Slappin' Glass sits down this week with G League Ignite Head Coach, Jason Hart! This conversation was recorded just a couple of weeks before the NBA announced that 2024 will be the last season of the Ignite's existence, and this episode dives into Coach Hart's thoughts on developing young talent, earning more playing time and shots, and discusses playing in the Syracuse 2-3 Zone and defending hostage dribbles during an interesting "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!
Slappin' Glass sits down this week with G League Ignite Head Coach, Jason Hart! This conversation was recorded just a couple of weeks before the NBA announced that 2024 will be the last season of the Ignite's existence, and this episode dives into Coach Hart's thoughts on developing young talent, earning more playing time and shots, and discusses playing in the Syracuse 2-3 Zone and defending hostage dribbles during an interesting "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!
You have to produce to get more. Again, they learned that they have to produce as well. If not, you don't play as much. That's the balance of this whole thing. Is what you go and catch is what you're going to eat. So you have to play better to get more. If you don't play better, you don't get more, you get less, because that is reality. Hi, I'm Dan
Dan Krikorian:Kirkorian and welcome to Slapping Glass, exploring basketball's best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today, we're excited to welcome G-League Ignite head coach, jason Hart. This interview was conducted just a couple of weeks before the NBA announced this will be the last season of the G-League Ignite. In this conversation, we discuss the challenges of coaching young teams and dive into playing the Syracuse 2-3 zone and defending hostage dribbles 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.
Dan Krikorian: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 Through our easily searchable 750 plus video archive on SG TV 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 to football. For more information, visit SlappingGlasscom today. And now, please enjoy our conversation with coach Jason Hart. I wanted to start with this and it's a position that I know you've been in at the college level, but now with the GLE Ignite, and that's the challenges and opportunities that come with coaching young players and young teams and all that goes with it, and your content and young teams and all that goes with it, and you're constantly getting a new batch of fresh, younger, talented players every year right now, and so we wanted to dive in there with your thoughts on the good, the bad, everything in between.
Jason Hart:Well, the good is, it's always good to see some fresh faces. They bring new energy, they bring obviously their new dreams and then they bring a sense of naive to this whole process. So just putting them in positions where they got to grow and every day and seeing the fruit of their labor as they continue to work and develop. But the challenges is obviously going through growing pain. I think a lot of times our players they go from some of them high school no shot clock to learning 24 seconds and then, while they're learning stuff like that, you're playing against lottery picks, nba players, players trying to get back to the NBA, and so the challenge is being able to see it through and understanding the process from day one.
Patrick Carney:Coach with young players and them coming from high school where I mean, obviously they're having a lot of success and they're just more often not just physically more gifted and talented than these players when they come to the G-League and are met the first time with failure, how do you help them and work through failure for their kind of real first time in their professional careers?
Jason Hart:They do hit failure right away and I think it's good for their development and growth because it brings you closer to coaching. You know, at one point you knew everything right. We was all in high school. All of us was getting 30, including myself. But when you get to a level where your talent is met with just as talented players, that brings you closer to coaching and as long as you stay close to coaching, it can help you through this process, because you've never been in this NBA setting before. You know, for the most part my time here my three years here we had majority of the guys leading on coaching and that's why they eventually go on and get drafted and Coach.
Patrick Carney:Can I just follow up with what you mean? It brings them closer to coaching.
Jason Hart:Well, okay, coach, this guy's kicking my butt constantly. What can I do? What do I need to do to get better? Or how can I change this? And that's coming from humility, I don't know, right, I'm raising my hands and I don't know the NBA game, and how can you help me?
Dan Krikorian:And once they understand that part, we have great working relationship, you've been at the ground level with GV Knight from the beginning, and what are the skill sets, both on and off the court, that from the beginning, you feel like NBA teams are seeking and wanting from the guys that are gonna be top five picks throughout your roster, that you're constantly, I guess, trying to bring to the team every year? That you're also hearing from the NBA that they wanna see?
Jason Hart:Well, just going to say a high school player, it's tough for me to evaluate a kid if they say he's good enough and he's getting like two and four points. Now I know a lot of times we say points is not everything, but we can't bring a kid that's not dominate, literally dominating a high school game, because he won't have a chance here. And then you look for, like this, ultimate confidence. Even through failure on the high school level, I'm still that guy, I'm still that player. And so coming here, your confidence must be through the roof and almost delusional, because you're gonna go through some players that you've never heard of, seen before. And when you do get rocked or somebody put 40 on your head, you still gotta have this belief in yourself.
Jason Hart:That's one is confidence, and then two, physical. How physical are you in the high school game? Let's me know if you'll be able to compete here, cause it's no in between. You're going from high school to pro and so you're going from high school to grown. Men is to physicality, and if you're not physically strong like that, then it's your brain. Are you willing to run through a wall at that level? Helps me dictate if you can compete at this one.
Patrick Carney:Coaching such a young team. If we look now tactically and from the team aspect, how does that shape your decisions, what you actually want to try to implement and do on the court from a tactical standpoint?
Jason Hart:That's a great question. So you know, we all play basketball and basketball when it's not going right it gives us anxiety. So for me, this is the first time I've ever had nine young prospects. We have nine on our team, so if you figure nine and eight of them got to get drafted, I'm going to go through some growing pains, right.
