Stan Van Gundy returns to the podcast for a second appearance to discuss a ton of valuable topics including philosophy vs. style, segmenting a season, controlling the controlables, and we talk efficient shots and tightening the bolts of an offense during a highly entertaining "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!
Stan Van Gundy returns to the podcast for a second appearance to discuss a ton of valuable topics including philosophy vs. style, segmenting a season, controlling the controlables, and we talk efficient shots and tightening the bolts of an offense during a highly entertaining "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!
That, to me, is the difference between philosophy and style. My philosophy is always that the game at both ends is played from the inside out, but it's totally different in terms of style. When we had no big guys away, we were playing inside out. It was for Dwayne Wade to break guys down on the dribble. When you have Shaq, you're going to play inside out by throwing the ball to the post. With Dwight Howard, it was going to be playing inside out in a pick and roll game and having Dwight roll to the rim, and now your defense has to make decisions. So your philosophy, your core principles, may not change, but your style, in my mind, has got to be flexible and centered on the people that you have.
Dan Krikorian:Hi, I'm Dan Krikorian and welcome to Slapping Glass exploring basketball's best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today, we're excited to welcome back to the show for a second time, stan Van Gundy. Coach Van Gundy is here today to discuss the difference between philosophy and style, his biggest learnings from his first Miami Heat team, the we Talk, the game's most efficient shots and tightening the bolts of an offense during the always fun start, sub or sit. Unique and absolute must the most helpful and highest quality coaching content anywhere. These are some of the comments coaches are using to describe their experience with SG Plus. From NBA and NCAA championship coaching staffs to all levels of international and high school basketball, sg Plus is designed to help curious coaches discover, explore and understand the what, why and hows of what the best in the world are doing.
Dan Krikorian:Through our easily searchable 750 plus video archive on SGTV to our live coaches social Las Vegas. Sg Plus is the assistant you would hire if your athletic director didn't already give the stipend the football. And now please enjoy our conversation with coach Stan Van Gundy. One of the teams and coaching experiences I'd like to ask you about is your first year taking over the Miami Heat and your 12 years as an assistant before that. You take over a team that won 25 games a year before you guys win 42 that first year and go to the second round of the playoffs. And thinking back on that experience as a coach of taking over a team for the first time as an NBA head coach now, and any learnings or takeaways from that time.
Stan Van Gundy:Yeah, that was probably the most enjoyable head coaching experience I had in the NBA and it started horrendously. So I was an assistant all through training camp in the pre-season. We played our entire exhibition season and then Pat Riley surprisingly decided to step away at the end of the regular season and so you know, we had done all this stuff and I think it was three or four days before the first game that I take over and we lose our first seven games. The seventh one was to my brother in Houston and it wasn't like we were losing a lot of close games. I mean, we were getting our butts kicked pretty consistently every night. So from there, you know, you have to figure out where are we going to go. Now the lucky thing is in the NBA, compared to a high school or college season, is seven games is not that long. I mean, you know we're just short of 10% of the season. So we were 0 and 7. 7 is the length of a playoff series. So we decided motivationally that we would look at the season in seven game chunks and we're just going to try to get better. And we actually drew a staircase on the board and every seven games was the next step. So step one was we were 0 and 7. And I forget what our point differential was, but it was double figures minus whatever. So hopefully you can take a step up from there. But so we went step by step and then we were 5 and 15, which you know, we are 5 and 8. And then we were still 25 and 36 coming down to the last quarter of the season. But we'd gotten progressively better and we'd won some of those seven game series. And then we won 17 of our last 21 game. So down the stretch of the season we were outstanding. We actually won a playoff series in the first round. We beat Charlotte or New Orleans at the time in seven games and then lost a pretty competitive six game series to Indiana.
Stan Van Gundy:So it was Wade's rookie year, haslam's rookie year. We were really really small. Brian Grant was our center. Keith Askins, one of my assistants, called us the itty bitty committee. You know we were pretty small but good, and we just continued to get better and better as the year went on.
Stan Van Gundy:And what that year really, I think taught me is you had to stay focused on improvement. We were bad through seven games and I think you can't run away from that fact. I mean we were bad. We're not going to go from 0 and 7, getting beat by double figures, to being one of the best teams in the league over the next two weeks. We're just not going to get there. We've got to get there step by step. And part of that is, you know, improvement by the players, basic things, and part of it is, as a coach, we got to find more answers and what works for these players, you know, and you've just got to stay focused on that. And that's where we tried to go with that. And it was very gratifying at the end to just build that up and find ways to keep guys focused.
Stan Van Gundy:And I remember at one point actually we had Ray Ferolston on our team and he came in and he'd seen something. Somebody in one of the New York papers had written that we had a chance to break the 76ers record for fewest wins in a year. You know, which was in time, you know and we ended up 42 and 40 and in the second round of the playoffs. So it was a fun year. But also the second lesson that I learned in I don't know learned it, because I think I knew it ahead of time, but it really drove it home that it was true even in the NBA is you've got to focus on your strengths as a team, and they may not be typical, like we couldn't be a typical team that year.
Stan Van Gundy:We didn't have an NBA caliber center. I mean, our center was six foot nine, and to get our best players on the floor, we took Dwayne Wade, who had never been a full-time point guard in his life. He wasn't a full-time point guard at Marquette in college, but we had Eddie Jones at two and everything. So we made Dwayne Wade into a point guard, you know, to get our best players on the floor. And so I think, from a coaching standpoint, you can't just line guys up in a box and say, okay, well, we need a center, we need a power forward, and boom, boom, boom. It's not going to work. You've got to find a way to get your best players on the floor and you've got to find a way to get those players in the spots where they have the best chance to be successful. That's your job as a coach, and it's not always easy, but that's your job is to find it, and it took us some time, but it ended up working out, at least fairly well.
Dan Krikorian:You mentioned that this was one of your, if not your, most enjoyable head coaching experiences, and if or how much expectations played into that where a team that wasn't expected to win, but then you did, versus other teams you had that were more, maybe, say, contenders, was that at all part of why it was so enjoyable?
Stan Van Gundy:Oh yeah, I've been through it the other way, right. And so when you can coach a good team, a team that does well, that didn't have those expectations, come on, it's so much fun because what happens over the year and it's easier psychologically on the players because everything that goes well you get praised for it. If you lose a couple, nobody you know is on you about it. But our season, even though we didn't start with real high expectations, I mean we were getting our ass kicked and so the question was wasn't even a question.
Stan Van Gundy:People made the statement that I was way over my head and even though it was 25 wins, it's Pat Riley you're following, who's won multiple titles and he's a genius and you're following him, and they're saying, oh my God, look at this poor dude.
Stan Van Gundy:And every time out was at the wrong time and everything else, and this guy's over his head and he's not long for this job and the whole thing. And the players are getting it that they're not good enough in the whole thing. And so, while the expectations weren't a high, it wasn't easy early in the year. For three quarters of the year it wasn't easy, and then the last quarter of that season and even into the playoffs were fun because we were good and we've all been through it. It's only fun if you're good. I mean, I haven't had a bad season that I would classify as fun. So there are credits some coaches do because they're able to keep perspective and say you know what? I didn't have a very talented group of kids but they got everything they could out of themselves, we got everything we could out of them and I enjoyed the season and I admire that and respect that and it's a great perspective. But I've just never been able to play a losing season.
Patrick Carney:You mentioned taking the season in seven games spurts. Then he also said Ray Ferolson kind of using that article as motivation. But what did you learn about motivation, that season being the first time NBA head coach and, like you said, the length of a season?
