Slappin’ Glass is joined this week by the Head Coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Chris Finch! In this highly thought provoking conversation the trio dive into Coach Finch’s thoughts on late clock management and gaining extra possessions, offensive rebounding habits, and talk defending flare screens and important coaching moments during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Transcript
Chris Finch 00:00
To play efficient offense, you almost have to go to the offensive glass. And why do I say that is because if you take a lot of threes and you attack the rim, those two shots are rebounded at a 5% greater rate generally than long twos are. So if you’re already taking a lot of efficient offense, you’re creating 5% more opportunities to get those shots back. So if you’re not taking advantage of that, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re inherently creating more opportunities for yourself. You just got to go get it.
Dan 02:02
And now, please enjoy our conversation with Coach Chris Finch. Coach, thank you very much for making the time in your schedule for us. We’re excited to talk to you today. Hey, thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Coach, one of the things we wanted to dive in with you first today is thoughts around game and clock management, specifically ends of games, ends of quarters, trying to win those margins and be as good as you can around those types of situations. And so I guess kind of broadly to dive in, your thoughts on those types of situations, how you prepare your team and your staff to excel at those.
Chris Finch 02:42
Yeah, it’s a big part of our overall offensive philosophy, which is basically trying to maximize as many possessions as we possibly can. If you think about it in mathematical terms, and every possession has an average value in the league of, let’s say, I don’t know, 1.2 right now, something like that. If you can get five more possessions in than your opponents, that’s going to roughly equate to five or six points. So we’re all about trying to squeeze out everything we possibly can do, whether it be winning jump balls, rebounding offensive misses at the free throw line, managing end of game, end of clock situations to our advantage, obviously in two for ones, even sometimes looking at opportunities to make three for two. It’s a little trickier because there’s a lot more out of your control in that situation. But yeah, we’re all in on that. Some years we do it better than others. We explain to our players why we’re trying to do it. And these things generally have to pay dividends over the entire season. Like if you just do it for a short amount of time, you may or may not get the win in the moment. But if you stay committed to the philosophy over 82 games, you’ll generally benefit from it.
Dan 03:51
But how do you talk and figure out with your staff and your team the demarcation of time, when you’re going to go, how you’re going to get a shot, things like that?
Chris Finch 04:00
Might be interesting to share with you a little kind of anecdotal history about it. For me, I came from Europe and I started to work for the Rockets. The Rockets were very, very data driven. One of the first teams under Daryl Morey and kind of the Moneyball team. So I came from Europe. I didn’t really understand a lot of what they were trying to do. And at the time, I didn’t believe necessarily in two for ones because I had this outdated mindset, which said, I don’t want two crappy possessions. I’d rather have just one good one because I felt it was two rushed possessions. But when they showed me all the data and at the time, it was like going to a masterclass in basketball analytics and a lot of other things that we were doing and had been doing in Europe, naturally aligned with very efficient basketball. So I was like, well, this seems like the logical next step to kind of increase your marginal gains. What I found out when I did it and we worked on it and we could have made it a time in practice is that the second to last possession, which I thought was going to be the crappy, rushed possession. We had specific plays, play calls, terminology to create good looks and gave guys the extra green light to be aggressive. And we found that these possessions skyrocketed. I mean, we were very, very efficient with them. And then the end of the quarter ones kind of were the ones that kind of petered out to average, I would say, just because a lot of times you’re holding and you’re taking a shot at the buzzer and those tend to be tougher shots because they’re contested. And then that’s when I really became a believer because I saw the efficiency in the second to last possession. If you were organized and your players knew what they were doing, you could really, really benefit from it. So that’s kind of like my entry into why and how I saw it work. And then we also studied the perfect ranges to be able to get shots in that second to last possession. And traditional NBA thinking as we’ll say at 33 seconds is the ideal time to take the shot, but we found that you can go as low as 29 seconds. And generally when you’re doing that, and particularly 10, 15 years ago, when not everybody was trending or playing efficient style basketball, a lot of times your opponents will leave some meat on the bone on the clock for you. So instead of having four or five seconds, which is what you would think if you shot at 29, you’re really going to be left with, you know, maybe seven or eight seconds. The other thing to note is that some of the most efficient offenses is the six second push, get the ball, run down the end of the floor, lay it in against the defense that’s getting back and still not set. So we found at the end of the quarters, the more we could put our opponent in a position where they were shooting up against the clock, and we gave ourselves five or six seconds to race it down their throat and lay it in. We found that was really, really advantageous. So the opposite of that is true. You know, when we’re playing and we don’t have the two for one, we’re always preaching to our guys, don’t believe the clock, just take the best shot wherever it comes. Because once your opponent captures the two for one advantage, they’re probably going to take the last shot. So you don’t want to be stuck in that situation where your opponent’s now racing the ball at you in transition defense, not set with the green light to either pull up or get all the way to the hoop. So, you know, we look at it from both sides, of course, and we’re trying to win on both sides of that.
