has to do, and it doesn’t matter. You know, I’ve been a college coach. I worked at the mid-levels in college as an assistant and a head coach. And then I’ve worked at the high level of college as an assistant as well. Same thing in the NBA. So I’ve been doing it now for 30 years. And so I have seen the changes that come with the times as well. I don’t know how much the focus on helping the head coach as an assistant coach has changed a lot. I think with the technology and the different things that we have, I think there’s been shifts and changes every seven to 10 years, you see changes and real shifts that impact a lot of different things. But the job that an assistant coach can do to help the head coach is invaluable. It always has been. And I think just having a feel for that. The first thing is, I think, you know, everybody has ideas and everybody has things that they think would help. And then how you can communicate that, you know, how you can articulate that to the head coach where it fits into what you do. And I think the biggest thing is, is you’ve got to be, even as an assistant coach, you have to be an expert on your system. And that way, I think you have a better understanding of how you can really help. Say we’re a college team, and we’re going to be playing man to man and so forth. And part of my suggestions are playing zone and changing it up. And it doesn’t really fit our system. You know, there’s a reason why we have a system, the system fits the players. And so I think being an expert on what we do makes you better at being able to make suggestions and being able to observe. And then I think the other thing is being able to teach it. You have to sell, I heard an NFL coach say they have to sell their system every week, because it changes with their game plans. So I think as college coaches, or pro coaches, whatever it is, we’re a little bit different, because we might have four games in a week in the NBA, or in the G League or whatever. So selling our system, I think we have to continuously do that. And I think that supports the head coach as well, knowing what the head coach is going through a little bit, you know, and being a sounding board and being able to kind of talk through those things, because that seat that the head coach sits in can be a lonely spot at times, you know, because you feel the weight of everything you feel the weight of, you know, if guys aren’t playing well, the team’s not playing well, if we’re in a bad stretch, something’s not working, the head coach feels all of those things. So I think being able to give some feedback and be supportive in those things, I think it’s really important.
Mike Miller 05:39
But I think to be able to do that, you have to have that feel. And you have to have that grasp of what we are really trying to do to make suggestions that are impactful.
Dan 05:51
You mentioned being an expert on the system and what the head coach wants and all that over the course of your career, when it comes to assistants that are really valuable, being more of a generalist as an assistant versus specialist.
Mike Miller 06:05
Yeah, that’s a good question. And that has changed. Over the course of my coaching experience, that’s changed. Because when I started, everybody coached everything. You had to have a grasp of all those things and be able to help out. But it’s a tough thing because a lot of times when jobs come open, that’s the first question comes up. What is your area of specialty? What are you going to bring to the table? And some jobs are, we want a basketball coach and then we’ll be able to find a good spot for you. And to me, that has been different.
I’d say even more so in the last 10 years, you’ve seen a lot of that. And it started at the NBA level. And I think it’s moved across all levels now of being able to do that. I would think young coaches, you still have to be well-rounded because most assistant coaches are going to tell you, I want to be a head coach. And to be a head coach, you have to be able to oversee all of those things. Even if a person is in charge of the offense, obviously he’s developing a great grasp of what defensive coverages do, how to attack those things. And I think the young coaches need to continue to look at all sides of it and look at even the player development stuff and be able to prepare for the time that he oversees the entire operation, because then he’s going to know what he wants. When you have an interview for a head coach, they’re going to ask you all those questions. What is your philosophy on player development? How are you going to do that? How are you going to connect with players? Offensively, how are you going to play? Defensively, What does your team look like? Those are all interview questions that are the most basic that people are going to have to answer if they want to be a head coach someday.
So I think as you’re going through these experiences, instead of just locking in and saying, I’m only going to watch our offense on the game films, continuing to watch the whole things and learn, see different things, have different perspectives. And I think as you go through that, you start developing what you really like. You’re not waiting until you get there in that moment to figure out what you like.
Pat 08:11
You mentioned as an Assistant Coach, they should know how to articulate their ideas. So as an assistant coach, when you understand the system and you feel you have an idea worth bringing to the coach that you think can help the system, how do you think about articulating your idea and selling to a head coach who, as you mentioned, has so much going on on their mind and on their plate?
Mike Miller 08:34
I think you hit the first part of it, I think you have to pick your moment too. And most head coaches that I’ve been around to are gonna ask, they’re gonna go through segments. If we think maybe we need to explore tweaking something or making some adjustments or maybe making changes, most head coaches I’ve worked with, if not all of them will say, what are we seeing? Who has some ideas? That was something that I did as a head coach. Every time I walked into a locker room at halftime, I would ask the guys, what are you seeing? And that was a platform too for the players to look at it and say, hey, this is what we’re seeing. Maybe should we look at switching more or changing the matchup or whatever? So it gave them a platform to speak up and really connect ourselves. But I think picking the right time to bring it up.
And then I think the delivery of that helps too is kind of how you phrase that. Something along the lines, what do you think if we did more of this in these situations? Or what do you think in these coverages? Do you like any of that? And I think as assistants, everybody has to understand and it’s what we go through. You make your suggestion and sometimes the coach will maybe adapt to it. Maybe he won’t adapt to it. Says, no, I don’t wanna do that and this is why. Or maybe it’s somewhere in the middle where they look at that and say, that’s a good idea. I’m not sure we can go to that degree but we have something here that’s kind of a variation of your idea in there. And I think, as we look at that, going into it with the mindset that I’m trying to help, I can’t be upset or offended if they don’t use my idea. Even if I think it’s a great idea. Even if they say no, you really have an idea about the next time you go in there. Because I think you learn from the reaction of it too, how it went and it can’t be, well, I made a suggestion and nobody listened to it. I think you still have to keep looking at it. And if you believe in something, you’ll have opportunities to put it on the table and create a discussion. Maybe it creates a discussion that leads to something else. That’s really the value in those things.
