A masterclass on the podcast this week with Mega Basket Head Coach, Marko Barac! Coach Barac dives deep into the areas of Hedging the PNR, Defending the Short Roll, and gives his thoughts on Offensive Rebounding Analytics and Spain PNR reads during a dynamic "Start, Sub, or Sit?!"
To join coaches and championship winning staffs from the NBA to High School from over 60 different countries taking advantage of an SG Plus membership, visit HERE!
A masterclass on the podcast this week with Mega Basket Head Coach, Marko Barac! Coach Barac dives deep into the areas of Hedging the PNR, Defending the Short Roll, and gives his thoughts on Offensive Rebounding Analytics and Spain PNR reads during a dynamic "Start, Sub, or Sit?!"
To join coaches and championship winning staffs from the NBA to High School from over 60 different countries taking advantage of an SG Plus membership, visit HERE!
If there is one thing in basketball that drives me crazy, it's slow decisions. So it can be a wrong decision, I'm good with the wrong decisions, but slow decisions are killing me. Killing me and killing our team and the way we want to play. So if the turnover comes from the quick decision, that means that you still got to work on your decision making, but you are playing basketball the right way. If the turnover comes from making a slow decision that is really, really bad.
Dan :Hi, I'm Dan Krikorian 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 the head coach of Serbia's mega-basket, marco Barac. Coach Barac is here today to discuss how pick and roll aggression influences, help and tag responsibilities, defending the short roll and we talk the art of Spanish pick and roll reads and offensive rebounding analytics during the always fun start, sub or sit. The season is here, but we know that many coaches are already looking ahead at international trips in 2024 and 25.
Dan :Ourselves, along with a number of former podcast guests, cannot say enough great things about our experiences working with Josh Ericsson, his team at Beyond Sports Handling flights, hotels, game scheduling, excursions, service learning opportunities and more. Josh and his team provide unmatched service and support throughout the entire trip. To learn more about why more than 650 programs have trusted Beyond Sports, visit beyondsportstorescom and tell them. Slapping Glass sent you. And now please enjoy our conversation with coach Marco Barac. Coach, it was great to meet you and get a chance to sit down and talk with you at the Las Vegas Summer League, and we really appreciate coming back on the show today. So good to see you again.
Marko Barac:Great to see you guys again. It was very good meeting you in Vegas. We had a big whiteboard and a couple of pens and there's a basketball drunk. It's been a couple of hours. It was really really quick yeah, absolutely.
Dan :Yeah, quite a fun afternoon for us as well. We're excited to continue the conversation here today. So thanks for coming back. We wanted to start with this and discuss something that we actually did talk about in Vegas. That was really interesting for us, and that is basically pick and roll defense and your aggressiveness on the ball, how that affects what you do behind the ball as far as who's tagging your rotations and things like that and all the considerations that you have when it comes to how much pressure you're going to put in the pick and roll. And so we'll start kind of broadly with your thoughts on how aggressive you want to be and then how that affects the rest of your defense.
Marko Barac:It's one of the most important things you know. Being aggressive on the ball, picking up full court, you know, sometimes it's important because you're playing against the opponent that, let's say, doesn't have good ball handle. In other situations it's important because they have so great handler that you want to put pressure on him and make him tired. But the most important is that doesn't matter what is the opponent and what are their characteristics. Being aggressive full court, being aggressive on the ball, it just brings the aggressiveness of the other four guys up. It wakes everybody up and I've never seen a team that has one player you know who is giving his best dying order there and then the other guy is just letting the first pass go without any pressure. It doesn't happen too often. You know, if you have a good group of guys, if you set a tone with your own ball defense, it brings the intensity of your entire defense up and it helps your pick and roll defense. It helps your overall defense.
Marko Barac:When it comes to the specific pick and roll, I'm coaching a very, very young team last two years and I found that playing hedge, you know, with all the rotations, is the simple way of difference, most simple way of rotation. When you look at the game. Maybe you couldn't say so, because you see a lot of guys rotating. You know some, maybe rotations that are not easy to teach, that are not simple, you know, but in my opinion it helps with responsibility when you know all the time who is your low man, when you know all the time who is splitting the difference on the help side, who is playing between the two, if you know who is responsible for short roll, if you know who goes on the first pass. When you look at the game, it's a lot of rotation but basically it's just a lot of running If you have good drills, if you have good fundamentals, good basics in my opinion, it's the easiest way for young team to play defense For other kinds of defense, with other tags on the help side.
Marko Barac:You need one thing that I don't have right now and that is experience. Maybe back in the days I made a mistake but it didn't last long Thinking that playing defense is all about being aggressive and having the wish and the will to play. But I couldn't be more wrong. You've got to be smart, you've got to be talented for playing defense, you've got to be experienced. So my opinion, for other defenses that are maybe more simple, in a sense of on ball and what is happening on that two against two, you know more passive defenses you actually need more experience on the help side. So my tags over there are really simple.
Marko Barac:I always love to get the low man. He's responsible for everything that happened inside the paint under the basket. He's got his rules. Where he picks up the big, how aggressive he is. Then I have the guy who is the ex-guy. He is playing between the two and he is taking the first pass out. Nothing too crazy, everybody does that. And now we have the on ball, which is sometimes different depending on individual characteristics, depending on the opponent. So, as I heard from one of my colleagues that is also working with the young team. You know, bad hedge is way better than bad draw, way better.
Patrick :Coach, talking about the hedge defense and the two on the ball you mentioned. Sometimes it changed with a scout. But what are you asking in terms of your big? Who is hedging? Is it a two step? Is it a show? The aggression of the hedge and the work between him and the defender on ball.