Stan Van Gundy:I think that the short stretches were really the key for me as well as the players, because you know when you start 0-7, you can go on a four game winning streak and you're looking, and you're four and seven. I mean it's still no good. So if you're going to look at things in this big picture of the whole season, it's going to take you a long time to climb out of an 0-7 hole when you're a young team trying to get better. So, like I said, after 61 games we're 25 and 36, but we've gotten a lot better. And the only way you can really appreciate that hey, we're getting there, we're getting better is to look at things in shorter segments and appreciate that, okay, look, we are making improvement. We're not where we want to be. But forget about those early season things. We're pretty good now. You know we went from awful to just reasonably bad, to mediocre, to maybe a little above mediocre, to where we're actually decent, to good to, by the end of the year, really good. I mean, you know we're there, we're competitive in a second round series against a really good team, like we were good.
Stan Van Gundy:And so if you're not looking at that in shorter segments, then it's going to be tough, like if you're in a high school or college season. Maybe it's the next two weeks Like. All right guys, we've been through this stretch. Let's forget about that for a little bit and over these next four games let's try to be better than we were. That's what we're shooting for. We may not be 4-0, but we were 0-4, getting beat by 12 a game in this stretch. If you can show them at the end of the next two weeks, hey, we were 2-2. And our point differential is even. Well, hell, that's a hell of an improvement. Now let's take the next step. But if you don't look at it in short segments, you're still 2-6 over the last month and your point differential is still minus six. It doesn't look good.
Stan Van Gundy:So I think putting the blinders on in those short segments were something that I've tried to do since then, particularly when times are tough. But I also think it helps you when times are good, because when I had really good teams, the fact that you're starting to decline a little bit can be obscured by that overall record. So when I had teams, I had three teams that won 59 games went 59 and 23. But you could look at a five or six game stretch and say we're not playing very good basketball. But you look at the record and I'd say you lost a couple and so you're 32 and 10, you're 32 and 11.
Stan Van Gundy:But yeah, but in the last five games we're two and three and we're getting out rebounded every night and all of these things you've got to, and I think even more so in an 82 game season. You don't want to be locked in on one game. Anybody can have a bad game or a great game. But you got to lock in, I think, on shorter segments to get an idea of truly where you are and either help you in your goals or getting better if you're struggling or realizing when you're starting to slide, even though you may still may be first in the standings. It's the way that you gain a consistency in what you want.
Patrick Carney:On this progression with the heat and going from 0 and 7 and then finishing strong. You also mentioned the importance I mean with any team, the consistency of your habits, what were maybe habits specific to that year that you were really trying to drive home with the guys and that you guys were working on.
Stan Van Gundy:You see, I don't know if those have changed a lot from year to year I always look at it as the first thing you've got to do in coaching is you got to decide number one, what you think is really important to winning games. But I think the other thing is maybe more importantly is what can you best control as a coach? And I think with your 0 and 7, okay, you've probably, when you're getting blown out, not doing too well in any area you're probably struggling all over the board and you can't solve all of those problems. So when you decide, where are we going to go? Well, are you going to improve your shooting over the next couple of weeks? Maybe we can work on it more in practice. But, come on, you're probably missing shots because you guys can't shoot, and you might change that over a year or two, but you're probably not changing it in the next couple of weeks. But you know what we can get back on defense, and I think, as a coach, if I ride that hard enough, if I'm pretty clear on what our rules are in terms of getting back as opposed to going to the offensive glass and all of that, that's an area we can get that under control.
Stan Van Gundy:I think maybe with some real concerted effort and, again, clear coaching, we can cut our fouls. We don't have to be sending people to the line 30 times a game to shoot the most efficient shot in basketball the free throw. We can do those things. We can probably block out better. That's something that every player out there can control and we can block out. And then there's probably two, three, four turnovers a game that we can cut down on, some ones that are just basic, fundamental, one hand pass, one hand catch Again, build in habits with our footwork in practice. Cut that travel out, doing a better job with our timing, running, picking roles, so we're not getting moving screens.
Stan Van Gundy:You can't take away everything, but there's certain areas that you can probably correct more quickly as a coach than other areas, and those are the ones I think that you've got to focus on. You've got to narrow the team's focus to a few areas. You can't have them Concentrate on 35 different things and it's got to be the things that will show the improvement the quickest, because that also allows them to gain some confidence, not only in themselves but in you as a coach, that you're finding some answers and I think where we tend to go most of the time is To our schemes. You know, we're gonna run a different set, we're gonna run a different out of bounds play, we're gonna change things defensively and that may be the answer. But I think a lot of times you got to look at some very, very, very basic Things that if you're not doing, you got to get corrected quickly.
Patrick Carney:You mentioned the importance of clear coaching where, and maybe in the past, in your experience being around other coaches, where they're not clear or where maybe they where it can go wrong, where they're not clear with the things that they want to focus on.
Stan Van Gundy:I'll give you two examples there, and I think we all Tend to do this, I know that I do so it's easy for me to say is we will identify the problem without being clear on a solution. And so the two areas I think about all the time, because I think they're the to beat yourself Categories, are Turnovers and fouls. I mean, I think it's the quickest way to beat yourself in a game and I think that Coaches will rail on. We got to cut our turnovers. Okay, yeah, is there anybody in favor of increasing their turnovers? You know, so that's great. But how are we gonna cut our turnovers? Because you don't want guys playing scare. You know, if a guy is open on a backdoor, cut. I don't want my guy not to throw the pass because he's afraid to turn the ball over. I don't want my guy to be afraid of Fouling to the point that he won't contest a shot at the rim. So how are you going to improve these areas? You've got to be clear on and I think with Turnovers, you got to be clear on what you can tolerate and what you can't. So I can't think of a situation when we have to catch the ball with one hand. So I'm gonna say I know I see it at least once every night in the NBA. A guy drops a pass out of bounds or loses control. A lot of times you enter the ball to the post and a post guy is gonna try to Catch with one hand and then maybe bring his other hand to it. It gets deflected. We can cut that.
Stan Van Gundy:I don't think very many passes need to be made one-handed. There's a few. Pocket pass on a pick-and-roll is quick. I think you got to make that without bringing the other hand to the ball. There may be a couple of others, but I think for the most part we can pass with two hands. That that definitely cuts turnovers. I think that and it goes to both guys I think our timing on pick-and-rolls to still screen effectively but cut illegal screen calls we can do a better job on that stuff. That's something that we can be on. I think that and this is not as clear as those, but I think that one extra Dribble into traffic where if you've gotten rid of the ball account earlier doesn't turn into a turnover. I think there's those areas where you're talking to your team now If the guy you know is being overplayed and he cuts back door and this is a place where I would Myself tolerate a one-handed pass.
Stan Van Gundy:I'm a big guy. I'm dribbling at the guy for, say, a dribble handoff. He's overplayed. He back doors, boom, I make the pass. It's a little past his outstretched hands. You made the right read, you did the right thing. You turn the ball over.
Stan Van Gundy:I don't want you afraid to make that play. I don't if you're a great offensive rebounder and you're not being reckless, but you're going to the offensive board, you get into calling over the back. I'll tolerate that foul, I'll tolerate a turnover like you got to be clear, with guys just saying, guys, we've got a quick turn in the ball over, well, yeah, but what does that mean? Same thing with the fouls. You want an aggressive defense. It's easy not to foul. You just don't get near anybody and You'll cut your fouls. You're not gonna stop anybody. But what are the ones you can tolerate? I already said one you go over the back, okay, you try to take a charge and the ref makes a block call. I can tolerate that. You're doing the right thing. You're putting your body in front of the ball. Why the guy beats me by half a step on a drive and Instead of working my ass off to get back in front, or even, if I have to, letting the help defender take him and veering back, I just whack down on the ball and send a guy out of the line, rather than making him make a tough runner. He's now at the free throw line. I can cut that foul.