Jason Hart:But what I try to do is, when these scouts come sim, keep it simple. So our pick and roll coverages are normally there are a switch or a hedge, and then I try to keep the offensive thing simple, which is the NBA walls. If you pass, you got to cut, you got to chase the ball to pick and roll. So I want them to be seen in a fight where they can play basketball and be free. But it's what the NBA is looking for in these young guys. I try to get a little tricky doing ATOs timeouts, because that's another skill set that a lot of these GMs want to see, and so, but for the most part I try to keep everything simple so they can just understand the NBA walls. I call them Not a lot of play calling, it's just space, pick and roll, shake up, drive, kick, certain things like that.
Patrick Carney:Coach, with your decision to keep it simple in defense. You said switch or hedge. I'm just curious. I mean, obviously I know the NBA see a lot of drop. Why the decision to keep it go hedge?
Jason Hart:Only people that drop in NBA. They weigh 280 pounds. So if I got 18 year old and he's in his prime, no, 18 year olds are in drops. So they have to show that they can move those feet and when you're 212 pounds or 208 pounds or 10 pounds, you can't be in a drop because that show laziness, right. So this is for a company towns MB, jokic, anthony Davis, big guys. I don't have big guys and so you got to show them that you can move your feet and you can switch. It's more attractive when they're trying to get drafted.
Patrick Carney:You know we've had the conversation before with young teams to play in the hedge. How do you think the hedge engine in terms of how you rotate also kind of fits, and just keeping it simple for them.
Jason Hart:Hedge, it comes with a lot of energy because it's a lot of ball screens in the NBA. So I have two prospects that are buying to get drafted in this 24 drive E-Zon Almanza and Tyler Smith. So I just fit their minutes. So if you're only playing 24 to 25 minutes a game, your energy should be high, and so I just keep rotating those two and then whoever finishes hot finishes the game. But both of those guys are 220 and under. So your job in the NBA is gonna be switching the hedging. Once you're waiting things, then your role will change.
Dan Krikorian:The way your roster is constructed too. I know you have a lot of young talent, but then it's also made up of, and has been made up of over the years, of guys that are maybe not young talent but have had some success either in the NBA or abroad and are on your roster, and I guess what's their role? How do you use them? To help kind of guide the younger players as well, as you know, have them play.
Jason Hart:Well, their role is obviously to help and show know-how on and off the court. On the court is about how professional the vets are getting their work in treating their bodies, coaching the game, the mental aspect. Off the court it shows how their life is calm. Everything they do off the court helps them on the court and just being like role models and examples how to navigate this life of becoming a pro. And so that's what they do. But since this year we all are vets pretty much were hurt, so right away we had guys that had to grow early, from day one, which the normal development path would have been probably to bring them off the bench and bring them on a little slower. But since every vet that we had this year was hurt, they had to start right from the start.
Dan Krikorian:Pat had brought up the hedge, and then you'd also brought up the NBA waltz of the space. Chase it to an on-ball. What do you find that you're teaching the most when it comes to reading the on-ball screen with younger players, whether it's from the screen side flip flat screen, reverse screens or the ball handler side and how to read all those coverages?
Jason Hart:With the young bids, you know, and you pen against. You know former NBA players, centers and stuff. It's very complicated because they play with anxiety as well. You know you're thinking hedge, oh, and then when they hear hedge, it's slipping out. And then I got a 17-year-old that's guarding the ball, so it comes with the talking. Normally young players don't talk, so it's very difficult but it's rewarding because they are trying. For me as a coach, I just have to give my good rest the night before because I'm the talker. You don't see that, but I got to do the majority of the talking right now. Switch, come ahead, slip out. That's my role in teaching them because, again, we're not trying to have them fail. You know this is not like a I told you so and make them look that we're trying to help them look good at all times and that's the sacrifice I make coaching this team. And then, obviously, during the game, I'm going to help them along.
Dan Krikorian:And on the offensive side for the ball handler themselves, younger guards reading the drop, the hedge, the tags, movement on the back side, all those things you know as you're prepping them for hopefully to get drafted. I get same question on that side too of how you're helping. I know you said player development earlier, but anything else with you see younger guards really either struggling or that you find yourself teaching a lot on just navigating that pick and roll.
Jason Hart:That's very hard. So how we do it? Like our prospects. So when we had school, this first year we'd come from high school getting 40 points. So when school was first year, do the same thing, Don't worry about thinking, just go play, Because that's going to show better on tape. Now year two was okay, slow it down, let's watch film. What do you see? Now we knew that his second year was going to be different. That was going to guard them different. So that's when we had to start implementing hey, ah, ah, ah.
Jason Hart:Normally players don't slow down until year two or three in the NBA, right. So he was year two pro. He was 18 years old. He started to slow down and read. So it's the same thing we're going with DinkPay right now. Just kind of let them play free. If you see the read, make it. If you don't, it's no big deal, because you're not supposed to see the read at 17. And so, as they continue to play and get games and you got to think that development process, those are losses too. It may be six turnovers, but eventually he started to hit. And so we're going through that process right now and having to make the simple read. And I always say make the first safe pass. That's our motto. Make the first safe pass as a point guard. And I say safe because that's going to make sure we don't have a turnover Coach looking at bigs.
Patrick Carney:What is the modern day big to you and what are you working with them on a skill set and a reading understanding, the game aspect?