Marko Barac:His job is more or less always the same, in a way that what I demand from him, I want him to never let the opponent be, have separation coming to the ball. So that's the most important thing being in good position, that's regular position. Ball, you, man, and then when the big is coming, starting his screen, to set the ball screen, you've got to connect, you've got to be connected, you've got to change your stance, come in his numbers, you've got to be there on time. You have your feet moving, you know. And then basically it's a two steps and doing those two steps, you've got to read what the ball candor is doing. Is he picking the ball up? It's automatic coming back. Is he making a backup dribble, like defensive dribble? It's automatic coming back. Is he attacking your hips? Then wait, let him go all the way around you and then recover. It's a bit complicated footwork. You need to have your bigs doing like lateral steps and then most of the times you need them to do a little bit of backpedal, maybe one or two steps backpedaling to give space for their guards to cut off the ball candor. If the ball candor is doing the backup dribble, so you need to drill it day by day.
Marko Barac:A lot of mistakes are happening when the bigs are not reading, when they are overextended. It happens for two reasons. First reason is if they are disconnected with a big and they still want to do the vertical show, which is impossible, and second is that they are not reading the ball candor. So they got to be able to do both things and you got to drill it with dummy offense. You got to drill it against coaches. You got to really play. And it's a process about the guard. I already mentioned how important being aggressive on the ball is. Now it comes to the ball screen. Obviously, when you have the big who is way up waiting for the hedge, the reject becomes even more dangerous. So you are really responsible because there is no green protector in the paint. You have the low man who can be the guard, who can be the wing, you know. So it's really important not to be rejected. And the second thing that is important is to have like no screen mentality.
Marko Barac:Usually make mistakes as coaches come into the preseason. We start immediately with the coverage is with drills, with help side. You know everything. And that loosen up the on ball defenders. You send them a message from the very beginning that we are doing everything to protect them without them having the wish to make an effort.
Marko Barac:Usually I start to the preseason like first real is we play pick your old, but there is no cover. You just tell him screen left or screen right and you got to have no screen mentality. You got to fight. You got to know which is the weakest point of every big man, and that is the area about their hips, you know. So you got to jump on their hips, you got to hit their hips. You got to try to be physical. You got to try to have that inside our you know win the space between the screen and the ball handler. So with that kind of mentality, when we give you the help, is it the hedge, is it the flat, is it whatever? Later on, it can make our 2-on-2 game really good defensive. So that's the first thing that we need from him and the second thing is to know what they want from that ball screen.
Marko Barac:Usually, when the ball screen is more or less stationary, if we talk about the high picker or the top picker role and we are hedging, everybody nowadays looks for the short role. So if you see that they are not aggressive, or if you know, based on the scouting that they have the pass first guard or the biggest, very skilled playing of the short role. You gotta try and plug it. Gotta try and jump on the big man Is it gonna be under him being physical? And then let him go when he goes close to the free throw area or you will backpedal into him, you know, with aggressive hands, whatever. So you gotta know your player, know who you're playing against, know the spacing or what the offense wants and you gotta try to plug the short role in those situations when the picker role is more in a motion, when it's more flying, when it's more in full speed or based on the scouting, you know that we are playing against a great one-on-one guy, against a great pull-up shooter, and we don't wanna give him any separation after the hedge. Then you gotta try and cut him off.
Marko Barac:Read what he is doing. Is he backing up? Then you go very aggressive on him. Is he attacking the big man's hips, going around him? Then you go under our big you know and beat him to the spot. So those are the ones who want to raise that we need our guys to hit. One more thing I didn't mention about the bigs they gotta know and feel, when they are late, when they are late coming up, when they are late for their coverage, they need to change. We don't wanna overextend just because we want to hedge. You know, you gotta know that you are late and you will probably play some kind of flat, some kind of flat show. You still don't wanna let the ball hinder going inside the three-point area because it destroys our help side, which is ready for the hedge. You know. So those are the ones who are late.
Patrick :When you know they are trying to play through the short roll and you wanna plug the short roll and you mentioned either going under the screen or kind of going over with back pedals. Is that scout specific? Is it kind of your personnel? I mean, what is your decisions with how to plug the short roll it?
Marko Barac:depends on the offensive bigs. You have different kinds of screens against the hedge. Somebody likes to sleep early, somebody is not reading the defense and stays there too long. Somebody is playing with. What I personally like is you gotta touch the defender and then sleep. I don't know why, but a lot of defenders, just when they get touched, they stand up and they are expecting some kind of help. So now I'm talking a little bit about the offense, but what I want to say is that, depending of the angle and the speed of the big coming out from the screen, if he falls the screen you will go under him and be physical. If he slips the screen, you will try to connect with the back pedal.
Patrick :Another thing you mentioned with the no-screen mentality and we talked about this in Vegas when knowing the weakness of the big and attacking their hip and getting over the screen could you just follow up with a couple more thoughts on how you teach that and what you're telling your guards in terms of attacking the screeners hip to get over?
Marko Barac:So first thing is no reject, I already mentioned. Second thing if you got a choice between being physical and having to fight with a guy that is your size and the guy that is way bigger and way taller than you, probably you choose the guy your size. So you cannot go there without fighting your guy. So you got to lock, you got to be physical and you got to try to fight your guy. If you win that battle, probably you won't even need to fight with a big. That's the best option. Now it happens that you didn't win that battle and now you have to fight the big.