Stan Van Gundy:I think we need to be clear. Yeah, these are areas that we want to cut. I think with guys Contestant shots at the rim, you know, and I think a lot of NBA teams do a great job on this now, staying vertical, I don't need to slap down. That's an area I can work on in practice, I can show in film and that we can harp on and work on to cut those fouls, instead of just saying, hey, cut your fouls. Well, what do you mean? You don't want me to fight to get through screens? You don't want me to try to get in front of the ball and cut guys off? No, you know we want to do those things. So I do think in those areas, we have to be really, really clear in what we're looking for to solve the problems that we've identified. Identifying the problems is step one and usually pretty easy. It's solving the problems, it gets more difficult.
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Dan Krikorian:Slapping glass sent you Stan, talk a little bit about just into your team earlier and learning from your team as the season goes. I like to ask you particularly about your Orlando Magic team. 2008 2009 I think it was 2009 January you guys set the what was, at the time, the NBA record for most threes made in a game, and you just had a team that Shot a lot of threes, obviously around Dwight Howard, roll into the rim and all that and how much of I know it's sometimes been credited. The threes you guys shot led to a lot of what you see now of team to shooting more threes and be more primate oriented and how much of that season that team that just kind of came naturally or how much you really thought about how much you Wanted to be perimeter oriented, shoot a lot of threes type of thing as you guys went to the finals that year.
Stan Van Gundy:Well, first of all, I think that whatever credit I've been given for that style is misplaced. We lucked into the way we played, literally lucked into it. So I got the job in 2007 in Orlando. They were under 500 I think they're 40 and 42, but it got to the playoffs the year before been swept in the first round. I come in and you know, tony Batey, who's a good player, had been the starting power forward, and so Dwight Howard, tony Batey, jamir Nelson, we had Hito Turcaloo returning, we had signed Richard Lewis and we were debating between do we play Hito Turcaloo at the two and Richard Lewis at the three, which was the position he had played in Seattle, or do we bring one of those guys off the bench, right, tony Batey, in September, before training camp, goes down, hurts his shoulder and he's out for the year. So now, you know, because I'm a genius no, because I had really no other viable choice we said, okay, we got a turn either Richard Lewis or Hito Turcaloo into a power forward. And a mindful of the fact this, back in a day where people were still playing Power forwards today, I mean that would be easy. I mean Jason Tatum's your power forward in Boston, you know, but back then there were power forward, so one of those is gotta have to play. But it was our only viable option. And we started with Turcaloo trying to guard the four, but that didn't really work. Richard was better guarding there, so that's how we played. And so all of a sudden we had four, three point shooters out there around Dwight. I didn't like Sit down and come up with this unique way to play at the time, even though everybody else was playing, everybody except Dan, tony, was playing conventional power forwards. It was clearly our best players and again, we talked about this before the show.
Stan Van Gundy:I think one of the things you've got to do in coaching is you've got to find a way To get your best players on the floor and find a way to get them in the spots that makes them most successful. For us that was a pretty easy choice and the style of play just evolved From there. And then, yes, because Tony Batey got hurt, I ended up looking a lot smarter than I was. So, and you know, after a while you're going hey, this works pretty well, maybe we'll stay with this. And so we went 52 games that first year and Got a little bit better in the second year and then went to the finals. So things just started to evolve.
Stan Van Gundy:But it all goes back to you got to get your best players on the floor. A lot of times it'll be a duplicate of not only positions but maybe of skill sets. They'll be a duplicate of guys. Well, they're your best players, so you're gonna have to build something that works for those guys. Now I think in college maybe a little easier than high school or the NBA.
Stan Van Gundy:To be honest, maybe, maybe some teams probably not many can recruit to a system. You're gonna run the same system year in and year out. Not too many high schools, maybe some of the private ones who can recruit, but most guys at public high schools. Like, one year You're gonna center your offense around a big guy. In the next year All you've got is guards and you know you're gonna have to change. And, to be quite honest, in the NBA was the same.
Stan Van Gundy:I mean my first team with the Miami Heat. Brian Grant was a very good mid-range shooter. He was my starting center. He was six, eight and a half, six, nine, and the next year I got Shaq. I don't think you can just sell us my system and you know we're gonna either have Brian Grant try to bully guys in the low post or Shaq try to shoot mid-range jumpers. No, like you have to adjust, and I think that that's what coaching is all about and then getting those guys into spots when they can be most successful.
Stan Van Gundy:I do think you're gonna have certain principles as a coach that don't change for you. Like you really think the key defensively Is protecting the paint. Likewise, on offense, I've always thought the game has to be played from the inside out, and that, to me, is the difference between Philosophy and style, and I think people mix up the two. My philosophy is always that the game at both ends Is played from the inside out. We're gonna attack Inside and then play inside out on offense and on defense, we want to take away the paint first.
Stan Van Gundy:Okay, but it's totally different in terms of style, because when we had no big guys away, we were playing inside out. It was for Dwayne Wade to break guys down on the dribble and get in the paint and play inside out, and my center was actually shooting a lot of jump shots. When you have Shaq, you're gonna play inside out by throwing the ball to the post and making people take that away. With Dwight Howard. It was going to be playing inside out in a pick and roll game and having Dwight roll to the rim, and now your defense has to make decisions. So your philosophy, your core principles, may not change, but your style, in my mind, has got to be flexible and centered on the people that you have.
Patrick Carney:Coach, with finding your style. You mentioned playing your best five guys with, whether it was in Miami Moon, going way to the one, or playing Richard Lewis and Turcaloo. What does that look like in practice? All right, these are best five guys. How do you find the style that fits them?
Stan Van Gundy:You're a little luckier in the NBA because Things can go wrong early in the season. You've got time to recover. But it's really you just watching your team and it's usually not hard to identify your better players, and I've always felt this in building a team too like you've got to identify your top two or three players and then who you're looking for is the guys who help them the most, not necessarily your fourth, fifth, sixth best players. Like JJ Redick was a perfect complimentary guy for us in Orlando. He exploded as a player Later on in his career as he got to better coaches, but with me he was a really good complimentary player because he could shoot the ball which we needed space on the floor and he was a low mistake guy. He didn't make mistakes on the defensive end, he didn't turn the ball over. I think sometimes when I watch some high school teams Particularly, but even some college teams you got guys out there that might legitimately be your fourth and fifth best players, but they're not helping you because you rely on two or three guys to create shots on your team no more than three, sometimes one. If you don't have a great team Now those guys, you have to give them some freedom to make mistakes. Going back to the turnover thing, because You're relying on them to make plays, but the other guys, they can't make mistakes. So that guy who might legitimately be your fourth best player so he might average eight as opposed to this guy might only average four, but he also turns the ball over because he tries to do too much no, he's not the guy that helps me the most. So I think the first thing is who are the guys we're going to play around, who are we going to play through, who are our key guys? And then from there, who are the guys we put around them that help them play well, the most, help us on the defensive end, the whole thing. So if you're gonna play with a Dwayne Wade or Dwight Hallard or really any great player, particularly who aren't guys who shoot it real well or from range anyway, well I gotta put shooting around them. You might be a good player, but I can't have a guy out there who teams don't have to guard, and so you might be a better player than this guy, but he's gonna play more because he helps Dwight more. He helps Dwight more.
