As part of the “Festival of the Boom” and Australian Boomers FIBA window in Melbourne, Basketball Australia recently hosted a clinic for more than 230 coaches at John Cain Arena featuring the three assistant coaches from the Boomers program.
In the first of a four-part series of blogs, these are some notes from the presentation from Mike Kelly on defending the pick and roll. Further notes from clinics with John Rillie and Kerry Williams are to follow in the next week, along with takeaways from the talk from Boomers Head Coach Brian Goorjian as part of the clinic.
Thanks to coaches Braden Cotter and David Herbert for their assistance in pulling these valuable notes together. Video from the clinic is now available here
Mike Kelly is currently the Associate Head Coach of the Perth Wildcats and a former NBL Coach of the Year. Here are his teaching points and areas of emphasis on defending the pick and roll.
General Philosophy:
- Find something simple and that works for you and your personnel, not what you see that works for other coaches
- Invest in shell every day (Session)
- Prefers use of 5v5 shell. Game like and more players getting reps on-court
- Preference for player guarding ball to cancel on-ball action at every opportunity.
- “Be a dog, get into the ball”
- “Be a magnet on hip”
- “Know and embrace getting hit. Fight through it”
- Player defending screen to be physical and connect early to screener, pushing screen out of alignment. “Nullify screen at every opportunity”
- Talk and touch
- All players need to be connected. Every player has a job to do with on-ball coverage
- Off-ball players to be middle third of court at contact of screen, shrinking the floor. On pass, moving on flight of ball to next job
- Fly = rotation/recovery
Switching
- Can be lazy due to lack of time invested
- Turn this to a positive if practice time is limited
- Switch to “our” advantage
- Guarding ball: Push ball into screen, roll under big
- Guarding screener: Be physical and connect early, allowing switch to Be as aggressive as needed
- Stay on inside of ball
Blitz on open side on-ball
- Used to take ball out of best player hands
- Push ball carrier into coverage. Be super aggressive, can’t allow ball to reject screen
- Do not leave coverage until ball leaves
- Big is always the defender to leave. Will get next open offensive player as needed
- Force furthest pass while shrinking floor from middle third of court
- Nail:
- Deny pass
- Reading ball carrier’s eyes looking to “fly” if needed
- Low:
- Get screener if needed
- Decides: “if it’s a fire and when to put it out”
- Weakside:
- 1v2
- Takes first catch on furthest pass
Show
- Big:
- Connect early to screener
- Toes to sideline
- Don’t leave early, allowing ball to get through created channel
- Small:
- Guard push ball into coverage
- Get over screener
- Get under teammate
- No downhill play
- Short roll catch:
- Low to stunt forcing big to make decision
- Triggers “fly”
Step up on-ball
- Again, cancel screen = win possession
- Importance of clarification of left or right screening call
- Try using weak (off hand) and strong for clarity
- Ice to push ball to sideline
- Big to slow ball until guard can get back
- Have triggers on pop action:
- If ball gets into key, guard to “veer” back to big
- If non shooting big, stay between ball and ring until pass back
Thanks to Australian Boomers assistant coaches Mike Kelly, John Rillie and Kerry Williams for their help and support for coaches in sharing their knowledge and to Coach Brian Goorjian for his time speaking with the coaches and sharing insights.
Photo credits Dylan Burns
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