Marko Barac:It's a problem, right? If there is a fight that you just have to be a part of, then choose his weakest spot. No, his weakest spot is probably hip area. The best bigs in the world of basketball have the strongest hips, so he doesn't work all the way. But if there is somebody within a weak spot, then you really try. As I said, you lock your guy. You got to try to be physical. If you can, then you lock and trail and you try to put your inside hand between the ball handler and the screener. By putting your inside hand, you try to jump with your leg, to jump with your foot and basically you go with your shoulder and with your hip you go as hard as you can in his hips area. So it's not the perfect battle that you like to fight, but it's not the perfect world. So if you need, you try to be physical in that.
Dan :Coach, I'd love to ask for a second about the other three defenders. We'll stay with the hedge right now and assuming that you're hedging and that that big is either short rolling or long rolling, and who is, in your eyes, most important tag and like what the order of operations is, whether it's the first, the high eye, or like the higher guy in the tag, or you want to send all the way to the low tag, and just how you think about who's tagging a short roll or a long roll, or when you're hedging, and then how they kind of recover back.
Marko Barac:We would like to make it as simple as possible. No, so that's the perfect question. As I said, for young guys, young teams, it's really important to not mix up responsibility. So for me, the easiest way to do that is having the low man that is always responsible for the roller, is always responsible for the deep roll. We of course the help of the lagging, the short roll. Like we said before, he got to be very physical. It takes the roll man somewhere between the dots and the restricted area, the smile. That is his area. He can't do it too low because it's a dunk. He can't do it too high because there is a lot of space behind his back to cover. And if there is a pass coming to the big, he got to try and steal it. He got to try and take the ball, take his hands, you know anything? And then we have the other guy let's say we are talking about the top picker roll with two players behind. It's the same as with one player behind when you are hedging. We have the high guy on the help side which is playing between the two. He takes the first pass out. That is really simple. It's important when the ball is in the air that we run and like in every defense, every offense, everything comes back to fundamentals. You got to start running when the ball leaves the hand. You got to run and don't close out on a guy that doesn't have the ball. And we are talking about the extra rotation run to your string, be ready to string the floor immediately to play the defense. More or less that is simple. The problem starts when they do transfer the ball to the short roll. That is the hard part. When the short roll guys like roll and kick, it's not that difficult. You already have the guy who is playing in X spots, so he takes the first pass out, going from the big. On the second pass it's kind of a read Was the long man engaged by the big or not? If he was engaged, then probably the guy from the picker roll will run on the second pass If he was not engaged. It's the simple extra rotation, like we did before.
Marko Barac:Now the most difficult rotation is of course, the short roll and the backdoor cut. That is where a lot of teams have a lot of problems. For me I take that backdoor like a drive. So I tell to my ex-guy, to the guy who is playing between the two. Imagine that that guy has the ball and he starts driving to the base. So you take him. You take him and play defense and now what we have? We have the guy who is sliding from the slot, who is sliding into the vision of the short roll big and usually it's a 45 open shot, it's usually 40 tendon. So it's a really difficult rotation because now somebody from the pick your old coverage Needs to run there and take and contest that shot, depending who is closer.
Marko Barac:If we plug the short roll or we stay connected with the guard, he depends who takes the rotation. If the guard was plugging the short roll, he is closer to run over there and he didn't do his job good because they end up playing the short roll. If he was aggressive on the ball and we have our big who is recovering from the pick and roll, he should recognize that there is a short roll, there is a big door drive and instead of recovering to his guy, he should start running to the children contest. That's the way we do it. There are other ways. Without committing the guard was playing between the two, committing him completely to the back door, maybe having the guy from the opposite side making the hell, or having the guy who was taking the roll Just trying to come back. You know and take, but, as I said, I want to limit the gray areas and to limit the reads as much as possible. Having the young team.
Dan :Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at huddle and their latest product, huddle and stat. Whether for podcast prep, newsletter ideas or Putting together our weekly short and long-form video breakdowns, we rely heavily on huddle instats advanced analytics, an extensive content library containing over 460 us and international competitions. For more information on huddle instat, visit huddlecom. Slash slapping glass today sort of zooming out for a second, and you mentioned having a young team, but I know you've coached teams in the past that maybe have a little more experience and being able to mix up your Coverages and when you would think about Hedging, dropping flat. You know all the different things you can do within a game, especially against good guards that really know how to operate the different reads and when you might think about changing things up and going from there.
Marko Barac:Really, quickly, because Everybody just so good in good.
Marko Barac:European leagues. You know you cannot play the same coverage for 40 minutes. It is impossible. So they will punish you sooner or later.
Marko Barac:For me, what I like doing is doing it based on a personnel. I start the game, not hedging on everyone. When I have the team that is capable of doing defensively. So you had on the guys that are Extremely good players with a ball. You hedge on a two-man game that have very good connection. Let's say on a log game. You hedge in a some period of time that you want the guy to pass the ball on the others.
Marko Barac:There is no thing that has six, seven great ballhandlers. There is no need to hedge and to be over aggressive on the guys that are not capable scorers or that they don't have good chemistry with a big. So Basically, for me the best thing is to start the game Based on a personnel, knowing how you defend who. Other possibility is to have different coverage is based on the location and that's also based on our scouting of the opponent and the thing that you've got to do is having in game adjusted. So if they are punishing you with quick passes, you know probably you will have one or two differences, just turning it back the soft head or the quick head, however you want to call it. Maybe you will steal one or two possessions that they are not aggressive enough because they're just passing the ball without being Aggressive with a ball. So it's two possessions. In this game, pretty successful possessions are making the run.