Dan 10:48
When It comes to the types of coaches that are on your staff or when you’re a head coach and who you hire, the balance of the supportive types of coaches you have, hiring friends, people that have been in this industry, you know, versus hiring out for specific purposes.
Mike Miller 11:03
it’s probably changed a little bit over the years too. I remember I was a first-time head coach when I was coaching in college and was relatively young in that position. And some of the older coaches at that time, the veteran coaches told me, they said, when you hire somebody, you hire their habits too. So make sure to your point, you know, what are you getting?
I think if I were hiring a staff today, I would even take a little different approach to what I’ve done in the past just because of what I’ve experienced to try to find a blend of people that I’ve either worked with or worked against where I really see their strengths upfront to know what they can bring to the table. I mentioned earlier, that can be a lonely seat. When you’re in a game and nothing’s working, which is going to happen, if you’re in the NBA and there’s 82 games, it’s going to happen a few times where things just aren’t working and just to have someone there that kind of can stay calm and help kind of work through it with some real solutions. Everybody can’t be upset at the same time because as we talk about, we could lose three or four minutes of this game and maybe not be able to recover. So I think just kind of reading the situation a little bit and getting that help of can we take a breath here or let the person vent a little bit to be able to kind of get refocused. I think that really helps to have that person and to recognize it.
Hey, nothing’s working. We’ve tried, you know, this, this and this. Those are the big things. I think the other thing is just helping handle things as they’re coming up off the court a little bit, even in preparation for things of just seeing things before they become a problem. You know, maybe there are conversations that need to be had. Maybe it’s, Hey, you know, I saw this. We need to kind of think ahead what we want to do. Maybe it’s a day off. Maybe it’s looking ahead at the schedule and we’re not scheduled to be off for another five days, but the team’s really tired. And just to come in and just an observation, these guys are really tired. You know, maybe it’s even changing the practice format a little bit to re-engage the guys, do some things to keep them engaged, letting the coach know or being on the other side of it and seeing that these guys are really looking at the big picture to help out. I think there’s real value in that.
Pat 13:28
that we all at some point run into during a course of a long season. But you talked about just rearranging practice format when you feel like just to give a stimulus to the guys. If you could elaborate a little bit more on how coaches can think about ways to change the practice format just to give an impulse and stimulate the guys.
Mike Miller 13:51
a look at it, there’s some tough segments you go through. People that haven’t worked in the NBA D league or the NBA G league have to understand you’re going to go through segments of your season when you don’t have 10 players to practice.
And you think about that. I mean, you’re taking guys that are professionals, guys that have been in the NBA, guys that are on the way to the NBA. And when there’s less than 10 guys and they know you can’t play five on five, you need some creativity. They want to see the carry over into what we’re doing. You have to be able to change that up and adapt. Even our performance guys coming out with a different warm up, different things that I’ve worked with guys that will come out and they run football routes and they have covering each other and they’re throwing passes and it gets things going. We’ve had our performance guys come out sometimes and they’ll bring those small foam balls out and we’ll play dodgeball to warm up. That would be what gets us going.
And then we get right into something else. So I think to keep it fresh and keep our focus, I think we have to really continue to read that. You know, one of the things I’ve learned over the years and probably learned the hard way is when we’re in one of those things, you do less. You try to get more done doing less. You back those things down and we know we’re going to get better at these things. You know, instead of having these five things we need to get done today, we back it down to maybe two things and let’s be really good in these areas and let’s allow them a mental physical break with it. But we’re going to get better at these things and they’ll feel it because at the end of the day, this is one thing that I believe I’ve always believed. You can’t make the players think they’re getting better when they don’t feel like they are. They feel it. They know it.
Pat 15:38
What have you learned not to do when you have less than 10 guys at a practice?
Mike Miller 15:43
Try not to have a regular practice because it’s not going to be a regular practice. We make sure our development work is really a priority that day where they really feel like they’re getting something done and then we’re able to break down a couple of things. Maybe it’s, we’ve done things when I was in the D Leauge we used to play three on three and quick segments that are competitive, because when we’re in that, how do you make it competitive? Everybody does it too. And sometimes you’re fortunate that you have coaches that can still play and they can jump out there. It’s not always the same thing. So I think keeping it where the players play on play versus players, but playing more of just quick three on three games where we work on something and you keep everything very short, but we’re able to get the skill work done. We’re able to be competitive and the guys feel like they got something done. That’s why I think the longer you go, the better chance you have of losing anything that you built. So, you know, focusing on the development and hitting the competitive piece and then whatever segment you want to do, is it a two on two pick and roll stuff where, which we do as part of our package and you add a third guy and now you’ve added someone else in there to get reads, but you keep it at a high pace where they feel like they’re getting something done.
Pat 16:59
Would you recommend three teams of three three on three on three or four and four with one sub neither of them are ideal obviously.
Mike Miller 17:05
We have done both and it’s work, but I don’t think it’s a day where you try all of it. I think you pick.
In those days, a phrase that I don’t even know where I’ve heard it the first time that I use a lot is you aim at small targets and I’m not going to try to do it all. I’m going to cut that down and these are the components we wanted to work on. This is what we’re going to do. I’ve watched some pretty good practices that are about 40 minutes. Guys got a lot of work in. We felt like we really focused on what we needed to do and we got that done. I went in before where we’ve had five things we wanted to get done and we walked out of there frustrated because we didn’t feel like we got any better. I think when you have the less numbers, you have to be ready to adapt.