Pat 07:31
Coach, the second to last possession, when you notice that the efficiency went way up when you started to really organize and work with your team on it, in terms of maybe organizational actions, what were you talking with your guys in that second to last possession? And how did if at all the shot spectrum where you said you gave guys the green light change compared to a normal middle of the quarter possession.
Chris Finch 07:52
Well, we didn’t alter our shot selection spectrum. We still wanted to take efficient shots, you know, get to the rim or take threes. What we did is we came up with a term and let’s just say that term was hero. And we would just call a regular play and we would just attach the name hero at the end of it, and that meant that they were to be super aggressive early in that play, and it was then up to me to try to figure out which plays were best with 24 seconds, which played were best with 17 seconds or, or whatever kind of length of play you wanted to be able to get to the shot range at 33 to 30. Let’s say, so did I need to lose all 24 seconds before that? Did I need to lose 17 seconds before that? Did I need to lose six seconds before that? And so it was those guys, instead of always making the right play when you come off an action to create good offense, we wanted that person to be very, very aggressive, trying to score coming off that action at that point in time. So we could call thumb down hero and they would know at that point in time, like, okay, I’m shooting coming off this.
Pat 08:58
Basically, depending on, again, the match the clock, you needed to burn 16 seconds versus six. Was it just the play call would determine, how would they know, I guess, when to be the hero?
Chris Finch 09:09
I would help with on my play call or I would just have plays that I knew would take eight or nine seconds to get into it before we got to the action where we wanted to be aggressive or quick hitters would be short ones or misdirection longer sets, which would take us deeper into the 24 seconds before we would shoot. And we would practice those. And I would have to try to time it out and practice. We would dedicate time to practice.
Dan 09:37
When it comes to the defensive side of the two for one, you mentioned a little bit of this earlier, but if you’re in a situation where you don’t have the two for one and you know, the other team is doing a good job of, they kind of have control of it via the clock and the ball, what are thoughts on the defensive side of trying to maybe swing it back your way, or you just let it play out because they have it and they’re doing it, anything on the other side of the ball.
Chris Finch 10:00
Yeah, there’s a lot you can do on the other side of the ball. First of all, we just talked about the offensive component, which actually gives you the best chance for good offense, I think. The other part of that, when you, let’s say, instead of bleeding the clock and being stuck in a situation where they’re running it at you, is let’s say you shoot the ball and they’re still 17 or 18 seconds on the clock. That gives you plenty of time to trap, to try to force them to shoot a little quicker. The other thing we also tried to do, and will once in a while now, but back in the G Leauge, when we were highly experimental with these situations, is we would foul anybody who was below a 67% free throw shooter. So you’re now taking the bet that they’ll probably, you know, maybe go one for two on the shot and then you get the last possession. So you’re now creating the two for one by being able to go a little bit earlier, give yourself time to execute a defensive coverage or foul.