Stan Van Gundy:For instance, our second team in Miami when we got Shaq, we ended up losing in game seven in the Eastern Conference Finals to Detroit, which still drives me crazy, but we won 59 games. Damon Jones was our starting point guard. We didn't start the year that way, but into the year I don't know maybe 10 or 12 games. We went that way and it was Damon's best year in the NBA and it was the only time he was a full-time starter. And look, damon didn't go by anybody on the dribble, but he could do two things really really well, actually three things. He could organize a team, he didn't turn the ball over and he was the best three-point shooter in the league. At that time. He was playing with Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O'Neal Not bad, Don't make mistakes, keep us organized and make threes all the time.
Stan Van Gundy:In fact, I was telling this story the other day. Every time he would make a three, he would run back up the floor holding up three fingers on each hands and Pat Riley, who was my boss, obviously pulled me in and he said get him to stop doing that. And I said really, pat, I was hoping he'd do it like seven times a game. He says he only does it when he makes them, so I thought that was great when he did it, but he was a fit for that team. Was he one of the best five players? He was for us, but if you were just judging overall talent, you'd say he's a point-garden NBA who doesn't get in the paint and struggled to keep other guys from getting into the paint. He's a backup Well, not for us, because those two guys needed him. So I think when you're putting it all together, that's how you've got to do it. You've got to first identify who do you want to play through that's usually pretty obvious and then who helps them.
Patrick Carney:Before we came on, you mentioned that anytime in a coach's career there's going to be moments where you're out-coached in the game. As you look back on those moments, has there been some underlying themes or some moments where you walked out of that game and said never again. That's maybe impacted or changed your in-game philosophy or your philosophy in general.
Stan Van Gundy:Not so much my philosophy in general, but in-game stuff. Yeah, and I remember one when Brad Stevens was coaching in Boston. Brad was one of the few guys that didn't always substitute his guys in a pretty consistent pattern. So I was in Detroit and I had Avery Bradley who we'd gotten in a trade and I wanted Avery to guard Kyrie Irving and Avery was a great defender. So what Brad did? He took Kyrie out of the game early and then, by the time I took Avery out, kyrie comes back. Now I don't have the matchup that I want and certainly this isn't going to be every game, but I said no, no more, no more when I have matchups like that, where I definitely have to have one guy on one guy. And I told Avery before the next time we played you're going to match Kyrie's minutes. Your normal playing time rotation is going to be different, but you're going to play Kyrie's minutes. My brother, when he was in New York and this is going way back he did it to us.
Stan Van Gundy:I was an assistant in Miami. We had Clarence Weatherspoon coming off the bench and Clarence was a good player undersized but a really good player. Get off the floor. Very good mid-range jumpshooter, strong, tough guy, but he struggled with size a little bit. We played him in a playoff series and I mean literally, Jeff didn't even have to turn around and say anything to his bench. Every time Clarence went to the scores table, marcus Canby came in the game. Every single time he just I mean literally it was instantaneous Like Clarence. Here goes Marcus Canby, because Clarence struggled with that size, and so you'd think I would have learned from that.
Stan Van Gundy:But I learned my own lesson with the Kyrie thing. And yeah, look, there's great coaches at every level and you can learn lessons if you're humble enough to use it. Or you can go into the locker room after the game and complain because the next guy up couldn't guard Kyrie, when you could have controlled the matchup better than you did, and so part of it might be the guy's fault Fine, I mean, get on him whatever mistakes he made but part of it might be you know what? He just couldn't guard the dude. He didn't have a chance. But I had a guy who could, and all I needed to do was alternate my pattern to do that. Yeah, you got to be humble enough to realize it was your mistake and correct it going forward.
Dan Krikorian:Stan, this has been awesome so far. We want to pivot now to a segment we call Start, sub or Sit you played it a couple of years ago with us where we'll give you a topic and then three different options on that topic. I ask you to start one, sub one. However, you want to sub that one in and out and then sit one as well, and so this first one has to do with tightening the bolts of your offense.
Dan Krikorian:So what Pat and I were talking about earlier, and a little bit of what we were talking about right now, is you're just trying to tighten things up, whatever it is an action, a flow, however, you're playing and you just want to work on it in practice. And these are three different ways that you would say hey, here's how we're going to tighten this up a little bit. So option one is through five on five, but saying having a constraint or, you know, wanting to play through that action in five on five. Option two is more small group work three on three or four on four, two on two, something where it's not five on five but you want to break down that action. And then option three is maybe through more skill session, one on one working with guys individually to tighten up certain things. That may be screening, shooting, whatever it is.
Stan Van Gundy:I'm going to go in your order. I'm going to start the five on five, sub the breakdown work and sit the skill sessions. Listen, in the NBA now, for most teams it's the absolute opposite of what they're going to do. I mean and it is tough five on five work in an NBA season with as many games you play is tough, but to me it's really the only way you're going to tighten things up. So I think what we have to do in the NBA more now is you're either going to just work five on O or put coaches out there on defense to give them somebody to screen so that we can work on that kind of timing. You're going to have to do more of that or some small group work, though I'd still favor the five man stuff, because I think the guys off the ball are still really important in terms of spacing and all of that. I think it's five man work regardless.
Dan Krikorian:So, Stan, for me to fall up first on the five on five and I guess let's say this is a practice where you are going five on five hard and you want to tighten things up, I guess what that would look like normally for you. As far as are you stopping it mid five on five to correct right there? Are you waiting till the play ends and then you go back and kind of repaint the picture? Are you just letting them play the whole time and maybe watching the film with them after? Like, how would you prefer to teach through the five on five in a normal practice flow?
Stan Van Gundy:That's always a really, really tough question. I mean, I think in general, you don't want practice stopping all the time. So I think one of the biggest skills you learn as a coach, head coach or assistant is you've got to be able to coach on the fly. I mean, you've got to be able to coach guys while the action is still going. So in other words, we're running flex action and we haven't been setting a guy up for a cut. Well, one of the coaches is right there on the baseline. He's coaching the guy as we're going and we start to play. Come on, set him up. Set him up, get an angle. You know the entire thing. I'm coaching him on the fly. Now, if I've done that three possessions in a row and it's still bad execution, now maybe I've got to step in and say whoa, whoa. Listen, I've been telling you on every cut. You do not understand what I'm saying here. Like you got to set the guy up, you got to be talking to your screener. You know, come on, hold the screen. There, the whole thing.
Stan Van Gundy:I think two of the greatest in-game practice things that coaches have to learn coming up is to be able to coach on the fly and to be able to see all 10 guys on the floor. I think the second one is a really hard thing for young coaches. They don't see all 10 guys and you're coaching in practice. You know I'm coaching the offense and the defense. I got to see 10 guys to be able to correct. But whatever it is that you're really focused on, you got to coach that on the fly because if you're going to wait too long, guys might not even remember what happened or what they did and at the same time, if you're stopping it all the time, there's no flow in the game or anything else. So it's always a tough decision. But I think the first answer is coach on the fly, stop it when you absolutely have to.
Dan Krikorian:Stan, if I could just quickly follow up too on something you just said about seeing all 10, how did you develop that throughout your coaching to see all 10 and hopefully correct and teach all 10?