Dan 19:05
Coach, this has been awesome so far. We want to transition now to a segment on the show that we call Start, Sub, or Sit. We’re going to give you three options around a topic, Ask, Option, Sub one, and then Sit one, and then we’ll discuss your answer from there. So if you’re all set, we’ll dive into this first one. Let’s go. Make it easy now. This first one has to do with box and one defenses and the most difficult thing to guard when you’re in the box and one that the other team might do to you. So option one is setting an on-ball screen with the guy you’re boxing one in on the ball, off-ball screens with that player who’s being boxed in one. So they’re setting off-balls for other players, or option three, off-ball screens for that player who’s being boxed in one. So option two is they’re setting it. Option three is someone else is setting it for that boxed in one player. So Start, Sub, Sit. What’s the most difficult for that box and one to handle?
Mike Miller 20:04
Yeah. the player is setting the on-ball screen, and where his angle is, that can be tricky. And I’m gonna go out of order on this, but I think the easier piece is when you screen for him, because then you’ve got the other guys in the zone to limit what areas he could go into. And so I guess the sub would be the last one is with him setting the screen. But I think to expand on that, it’s all really based on the angles and how it distorts the box, how it distorts the zone and where people are placed, which makes it more difficult there just from experience.
Dan 20:44
So within all that, if you’re the offense, where are you trying to set those on-ball screens to be most effective?
Mike Miller 20:51
It kind of depends on the skill set of who you’re doing it with. But I mean, some of the things that were tough that we really didn’t have a lot of answers were almost sideline step ups and putting maybe three guys on the backside. So if you’re playing two on a side, let’s say we’ve got a sideline step up and the guy that we are trying to run the box and one on and then we put three on the weak side because now potentially for a count, it’s going to be three against two on that backside. That puts us in a disadvantage because we’re going to have to come across because they’re distorting the box.
And his job, if you can envision this and we’re in the box and the top guy in the box is going to have to be involved in that step up to some degree because he could be popping, right? The screener could be popping out. That would be your coverage. The low man is going to support the ball, but now we’re three against two on the weak side. And getting in those situations when you drive those, coming out of those when it’s distorted, those can be tough. I think just manipulating a little bit, a lot of it is how good it is too. I mean, some teams have been pretty good at doing that and they put some time into it. And because the one thing about the box and just my experiences, you can’t overcomplicate it and overcoach it. The guys have to figure that out. You can’t say, hey, this is what’s going to happen. You basically have no idea what they’re going to do against it because not everybody has a plan. If we see box and one, this is what we’re going to do. Now, some people say, we’ll run our man offense against it. Some people would say, we’re going to run our zone offense against it. Or some people that they’re going to do something different. And we’ve kind of seen all of those things, but so you really don’t know what you’re going to see. So you can’t overcoach it and say, you’ll always take this and you’re going to take that. And so that’s kind of in the teaching method of how to present that, where that box will morph a little bit and shift to match the alignment to some degree.
Pat 22:56
Coach, sticking on the ball screen, when you mentioned you don’t want to over-complicate it, how much are you putting priority on keeping the matchup so that certain defender on that target player versus if he’s in a ball screen, whether setting it or receiving it, we’re just going to switch it and then that guy takes over defending him?
Dan 23:15
I’ve seen people do it both ways. You play a box and one, in my opinion, is for a couple of different reasons. One, you’re trying to limit this guy’s touches and disrupt him, but you’re also playing it because you feel like twofold, you have guys that aren’t going to fit great maybe with the matchups. And then secondly, who do they have? Or do we have a couple of guys out there maybe that will say, OK, that’s what we have to live with tonight is this guy shooting threes. Because maybe he doesn’t shoot a lot of threes or maybe his percentages aren’t good. I think you have to kind of factor those things in. Just with my experience alone, we try to keep a guy. If we would call him the runner, if we want a guy to be on the top guy, then we want him to stay with it. And not get into because I think when you start switching, you get a little bit lazier because the rules in that are if I’m guarding, I’m the runner, and you don’t have the ball, my job is to not let you get the ball. I have no help responsibilities and no position responsibility. My job is to keep you from catching the ball. Then once you get it, the other guys are involved to make sure it’s a tough contested shot or can’t get a shot. And then when he gets off the ball again, there’s no catch again. So we want him using all that energy to not be able to get the ball back. So now we’re into the shows and the different things that we have to do to be disruptive and help that guy guard the ball when he’s on ball.
Pat 24:44
Then quickly going back to the sideline step up angle. We were talking about when the runner is setting the screen is the top guard. That’s let’s say defending the ball. Do you want him to try to go under that on ball screen by the target player?
Mike Miller 24:58
It depends who it is. It depends i s he in the scoring area? And if it’s a step up, then we’re going to hand it off to the low man, right? If it’s like off the top, sometimes we’ve done a contact show where I’m the one guy guarding, and he’s setting an angle to go downhill, potentially with a guy that can drive it and score it. I may have to show on that where I keep a hand on mine or a forearm, an arm bar. And what we would say is, okay, this is a contact show where you’re going to stay with your own. So we’re just not allowing that ball downhill. And now one of the weak side guys have to pick it up. You play basic zone rules after when we get to it. There are some things obviously that are going to bother it, but we spend all that time looking at where the holes are and the offense. Again, it’s a little bit of it is just a little bit different and it is a little bit disruptive. And you know, it’s like the zone stuff. If you get them to miss a couple of shots and have a couple of bad possessions, then you can extend that a little bit more and being able to pick your spots where you can disrupt the flow a little bit.
Pat 26:08
Going back to you don’t want to overcoach it. You don’t want to overcomplicate it.
How do you think about then practicing it? You know, we’ve had these conversations before and I guess like building the confidence in your team that it can work, but I think we’ve all had experience in practice. Like you run it too long and then the offense just starts to kill it.