Dan 10:59
How much then are you thinking the substitution patterns and players that you’re gonna have in at this time so that I don’t know if you need to take a foul you’re not wasting it on someone that you don’t want to pick up an extra
Chris Finch 11:12
We have our lead assistant, Mike Inoure. He is dedicated to all of our special situations, end of game, and also what I call the small pieces of the game, which are exactly what we’re talking about in the flow of the game. Could be end of quarter. Could be situational stuff. And that’s his focus. And he’s very good. And he has free license pretty much to make substitutions or send people to the table as he sees these opportunities develop. And he’s one of the best I’ve ever worked with and recognizing in advance the things that are going to happen.
Pat 11:44
pulling out of this conversation, but continuing to look at ways to maximize possessions. You mentioned also offensive rebounding off of free throws. And I understand the strategy, but what are you preaching? What are you working on? Big’s Xing, I guess, to try to gain offensive rebounds off of free throws.
Chris Finch 11:59
There are certainly little plays and strategies and concepts that you can do, but for us, honestly, it’s just go try to get it, go compete. When I first came into the league, a lot of people would just forfeit the opportunity to rebound, miss shots at the free throw line, and we just thought of it as another low-hanging fruit, hidden value. If we could just compete a little bit more, it might be just smash down, swim around. We don’t honestly have very many tactics where we’re X-ing or stuff like this, but we do want our guys to compete. And sometimes you have free throw shooters that don’t shoot the ball well. I mean, if somebody’s a 55% free throw shooter, and you’re not trying to get those misses back, you’re basically not playing to your best opportunities. So to me, that never made sense.
Pat 12:47
Zooming out, then overall offensive rebounding philosophy in terms of just gaining extra possessions. How many are you sending? What are you talking about?
Chris Finch 12:57
A lot of learning from experienced stuff when we were down in the G League, the Rockets were always pushing us to be like highly experimental. And sometimes we would have a mandate to do some of this stuff. But we spent an entire season one time sending four to the offensive glass. Generally, most teams would send two to three, sometimes only one, it depends, you know? But we wanted to be super aggressive. So we were trying to send four. So everybody who didn’t shoot the ball went to the glass. We even spent a couple of weeks trying to send all five, because this was the value of a possession. You know, if we could just kind of keep winning these. Now, obviously when you send five, you’re exposed and transitioned. I’ll come back to that in a minute. When we send four, oftentimes it ends up really being three and a half. If you send two, it ends up being one and a half. If you send three, it ends up being two and a half. But it’s still a good presence. So a couple of things that we learned. You know, if you do send five, some European coaches that are doing it, what you need to do really is work on your jam up skills. You got to jam the outlet. You got to jam the guy who catches it. You know, you really got to play defense at the ball. You have to have a get back mentality, but you also have to have a swarm the rebound and swarm the first pass. So you’re really giving yourself time to get back. It works and it will work. It’s extreme. And there’s times where you’ll get exposed on a long pass. The reason we had a hard time really committing to it in the G league is because the roster turnover was so high. So I didn’t have the time to like continually implement all the fundamentals of this little part of the game along with everything else I had to teach, which was like basic shell principles, basic offense, basic pick and roll coverages. The Rockets said, okay, we can put that aside. But when we continue to send four, now four is not as much of a jam up. It’s more of a get back. And you’re naturally jamming up because you’re going to outnumber them on the glass anyway. So you’re hoping that your presence on the glass is going to keep them from running because they’re just worried about getting the ball. The real benefit of the bound from this is that our guards would rebound offensively late in the game because they were used to going all the time. So let’s say it’s a, you’re in the guts of the game. There’s 90 seconds left. You missed a big shot. It’s really hard to execute in those situations because defensive pressure goes way up. Everybody’s clued in, but we just had this mindset to go track down rebounds. And it was a lot of times our guards go and get it. And it helped us kind of seal a lot of wins just by digging out rebounds with our guards, getting an extra possession. I’m a big proponent of offensive rebounding. If you want to play efficient offense, you almost have to go to the offensive glass. And why do I say that? It’s because if you take a lot of threes and you attack the rim, those two shots are rebounded at a 5% greater rate generally than long twos are.