Stan Van Gundy:It's an experience thing. Number one Nobody has it when they first start nobody. But I think the first lesson in it is as much as you can watch all 10. I think that even as coaches, especially when you're young, you tend to focus on the ball too much. You know and you're just locked in on the ball and you don't even you know notice what's going on here. So you sort of have to discipline yourself to have a broader perspective on what goes on. Now, sometimes you can't, because I know what I would do in practice. A lot is I would say to my assistants on particular drills hey, I want you focused on blocking out on every shot, that's it. If that's your assignment, then that's what you're doing. But when possible or you're sitting on the bench in a game, try to watch the entire game and as you do it more and more you'll realize that you're not missing what's going on on the ball. You're simply seeing more things and it just takes time, like anything. It takes time to where.
Stan Van Gundy:I remember a lot of times asking guys, even assistants, starting out in the NBA maybe they're talking about scouting report and they're talking about an action and I would ask what do they do? What's their spacing over here on the weak side? And it's sort of like hmm, I said well, first of all in the film, even if you have to run it back, all those things matter because, for instance, a tiny thing, but the way we used to defend high pick and rolls, particularly when our big guy had to pay more attention to the ball, is the low man on the weak side was responsible for the role man. And then if the ball got skipped, if the ball handler threw the ball to the weak side corner, we would X out on the weak side. Well, that's great if the spacing is such that you can do that, but at first time I remember it happening to us. And again this goes back to you're always learning as a coach and because the other guy's always out coaching you or doing something you weren't ready for, is Monty Williams as his role man went.
Stan Van Gundy:That guy who was on the weak side wing rotated all the way up to the midpoint, at the top of the key. Well, you can't X that out. Or at least, if you do, you've got to be really, really definitive on how you're guarding that wing guy coming up. So if you're not paying attention to all 10 guys. If you're just, our rule is you're taking a role and we're gonna X out and you're not noticing that what they're doing on the weak side. Well, you're putting your guys into an impossible position where they're looking at you like what are you talking about? X out. My guy's at the top of the key got a C all 10 and it takes time to get into that, but you'll learn it over time.
Patrick Carney:Coach, when we were putting this question together it was kind of rooted in practice planning and I like to just ask how you built practice. I know in the NBA there's not much, but if you're in a preseason or when you're in college, just how you like to build up a practice, if you had a 90 minute, two hour block of training?
Stan Van Gundy:Yeah, it's an interesting question. So what I always did now I had people to talk it over with, assistants and things. Not everybody listening to your podcast has that. They're doing it on their own.
Stan Van Gundy:But my process would be the same is I would first just get down everything I thought my team needed to do, needed to work on on that day, and then I would, with the drills or five on fives, whatever it was that I thought would help us work on that, how long those drills would take, and I would put them all down on paper and then when we had a meeting I'd have them all on the board and it was generally four, four and a half hours worth of stuff that I thought we really needed to work on, but it was all up there. I didn't worry at first about trying to narrow it down. Then we would talk about how long and how hard can we reasonably go today. I'd say, well, you know, we probably got an hour and 15 minutes and maybe 30 minutes of it live, okay, well, so now we got to get it down to that and now I would just start prioritizing. It's simple, it's not easy, but it's simple prioritizing. You know well I'm probably not gonna play a lot of zone tomorrow. Anyway, I'll lock that 15 minutes right off, right then. And then I would go down the list until we had what I thought we needed, and I always would believe wishin' I could have done more, but I also had.
Stan Van Gundy:I learned a lesson from an assistant. I had Bob Beyer, who's now in Charlotte. I've worked with Bob one year in college, five years in Orlando, four years in Detroit, and Bob would always say to me when we'd get into these things, he'd say look, you got two or three things that you can improve today. What are they gonna be? Yeah, we'd always bring it back to that. We can do as many things as you want, but you got two or three things that you're really gonna be able to drive home. What are they? So I think that's a good thing to do.
Stan Van Gundy:And then the other thing I learned about practice planning along the way is I needed to get to the most important stuff early. A lot of times what I would do earlier in my career is I would build up. We'd have these warmup drills and shooting drills and some basic defensive drills and I'd have down near the end I'd build into my five on five and this was gonna be the meat of what we wanted to do. But then you start noticing guys are tired or it's a particularly practice is going too long, whatever it is, and you decide to cut it short. Well, shoot, the thing I thought was most important is what I ended up cutting out at the end of the day. So, other than getting warmed up quickly, I tried to get to the meat of what I wanted to get done my most important priority early. So number one, if that took longer, like we're struggling with it, and it's fine, I'm doing the most important thing. And if I had to cut something at the end, like we got to that hour and a half and I didn't get everything done, well, at least I got the most important stuff done early. So those are the principles that helped me the most in practice, but it always started with putting everything down.
Stan Van Gundy:Another great one I got from Dick Bennett years ago when I was talking to him about practice. He gave me two things that have stuck with me my whole career. I think Dick's for my money, just an opinion the best college coach that I have ever seen. And he ended up getting the Wisconsin job after I got fired, so he replaced me, which was the single biggest elevation in a coaching move that was ever made, going from me to Dick Bennett in one year. Incredible job by the University of Wisconsin.
Stan Van Gundy:But anyway, dick told me two things. Number one, when I asked him about practice planning, he said watch your team, they'll tell you what you need to work on. I mean, it's so simple and so perfect. Watch your team. A lot of us have all these drills. These are the things that I think we need to do every day and I've got these drills that I love. And Dick was like oh, watch your team. I mean you're not blocking out. Well, you need to come in and work on blocking out. I mean, watch your team. I thought was great. And then Dick told me he always wanted to be good at the things that happened a lot. And I just thought that was perfect.
Stan Van Gundy:Dick didn't put a ton of time in on side, out of bounds, he just didn't think it was a big deal. He wanted to get one of the things that are going to cover 75 to 80 possessions in the game. We're going to be good at those. And then the rest of it. I remember he got asked at a clinic one time because he played exclusively man to man and they played that pack line defense. Now, he didn't play that early in his career, but as he went on he played the pack line defense. You know they were really good at it. And then they played pretty slow offensively but they took care of the ball and the whole thing.
Stan Van Gundy:And somebody asked him at a coaching clinic. A high school coach said well, that's all well and good, but what do you do when you get down 10 in a game? You know you're down 10, it's late in the game. And he said well, first of all, the way we play, we don't get down 10 very often, which I thought was a great answer, you know, because they didn't play real fast and they controlled the game. And he said, yeah, if we're down 10 late in the game, we're gonna try to press, but, to be honest, we're not very good at it and I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on it because it's not something that happens a lot with us and these are the things that I've chosen, that we're gonna be good in every night and I think too often as coaches which is admirable we strive to be good at everything and it keeps us from being good at anything. I don't care.
Stan Van Gundy:The best teams in our league, in the NBA, the best teams, best offensive teams they're still gonna have things they're not good at. I'm looking at the Boston Celtics best team in the league, very good defensive team. They're not gonna force turnover, they're just not. That's not what they do. They're not gonna force many turnovers at all. On offense and the second best offense in the league they don't get to the free throw line. They don't score many points in the paint. Could they address those things more? Maybe, maybe they are, but they get great quality shots. They take care of the ball. They're a great shooting team. Their spacing is excellent. You're just not gonna be great at everything, but any good team has gotta be great at some things and you've gotta choose what those are. And if you're trying to do everything, it's gonna be hard.