Jason Hart:So the modern day big obviously is the either or meaning like either you're a stretch big or you're a floater, roller, dunker, right. And so for me we have these young prospects, two of them different. Tyler Smith is a pick and pop five, shoot threes and he's on our mountains as a floater, touch around the basket, roll, catch, dunk, and so what I try to teach them is where are you going to be in the NBA? So, whatever we and these NBA scouts see you, as that's what we're going to kind of focus on, on the development, I don't put them all around and have them doing a bunch of different things. My thing is to have them doing what they're really good at so we can get drafted.
Jason Hart:And when you get drafted, then let them take you to another level as far as like development of the skills. So one of them is a roller, one of them is a popper, and they understand that. And then it's the physicality that they have to learn with the box, and outpour Defensively is the hardest part, because they got pick, roll coverage and they got to learn how to get physical with other big offense. Always take care of yourself.
Patrick Carney:With the physicality at the boxing out. I guess what are you working on there? The teaching points that you're trying to help them to understand and play physical?
Jason Hart:Well, obviously they lift and waste every single day. So that's just getting the body right. But then it's the mind. Everybody wants to play in the NBA. But when they start seeing that 82 games and we play 50 here, so our do's is playing four games out of six days, every week or seven days, so they're learning the mental capacity of it and then just bringing your brain to the fight every game, that's what they learn early. And then they know how important the weight room is. So once they learn how important the weight room is, it starts to click and then boxing out is just a physical mindset.
Jason Hart:I everybody's gonna push my guys because they're young, skinny, with no experience, so eventually they get tired of it and start boxing out. That's the thing that they start to understand. I have to do this early and you can practice boxing out drills. But you guys are coaches, man, it's just go get the ball. Man, keep them off. So you can't do too many boxing out drills because your players are gonna get hurt you mentioned now a couple times about their mental capacity and watching film.
Patrick Carney:How are you trying to whether it's on the court, off the court Deliver information in a way that they can retain it and then go out and apply?
Jason Hart:it. So it's just repetition, man, like keeping it simple. I want to do a lot of things. I want to change this coverage, I want to ice it on the side, I want to under it here, but I have to do the same thing so we can get it and learn it and then I'll move on.
Jason Hart:So you know, switching, obviously, when they have A big, that's popping the shooting threes or hedging, when they have a guard to stand in the paint. So I'll just try to teach them something so they have some form of base when they leave us. They have to have a base of certain things nail help, tagging, rotating to the low man, I, they gotta have these certain things. So I try to harp on those things, just so that when they do leave here, to have a sense of where I need to be on defense. And then if a group picks it up good like I had a group two years ago that picked it up really good I was able to move and do some other things in the evaluation process and the growth and building process.
Dan Krikorian:Where do analytics and stats help hurt? What do you care about? What do you show the players you know as they're trying to prepare for the next level? How important is it to you and to them because I know there's so many numbers and analytics available and what you choose to help them with?
Jason Hart:well, analytics tells us that shoot the three, play faster, play in the front part of the shot clock. Well, these guys again they're coming from my school, they're three point shot. It's not ready, so it's nothing wrong with taking a shot. I feel that nobody really likes is the mid-range shot Right, because I'm just trying to promote confidence. So obviously we promote playing fast and getting layups, but don't just hover on that three point line. If you could step in and get your 18, 19 footer to keep your confidence going, then great.
Jason Hart:I kind of push back on analytics for my guys because I don't just want them heaving up Bricks after brick after brick at the three point line. Step in and shoot a 19 footer and then he scouts to see, hey, he got good form. Maybe when he turns 19 or 20 we can stretch it back, because it's no player coming in the league at 19, 20, shooting the three like that. I mean Steph wasn't 1920 like these guys, he was 21, 22, but these guys three of them was turning 18, so he even the three point line. I kind of stay away from teaching that because that had just showed them that they can't shoot and we try to eliminate All their camps while they're going through the process.
Dan Krikorian:How much of their own personal stats? How much do you discuss with them versus just let them play and try to teach confidence?
Jason Hart:If you go out there and get 30 on 30 shots, that's not a good look because nobody wants to pig on their team. And so what I try to focus on with these guys is man, next year, wherever team you go to, is going to have a leading score. Now I know in your mind You're going to go there and become the leading scorer and all that, but since they do get the opportunity to play, I have a lot of trust with the guys, right, and so me, being honest with them, you got to play off the ball, you got to cut, you got to rebound. You got to do these things, because the reality is, when you go play with kd, I don't think you're going to touch the ball in that team.
Jason Hart:You go play with bradley, bill and devil book You're not touched by, and that's their reality, right. So I'm giving them reality and facts right away. It's like with scoop scoop plays with amperees simons, malkham, bronklin, jeremy grant, really good player. So now he's learning he already heard it that I got to do other things to make my mark on the team. So it's the reality of the NBA. You're not going to go in and be the leading scorer from day one.
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Patrick Carney:Coach, helping players with realities or maybe other roles. How do you also think about, let's say, culture or building a cohesive team, knowing that everyone's coming in and out? You have veterans trying to get back in the league, guys trying to get drafted, so everyone's, in a sense, going to play for themselves at some point or the other. But how do you think about culture and building a team?