Patrick :It's a lot as we start talking about now, maybe mixing up your defenses or getting away from the hedge, and at the very beginning you said, as your defense to become a little bit more passive, you found that you need more experience with your teams. So as you get more passive in your coverages, what begins to change? That has you feeling?
Marko Barac:Experience then begins to matter more and it's harder with younger teams you know You've got the bottle gray areas and that's why you need experience. You know Now probably the high man will be more involved in a tagging, but when you are playing more passive defense, you want the frontline of the defense being more involved. Is it coming to tag the pocket pass? Or, if they're going towards the two men side, you want to make more of a stunt. And Then what is the line of that stunt? You know what is the level of your tag when you are taking. Is a five man? Then, when it comes to the late switch, is it the dribble inside the pain? Is it the communication of a big? Is it communication of a guard? Do you have a third man involved in a late switch situations? So there is a lot of more advanced things that you Gotta have a little bit of experience.
Marko Barac:When we talk about mixing up defenses, I don't think we still understand, as coaches, the importance of switching defense and how we need to practice against it and how we need to do everything differently. Back in the days it was like folding the coaches clinic and I'm talking about the defense and and I spent like 15 minutes from 60 talking about my coverage and then Last. Then I say, okay, we switch. Last eight seconds or less than, or I don't know, talking about the offense, I would spend 15 minutes talking about the different spacing, different passing, you know. And then last ten minutes maybe I would say, okay, if they switch, we pass the ball down or we play ice or we play some kind of competition.
Marko Barac:In the practice, we would spend our and our and 50 minutes practicing different Coverage is. And then last ten minutes, just because of our conscience, we would do okay, let's do a little bit against which? Nowadays it's completely different. We should start with a switching defense, playing against that offensively, selecting the teams that can punish that, practicing it defensively, earlier, with the high intensity, you know. So it becomes really, really important, and it's not the last thing you remember before we run this, this, this, and if we didn't make advantage, then we're going to pick your old a switch and now we play. No, now we should start thinking about it.
Dan :We're there when you said working more with players on attacking, switching and understanding it. What is it that you find yourself having to teach players when it comes to playing against a switching team? And what I mean is is it understanding Mismatch and playing through a mismatch? Is it understanding when to slip or screen or space Like? What are the things that you find yourself teaching more when it comes to attacking switches?
Marko Barac:everything. Believe I Spend so much time because all the coaches had games. You know, while we played the perfect game, we played the perfect game and then they changed the switches and man, we couldn't beat our guide or man, we couldn't transfer the ball down and we lost the game. Okay, we didn't play well, we didn't play well. Switching is nowadays the big part of the game, is not a shame anymore when you're 30 years ago that only coaches that don't work enough and they switch because it's easier. You know now you didn't play well if you didn't attack switching well.
Marko Barac:So it's, everything is different. It's controlling the matchups. Who has the bigger advantage? Are we having bigger advantage on the perimeter? Are we having the bigger advantage down there Controlling the shot clock? Is there enough time to play through the big or we need to start playing immediately? Then it's not only mismatch in drive or loopholes. There is a mismatch in boxing out. There is a mismatch in closeout situation. We gotta understand why they are switching. Probably we had good ball movement earlier and now they want to stop it. Oh, we don't want to do what they want. We don't want to stop the ball moving. We gotta have actions. We gotta have organized actions. We gotta have calls that help us move the ball, create closeouts and just keep playing basketball the same way, like they're playing some different coverage. It's a big part of the game, so it's teaching literally everything coach, this has been great so far.
Dan :We want to move to a segment that we call start, sub or sit. We'll give you three options, ask you to start one of them, sub one of them and then sit one of them, and then we will discuss your answers from there. So, coach, if you're ready for this first question, we'll dive in. Let's go. Okay, this first question has to do with when we're in Vegas.
Dan :You did make a comment that analytics weren't as big of a deal Were your coach or Serbia as maybe it is in the US or in the NBA, and that analytics just not as much of a thing, and we thought that was really interesting. We discussed it a little bit. We want to kind of follow up with this question about that. We want to ask you about, maybe, stats that do matter to you and what you do look at when it comes to a box score or Analyzing your team. And so start, sub or sit these three different Margens when it comes to stats and what's most important to you start, subsit option one is the offensive rebounding Margin in a game. Option two is the free throw attempt Margin in the game and option three is the turnover margin very interesting.
Marko Barac:All those margins have big value.
Marko Barac:Let's see the free throws, because I don't want to give a big value to the thing. That is not only my hands. We have a very important gentleman over there. You know those three guys who are big part of the game, which are doing a very difficult job. So it's how many fouls did they call, you know, in the shooting action? So let's sit free throws. And I was joking a bit About the referee. We have the best referees around over here and they are doing the great job.
Marko Barac:About the free throws, it's like you want to have your guys attack the pain. You want to go to the free throw line often, but also you want to have a lot of pain trees you don't want to drive into proud, because then it comes to the turnover and that's what I will sub. So you have a guys that you want to foul, that you don't want to give up easy baskets, you want to foul them. You want to send them to free throw line. So now we sub turnover. For me it's important who is making those turnovers, if those turnovers are Unforced or not. If they are unforced, it drives me crazy. It's all about the concentration, and the concentration comes from the huge motivation, you know, and everything I often used to tell to my young guys. You know why don't you drop your iPhone. You know when you're in front of the gym because you're motivated not to drop it.