Chris Finch 15:44
So if you’re already taking a lot of efficient offense, you’re creating 5% more opportunities to get those shots back. So if you’re not taking advantage of that, you’re leaving money on the table. That’s the way I see it. You’re inherently creating more opportunities for yourself. You just got to go get it. And then I’ve also learned, we learned this like coaching Pat Beverly when he was young in Houston. And then I’ve seen it in other point guards along the way, like Ray Jean Rondo was outstanding at it. There’s a lot of guards who are really good offensive rebounders. And generally you would always have those guys tracking back and setting your defense. And this was kind of old school, build your transition defense. But our philosophy is if you’re a good offensive rebounder and particularly at times like Patrick was elite, he went through a period early in his career where I think it was best in the game to ever do it. You got to let your players play to their strength. So if he’s really, really good at offensive rebounds and you’re not allowing him to go to the offensive rebounds, you’re not maximizing him as a player and you’re not maximizing your opportunities on offense either. So we might have other guys who aren’t great offensive rebounders and we’ll send them back. So it’s not per position. It’s way more by skillset and strengths.
Pat 18:05
Coach, when you were sending four, and I mean, maybe even when you’re experimenting and sending five, what were you talking with your team, maybe going through film? Yeah, we want you to crash, but this is too reckless. This is kind of fool’s gold. I guess in terms of how to offensive rebound the technique when you want obviously on top of just being aggressive and to go get it mindset technique.
Chris Finch 18:26
It certainly matters. There’s like certain people that have a nose for the ball. Rebounding in general, whether it be offense or defense, you have to start moving and tracking the ball well before it hits the rim. Just a note about rebounding. There’s a lot of rebounders, a lot of bigs, a lot of people who you think should be good rebounders, maybe a big wing, maybe a power forward center, and you’ll watch them and they don’t start to react until the balls hit the rim. That’s not going to be good enough many times unless they’re extremely long or extremely athletic. The same thing for offensive rebounding. You got to have a knack. Those guys that do are better at it for sure. It’s a hit first mentality too. If you’re moving first, you have a chance to hit first, but the key to being a really good offensive rebounder is got to go every single time. There’s certain things in basketball like running the floor, going to the glass. These things pay dividends every once in a while, but you got to do them all the time. The best offensive rebounders are the ones that just go all the time.
Pat 19:26
Coach, you mentioned too that with three-pointers and rim shots, I think you said it’s 5% higher offensive boards, but with the rim shots, and let’s say the guys on the perimeter who you want to crash, but like you said, there’s not that much time to track it. Are you really harping on them to still go if it’s like an at-rim shot or is it something you just maybe more so emphasize when it’s three-pointers and trying to get the wings, the perimeters to go?
Chris Finch 19:53
Just talking about like a normal offensive rebounding presence now, not sending five, right? If you are to send five, which again is extreme, or even four, of course they’re going to stay in for the late kick out and they were not going to be able to necessarily get, but they do have to move themselves into position to challenge and pressure up on the outlet pass. So that’s where we would teach that if we were being extreme, sending four or five. If we’re just, let’s say, sending three or a little bit more conservative, then, you know, of course, yeah, we want them to wait for the late kick out and they might rebound or they might move through the lane, you know, kind of the elbow area, or which has probably become the most effective thing in the league right now, relocate instead of running back, stay in the half court and relocate for the kick out.
Dan 20:42
Going back to what you said about guards rebounding late in the game extra possessions what did you find was it through film study analytic whatever it was that you’re finding out they’re rebounding better late it was a product of allowing them to go all the time. Offenses in late in game tend to stagnate a little bit. It’s a lot of pick and roll, can be ISO, a lot of switching. So people are standing around and, you know, from a kind of a stand around position, they were able to kind of time up the shot and go. But what we looked at when we saw this was, teams don’t run on you as much in those situations either. They’re trying to secure the ball, walk it up, get set, you know, manage the end of the game. You weren’t as exposed with teams trying to push it back at you.
Pat 21:27
Like on this game management topic, what are ways as a coach that you continue to think about that you can kind of get your imprint on the game without having to call a time out? I mean, of course, there’s like sidelines, baselines up, or when your opponent’s shooting a free throw, what role do you think? And maybe organizing a play or these little other moments in the game where you can kind of dictate or have some control without just having to call the time out.