Mike Miller 26:24
They figured out. Yeah. But one of the things keeping with that theme of keeping it simple and let them figure that stuff out, we give them just really basic rules. So kind of some of the stuff we’ve talked about, if you’re going to be the runner, here are your rules. This is what you’re doing. And without setting up a bunch of stuff, we will give the ball to the offense. And the guys in the box have their rules. It’s the same. You know, we’re going to have the top guys. These are your areas. You’re covering this and you’re covering that. And if you don’t have somebody in your area, then you’re going to shade in the direction of the next guy, right? Maybe you have to cross the floor because that’s what we have. And we’ll let the offense go out there and do anything they want. And then the defense just kind of shapes and moves with it. And then we’ll, okay, have the guy that’s being guarded. You go set the screens, this possession, and then we work through that. But it’s not a structured do this, do this, do this, and then they kind of get a feel for it.
My experience, it’s not something that you really over coach because you don’t know what they’re going to do really. I mean, if you played them and you had success, chances are they’re not going to do the same thing because it didn’t work. You’ve already shown it. People know that you’re doing it. So, you know, you’re going to have to be more ready to do it. And I mean, the other thing is, is you have to live with some of it. I mean, nobody’s going to shut anybody out, you know, and even at the NBA level, I mean, we look at points per possession to see if we were successful with that, or we might look at it. Did we get the guys taking the shots that we’re willing to live with? You kind of factor those things in a little bit. I think a big piece of it is the buy-in. If you try to intro it with all kinds of rules, the guys are going to look at you and you kind of lose them. So I think it’s easier. You just tell the offense, do whatever you want and then add something. Okay. Now he’s the screen. Okay. Now he’s receiving the screen and we give him those basic rules and then we start kind of working through it and they figure it out. Some of the best things we’ve done, not just with the box and one, but overall have kind of morphed out of those kinds of situations where you let the guys work through it and it works for them. I think that obviously promotes buy-in and gives them the purpose. This is why we’re doing it.
Pat 28:40
Being able to judge the success of the coverage or knowing when to get out of the coverage. Are you looking more at the shot profile like are we giving up the shots we want to give up or are you looking at we’re giving up the shots to the wrong people. I think that’s a big part of it. One, you have to look at when they’re scoring immediately. You look at, was it a good shot? Is that a shot we’re willing to live with? Or is it something that we’ve got a hole, and we’re going to have to figure out what that hole is? I think when you go into it, my experience is we’re not looking at playing a whole game. We’re looking at segments here. Coaches always say, can we steal a few possessions in here? You’re looking to steal a few possessions and be disruptive and take them out of rhythm. It’s difficult. When a team is in a good rhythm, it’s hard to break it. Then when you can break that rhythm where you get a few good possessions, then you want to build and expand and go with it as long as you can. Then when it’s time to shift back to something else or there’s changes, then you have to adjust to it.
Pat 30:59
Next, start, sub, sit. We call this winning when losing. So unfortunately, us as coaches, we don’t win every game and for around long enough, we’re gonna have some tough seasons.
So when you’re in the middle of a tough season, how you think about building winning habits still with your team. So start, sub, or sit. The first one would be segmenting the season, trying to just take it in smaller chunks, whether it’s, hey, these next four games, let’s try to go 500. Or option two, is it trying to achieve just statistical benchmarks? Maybe, you know, rebounding is important to winning. Let’s try to out-rebound our opponent. Or the option three, is it rewarding your culture carriers? The guys who maybe they’re not the most talented, but they do things the right way, they’re transmitting the culture you want that you believe will lead to eventual success.
Mike Miller 31:53
Well, those are good. I can tell you, I have been through my share of tough seasons and we’ve tried all of those things. You know, the order of it, I think what helps the group the most is kind of breaking it up. So I would say you start with that piece of breaking up your season. And I’ve done that before, you know, we’ve gone in and there’s 10 games left or 12 games left or whatever. And we just tell the guys, hey, we’re wiping out the whole thing. I want you to clear the slate. We’re going to start fresh today. Let’s not carry any of that with us. We’re going to play this 10 game season out or something to that effect and kind of picking those spots.
I would say sub would be your rewarding your guys that have been consistent doing those things. And that can mean different things, obviously, based on where you’re at or what that means. But I think that’s a big piece of being able to keep a group going, because if there are those guys, they have been able to weather, you know, the tough times and keep going. And I think the last piece would be how you could use statistical things. I just think the first two were a little stronger in terms of the motivation of trying to help them get through another game. And it’s tough. You can’t go in and say we’re going to have a whole series of one game seasons. And we’re just playing one game and nothing else matters. It’s hard to do that. Because, you know, you want to be able to build on what’s good. And, you know, you need to be able to clean up things. And so I think picking segments has been a pretty good tool.
Pat 33:26
Following up on picking segments and maybe taking more of a broader view and kind of looking at the psychology or the motivation. I mean, everyone knows the players, the staff that you’re struggling. How much a coach are you talking about it or not that you’re ignoring it, but then being careful of always kind of going to like, hey, we’re going to these next four. And if that doesn’t really work out saying it’s these next six and being careful segmenting the season when it still isn’t flipping or acknowledging like we’re really struggling versus not head in the sand, but like we just are going to keep kind of marching along.
Mike Miller 34:00
I think the first part that you talked about there, I think you have to be careful because you can’t have a whole bunch of those where we just lost two, but okay, now the next four really count. So I think if you say it’s six games or whatever, then there’s a reason you picked those six games. Maybe it’s we’ve got to turn this thing around and maybe it’s a combination of all of those things for those six games. You know what I mean? For these six games, we’re going to shift the rotations a little bit because these guys have been doing things and here are the goals. This is what we’ve got to do in these games.
And then you find a way because I think to go back and say, hey, we were really good at this, but you go two or three games and you still didn’t win, you’re still dealing with the same thing. So I think the communication piece is always important and just letting the guys know, listen, we’re going through a tough time. Everybody goes through tough times. There’s a real value in that too, because guys that have, you know, the guys that have been through it before that have really been tested and have been able to work their way through it.