Marko Barac:How it happened that you pumble on the ball and you lose the ball Unforced? You know it just can't happen. You know you're not concentrated enough. Second turnover that drives me crazy is having the guys who are not the creators that is not their job having more than one turnoff. So let's say you have the three men. Who is very important part of your team is the energy guy, is the main defender, he is the beast rebounding, he can shoot the ball, he can do everything. You know he's just not a ball handler. He cannot have three turnovers in the game.
Marko Barac:And then it comes to your creators that have the ball Most of the time in their hands and have all the decisions you know to create for themselves and for the others. If those turnovers come from their creation, I'm fine with that, if they're improving, if they're working on their decisions every day and if they're improving throughout the season. This is the game of mistakes and it will happen. So of course, we want to take care of the ball. We want to limit the turnover, like every team in the world, but for me it's not that every turnover is the same. We can start the offensive rebound.
Marko Barac:I think it's huge for transition defense and there are so many different approaches to playing your transition defense and everything starts with offensive rebound. I've seen teams that don't send anyone to the glass. I've seen teams that send five to the glass. I've seen teams that have balance, like three men on the glass, two men behind, four men and one man behind, and everything works if they have one thing in common, that is, discipline and physicality. So it's a big thing. Whatever you do, you got to have a mentality that if one makes a mistake, we are all dead. It's like in the submarine, having the discipline following the rules, being there being physical fighting for loose balls, giving your team second chance opportunities, maybe some easy putbacks, maybe some second possessions that will finish with a dagger tree that will win the game. But the most important thing is the transition defense.
Marko Barac:I still think everything is important. Of course, three-point shooting is huge. Going to the free trial line is huge, controlling the basketball don't make him turn over but scoring easy points in the game, if you are playing the even game against the even opponent. Four or six easy points in the game just needs to be.
Dan :Coach, thanks for explaining all those. I'd actually like to follow up with the statement that you did make about analytics just not being as important, maybe just going a little bit deeper on what you meant by that and why and what you maybe do look at when it comes to these things.
Marko Barac:If you really analyze NBA playoffs I'm not the best person to talk about it, but it's only my eye you see teams winning games. You see the teams that have better two-point pull-up shooters win games, because that is even game. There is high intensity defense. You don't have open looks, you don't have corner tree, you don't have open corner trees, you don't have that many left, you don't have that many good shots in a body on points per possession, so you've got to have players that are making the difference. Usually, that difference comes from taking, let's say, bad shots. It's only the matter of perspective.
Patrick :Looking at the turnover margin, you hit on it for sure, talking about just turnovers you live with unforced and that you have a young team With your defense. You talked about keeping it simple On the offensive end. When we frame it with looking at preventing turnovers, keeping it simple, how do you think about offense with a young? Team. That will happen.
Marko Barac:If you want to play aggressive defense, if you want to play in open court, if you want to run, those are the turnovers that will happen and that you have to learn living. Turnovers that come from playing fast, turnovers that come from not wanting to fall down to the ball, playing in basketball, moving the ball and doing everything quickly it will happen. What I don't like happen is that we make turnovers because we play too slow, that we are playing with slow decisions. That drives me crazy. If there is one thing in basketball that drives me crazy, it's slow decisions. So it can be a wrong decision. I'm good with the wrong decisions, but slow decisions are killing me, Killing me and killing our team the way we want to play. So if the turnover comes from the quick decision, that means that you still got to work on your decision making, but you are playing basketball the right way. If the turnover comes from making a slow decision, that is really, really bad.
Dan :We are always happy to work with companies, coaches and creators who add value to coaches and the industry. So we're very excited to announce our newest partner and the official presenter of Start Subbersit, Just Play. Just Play is the premier platform for engaging your team and managing workflow within your organization. Just Play consolidates the platforms you use and integrates with industry leading video tools to help coaches win in four major areas teaching, opponent scouting, prospect recruiting and analytics. We recently featured Just Play founder Austin Barone on our Titan series, so you can hear much more about him and the growth of the company there. Additionally, Just Play will be adding PDFs and extra content you hear in this and future Start Subbersit conversations. So for more information and to see that extra content, visit JustPlaySolutionscom. Slash slapping glass today.
Patrick :Moving along, we'd like to ask you about the Spanish pick and roll and defensive coverages that are hard to read when playing the Spanish pick and roll for your guards or your team in general. So Start, subbersit. Option one the guard to guard switch against the Spanish pitch can roll. Option two is when the defense will drop the big. Make an emphasis for the big to get under the stack screen. Or option three is just a hard hedge and trying to blow it up at the ball.
Marko Barac:I think that they are doing a really good job reading those. So I don't think that any of those is too difficult. Let's say hedge, just because of the timing, because when the defense is hedging you've got to be there a little bit earlier because you need to slip in front of the big. So I teach my guys to slip in front of the big when the defense is hedging the Spanish pick and roll and it can be difficult. For me the most difficult is when the guy defending the back screener, when he is physical and when he is not allowing our guards to come there early with the angle that we want. So if the defender on the back screener is physical, sometimes it's difficult to slip it in front of the ball screen. So maybe we start with that. Then we will sub the Gargar switch. I don't think it's too difficult. We teach them. You know, whenever you are there trying to set the back screen, whenever you see that he goes outside of the level of your shoulders, that means that probably he's ready for the Gargar switch and you should disappear. Now you slip behind the pick and now the guy who stays there, if he still wants to switch on the other guard, he gets the big separation or he runs with you. Now the guard who is on ball, he's in a problem. There's the first way. The second way if you were late to disappear, to slip, then we still want you to set the back screen, but you set it with the angle where we want the defensive pick to fight the screen away from the ball, so that gives you the space to slip back to the basket. It gives you that edge of the backboard unoccupied where you can punish with a Gargar pass. We start the drop, just because it's very simple, you know, and we make it or miss it. You know. And sometimes before the game, when somebody asks me okay, coach, how are we doing? Are we good for the game? No, are we winning it? Sometimes I say, hey, go ask my guard. You know, if he makes those shots, if he makes those decisions, we are good. You know, if he's not feeling well, we are in trouble. But the value of Spanish picker home for me is really good because it gives you a lot of opportunities. It's very good for punishing the switch. It's very good for stealing some easy points If you are doing a good job disguising it.