Chris Finch 21:53
We have kind of a bit of a philosophy here saying, if the clock is running, we should be too, you know, so we don’t really want to slow the game down with a lot of play calls and game management stuff. Like right now, we’re not physically the most fast team in the league. So when we talk about transition, and you look at our transition numbers, they’re not going to jump off the page. But we do want to play with flow with push, you know, let the game kind of unfold and give our guys as much freedom as possible. It still leaves when you’re like one of the best in the league at that, you’re probably doing that 55%, maybe 60% on the extreme, that still leaves 45% of the game for you to manage, whether it be in dead ball situations, beginning of quarter, end of quarter, of course, as well. So there’s lots of opportunities to do that. You know, we have plays that we run after free throws, which are more conducive to attacking in the full court. We’ll try to exploit those. I kind of let the players call a lot of those things because it’s their moment to, after playing free for a few minutes, it’s their moment to kind of get together and say, hey, listen, he’s denying me or this or, you know, kind of share their knowledge of what’s happening in the game. And when you have a guy like Mike Conley, you don’t have to call a lot of plays in those situations. So that’s one. In terms of game management, like how do I change what’s going on on the floor? I’m a big believer that you do that through substitutions, mostly to change the complexion of the floor, more spacing, more size, what do we need, more playmaking. So we have a rotation for sure, but we always allow ourselves the freedom to deviate from that rotation to give ourselves a chance to give to the game what we need it to have.
Pat 23:39
Through the course of an 82 game you have your rotations, how much before a game are you considering though your opponent’s rotation and not getting stuck with what you may think are some bad lineups prior to the game?
Chris Finch 23:54
Map it out, we have our boiler plate rotation, then you have elite player and opponents who are going to force you to maybe leave guys on for defensive matchups or try to match minutes with a certain player on the other team with a certain defender you have, and those things are going to distort your rotation too. We’re very big on leaving ourselves the freedom to do it. One thing we track in our scouting reports is, you know, what coaches and what teams have a habit of chasing lineups. If I do something, if I go big, do they try to go big? Or if I go big, do they try to go small? Or, you know, do they not care about what we do? And they just do their own thing. And all different, you know, approaches work. I mean, there’s some coaches that are extremely the same every single night. And, you know, players will tell you they like that because of consistency of role and knowing when they’re going to go into the game. And we try to adhere to that. But, you know, we also tell our players like, hey, it might be a little different every single night. And we try to communicate that stuff in advance if we can.
Dan 24:58
We want to transition now to a segment on the show we call Start, Sub or Sit. We’ll give you three options around a topic, ask you to start one of them, sub one of them and sit one of them. So coach, if you’re ready, we’ll dive into this first one for you. All right, let’s do it. Okay. This first one has to do with important coaching moments and kind of like having a feel for your team when as a coach, these three different types of moments that you would need to have a pulse of where to go, say even non-tactically, but just managing people. So option one is under pressure. Option two is after failure or option three is after success. Start, Sub Si t those three important coaching moments.
Chris Finch 25:43
I would start after success. I would sit under pressure and I would sub after failure.
Dan 25:53
Why after success is it so important for you?
Chris Finch 25:56
Managing success is just as important as managing failure. In fact, it’s actually harder to learn through the processes of after success. After failure, it’s a lot easier to learn because you generally will have people’s attention. I’m always looking for those storm clouds that are on horizon and I tell our players that sometimes when you’re winning, sloppiness will bleed in and the players don’t always see it. But as coaches, we’re kind of trained to see and feel these things. And I’m always challenging our coaching staff when things are going well, we should have all the questions. And when things are not going well, we should have all the answers. And a lot of times it’s opposite of coaching staffs. When things are going well, everyone feels great, everyone’s got all the answers, everything we’re doing is working. When things are not going well, people are coming in and being like, what the heck is going on out there? These guys, this, why can’t we do that? And I feel it’s gotta be the exact opposite. The players need to know from the coaches, this is how we’re gonna get out of this situation we’re in right now. And vice versa, I think when you’re handling success, players need to know and they don’t always wanna hear it. These are the things that are gonna eventually do us in if we don’t get it right.