And it’s not something I think everybody just is equipped with where they just do it natural. Guys can develop into that too, because they’ve been through it. Maybe they don’t want to go through it again. You know, maybe that’s part of the motivation is they’re going to find a way. But to your point, teams go through things that sometimes wins are going to be hard to come by. So we have to figure out with our group, knowing our team, what’s the best way to help them? And that’s what as a pro player, it’s always helped yourself. People always notice, you know, when you’re doing the right things. And so continue to help yourself keep showing up, keep putting the work in and know that it’s going to pay off.
And sometimes we don’t get that payoff right away. And we have to fight our way through it. You see guys come out the other side of that. I have, I’ve seen guys that have done that. We’ve got to keep in mind that guys are playing because they love to play. You got an opportunity. Let’s go play. Let’s go out there. Let’s get something out of this. Let’s find our way through it. And I think then your messaging obviously is pretty important as you come out of that. But I think the one thing is you’ve always got to be truthful. You really got to talk what the facts are and where it’s at. Continue to keep your group together, give you a chance.
Dan 36:14
When you have an underperforming team and wins are hard to come by, have you found that certain statistics are easier for them to potentially achieve? So I guess, you know, if your team’s underperforming, sometimes like field goal percentage and all that stuff, if you just don’t have the players that can make plays sometimes are tough.
But if you found that like, assist a turnover ratio is something you could focus on, or the rebound margin, or is there something that you feel like even an underprove improve on as the season goes on?
Mike Miller 36:42
I think so. I think it’s what the identity of the team is and what’s manageable. What is realistic that, hey, this is going to really make a difference. We can do it. And it’s really going to make a difference, giving us a better chance to win.
And I think that goes with that, again, is the messaging of, this isn’t going to be just the answer. This is going to get us closer to what we need to do. We always talk about doing, let’s get it down to a four or five minute game and have a chance to win. Then we’ll find a way to win it, that you have to put yourself in that position. So as you’re talking about the big picture, we have to do a better job taking care of the ball. I’ve been on groups where it was going to be tough for us to win. And so some of the goals were things that they really got into. Let’s play faster. Let’s get more transition. Let’s shoot more threes. Then we find something we can take away where we’re balanced now, but it fits with we’re playing faster. To your point, maybe it’s we’re going to play faster. We want more possessions, but we have to take care of the ball. So it doesn’t work against us. And in that we’re going to shoot more threes, because that’s going to be the equalizer for us to get more threes and get a chance to maybe.
Pat 37:52
You mentioned adjusting lineups. And if we look more towards like a college season, so a shorter season where trying to shuffle lineups, how as a coach should be aware of how often you’re shuffling the lineups to try to find answers and maybe what message that’s sending the team or how long you should be willing to maybe try to stick with lineups if you think they’re going to work and then they end up not working.
What’s the best way to do it? What’s the best way to do it? What’s the best way to do it? What’s the best way to do it? What’s the best way to do it? What’s the best way to do it?
Mike Miller 38:16
Part of the shuffling I was talking about is maybe you shorten the rotate, maybe a little bit. Maybe we sub a little sooner or maybe we sub a little later. I think you can’t just keep turning the lineup over because that could be a real problem, whether it be in the college or certainly at the professional level. I learned that going from college to the pro level with those games, guys have certain things, certain routines that they do to get themselves ready to play. And if you disrupt that routine, whether it’s going from a starter to not starting or your rotation, you come at a different time or you’re coming out at a different time, that can be difficult.
So I think you have to keep those things in mind, but I was speaking more to maybe tweaks. Maybe we were playing eight guys, maybe we’re going to play nine now. We got to get this guy out here because he’s doing all the things and maybe it’s only six minutes, but that’s more than what he was getting. And we just need what he can break during that time. Maybe we’ve seen we’re having lulls at this time. Let’s put an energy guy in there that does it every day. Maybe that helps us, you know, where we get a little bit better. So I think it’s more so the more subtle. If we’re playing eight, let’s play nine, or if we’re playing nine, let’s play, you know, whatever it does to tighten things up just a little bit, make us a little better. And how we start the games, I think is really important and start the half is really important. And the NBA, it’s a big thing. How you finish quarters, how you start quarters, because you’re putting those little runs together and how they can really impact the game. So just being conscious, maybe those things are part of what I was referring to, of being able to make little adjustments in there without disrupting the whole thing.
Pat 39:59
When you look back on a season that wasn’t successful, they struggled. If we remove talent, I mean, obviously, I think that’s probably a big component of a team. If you look back, is it often you weren’t able to find the right tactical system that really fit the team? Or is it more so that these culture carriers were lacking the leadership of the team? The team dynamics itself was just off and that contributed more heavily to the lack of success.
Mike Miller 40:27
You know, that’s a hard question to answer because sometimes you can go through your season and you’re trying to figure out these answers as you go and you try different things. Again it’s the subtleties of trying that within what you’re doing because you can’t come in and scrap things and start over and you’re going to lose momentum. So I think, you know, you have to have a core foundation of who you are and what you do. And then once you have that, then you build from that.