Marko Barac:I think it's really important nowadays because everybody's practiced the defense against the Spanish picker all. But if there is some kind of motion before that, you know, and then it comes with a speed I think it's really difficult to defend. You got to be ready in your playbook to have different motion before that, to have different angles of the backstripping coming from the help side, from the weak side, coming from the strong side. If you have problems with the defender being physical on him, which is even more, even better, you know, whatever you are running, you try to disguise, but sometimes there is no better decoy than a bad disguise. You want to disguise and you want to make it a little bit visible. So the assistant coaches from the opponent bench stand up and start, you know, yelling, it's coming, it's coming, and then you do something different. You know it's fun In this job. There is a lot of pressure, you know, and a lot of bad moments, so you better use the fun ones.
Patrick :Coach, I'd like to follow up just on something you said there at the end With knowing the stack screener angle, if he's coming from the strong side or the weak side, what changes or what angles are you working on, depending on where that stack screener is running into the action? It's about the angle of the back screen.
Marko Barac:but for me it's more about look, we are playing a very physical issue. The guards are huge, they are physical and they are using their physicality and it blows up the Spanish pick and roll. If your guard is coming from the weak side and he wants to go there and being in time, because it's all about the time, you can Spanish pick and roll. If you are too early, you blow up. If you are too late, you blow up, so you got to be there right on time. But coming from the weak side, sometimes having the guard just bumping him before he even enters the paint or before he comes to the middle line, it blows up the timing and it blows up your Spanish pick and roll. So maybe the other time you want him to come from the strong side, let's say from the strong side corner, so from the direction where the ball is coming, so it's a little bit easier maybe to go inside, because now the defender will not be between the ball and you when you should set the back screen. You got to play with the angles, you got to read the game and you got to have the playbook that is ready to answer to those questions.
Marko Barac:But for me the timing is most important. Second, most important is don't let him know that you are playing Spanish pick and roll, unless you want to punish the switch. So you want to put the guy down early and then you want to sleep it early. You want to sleep the foreman, if he is good decision maker, or you want to sleep the other guard, but on the foreman side, if the foreman is in the corner so they can fix the mismatch, they can switch it out. But one more important thing. So we said it's about the timing and it's about disguising the Spanish pick and roll.
Patrick :We're looking a lot at the stack screener, but how are you helping the ball handler? It can be a confusing action. There's a lot going on. Like you said, you need timing, you need patience. How are you working with the ball handler and the stack screen?
Marko Barac:for me, it's a similar to working on a ghost screen. It's a similar timing. I start really simple let's work, let's practice the timing that the ball handler is making a hazard. A simple hazard like make a pound Dribble, put the ball in your pocket, lift your knee up and make a little hole on your open its foot, and then there is a Backstream happening in the timing of a hazard and then I attack and then you open and we go. It's the same with the ghost screen. Your dribble, you has the in the timing of a. Has the, the ghost screen happens so I can attack the sleep, I can read the defense. I start like that, like connecting those two players together With a simple common idea Okay, so our timing is has it won't happen later on.
Marko Barac:You know they have the defender there, sometimes they're coming full speed, sometimes they need to. They have some handoff before the action. Sometimes I don't know they're coming off the, some off-screen, so they have the ball in triple threat position. So it won't happen all the time that you are able to get it. But that's how we start. Let's try to make a common timing and then it becomes more familiar and much more easier to make the timing in in other options.
Dan :Coach, you're off the start subberset hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. Loved your answers there. Thanks, we've got one last question for you before we close the show. Before we do. Once again, thank you for coming on. We really appreciate it and this was a fun conversation.
Marko Barac:I can always talk about basketball, and especially you guys that you can. This amazing, amazing channel that helps the coaches Worldwide, you know. So I'm really, really happy to be part of this. Thank you, coach.
Dan :The last question we asked all our guests is what's the best investment that you've made in your career as a coach? It's a difficult question.
Marko Barac:We invest a lot, we devote our lives to this job and we invest in a lot and it's paid off to the Not that big number of coaches, you know, and we still need to keep the same love for the basketball every single day. But for me, the biggest invest that I made is that I learned how to invest. I've learned how to invest. I learned the power and the value of a compound interest. That is the biggest thing I learned. When I was at the university, I studied a little bit economy and financing. I was a bad economy student, no, but not that bad that I didn't learn the value of compound interest. You gotta invest every single day and Small investments every single day. Making a compound interest. That is helping your life, that is helping your game, your job, anything you do, everything good in life comes from the compound interest.
Marko Barac:That is what I talk about to my players every single day. We spoke about the closeout decisions earlier. Right, we spoke about the making quick decisions versus making the slow decision. If you're working your decisions every single day and guys, I mean it every single day it's not the figure of speech. My team, my players, are working closeout decisions every single day. It cannot be 100 repetitions, it cannot be 500 repetitions, it can be three or five or 10, but every single day. And they're improving a lot because Tomorrow you are not working on your base value of decision. It's your base value plus three or five or how many you made, and the day after tomorrow it's plus three or five and the day after tomorrow is plus three or five. So they improve a lot and they should do everything every single day. You know it sounds weird, but that's the way I do coaching and that's the way I try to do in life and that's my biggest.