Dan 27:16
A follow up on after success and basically all that you just mentioned is over the course of your career, what have you learned to care about versus not care about? I mean, you’ve got a lot of opinions and things coming your way all the time. What you filtered down into what is actually most important day to day for you.
Chris Finch 27:35
Winning. I care about winning and I care about the things that matter most to help you win. Sounds kind of basic, but, and I’ve learned mostly through my time in Europe and then in the G-League, I don’t worry about the things I cannot control. Players being out, whatever, you know, tough travel, when the schedule comes out, I could care less if we have a tough stretch or an unfair back-to-back. If I’m going to be bothered by these types of things, then it’s going to probably influence the level at which our players are going to bother by it. So I try not to get bothered by the things that I cannot control. I worry about winning. We don’t have a ton of rules here. I believe in a kind of a small set of rules that are easily applied and the players will then obviously know that those matter the most. And as a leader, you want that flexibility, that latitude to be able to make nuanced decisions around complex things that happen with your team. And that’s managing people or managing situations. For instance, if you have a bad dude who’s always screwing up or always breaking rules or he’s late, then obviously you’re going to come down on him differently than somebody who’s been a model citizen in your program who happens to screw up once or twice. But if you have this heavy, heavy handed rule book, you know, you’re going to box yourself into the corner on how you can apply your leadership. And that doesn’t mean to say that you’re playing favorites. It just means that you’re managing each situation with the sensitivity that it needs. So I’ve learned that as a younger coach, you know, I was very emotional, angry. I took a lot of things personally, whether our team didn’t execute well or play well, or we lost games with, you know, we should have. I still take those personally, but I kind of bury it a little bit more than allow them to see it. But I do also think that they have to know how much you care. If you’re not expressing to them how much things matter to you, then you don’t want them to assume that it’s okay. You know, we have a saying around here, you got to make it okay. A lot of times a defense reaction to a poor performance or sloppy decision making, et cetera, is like, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Well, no, it’s not okay. It’s only okay if you make it okay. And the making it okay is the most important part.
Pat 29:54
As a leader, what are you cognizant of when you and or your team come under pressure?
Chris Finch 30:01
Internal friction, making sure that we all stay on the same page. I’m big on messaging too. I spend a lot of time thinking about what it is I want to say to the team and try to hit the high note. But mostly, I just want to make sure that we’re, A, we understand the seriousness of the situation that we’re in. B, that we all stay together and we’re not pointing fingers, whether it be player at player or player at coach, which coach a coach or any of that kind of stuff, coach up player, then find a way out of it. Like I said to you earlier, it’s our job to have answers. I got to come to work the next day with answers. Here’s our pathway out. And it might not work. It might not be the right one, but it gives confidence that, hey, he knows what we’re trying to do.
Pat 31:56
All right, our last start sub sit for you going back to the court looking at the defensive side I’d like to ask you a question about player screens when An opponent is going to flare screen a shooter What is the most concerning for you and how you want to defend the flare screen? Is it option one the slip out by the screener? Is it option two the shooter wrapping or tight curling knowing that he’s probably going to be chased? Or is it option three just taking away him getting a clean pop back three?
Chris Finch 32:30
would start taking away the clean three. I would sub the curl to the rim and I would sit the slip out.
Pat 32:40
Coach, starting with your sit, the curl to the rim, who would be the responsibility if you’re going to, okay, it’s a shooter. We’re going to lock and trail them any curls. Is it the job of the screener or the help rotation? How are you trying to navigate that curl by the shooter off the flare?
Chris Finch 32:57
To go completely off board here. And it is the job of the person defending the passer. So these types of situations usually have a small window to deliver the ball. We preach defensively about buying your teammates a half second with ball pressure, pressuring the dribble, pressuring the pass. And if we can buy enough half seconds in a defensive possession, we can defeat a lot of these things without more than one and a half defenders. And then I would say, of course, we loosen up with the big a little bit on that as well. And depending on how the play is set up, you know, we might help from the weak side low man. But in all situations, when we know we’re playing a team that runs a lot of flare screens, in general, we are trying to sweat the passer.