Jason Hart:Everyone at this level that's included. We need each other because if we didn't, we wouldn't be here. We would have just took another route and just skipped all this and got right back to the NBA or, for my young guys, get to the NBA. But we teach everybody need each other. And then again we have so much evaluation. So many GMs is at practice at games all the time. You can't play the way you want to and impress these guys. That ain't even going to look good on you. So they all have agents. So the agents is kind of backing up what I'm saying. So it's a little easier than coaching in the AAU game or a high school All-Star game, like the agent going to tell you like hey, man, you can't do that, you got to listen to the coach because you won't get drafted. There's no gray area. Either you're going to do what the NBA teams want you to do or not, and that's fine too. You just won't get drafted.
Dan Krikorian:My last question on this topic has to do with you personally and your staff and the development of coaches where you're at and what it is like, the skills that your staff, you're trying to implement so that all those coaches can get to where they want to go as well, and what it is that you yourself and your staff is after coaching was.
Jason Hart:When I took this job to gamble right, because you take this job and all of us want to be head coaches and continue to move up. But I took a gamble that was different from any coach I knew coming here, I would lose. So when I did pick my staff, I wanted to surround myself with coaches who understand what this mission is in particular and understand that we're here to develop first, and obviously through development we're teaching, winning, but we're going to have a lot of losses. So these guys that I surrounded myself with understood that mission and our goal has become relationship building while developing through skill set. We do a lot of individual skills set and we hope that it translate to more wins. Sometimes it doesn't, but what it does is it gets these guys to their ultimate dream and at the end of the day, the scouts are looking to see what the talent is. Their talent is evaluating. They're not really seeking to see if we win a championship, but they want to make sure these guys are playing the right way. So we are harboring the same message.
Jason Hart:And then each coach has an NBA background. One of our assistant coaches he was in front office for 10 years, 12 years, so when it's time for him to have those conversations with the players. That's another honesty. Thomas Scott, former NBA assistant, with his dad, byron Scott. He does our skill development so he had players from Chris Paul to D'Angelo Russell to Julius Randall so they listen when they hear those names. I played in the league and then our other two assistants were with the Knicks and Memphis. So we surround ourselves with NBA former assistant coaches, players, and then with myself playing in the mirror, johnson who works with our bigs. Those guys kind of trust us that we know what we're talking about and it makes the relationship that much easier.
Patrick Carney:How do you balance that aspect of that? Yes, probably the number one thing is that we develop these players. The wins or losses are like a nice benefit, but I guess not having your players get complacent or comfortable with losing If you keep making a mistake.
Jason Hart:I'm not just about to let you make 10 turnovers sit down. They're still getting coaching now, like it's not just get to come in here and shoot and fade away three. Nope, sit down. Sit down for a quarter, okay, you're not even going to start this game, so I'm still coaching them. They're not just running out there charging, shooting when they want. They have to learn the flow of the game and then they're getting paid. So it's transactional as well, meaning you have to produce to get more. Again, they learn that they have to produce as well. If not, you don't play as much. That's the balance of this whole thing is what you go and catch is what you're going to eat, and so you have to play better to get more. If you don't play better, you don't get more, you get less, because that is reality.
Dan Krikorian:This has been awesome. We want to transition over to a segment that we call start, sub or sit. So for those maybe listening for the first time, we'll give you three different options around a topic. Ask you which one of them of those you'd start, one you'd sub and one you would sit. So, coach, if you're ready for this first one, we'll jump right in.
Dan Krikorian:All right, you spent a lot of years playing in that Syracuse two three zone, which was tough for people to score on. We want to ask you about that Syracuse zone. So start, sub or sit, start being what it was about that zone that gave so many fits to teams from a tactical standpoint from your point of view. So start, sub or sit? Was it the high post catch, being so difficult for teams to get a high post catch? Option Two is non corner catches, so trying to keep that ball from touching the corner with the wing stunts. Or option three is what you would do with a dunker catch, whether you trapped it or you looked to steal a skip out. So mostly trapping that dunker. So start, sub or sit those three options.
Dan Krikorian:I would start the dunker, I would sit the corner and I would sub the wing catch we love to start like overall you coming from I know you're a great player in Southern California, and then you go to Syracuse and all of a sudden you're playing zone. How was that transition and what was it like on a day-to-day basis, just learning the intricacies of that zone?
Jason Hart:First of all, it was an honor to go to Syracuse. So I didn't go there with this ego where, man, I want to do this. I mean, bayham was a Hall of Famer when I got there. So whatever, he told us who's going to listen and follow and I always told him. I said, coach, you know, if I want to go to the pro, I'm going to go to the pros and I'm playing zone. How would that look? He said, if you're moving around fast and active, it is show because it's your hustle. I bought into it. I did wonders for my career because I was able to get a lot of steals out of it. But it was also harder to play zone because you have to guard an area and when you guard an area you have to have the same energy. Man to man. You may play a guy who doesn't even look to shoot, so you can kind of relax, but when you're playing zone you've got to guard an area regardless of who's the opponent is. And I found it to be harder playing zone than man.
Dan Krikorian:A day to day practice with you. I mean, I always interested in how much time you spent on it, how you broke it down, like you being at that guard spot up top how much of it was individual breakdown versus full five on five From day one when I got there in 96, the first practice, we started in zone.