Stan Van Gundy:And so I thought Dick Bennett look, he's a great, great coach and was very simple in a lot of things he said and really understood what coaching was all about. The other great one he had and this was before me my brother had watched in practice when my brother was an assistant with the next seed was in town to scout the box had gone up to a University of Wisconsin Green Bay practice and he asked coach Bennett after the game. He said, coach, your team's always one of the best teams in the country and they were always in the top 10, taking care of the ball. How do you do it? And Jeff's waiting for the drills and everything. And coach Bennett said Jeff, that's simple, don't play the guys who turn it over. And it sounds like a joke, but I took from that.
Stan Van Gundy:I expanded it into my NBA time Like I had Dwayne Wade. He's a rookie, he's playing out of position as a point guard and he literally had to create every shot for us. That was how our team was Dwayne create every shot. Even as a rookie, he's gonna turn the ball over. He was either first or second in the league that year in turnovers, but we were a low turnover team Because the other guys we didn't put them in positions to do that and so they didn't turn it over much. I remember having that discussion with Hubey Brown. Those guys I'd have fought that through the rest of my career.
Stan Van Gundy:The guys you're relying on, on playmakers. You gotta give them some rope and you're not gonna be unless they're doing some really dumb stuff or not being fundamental. You gotta give them some rope, but these guys who all they've gotta do is make a jump shot when the ball comes, they can't turn the ball over and then you gotta ride. Heard him? That all started with Dick Bennett. Don't play the guys who turn it over. I learned a lot from watching Coach Bennett's teams and humbling myself to go meet with Dick Bennett after he took the job that they fired me from. Great coach, great person, willing to share with everything else. Just a fabulous, fabulous guy and smart as hell.
Patrick Carney:Last thing with practice Plenny, how much did you think about working on your strengths versus working on, like you said, what you need to get better at?
Stan Van Gundy:Again. I think that, first of all, you've gotta have an identity as a team, and you don't wanna ever let that slip. Pat Riley would always say keep the main thing the main thing. So yeah, if you're a defensive team and you're gonna struggle to score anyway, you can get carried away with spending so much time on your offense that your defense slips and you still can't score because you don't have the players who are gonna score. So I think you gotta watch that. And so I think, number one, you've got to make sure the things you have as a team that allow you to win your strengths stay strengths, and I think you gotta be on guard for any slippage whatsoever, for those things.
Stan Van Gundy:When I used to talk to players about their own individual work, I would always tell them to think of it in this way, particularly guys who are trying to move up the ladder. I would say okay, why am I gonna put you in the game? I'm standing there as a coach and I'm thinking we need blank. When do I turn to you? What's that answer? Oh shit, we're not stopping anybody. I'm a defender. I turn to you or we need some shooting. I turn to you, or I need somebody to handle a ball against this press. I turn to you.
Stan Van Gundy:So, number one, what's your strength? Where, when I need something, you're the guy I'll turn to you. Better, have that. And then, what's the thing that where I say, oh shit, I can't put him in the game due to this, take care of those two areas. Make sure that strength stays the strength and make sure that oh shit area gets good enough that it doesn't keep me from putting you in the game. So if you're a great shooter but you turn the ball over too much, well, continue to get your shots up and be that great shooter and figure out how to cut your turnovers so that now I'm going, hey, we need some shooting in the game. I'm going to Joe and I don't have to worry about you being a turnover machine, and it's the same thing with the team. I think you focus on what's our biggest strength and then what's the area that consistently gets us beat. If I can keep this the strength and make this better so it's not an area, at least, that people can just go at us on, then I got a chance to win.
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Patrick Carney:Our next Start Sub Sit is look at the offensive side of the ball from a tactical standpoint. If you're playing an opponent that is determined to take away your three-point shots in the pick and roll by dropping a big and staying at home at everyone, how you would think about still generating three-point shots out of the pick and roll? So Start Sub Sit. Your first option veer screening with the screener rolling him into a screen. Second option is maybe then popping the screener trying to play to some second-side actions. Or the third option we're giving you is some two-man screening off the ball during the pick and roll, whether hammer screen, flare screens, exit screens, you know whatever kind of action maybe to loosen up the defense and still generate three-point shots around the pick and roll.
Stan Van Gundy:Okay, I'm gonna leave you with a caveat and then I'm gonna go into your start subset. I'm just gonna leave you one that first of all I wouldn't focus on generating more threes. But if I needed to create threes, I would start the off-ball action, because there's not as much pressure now on my guard and I can create some off-ball screening action and get the three. I would sub getting to some second-side action and While I think flipping the screen and everything can create good action, I don't know that it's necessarily gonna generate more threes, so I would sit that action just like here.
Patrick Carney:Caveat why would you not be worried about or thinking about generating more threes?
Stan Van Gundy:Yeah. So I've been going through this all year and my brother and I Talk about this all the time. You know the analytics movement in basketball, I think, has helped us in a lot of ways. It put some numbers on some things that we've probably always seen with our eyeballs and everybody claims to Pay attention to the analytics. Everybody listen, the NBA, everybody. You know the analytics this, the analytics that, and we've had this three-point explosion and Everybody will say that's driven by analytics and a lot of teams Focus on getting more threes, shooting more threes.
Stan Van Gundy:A lot of teams focus on taking away the three and what I know from the analytics is the three is the third most effective shot in the game, at least in the NBA. I haven't gone through the analytics in college, but I would guess they're the same. The most Effective shot in the game is free throw. If I get to the free throw line, let's for two shots in the NBA. Now we're not dealing with one-on-ones like they are for a few shots in college, but in the NBA we're at about 78 and a half percent, so it's 1.57 points per possession. If I shoot a layup anything inside three feet, we're at about 69 percent on average in the NBA. So it's 1.38 points per possession, and If I shoot a three on average, it's a little over 35 percent, 35.6. I think, so I'm about 1.10 or 1.11 points per possession. Why am I focusing on trying to get a shot that's worth 1.11 points per possession Instead of trying to get more layups, which is not only worth 1.38 points per possession, but attacking the rim is how I get to the free throw line, which gets me 1.57 points per possession. So, look, I was one of the guys who started shooting a lot of threes early, but I've always focused on inside out. Why are we so focused on getting the third most efficient shot in the game and stopping the third most efficient shot in the game? The simple explanation is People will go well, a threes worth more than a two, yeah, but only if it goes in. So it all comes down to Percentages, and so that is the thing that right now Perplexes me more than anything in the NBA game.
Stan Van Gundy:Milwaukee's an example. So under Mike Boodenholzer last year they were fourth best defense in the league and they did focus last year a Little bit more than bud did in his first four years for his first four years, but had one of the absolute top defenses in the league and gave up the most threes every single year For four years. Last year that the fourth best defense in the league, middle of the pack and giving up threes. They did concentrate on it a little more but all of his folks was on get back, protect the pain, don't foul rebound ball, and they were a great defense. Now this year Milwaukee is one of the best at taking away the threes. I think seventh in opponents threes made and third in opponents three point percentage. And they're in the bottom 10 defensively because they give up fast breakpoints, they give up stuff at the rim, they give up offensive rebounds. Part of it is because their guards can't guard. So it's perplexing to me the focus On the three. I'm not saying it's not important, my brother and I both talked.
Stan Van Gundy:If I took another coaching job, one of the things I would focus on is how do we get more layups? Do we get them in transition? Do we get them on the dribble? Do we get them off? More Deep post-ups, do we get them on off-ball action, on back screens and things. How are we going to get more layups like that would be my focus, not how are we going to generate more threes, and I never Focused on how many threes we were getting in a game, because we were always look, we're going to attack the rim and how many threes we get are going to be dependent on how you guard it.