Dan :All right, pat, that was pretty high level, yeah, trying to keep up, as we mentioned on the show. I mean we had an opportunity to sit down with him and, like you mentioned, I mean I think we were on a whiteboard with him and a couple of the coaches for two hours in Vegas. It was a pretty fun time. So we knew this is gonna be a good conversation based off of our Vegas whiteboard session with him.
Patrick :Yeah, I was looking forward to this conversation and I think what shown through his eye for the details Whether it's angles fighting over ball screens is really impressive and was fun to just pick his brain all these things and I know we have so many notes, but just these little tidbits that he shared with us was pretty cool.
Dan :Yeah, and I think what we heard throughout is the details to back up the philosophy or why they do. Stuff was great throughout, so let's dive in right away.
Patrick :I'll kick it to you first on any takeaways from that first bucket when he kicked it off as to why he likes head and why he finds it simpler, especially with young teams and just giving them more rules and eliminating the gray. I wrote down, yeah, that he's found for like the more passive coverages with the drops, that usually a more experienced team is gonna have more success with that. So again, connecting the details, the philosophy and why he liked hedge for a young team and you know remind me a lot of with our conversation with Wes Miller Just if you can keep it simple, give them simple assignments, simple tasks, then they can execute at a higher level because it's less thinking they're moving or quicker on their feet because there is less gray.
Dan :A similar note. I mean he talked about starting with picking up full court pressuring. Even good guards hate it when you're pressuring full court and make it hard to get into your stuff. And the hedging just flowed into that mentality where they just are gonna make it hard on you to bring the ball up. And then we're gonna make it so that you're not just gonna be comfortable in the pick and roll. And I loved the quote a bad hedge is better than a bad drop. I believe was the quote.
Dan :So, and as we'll probably get into the nuances of the two different ones and why there's so much more gray area in the drop, I just enjoyed him basically breaking down why he preferred the hedge with the young team and then the rotations, the tags, you know. You followed up with a good question just about the two step hedge or one step or you know basically how they do it. The one little detail I did like too was if the big is going to be late to the screen, they can't still try to hedge late, that they have to change their coverage and either flatten it or you know whatever it is that they're going to do. But just like a little teaching point within that where if you're going to be hedging, but then you know teams do a lot of creative stuff to make that big late. So if you are going to be late you can't still try to hedge because obviously then you get split or put yourself in a world of trouble. So really like that teaching point as well.
Patrick :I like the teaching point he made with the no screen mentality for the guard on the ball. I like how he framed it, picking your fights and that, of course, fight your size. And the first fight you want to choose is obviously your matchup because you have a better chance of winning. But you know then a detail we discussed in Vegas if you do have to, whether you're late or you know, you just lose that battle with getting into your defender and having to fight through the big and attacking. You know, knowing their weak spots or the best chances for getting through is through that hip and attacking his hips.
Patrick :And get a little detail when he mentioned just getting the inside hand so you can jump the foot through and reconnecting, and then that led into taking away the short roll. I mean again, now it depends on, like he said, if the screener slipping out or holding, but how he thinks about plugging the short roll. This is something we've seen a lot in Europe, especially with coach Asalo, who now at Paris they do it exceptionally well. And I just like this strategy of getting your big out on the ball, prying that hedge but not chasing the ball, rather protecting the short roll coverage If they're going to attack that way. He said obviously, if it's a hacking guard, you want to get back to the ball.
Dan :Yeah.
Patrick :I do like teams that are taking away, plugging that short roll and his thoughts on why he'd go under or what did he say there? The back pedal into the roll.
Dan :Right.
Patrick :So that was really insightful conversation for myself and hearing his thoughts on that.
Dan :In Vegas we were talking about this, the no scream mentality. To go back to that. We weren't just on the whiteboard anymore, we were actually imitating it in the middle of a ballroom. Yeah, that's our Vegas trip, reenacting hedge ball screen coverages. We're a fun hang, yeah, but that was a good point.
Dan :I think another thing that crept into the back half of that conversation that I loved and honestly, was not a miss for me, but something we probably just could have went for another half hour was his thoughts on coaches don't spend enough time on attacking switches and how to teach all that stuff, and I just thought his couple of thoughts that he did give us there were really good about just understanding it.
Dan :And it is true, I mean, so many more teams do switch. And I liked his little tidbit too about how 15, 20 years ago people make fun of you if you switched and now it's. You know how a lot of teams win games, obviously, and so some good points that he did throw in there on just why it's so important and that it's not an excuse to just say we lost because they were switching and we didn't have an answer. You got to have an answer now and I think we've seen a lot of teams do some interesting things to attack it, but I think just working on it and understanding, like he said, why they're switching, who they're switching with and to play through it is super important. So I took that away in that first bucket as well.
Patrick :The framework you shared on how he thinks about attacking switching. I know you wrote it down but yeah, just you know, understanding the matchup advantages. You have the clock as the time you have left to attack the switch and then also understanding the mismatches that you may have in box out or closeout situations. And then I liked his last slot too about usually team switch to stop your ball movement and so important to keep moving the ball even against the switch. And you know it goes back to his emphasis on quick decisions. I thought that was an excellent framework just to how you think about when determining how you want to your pick and roll switch attack.