Jason Hart:And so day one, first practice, freshman we started in that and then I went there for four years. You can imagine how much zone we practice. Every player comes in and gets introduced to it and how everybody learns. It is when I'm a freshman, senior was teaching me. So my sophomore year I'm teaching a freshman and then now he's teaching, so the whole culture teaches it. That's why it was so successful, because every player that's played in it he's teaching along with the coaches, and so that's why it was able to last for so long and it was able to generate so many wins. Because it was taught not only by the coaches but by your teammates as well, because they showed you how, because somebody showed them you mentioned that it helped you get a lot of steals.
Patrick Carney:It was also a challenging defense after your four years, and what ways do you think playing zone made you a better defender overall and when then you went on to play professional and where you're predominantly in man?
Jason Hart:a zone is a little bit more, like I said, difficult than man, because it teaches you who is the shooters, who's the non shooters, who the officer. So when you do go play man, it's like okay, short clothes here, head shear, box out here. It was all personnel driven with their strengths for the offense. And so we do play man to man. It becomes easier to lock in because you have a simple assignment. Hey, I'm just chasing around shooter or I'm just trying to non shooter in the zone. You got to know what everybody is and so that's what it taught me when I did go to the pros. I was able to lock in on an easier assignment because I only had one and a half, two, three, four and one possession.
Dan Krikorian:At that guard spot. What were some of the non negotiables for you guys up top? As far as no high post catches or no threes, I mean, what was it that you guys really was most important, I guess at your spot.
Jason Hart:It wasn't supposed to allow dribble penetration, but that ball went to the wing first and that forward would stop the shot and then we would bump in a banana, cut right. So if he take what he shot, our job was to bump it in the banana so he won't drive it. And then my job, if I'm the second guard, is to put my hands long so it doesn't go in the middle. But as the zone evolved and they started to get centers, that wasn't that good offensively. Hey, go to the middle, that ball can go to the middle. We're going to fan out to Rip Hamilton. Clear that, amin, and let somebody else who's not an offensive player play basketball one on one with our center.
Jason Hart:So as the game evolved, going to the middle it wasn't as bad anymore because we were fan out. Once the ball go to the middle, you fan out to four men, show you in the men and men, there's five, step up, he guard in the middle, the forward bump down, he got the guy in the dunker and then the guards and the wings flare out to four men's shells. So it's man to man. So as the game evolved, it wasn't such a bad thing to go through somebody who's averaging two points.
Patrick Carney:What gave the zone fits? Was it personnel or a tactic? In your four years, what was always like we're going to have a tough time because this team does this or this player does this?
Jason Hart:What gives the zone fits is you pushing the ball in transition and making it kind of like this If you push it in transition, the coverage is not going to be the same, because we got to stop the ball. So transition offense always killed the zone and quick passes into out always killed it. Then thank God I got out of college on time, because now these young men are shooting at 34, 35 feet. Now the zone is on the stretch. So I was in there where we was hugging the college street point line, they shooting past the NBA line. It's just totally different now.
Patrick Carney:With transition offense. Then what were you guys working on your transition defense? You said sopping the ball, was it running to spots? And the other four guys, I guess. How did you guys build up your transition defense?
Jason Hart:So remember we was talking about the development here at Ignite. I got to live with a few mistakes. Bayhine, if you don't get back, you're going to sit down. You may not get back into your junior year. You know what I'm saying. It's a different thing. I think college and pro is different. Like I'm here developing, you know, bayhine, trying to win championships, right. So when you tell you one time you got to do it. So that's the difference between coming here and going to college you may not see the floor again until you're in sophomore year if you can't get it done.
Patrick Carney:Were you guys emphasizing offensive rebounding?
Jason Hart:Definitely. Obviously, since we are in the zone, we knew we had to get back quicker. So you had your guys that crashed. I wasn't a crash, so I always had to be back and my partner, the guard, had to be back. So we was taught to sprint back and then keep everything in front of you and then when the traffic comes, then that's when we can move up. Our zone was easier for our transition defense because we always had two guards back at the top, so we kept things in front of us. But we got back, man, because we wanted to play Like Bayhine. Yeah, it makes sense, but if you don't do what he said, obviously you ended up transferring right. Just like every other school. You have more buy-in right away.
Dan Krikorian:Going back to the zone for a second, with you guys playing zone basically 100% of the time. How did you work on your man-to-man offense in practice, because everybody else you play is mostly playing man you obviously had to go against someone. How did you guys work on it at Syracuse to be good and efficient man offense?
Jason Hart:So we did practice man-to-man. If you go back and look at any Syracuse team, if we was losing we'd do like a diamond press to man-to-man. So we did play some man. We did practice it. It just wasn't our primary when we played pick-up. When we come near when all the players get to campus, they won't be playing pick-up just like every other program. We all play man-to-man. We all play man-to-man still Just didn't play it a lot. We taught it at practice as well and what it does is it helps show on-ball defense. So in the zone you got to still be able to keep the ball and contain the ball in front.
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Patrick Carney:Moving along, our last start subset for you has to do with defending the hostage dribble in a pick and roll. I know you said this year you're playing predominantly hedge and switch. You may not be seeing it a whole lot, but I'm sure your time with Ignite and SC of the college level you have. Would it be just an automatic switch? Second option lateral stunts coming from the nail or the 45, or is it just to stay attached on his hip and force downhill into the big for a veer switch?