Stan Van Gundy:If we force you to come in and help, boom, we always wanted shooters on the floor and boom, we're going to kick it out and knock down threes. But we never went into a game saying, hey, we got to get up 35 threes tonight. I guess you can do that if you just want to jack them up. So my answer to your pick and roll question would be well, look, if they're going to stay home on the perimeter and now we're truly playing two on two in the pick and roll, great, we're going to get everything inside the pain and at the rim. I don't care how many threes I get, because I know the stuff at the rim is higher percentage stuff and I also know it's where I draw more foul. So that's my perplexing nba question for right now, by wondering why we're prioritizing the third most efficient shot in the game.
Patrick Carney:Coach, then if you wanted to attack the rim when they're going to stay at home, what are maybe you telling your, your big, your guard, or how are you looking to attack the rim? So is it just get rim shots? Like is, what kind of are healthy rim shots for you when you're going to want to attack this coverage?
Stan Van Gundy:I think, look, you're going to try to Turn the corner as much as you can Right and put pressure on that big All the time, either going to make them put two guys on the ball, or they're going to switch and then you're going to, you know, have a mismatch at both positions. There's only so many things they can do. You're going to roll your big for the A lot behind the defense. And then I think one thing everybody should Watch and teach and it's not easy is go back to the days of more seen gore taut, particularly in Washington, and watch him over and over. Most teams call that screen the gore taut now and he would actually roll and screen the big himself. And so the guard literally walked in For layups really hard for guys to get the grasp of, but it's a great one. If guys go under screens, you got a non shooting guard. Then you've got to teach them to flip the screen and get that guard down deep in the paint. That's where I would focus.
Stan Van Gundy:To me, the three comes, where they can no longer guard your two with their two and somebody has to pull in. Now that's where you have to shoot the three. But it wouldn't be my priority. My priority would be can we turn the corner and get to the rim? Can we throw the lob or even the pocket pass To the big and he can carry it to the rim? And you see a lot of fouls on those plays, with big trying to recover Out of the drop and he fouls. I'd put pressure on that rim in every way possible on the pick and roll, make them bring a third defender in and then your threes will open up.
Dan Krikorian:Stan, great stuff. You're off the start, sub or sit hot seat. Thanks for going through those, couple with us and diving in To the numbers there. The final question here to close, stan, is what characteristic or trait that you most admire in others In the field of coaching?
Stan Van Gundy:I would say and I admire this Consistency, and I mean that in a lot of ways. One of the coaches I might actually admire, jerry Sloan, more Than any coach in the NBA and obviously had a great record. He never won a championship, but to have that level of success Year in and year out For 20 some years, I admire that kind of consistency. But also the consistency In guys whose teams and they might have teams who are better than others in down years, but you know, going in that that team is going to be solid and important areas this guy's teams are not going to beat themselves. You're going to have to come in and beat them, and particularly if he's a high school coach, even a college coach, with the recruiting and a transfer portal. They're a little down in talent right now but we're going to have to go in and beat them. They're not going to give away the game with dumb mistakes and things like that. Like this guy, he's going to be consistent. His teams are going to be consistent in what they do all the time. Players I admire that in everybody, particularly in the league is talented, as the NBA is capable Of great nights, and what separates people is your Consistency in a coaching standpoint.
Stan Van Gundy:I didn't bring his name up before Jerry Sloan's because I'm biased. I worked with Eric Spolstra for a lot of years, but how many years is this guy just have? His teams overachieved compared to what people expected and he's had Totally different types of teams. You know he's had to manage the expectations of the big three years and Then he had the year where they started 10 and 30 and turned it around and we're over 500.
Stan Van Gundy:He's the epitome of a guy who keeps searching for answers and finds a way. That's the consistency in him. Never an excuse and even in his own mind, not an excuse. Erics, never the type of guy that, just man. We just don't have enough. He is going to keep finding a way to get it done. I just really admire Consistency and coaches and players and teams. That's what greatness is. That's what's hard to achieve. We'll all have an answer here and there. You know we'll all find a game plan that works on a night here and there. But guys do it here and in your out game and in game out. That's the great ones.
Dan Krikorian:Knowledge, passion, enthusiasm for the game. It's always there, you can just hear it. And Stan had one of the still one of the most listened to first First episodes we did a few years back and I'm guessing this one will be somewhere up there as well. This was tremendous. Yeah, we did not disappoint.
Patrick Carney:And before the podcast we were kicking ourselves for not in record earlier.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, before we officially started, it was just 10 minutes of just straight gold.
Patrick Carney:Yeah, we gave us plenty of ammo for when we finally hit record.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, absolutely, before we kick off some of our big takeaways here, I think just background. What you and I were thinking about heading into this was anytime we get a chance to have someone like Stan on, who's just had a unbelievable career multiple levels and everybody knows who he is. He's so knowledgeable, is picking out moments in time of learnings, takeaways, growth, and we went through and asked people about different times in his career. That might be interesting and Some of the ones that came up were his first year at Castleton State when he was 24 year old coach. We didn't get to that too much, but kind of layered in there a little bit. That Miami Heat first year was something you and I both kind of circled for various reasons. That was one, and then also some of his years with the Orlando Magic.
Patrick Carney:We thought were interesting moments in time you know, with the Miami Heat team too. I think what kind of attracted us to start there is that it was a good bridge. I mean it was his first NBA head coaching job. So you know, reverend Lee back late said it was his time at Castleton when he got his first head coaching job, although we didn't, like he said, hit on it too much. But going in we thought all right, that would be a good bridge. And then knowing too that that Miami Heat team Ended up very successful or overachieving that year, but having success was also another good bridge to getting into, of course, his time with the Orlando Magic when they were making the finals and eastern conference finals.
Dan Krikorian:And I think, circling back to to what you mentioned about the Miami Heat team, that was interesting, his first head coaching experience and I wrote down a couple of notes because you know he went from 25 wins Then the 42 made the playoffs and we kind of went through it on the podcast, so I won't regurgitate it. Always interesting those seasons where teams turn it around. I have kind of like a soft spot for wanting to talk about those because they're so Interesting to me. So we had Dustin Kerns on from App State who's been unbelievable at turning programs around quickly. Grant McAzel in Texas Tech Turn programs around and one I know we've had others on that have done the same thing.
Dan Krikorian:But those two I kind of wrote down quickly because they're reminding me of just like these turnarounds and what goes into taking a team that was struggling and pulling it apart, putting it back together and having success and I thought was particularly interesting today with Stan is it wasn't like it worked right away. Yeah, and actually I didn't know that in our research You're looking at stuff, all different things. I didn't realize they were 0 and 7. I mean so to go 0 and 7 and then still been 42 games, I mean they really obviously picked it up on the back end of the year, which was great, and I just think his detail looking back on how to construct the lineups, how to play and then Breaking the season down into these chunks of seven game series and trying to win that next series it's just a way to keep them progressing I just thought was a really big and a nice takeaway for me there in the beginning.
Patrick Carney:Same here. What I like to about how he approached the season and like compartmentalizing it into these seven game stretches, it's just the ability to keep the motivation high for his players and for the team, and I mean especially the NBA season. It's so long, but every season in those own right gets long at some point. And he referenced in on college, taking it like in two week Windows. You know, are we getting better or we're improving, or I like to.