But if you looked at what’s most important, if you look at the defensive side, it’s, well, we have to take away the easy basket. So we’re going to pay attention to our transition and how we can test shots and are we fouling too much? And, you know, you look at those base things of what we’re doing well, but I think you have a core foundation that you have to stay with. And then within that foundation, then you can maybe start to try things and add or change maybe based on the results of what you’re doing. But when you get to the end of the year and it hasn’t really worked, you work in reverse and you try to figure out this is what we did here. This is what we were doing here. And there’s a lot of different reasons. People have asked me, they said, what did you learn about the NBA? What’s the first thing that stood out when you got to the NBA? Didn’t hesitate. How hard it is to win one game. It’s really hard. It really is. And the players are so good and there’s so many things that can happen. The game is longer or it’s faster. It’s, you know, all those things. It’s difficult to win a game. So sometimes the scenarios that you’re talking about, it might be that team’s not ready to win. There’s something there and we’re doing the right things are just not quite ready. Is it because we’re losing a lot of games at the end? And that’s the toughest part. You get down, you got to be able to close, right? You need closers, you need closers on both ends. You need a lot of things that need to happen the right way. So it’s a constant evaluation process of trying to figure those things out. And I think that’s the big question. If you look at a team that didn’t quite get there, are we doing the right things? And are we in a position where with that experience, are we going to be better? We add another person. Now we’re that much better. That’s the difficult part of the evaluation process of trying to figure out the why. Sometimes it’s easy. It’s just glaring. We struggled to score in these segments. It was a problem all year long, but as a coach, you still have to find ways to try to help the players work their way through it. Not a great shooting team. Well, we’ve got to find better shots for this group. So what we’re doing has to reflect that. And then how do you tie your offense into your defense to help each other? If we’re not a great scoring team, we’ve got to create more with our defense. And so I think you exhaust all of those things when you go through your in-season evaluations and then looking back on it.
Mike Miller 43:18
But I’ve been a part of a lot of teams and all teams are different. You can have basically the same team coming back, but they’re going to be different in some ways. There’s things that change.
Dan 43:29
Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot seat, so thanks for playing that game with us. That was a lot of fun.
Mike Miller 43:36
Well, you guys went a little easier on me. That was okay.
Dan 43:40
Coach, our last question that we asked all the guests is, what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Mike Miller 43:46
Immediatley two things came to mind. If you would allow me to kind of hit both of those things, these are the two things that immediately I thought about. The first thing, it’s interesting, it goes back, but when I was a young college coach and couldn’t find an offensive system that I felt really fit me, and we weren’t good enough because of what I was doing with our offense is part of it. And so I spent the entire off season studying every college, every pro, everything I could get my hands on to see what I looked at. It’s like, okay, that’s how the team should play. These are the fundamentals that go with it. This all fits together. And it happened to be when the Bulls were in their run, running the triangle offense. So I recorded every Bulls game from the end of the season, all the way through the playoffs, all the way through the NBA finals. And basically off of that video, basically was trying to learn the triangle offense and tweak that to fit a college team. And the next year, our team jumped from at the bottom of the offensive to the top. We won the league, went to the NCAA tournament, and we found a system of play that we could really teach all year with the shooting, the passing, the cutting, the spacing, the reads.
We really felt like for the first time, and I was a young head coach then, that we were teaching the game and it was helping the players. And 20 years later, I was hired by the Westchester Knicks to teach the triangle offense when Phil Jackson was the president there because I had experience with it. So it opened another door for me to move in and we did that for a couple of years when I was in Westchester and taught the system and the same thing. That was a great investment because it taught me a lot, gave me the opportunity to get to know Tex Winter and spend time with him was obviously as a legend of the game. And so it did a lot for me. It really opened a lot of doors. And I think the second investment that I made is when I decided to leave the job that I had as a college coach and wanted to work in the NBA. And the route that was presented was going through the NBA D League at the time that had 14 teams in it and didn’t know a lot about it and kind of just jumped into it. And out of that, I was fortunate, had a chance to work for the Spurs organization and learn so much and being around that group. Then that led me to the Westchester and then it led me into the NBA. So those were two things that really stand out that at the time they were both to try to basically just pick up a new system that I had never done before and be able to teach it and get the staff to be able to do it, the players to buy into it, all those things. And then to be able to take the route through the D League, learn from the players, learn from other coaches and have a chance to be a part of those organizations. Those were probably the two things that have paid great dividends.
Dan 47:09
All right, Pat. A lot of, a lot of coaching nuggets in there from being assistant coach to boxing one, to winning when you’re losing. I mean, I had a lot today, so that was fun.
Pat 47:19
Yeah, always enjoyable when we get someone on who’s obviously had a career like his, such longevity and coach from college, high school, pros, all levels. So I think kind of going into this, we always tell ourselves like just to get some of his wisdom on some of these various coaching topics is always a fun takeaway for us.
Dan 47:39
Yeah. Hey, let’s dive into our top three takeaways. And for number one, I’ll throw it back to you.
Pat 47:45
All right. I’ll start with the first bucket, but my takeaway there, I’m gonna hop to the end of that segment when we kind of went on a tangent on just thoughts on rearranging practice format, you know, late season, mid season. Like I posed the question, we all not struggle, but yeah, I mean, it’s hard to keep guys motivated or keep practice fresh and stimulated and I enjoyed his thoughts on him in different warmup activities, but then we got into the top of less than 10 guys. At a certain point, like I said, we all face injuries. We all have, I mean, the flu goes around and then you’re facing nine guys at practice. And what do you do? And you can only fake three on three, four on four, like so much before the guys just, they can’t compete their way through that.
Dan 48:32
Or you got your young volunteer assistant reliving the glory days as the 10th for a while.
Pat 48:38
And that’s like one of the other just a quick side note, like the other struggles you think about. Yeah, add like a GA who’s not quite ready or if you’re in a club like bring up youth guys. Yes, they make 10, but the overall level has been decreased. So it’s like, we’re really getting a benefit that we’re going five on five, but like, they’re so clearly like a mismatch or a disadvantage for one team.
So going back to coach Miller and his thoughts on, yeah, if you got nine, of course, hit heavy on player development, individual improvement. He said some really good things. I mean, obviously do less, but aim at small targets, try to accomplish two things, get them done and get out. Because yeah, like even three on three, four on four competition will run its course if you sit in it too long. And I really just enjoy that conversation because it’s something that, you know, right now we’re kind of struggling with thinking about and trying to piece together practice plans at this point in the season.