Jason Hart:The veer switch is kind of the easiest thing. You run him off the three point line and we call it a peel switch. So you're peeling your body, you got me hostage and then I'll push you down to that big and then I'm a veer off into that roll with either hand to take away the pocket pass so we call it a peel switch. Over the top, run him off the three point line, big diggy or feet in the ground. We're going to say, okay, at 15 feet it's a normal switch. And then we had a guard veered to the screener keeping in contact with the roller with your hand down to take away a pocket. As the continuation of that, if I'm the guard and I'm peeling, we got that strong side wing. You come down and kick me out, but you're the bigger wing. You take the itty bitty guard, I run the corner three and you're going to peel and you're going to bang that big. That's what we try to do.
Patrick Carney:At the point of the screen to going back to again with young guys. How are you helping them get through screens in a pick and roll?
Jason Hart:Well, you know, getting through a screen, that's a personal choice, right? Because you don't have to get screened if you don't want to. And so, again, we teaching these guys that at the next level, you're going to be guarding, like the steps, the Damian Lillards, the John Morance, and so if you can do it, that's fine, just won't play. That's not NBA, so it's no way. It's like it's no either. You're going to try to do it now and learn it and try to fight through it. If not, you won't play. And they all want to play. They start to learn that sense of urgency and getting over these screens, especially from the point guard spot, because you're going to be getting screened all game.
Patrick Carney:With this no screen mentality, don't get screened. Is it the physicality? What are you trying to help them with so they understand what you mean by say be hard to screen, don't get screened.
Jason Hart:It's a sense of urgency, right? So every point guard you know, for every John Morant, it's somebody guarding that guy, or every step of somebody guarding. So for you to make it tough, you just can't keep running in the screens. That's where you learn the technique of guarding the pick and roll. You got to get skinny, you got to get to their body, you got to get over the top of those screens. Then if you become like a nasty guy guarding the ball, marcus Smart then now Marcus Smart, he gives out punishment to the big so they don't want to screen him. So normally I don't have that. So we try to teach the technique and getting over getting skinny and learning how to use your body to where you want to get screened.
Patrick Carney:With the technique of getting over. You know you always hear is it get your foot through? Is it get your hand through? Is it get an elbow? What is the technique that you're trying to help them to understand? This is how you get over. This means you're over your fighting.
Jason Hart:Well, the first thing in teaching that guarding the ball screen is, you know, you got to have talking bigs. Remember I told you my bigs are young, don't talk. A lot of our screens get rejected. But the first thing is, once I hear left or right, I'm jumping up, sending to the screen because that's where my help is. And once you do that, that big now has a change of angle to screen you and so you got to ride high side over the top so you can miss the majority of that contact. So you got to like ride high with this elbow or that elbow, ride high side and kind of miss some of that contact. And these bigs are good, they use their hands. You know they're really good, they can use their hands. But again, our job is to do whatever we can, and it's called GID, get it done. However you do it. I don't get technical and all this.
Dan Krikorian:Man, if you can get through, get through, that's what we can Off ball pick and roll at the NBA level there's a lot of movement or potential movement on the backside and you know you talked earlier about, maybe, the guy in the high or low eye situation, and so for you now, like in this situation with the veer switch or whatever, the progression of players understanding if they're low, if they're high and the responsibilities they may or may not have for cutters, for screening action, for tags, things like that.
Jason Hart:That's the part of it. You got to play to get the experience. It's never going to be a perfect possession, but your effort. Can we always try to teach weak side, especially at that? Lebron dunker cut Nine times out of 10, that guy is going to cut. We give it up normally about seven, eight times a game and that leads to offensive rebounds, but it's just something they got to go through. We harp, we watch a lot of film. Normally they start to get it around January, february and then March is pretty much they can play with it. But for the most part our defense is always going to struggle because there's just so much going on and the lack of team IQ is always going to be hard on our fault.
Dan Krikorian:Coach, thank you. You're off the start, subberset Hot Sea. Thanks for playing that game with us. That was a lot of fun. We've got one final question for you to close the show, but before we do, really appreciate you coming on today and sharing. This was a lot of fun for us, so thank you.
Jason Hart:Thank you, brother. I appreciate you guys as well.
Dan Krikorian:Coach. Our last question that we ask all the guests is what's the best investment that you've made in your career as a coach?
Jason Hart:In body and patience. I think, as a coach, sometimes we're a coach of game, as if we was Michael Jordan or LeBron James, and that's just not reality. So I always try to coach the game with patience, knowing that it's going to be mistakes in the game and it's how I react to them, which allows us all of us obviously to get longevity and coaching, because if we all know patience, we're not going to last long. So I just made my decision to be a patient coach. I got five things. My motto is teach, teach, teach, teach, teach. That's my thing.
Dan Krikorian:Pat, you threw a curveball at me right there. It starts up. Sit, just want to keep you on your toes. Keep the guests on their toes is one thing, but keeping your co-host is good, I knew you'd be able to adapt.
Patrick Carney:So, yeah, yeah, confident.
Dan Krikorian:I did a January podcast about adapting and being flexible as coaches. I was ready, yeah, yeah, we'll get to that in a second. We'll get to the curveball that you threw me. Let's dive in. Obviously, it was awesome having coach Hart come on. I mean, he had such a stellar career as a player at Syracuse, which we got into, which was kind of fun to go down memory lane and talk a little bit of Syracuse zone and start to sit, and then I think the thing that really stands out to me at the top and then I'll kick it to you, though is just all the different interesting paths that this coaching profession has, and someone like himself that played in the NBA, played overseas, was at the college level as a college coach, and now is taking on the G League Ignite, which is a extremely, extremely interesting team job, kind of this middle ground between college and the NBA, getting draft picks ready, and his role within it. That was what was exciting about coming into this conversation.