Patrick Carney:I said you can be applied if you're a good team with expectations. You know, living on these two weeks, we haven't been good or we're dipping. You know, and not being kind of blinded by your past success, that maybe yeah, we were Two and four in this week but overall we're still really good. But being able to take a snapshot of that season to motivate the players for, hey, we're improving, we're getting better, look versus we're dipping a little bit or we're some slippage here, and using that window as motivation as you move through a season moving to start subset, we kind of circled back and forth between our first bucket and start subsets.
Dan Krikorian:We might kind of dip back and forth here, but you and I obviously meet in beforehand trying to figure out. I think some of these questions were generated from our own two experiences. Yeah, teams that are good defensively are limiting your temp. You're able to shoot breeze, which was the second one, and then I think trying to tighten right now is we're both Recording this kind of midseason. We're trying to tighten the bolts a little bit offensively and defensively, and so that's where those questions came from. So I'll kick it to you on the first one, your takeaways on you tightening the bolts of offense and his answer there.
Patrick Carney:I'm sure it's probably the same as you, but is when he got into saying all 10. I course it comes with experience, but the importance of being able to see all 10 and kind of coach offense and defense, you know you mentioned. You assign your assistant specific tasks or, you know, keep an eye on this. But, as the head coach, being able to Take in everything is definitely a skill because it is very challenging. There's so much going on trying not to correct everything and that was the other interesting part of the conversation. I think what we always like to have, these conversations with teaching and correcting what to correct, what to let go, how you make corrections, how you have feedback and, outside of seeing all 10 which was my big takeaway, of course, appreciate his thoughts and just how he viewed Coaching, correction and checking for understanding.
Dan Krikorian:I'm with you. I will add to that conversation, to how you know, playing five on five obviously was his preferred way to teach, and then, I think, talked about when to stop and Correct or how to coach on the fly, having assistants coach on the fly versus stopping it overall, and we always go back the art of that and the feel of that there's not like a prescribed way to always do it and I think it was within that too of the clear coaching and Was that part two, or also being out coached. Maybe you asked him that later.
Patrick Carney:Yeah, the clear coaching was from our first bucket. He mentioned what building habits and what you're gonna hold important. But you have to be clear and he said identifying problems but giving solutions.
Dan Krikorian:You got to be clearing your solutions of what's important to you and how to go about it for sure, and I think part of that being clear and simple, he got into talking about Dick Bennett legendary coach dick Bennett and sort of the simplistic ways that he taught and taught him, and I thought that was a really nice segment to kind of honor one of the best coaches of all time.
Dan Krikorian:But then some of the key takeaways that he had is kind of a mentor and I think what shines through when you talk to Stan that I always appreciate and this is Jeff to Just their respect for the craft of coaching, the profession, it just really shines through. I think it's just why they're so beloved throughout the coaching community because and Stan mentioned on the podcast too you know the other coach is doing a good job too is trying to beat you. You know it's not just you messing up, it's sometimes it's you get out coached. And we got into that a little bit too with the substitution with Brad Steven stuff, which was interesting. But I just love the way that they respect the game and talk about that. It's so hard, it's an art, the other person's really good most of the time too, and trying to win their lifelong learners and they love talking to coaches, learn from coaches and when he got on dick Bennett, it was also interesting.
Patrick Carney:Within this tightening the bolts starts upset was how we just approach practice planning and what he's learned from coaches like dick Bennett and his kind of method or approach to kind of throwing everything on a board and whittling it down and, as well as Understanding what are our strengths, keep them our strengths and how do we mitigate our weaknesses.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, and last point too, he mentioned that I took away and thought was really good, was that get to the important stuff early in practice? So that way if it goes long or you spend extra time on it, you at least hit that first. I thought that was a really good takeaway there.
Patrick Carney:Yeah, that's a good catch for you, though I think that was one of my big, big ones that I'm gonna take with me, and it makes a lot of sense. You do all this fluff and then you run out of time at the end of the stuff that really matters. You got that 11 man fast break in.
Dan Krikorian:Definitely. Well, let's flip it to the other one, which was loaded with Analytic talk and three-point talk, and I mean just a good conversation. I'll kick it back to you again, because you were the one that really thinking about this. It was a great conversation.
Patrick Carney:I don't know if we really hit on any of the start subsit scenarios, but I know you and we've been talking about this a lot.
Patrick Carney:You know with our teams and you know opponents playing different opponents and Everyone knows Ram free throws three points, not that everyone's doing the same thing, but if your team that is dependent on we want to take threes and opponents are so determined to take those away, how do you still think about doing what you do? Well, if this is a strength of ours, how do we still get to it and the rate you want that's healthy for your team. No surprise, maybe I should have been better prepared, knowing both Jeff and Stan. They didn't really care too much about generating more threes. To think about threes a really fun conversation nonetheless and I'm glad we got into it and kind of his thought process and his values. Still on getting to the rim, generating fouls as still being the highest PPP and that you know it's okay if they're gonna take with threes because they're giving you the rim, hopefully the fouls and his approach to just taking what the defense gives you at that point.
Dan Krikorian:Here and Stan and I know, as he talked through it, the goal is to win the game and, from his point of view and talking through it analytically, still get into the line and still getting layups does put the most pressure on a defense. And I think what was interesting Within all this is that I asked him about that season. Yeah, with the magic which he is in some respects, you know, credited for starting to shoot more threes, having four shooters on the floor, and so I think he's an interesting Gotta have this conversation with, because I think what he's saying is you got to look at your team, you got to look at what they do well and what the defense has given you. And I think he would say, and I think what I kind of took From this whole conversation was the value is still attacking Inside out has not gone away.
Patrick Carney:And you know he talked about and we talked about, of course you gotta let the other opposing coach is trying to win that game, so when they call the strategy of no help, let him play two on two. You know you got to find a ways and this is what we got into like, okay, how can you kill that coverage or get them out or get them to start helping? Is it you have guards that can get on? Is it a gore taught screening? But you know they're doing it for a reason. I think that's where this again going back to.
Patrick Carney:Where is this conversation coming from? You know what were we thinking about? It's like okay, well, they're doing it for a reason, and so how do you take them out? How do you break that coverage or get them out of that coverage? And can we still Generate quality three? So there isn't such a three-point disparity at the end words. Okay, yeah, we got a lot of twos or we took what the defense gave us, but maybe that was part of their game plan all I know is having good players that make shots solves a lot of this.
Patrick Carney:Yeah, the solution is always get better players. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Dan Krikorian:So I thought that Something I wish we could have went deeper on is his. The last question we asked, consistency of coaches I just thought was a great answer and maybe you know I just having what he said was perfect, but I always think hearing more about Consistency and respect for consistent coaches he mentioned a couple in his talk at the end there about what he respected out of those coaches. I just thought you know. Another question, follow up or two, really would have been interesting, maybe deeper on, if he's seen their practices or games or you know what it was that they did, maybe behind the scenes too. But I thought it was a really, really good answer to finish the show, yeah.
Patrick Carney:I didn't follow up at all with why he preferred two-man screening flaring around the pick and roll as opposed to his sub was Popping and getting to secondary action, so would have liked to have gone into that, but we were running long and Stan was giving great answers, so when we were solving the threes, verse two yeah, exactly for everybody. Yeah.
Dan Krikorian:Well, that was awesome. Appreciate everybody listening, and we'll do this again next time.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slapping glass comm for more information on the free newsletter Slap and glass plus and much more. Have a great week coaching and we'll see you next time on slapping glass.
Dan Krikorian:Would we have a name yet for this thing? I have like slapping back or slapping glass. Slapping glass, that's kind of funny.
Stan Van Gundy:I like that, let's roll slapping glass.