Dan 49:33
Yeah, I think this is a deeper, interesting conversation because, you know, we were talking about when you don’t have 10 in practice. There’s also situations though where like you have 12, but it’s like an awkward 12 because of injury or sickness or whatever. I really want to work on this thing, but we can’t work on this thing because that group isn’t a wrap. You know, it’s also like, how do we still have a productive practice when you’re starting to inform in or out and you’re trying to work on a new thing, but you got to have a backup, but you can’t do what the starting guy does so you can’t really run it. You know, like all these things, how do you still have a good practice?
How do you still get better? How do you still work on the things that are important to you? Be competitive, all that stuff. So yeah, not 10 guys. How do you do that? How do you still have a good practice when it’s not your full group, which we’re all struggling with from the time the season starts till end. So that’s a deeper interesting conversation that we could probably continue to have with other coaches as well.
Dan 50:33
Absolutely. I mean, just to piggyback off your point. Also, it’s really under the app 10, and we just had the problem, we had no centers. So we have 10, but your three men, four men, are all like your power, quote unquote, your power forwards, your center. So the question becomes like, do you just continue to practice the same way?
And that’s what Coach Miller actually gave the great advice. Don’t try to practice the same way. We’re just playing small. Are we going to try to practice the same way, do the same things when we’re putting out lineups that realistically are never going to play this way or we’re going to run our normal typical offense when you have your guards in that spot. And I think this goes into just how do you build an adaptability, different games, just different competition games where guys just have to solve situations and it’s not really about what our offensive sets are or necessarily how we defend because with this lineup, we’re just going to switch everything because it makes no sense to drop with your new four man who was a three man or your center who was a small forward. And again, I think these are like real world coaching problems, which make it super interesting. Like, how do you approach that practice week? You can’t change the makeup of your team because hopefully you’ll get healthy, but I don’t think you can practice the same way because maybe in the game, you’re going to be hit with something where these lineups just can’t do what we have been doing. So we got to try to find a way to practice differently so we can win that upcoming game given these circumstances.
Dan 52:02
Yeah, and I’ll just kind of follow you down this rabbit hole cuz I think it’s interesting these things are Interesting ways that you become a better coach over time when you talk about how do you really become a better coach? it’s because you’re in it long enough this season presents these issues that aren’t pretty and you have to adjust and then you have to Work your way through something that You didn’t imagine preseason or you have to prep for an opponent without your guy and I think that like through that process That’s like the education of a coach. It’s not the pretty stuff. Like you said the sets you wanted to run in September It’s like okay now we got to play this weird way and are we gonna win a game playing this weird way? And even when you don’t win and we and I’ve both been on this side Even we don’t win you feel like you’re kind of training your coaching adaptability muscles.
Pat 52:55
Yeah. But I completely agree.
And I mean, we won’t beat it to death. There’s just so many things you can’t prepare for until you’re like in it. I mean, that’s the value of a good staff and tying it back to this conversation. Assistants that have strengths that you trust and you allow them to share their ideas because inevitably you’re going to be in a situation. Well, it makes no sense that we do this now because of what our team looks like, the makeup of our team.
Dan 53:19
Can I give you a quick miss of mine go not by coach Miller obviously But another interesting thread that we didn’t really go down But I thought would be interesting down the line is he talked about like when you’re coaching There’s just games where stuff’s not working. It just doesn’t work.
Whatever it is and it’s in game And that would have been interesting to explore more to what can you do? I mean it reminded me of Josh Loeffler. Yeah when he was on the show and he talked about what’s the thing that he’s curious about What do you do on the nights that your team just doesn’t have it? You’ve got the game plan Everything’s good. You watch the felt like you did all stuff and then you get out there and just you don’t have it Yeah, and what do you do? And then yeah, he mentioned 82 game season you’re gonna have five six clunkers These don’t have it and MBA you got 82 games to maybe make up college You’ve got and for us we had 25 don’t have a lot of time to have a lot of clunkers
Pat 54:10
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ll kind of throw it to you for the second takeaway, but I think it bleeds in nicely to as a conversation on when you’re just losing seasons and kind of tying that into like when you don’t have it or when you’re losing a lot, but before we get ahead, I’ll throw it to you for the second takeaway.
Dan 54:26
So I’m going to go to the boxing one that I asked him about. Always a fun conversation to return to.
We’ve had it a few different ways, different time. I did like that we got to an interesting tactical thing with the sideline step-up as being something that would be something he would go to. I think when we were thinking of the question, it was, you know, what are ways that, you know, if a team’s doing something in your boxing one, that’s kind of a dilemma for that defense and that step-up screen with that backside spacing. I thought it was just a nice, like, tactical nug. And then just starting to go down the rabbit hole of when you get out of it, don’t overcoach it. I thought it was another good point. Like, just who was it? Scurriolo when he was on. Talked about running with the Spain national team and, you know, give them the base stuff, but don’t overcoach every single little detail or else their eyes are going to roll in the back of their head and you’re not going to get as much out of it as you need.
Pat 55:18
I’ll give you another miss here is I would have loved to explore all of the angles that give the box in one pressure. Yeah, luckily we spared our listeners going through that tedious conversation but I did enjoy the little example we gave of the sideline step up as he said and getting into if the target players setting the screen receiving the screen the ball screen talking about switching he talked about like maybe short showing if the angle isn’t attacking one and it’s going to be hard for the guy to get under and who picks up the ball handler coming off.