Patrick Carney:We of course knew coaching young guys and kind of that are jumping straight from high school to now like a pro setting, but then also, like you said, there's so many different career paths within coaching. But especially when you the directive or what he ultimately hit on is just the emphasis is on player development and building habits, the right habits. Of course, that helped the winning, but winning is not necessarily the number one priority and I think we're both kind of looking forward to getting into that and just how he works through that and how he's coaching and teaching young guys and with an emphasis more on getting them draft ready.
Dan Krikorian:I would just be really interested to follow him around for a day. All the different outside factors. He talked about agents being on the same page and getting you know GMs that are coming into the gym and just everything that happens in and around that G League Ignite, like you mentioned, because the goal is to get players draft ready and then teach them how to, which we got into try to play the NBA style, get NBA skill sets and do it as efficiently as possible in whether it's a year or two years, and he made an interesting point. I thought just about his role of giving them confidence in their game. And I think Scoot Henderson was an interesting topic he brought up because obviously a guy who was a top draft pick.
Dan Krikorian:We talked about the first year with Scoot Henderson, not overly breaking down everything for him, but just letting him come in play with his instincts, playing the pick and roll. However, it felt natural making the simplest read and then in year two then start to really hone in a little bit more on pick and roll reads. He mentioned teams were playing him a little bit differently, which honestly was a miss from me. I'll give it a little quick. I'll go down that path of like what were they doing in year two that then you needed to potentially correct or work on? And just think you got a little bit of sense of his mindset of get these great, great high school players that he said they got to dominate in high school Come in, let them play with their instincts in kind of an NBA style, setting the NBA waltz, he called it, and then start to tweak and dive in on what it is it's going to get them drafted and become a successful NBA player.
Patrick Carney:It was a good example with the scoot that he gave. And then he also mentioned when we were getting into start subset with his pick and roll coverages. But his job was like I got to give them a base, keeping it simple, just hedge, switch the NBA offense, just build the base. Or I think even from an individual standpoint it's like double down on what they do well and then from there I mean if he's lucky enough to have a team that can quickly catch on, or in scoot handers case that stayed two years, then it's starting to build. But right now, if I can give them a base, then when they go on in the NBA those clubs can build him up and add different coverages, start to expand their games. What he was saying his job is confidence. He had like just trying to build these guys up, give them confidence, remove anxiety he mentioned that a lot, that kind of anxiety they have just keeping it simple. And if he can put together a good base, then he's done his job and he's going to help these guys get drafted.
Dan Krikorian:And the other thing I just thought was interesting too was the kind of brief discussion we had on stats analytics and his view on overall stats and he kind of said, you know, he doesn't get too far down the rabbit hole of analytics from his standpoint, and that actually mentioned teaching them and letting them shoot the long two is good for them because if it's a shot they can make and it looks good then for, like the next level, for the NBA scouts, they're looking at their shot and their release and saying, okay, well, if he can make it at 17, 18, 19, with years of experience and reps, they're going to be able to translate to shooting the three at a higher level when they're 23 to 24. And I thought that was an interesting piece too of just another way to look at analytics from that standpoint.
Patrick Carney:Yeah, I don't want to assume anything, but my impression was that I think with the stats he's very cautious or aware of like again going back to the confidence piece and not giving them too much or giving them where they're overthinking or showing them any sort of like yeah, maybe you're not efficient here, you're not doing great here, but I think you know, that was my impression at least with the stats where he didn't want to give it too much credence because he didn't want to have it affecting his guys negatively at such a young age. So I think, with the example of if they're not ready to shoot a three-pointer, even though the analytics are saying, shoot the three and don't shoot the mid-range, get to your game where you're confident and go from there.
Patrick Carney:One last thing that, as we just continue, to hit on confidence, I like what he mentioned when almost having these guys come in with almost delusional confidence. I think we had a lot of conversations about how do you deal with overconfident players or the players who are delusional, where I think here, given the bubble of this G League ignite ecosystem, it's more about they need to be ultimate confidence, because next year they're going to get drafted and they're going to be in more fire. Now they're going to be forced to win games, they're going to be going against veterans, against the best in the world, and you won't succeed if you don't have confidence.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, hey. Moving to start subset, let's go to the first one. Awesome to have him talk about the Syracuse zone, especially now that his playing days are over and Coach Bayheim has moved on as well. I feel like we can just open up the treasure chest of that. But it was good to have him talk about it, someone that's played in it and I think it was also unique because he's coming from a player standpoint what it was like to play in it. So for you and I it was more just kind of scratching the itch of how do they practice it, what made it so good from the inside? And then always interesting too how do you go against man to man stuff? People always ask us how do you become a good man offensive team if all you do is zone on defense? So a lot of good little nuggets in there.