Dan :Yeah, really good stuff there, Moving to start, sub or sit. Let's start with the Spanish pick and roll. We discussed, you and I, for about 30, 40 minutes before this question and we came up with like six different variations of this question and we finally got to one because we wanted to ask him something about Spanish pick and roll.
Patrick :I'm happy where we ended, but it was quite a journey to that question, per usual, I think we go just way too detailed or specific and then we realized we're out of time and just all right, let's just keep it broader. And then it always ends up being the better question compared to anything of this chicken scratch we had before. So I am happy where we settled up and Coach Barach gave an excellent answer. As with everything in this conversation, I really enjoyed, just again, the angles or the considerations in terms of the timing of the stack screener and the importance it plays, whether it's coming from strong side or weak side, and what factors could or could not determine the ability of it to properly timed or executed. What were your takeaways there?
Dan :I think that it was interesting.
Dan :He said that all three of them are actually somewhat simple to him because they work on it so much.
Dan :As far as the reads, I think that from where I sit, all these things can be difficult for a college guard.
Dan :Sometimes when you first put them in the stack, or Spanish pick and roll action, it's just a lot of bodies to read. I think that's the thing. You do have to really work on it, and I've actually coached guards that prefer not to run it because it's just too much for them, especially ones that are maybe more scores out of a pick and roll, and they just want to read the big and be able to understand if I can get down hell or not, and all of a sudden there's more bodies down there. So I think that it was good to hear him talk about the reads on those things and I think what I really always like is hearing the screen versus slip from the back screen or from the shooter and I'll kick it back to you because you asked a good follow up about the angles and all that but I think that's a big part of it is knowing when to screen and when to slip out, and that's something that can really make it more dynamic than just always trying to screen or whatever it is.
Patrick :He did mention at the very end of the conversation when we asked about how he helps his guards and, to your point, yeah, it can be a lot and the value he plays on having a hesitation. But again I like how he kind of in terms of simplifying it, having one hesitation for if we want to attack a ghost screen or if we're so like the Spanish screen and giving him a little bit more clarity. So again it's not like a different solution for, ok, we're in this pick and really got to do this run, this, run a ghost. And I think just over the years him working with younger teams, I think it's really helped simplify his philosophy and give players tangible tasks that they can stick to and have success with and find success with. So I like that skip step hesitation and the importance that it played in kind of these more complex or deceptive actions that rely heavily on timing.
Dan :I feel like that was like a nice little nugget thrown at the end. On the hesitation step, timing with the ghost screen I know we weren't talking ghost screens but that was really good because, like the ghost flare, action guards with the ball Well, when should I go and like that little hesitation step that he talked about? That's a nice teaching point that I took there at the end, even though we were talking Spanish pick and roll. He threw something else out that I really like we could have kept going and going on Spanish pick and roll stuff because, like so, we came up with tons of different questions that maybe we should keep for someone else.
Patrick :The questions we were trying to come up with was pre action for the Spain, and it's their independence that worked out like that's. I mean, besides timing, that's one of the more important factors for him and executing it. So get lucky at times here, but it was good to hear him to talk about just disguising it and the importance that he places on all that pre action.
Dan :Yeah, in our watching film prepping for this, we both were noticing, yeah, they didn't often just come down and run a straight Spanish pick and roll, they were running flex action, they were guard to guard, dribble handoffs. We talked a little off air. They did stuff where they were running two Spanish pick and rolls in a row just back to back. And, yeah, definitely interesting stuff. Our last one the stats that matter one, the margins was just interesting. Going back to the conversation in Vegas and just mentioning that analytics just don't drive every decision. You know where he's coached as much as maybe it does other places, and so just alternate points of view is always interesting to dive into. And it got to an interesting conversation, though, about his view on turnovers, which I took out with, especially with young teams, and how and why teams turn it over was a big takeaway there for me.
Patrick :Yeah, same here. I wrote down unforced turnovers are usually a lack of concentration that he finds is due to a lack of motivation your cell phone or their iPhones you don't see them dropping that a whole lot, but then they'll drop a pass. Yeah, so I will make that metaphor. I did enjoy the offensive rebounding conversation and I wrote down another metaphor. Like with transition defense and offensive rebounding, it's about discipline and physicality and he said that if one of them does it wrong, that screws the whole team. And it's that submarine mentality One thing wrong for all dead. I guess my takeaway, or a lot of good metaphors out of this conversation 100%.
Dan :I kind of mentioned a couple of my misses. I'll throw it back to you. Is there anything else that you maybe wanted to go deeper or could have gone deeper on Basically?
Patrick :I'm with you. I think that attacking switch we cracked open a door there that would have needed another 30, 40 minutes on. Not a miss, just more of a time constraint issue.
Dan :I think within that conversation too, I'm sure he had some interesting thoughts on switching from the defensive side to, and we talked about attacking it, but I'm sure he saw a lot about how to switch to take the things away that obviously they're trying to do offensively.
Patrick :I'm with you, I think. With switching defenses, I think what's always so interesting is one how you switch, but then how you think about solving the mismatches that you're giving the offense. I'm sure you would have great thoughts on that as well.
Dan :Pat, if there's nothing else, we can wrap this thing up. Sounds good, all right. Well, we thank coach Roch once again. Best of luck to him, and thank you everybody for listening. We'll see you next time.
Patrick :Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slappingglasscom 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.
Dan :Who do we have a name yet to this thing? I have like slapping back for slapping glass. Slapping glass, that's kind of funny. I like that. That was a real slapping glass.