I really enjoyed that conversation just to piggyback off of your point there and then like always with these things and going back to our conversation with coach scaryola his thoughts at the end on just kind of being able to know when to deploy it but also when to pull it off and knowing the shots you’re willing to live with or the shot spectrum you want to give up and when that’s being effective or ineffective and kind of the subtle art of knowing okay like we were able to get a couple possessions. Let’s move off of it versus you know, maybe it is kind of they’re still struggling stick with it. So I enjoyed his thoughts there too as always because I think that’s kind of the other interesting piece, you know, do they hit one three and do you just like I move off of it or you know, but based off what kind of three was it was a guy you’re willing to like live with and know that this is could be the consequences of the box in one.
Dan 56:36
Always time to get out of it when the guy you want to shoot it bangs a three and then Turns and points to you and your staff like how’s that taste? Yeah Yeah, just so we don’t talk this to death Let’s move to off the box on one now and to point number three and I’ll throw that one back to you
Pat 56:56
Yeah, so for my third takeaway, I’ll go to the last start subset where he talked about just how you build winning habits or continue to win, even though the results aren’t there yet. I liked his thoughts on segmenting the season. It’s something we talked about with Stan Van Gundy when he was talking about his first season with the Miami Heat, if I’m not mistaken, and how they kind of got that turnaround going by just chunking the season down, looking at smaller sample and just trying to build success within that. I think he was smart in saying, if you are going to go to it, it’s one thing maybe looking at the schedule based on maybe importance or based on maybe some games that are very winnable for where you’re at and choosing wisely the segment. And of course, then hoping it works out, but you can’t just disregard and keep segmenting seasons because guys will obviously get smart.
I liked your question when you talked about statistical margins and what would be maybe for underachieving teams, just not low hanging fruit, but some good stuff to pick at to maybe again, build confidence, build some momentum. And I think the one nugget he said in there is that you want to give them stats that the team can get behind. So if they want to play faster with more pace, trying to give them a stat there that can kind of build the identity, which you hopefully think will win, but also that the guys support and are believing in, I think is giving them the carrot to measure success. If the wins, the results aren’t quite there yet.
Dan 58:19
Yeah, two things, blanking on the podcasts that we had a somewhat of a similar conversation, but that honestly, it might’ve been Stan Van Gundy during that. Actually, I think it was Stan Van Gundy now that I’m on air remembering. He also kind of talked about you got to give them reasonable goals that they can hit within the losing part of it. And there’s certain things that are a little more skill based that like, if you kind of don’t have players or team, whatever, it might be tougher to hit those things, but like pace of play, or we talked about even this goes into some of the cultural carrier type stuff. Are we winning 50-50 balls? Are we limiting our turnovers in this area? Those realistically, at the end of the game, even if you still lose, you can feel maybe there’s growth and the players maybe at least feel a little better than just keep rolling it out there and try to do the same thing.
The other thing that I liked within this whole thing was kind of sprinkled it in at the very end about end of game. And if a team is not ready to win yet, they’re close, but they’re just not ready to win yet. And I’m just going to put a pin on that because I would like to return to that conversation in the spring and summer with coaches, because I think that’s not a subtle difference. There’s a lot of teams that can play well for 30 minutes, plus or minus, and then the really good ones, they just play well the last four minutes. And what goes into that, the makeup of the team, how you practice it. I mean, we’ve talked about end of game stuff a lot, but like he made that distinction that the team’s just not ready to win yet. And how do you flip that.
Pat 59:55
And one last point I want to bring up I thought was also interesting. He mentioned when I was asking about reshuffling the lineups and he talked about like maybe going from eight to nine guys and maybe I think there’s like when we’re talking about culture carriers and maybe that ninth guy just gets six minutes and on the surface you think six minutes how can he really impact the game but I think if it is a culture guy who’s been doing things the right way in my limited experience you know what I’m envisioning he was talking about like guys on the team that everyone roots for and they see it they know it they know these guys that show up day in day out do the right things put in the work and you know they’re not rewarded with the big minutes and in these moments of struggling like maybe it is just six minutes but in my experience I feel like his teammates I mean hopefully if your team’s still connected through these tough times they want that guy to do successful and in those six minutes if your team is pulling together like has something that unifies them whether it’s like we want this guy to succeed like maybe those are the six minutes that make a difference to where going back to your point at the end of the game maybe you’re even if you have some leads you’re from six to ten points that allow you to maybe hold on even if you’re not quite ready to win late but it could be just those three to four minutes in each half that just this guy that is a culture carrier unifier gets to play it can have more impact on winning than one may think when it’s just like the ninth man giving them sixth row away minutes
Dan 01:01:19
Kevin Broderick from Nazareth talked about that back last year on the show. He plays a lot of guys, and he talked about why and how that helps with the culture. Not everybody can play 10, 11, 12 guys all the time, but his philosophy of just like what you just mentioned, everybody’s rooting for each other’s success, even if that guy’s only getting a couple of minutes, if it’s just within his role in the AD, it can help.
Pat, we both kind of sprinkled in some misses and things we wish we would have went deeper on with Coach Miller. Was there anything else from your standpoint?
Pat 01:01:50
Well, one last miss for me was back to our first bucket. You mentioned when we were talking about just how assistant coaches can support a head coach, they talked about connecting with players. I think that’s something I wish I had kind of circled back on.
I think we had a lot of conversations about head coaches and their player coach, you know, relationships, but not so much with an assistant coach. I believe I had a few, but again, just kind of revisiting that and just the role of the assistant coach with the players and the relationships they form and how that’s different from a head coach and also too, I think what assistant coaches should be mindful of. And I think kind of tying it back, you got to be able to sell the system, but you’re also the good cop, bad cop relationship, but something I wish I had circled back on and followed up with them on.
Dan 01:02:35
I’ll add to your point with the assistant stuff. He’s had another good quote in there. When you hire someone, you hire their habits too. Yeah. You get a lot of good nuggets in there about assistants and hiring and all that stuff.