Patrick Carney:Yeah, I really enjoyed his perspective, like he said, getting it when he was a player going through it, and I like the conversation we hit on with them, just how it made him a better overall defender. He said that because he's forced to guard an area and not necessarily a man. So when you're guarding an area you have to really understand the scout top to bottom, as different people with different skill sets come into your area and knowing who the shooter is, who's the driver, what kind of clothes that we can do on them. That was interesting. I liked hearing that perspective, something I probably really hadn't thought about too, like how, from there, it took it like scouts became easier for him because he was used to for four years Understand like okay, I got to be aware of one through seven, one through eight roster.
Dan Krikorian:He actually threw in a little nugget about as zones have progressed and I think he even mentioned it with them too where it used to be like don't let it get to the middle, don't let it get to the middle at all costs. So where eventually for them it was you don't want it to go in there and just get fired in there right away and then they're out of position. But having a four or five man catch it at the nail while they spread to shooters and let that guy go one on one against you know, their six, 10, seven foot center was fine for them. We see that a lot now with zones where even on a nail catch teams will just match up in a man the rest of the possession and let that guy kind of dribble around. And he threw that in there as well. As far as, yeah, it's important to not let it get there as a guard. But I think the most important thing he said was no drill penetration from the top for those two guys.
Patrick Carney:Looking at the other side of the coin, like, all right, what gave them fits and get it into the transition, offense of course, being number one. Just as they couldn't set it and they were always kind of like he said, their shape was out of balance or out of alignment. It goes from a zone or a mess that you're attacking and are for them to get their structure or give another.
Dan Krikorian:Just a miss by me. He did start the trapping. The dunker spot was what they did so well and I don't know if we ended up following up on that. It's rather the course of it. But I mean, I think people can imagine as it goes to that dunker spot, the wing and the center would trap in.
Dan Krikorian:I know for years Syracuse did that so well because you watch them and one of the things against the zone too is, if you get to that dunker spot can be really dangerous for the defense because you're behind them now and they'd always turn it, from my point of view, into an advantage for the defense, because as soon as it went there they were trapping with long athletic guys and made it hard to throw it out, and so I guess I could have followed up with that, didn't? So another quick miss by me there, but forgive me, paul is forgiven. Yeah, yeah, let's go the other one, and this is where you threw me a curveball. We had a completely other question planned and then at the 11th hour you wrote a new question mid podcast. That I was not ready for, but it turned out well and it became an interesting conversation.
Patrick Carney:Originally. I won't give it away just in case we use it but it hit on a lot of things. I felt we hit in the first bucket with just teaching toughness, building culture. So I thought with that question we'd repeat a lot of the same conversation we just had prior to. So audibled into defending hostage dribbles, which was another one we had talked about prior to.
Patrick Carney:I wasn't completely off the top of my head no, I'm not that talented, but nonetheless it was fun to get into it. I guess I was a little worried because we did also talk about that. He's only right now this season edging and switching, but I would assume with this time at USC and that season with Ignite he's faced a hostage dribble and how to teach through it. Yeah, yeah, it was fun to just kind of dig into the technique of everything on the beer switch, the peel switch and how he handles that. And then we kind of moved away to getting through screens, being tough to screen and what that means, what that exactly is and the technique of it, as he mentioned, trying to ride high over the screen.
Dan Krikorian:So we never really got to the sub or the sit, kind of a Spanish style start subset, spanish start subset. Yeah, but it did lead to just a good discussion on handling that element and not trying to foul for behind, because guards are crafty depending on if you're trying to reach in from that back part. He did say they call it appeal the peel back on that switch instead of bearing back, I think. So Another appeal switch element to it as well. I mean, we talked mostly about peel switch on drives slot drives, corner drives but obviously another place you can do it is in that kind of drop of your situation. Yeah, yeah.
Dan Krikorian:And I think my quick follow up too was we've done a couple of deep dive videos on the hostage dribble and from, like, the offensive side on the technique on it, how to turn it into a snake dribble, how to drag it out, how to actually take advantage of that peel switch when teams do it. And so good to kind of scratch the edge to get down the other side of that back and forth battle of offense and defense. Yeah.
Patrick Carney:Because I mean if a guard that can do it well obviously really puts the defense in a pickle and kind of forcing that big into decisions and I mean the good guards you try to work your way back in front and then it's basically where you open it up that they're going to kind of shift directions on you and blow by, and now we're not in any better of a situation if you try to fight through. I know from watching a lot of Europe there's a lot of those lateral stunts and then coming in for maybe next help. So I was just curious to get the conversation on what, how he's each and they're trying to help through his guys. But you know it seemed like they're trying to keep it two on two when facing a hostage dribble.
Dan Krikorian:Pat, I gave a couple of my misses. Anything else from your standpoint before we close.
Patrick Carney:What we talked about earlier with the anxiety. I wouldn't like to maybe follow up more that such a big topic nowadays we talked about earlier when they're met with failure for the first time in the G League and how he's trying to help them through that. But would I like to have maybe then followed up when he kept bringing up anxiety, maybe getting more into that. How are you helping them with anxiety as players and the pressure of that? They got to make it, they got to get to the next level, they got to get drafted and working through that with young players.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, for sure. That's something he's dealing with in his gym every day, no doubt with all the pressure they got. Well, we again thank Coach Hart for coming on, wish him the best of luck. The rest of the way will be interesting to see where some of those guys get drafted this year and how they progress and all that. And so appreciate that, pat. There's nothing else. We'll start wrapping this up. Sounds good. Thank you everybody for listening. We'll see you next time.
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