Pat 33:43
With the slip what are you working with the bigger that is screen defender maybe help support the flare but not give up the slip
Chris Finch 33:50
But we won’t overreact to something like this. I mean, if we can stay somewhat attached in the vicinity of the shooter and, you know, they make a shot over that, we’ll live with that. The reason I said I’d sit it is I don’t see us in a situation where we’re overreacting and giving that up anyway. And you know, we would hopefully have kind of any weak side emergency rim help built in as well. We just want to stay below the screen or as much as we can.
Pat 34:16
If we’re kind of talking more if it’s strong side on the ball, but if there are flare side action on the weak side, does anything change in the coverage or is anything become more concerning as the slip more concerning if it’s a weak side kind of flare away? If it’s a weak side.
Chris Finch 34:31
If it’s a true flare screen, so meaning it’s coming at a 45 degree angle, kind of out of the corner or off the side of the floor. We want to be physical. We want to get in and go over top and try to defeat it. If it ends up being more of a back screen where he’s coming out of the paint, oftentimes those force us into switch situations because the angle of the screen is different. A lot of times those end up being like maybe small, small. Anyway, flares are usually set with the bigs, but if they come out of the paint, a lot of times they might be small, small. So it gives us a more opportunity to switch.
Dan 35:01
that too with all these kinds of actions, sort of blind screens, the ghosts, flares, you know, maybe something outside the pick and roll stuff or drag ways that you like to work on it with your group film two on two stuff, three on three, whatever it is to prepare for it.
Chris Finch 35:17
I’m a big three on three defensive concept guy. I understand shell defense is four on four, five on five. But when you get to actions, I really believe that we isolate the ball and the action. So it kind of heightens what we’ve been talking about with ball pressure. So let’s say you’re talking flare screens, you have to become really good at the point of attack. So that’s pressuring the ball, that’s getting into your guy. And then the only help is by the screeners, man, and if he over helps, then the slip is open. So it really forces everyone to kind of do their job a lot better without weak side help. And a lot of our actions we work on, I just take away the weak side help, because let’s just assume in the game, it’s there, but let’s practice like it’s not there.
Dan 36:01
For your defense how much of guarding this stuff is read base for say rules base when trying to guard this in real time
Chris Finch 36:10
By 80% rule-based, 20% read-based. I think that’s kind of a good blueprint going into every game. And of course you can tweak according to game plans. In general, we like to say, we’re gonna give you a ton of freedom on offense and not a ton of freedom on defense. We’re gonna take as much of it away. But what I’ve learned, having been fortunate to coach some really good defensive players is, whether it’s Rudy, Gobert, Anthony Davis, Drew Holliday, what I learned from these guys is, just like you do with a great offensive player, they have to have the freedom to be able to negotiate things and navigate to their skill set, to their field, to their knowledge, to their experience. And so you may ideally want somebody to chase, but they’re really good at maybe reading the gap or doing something. So just give those guys the leeway to do it. We do it with Jaden McDaniels here. Jaden has great length, he’s got great timing, he’s got great confidence in his being his unbelievable competitive spirit. And when we ask him to do certain things tactically, they’re just not naturally comfortable to him. So we then say, okay, well, here’s the objective, just get it done. I don’t care if you go this way or that way, just beat them to the other side, use your length and use your experience and everything that you’ve been able to build up and be good at it. That’s empowering to them.
Pat 37:28
When you have that elite defender and you have your tactical scheme how are you working with your guys are maybe. What that elite defender maybe i’m sure just kinda comes natural to them but when they do make a read the rest of the team can react off of his read and not get stuck like, oh well you know i thought we were gonna be chasing here and it’s like the dominoes on all five.
Chris Finch 37:49
All building defensive chemistry is the same as building offensive chemistry. Of course, that’s a debate we have probably on a weekly basis here. Sometimes like with Rudy, Rudy being the lone man at what time does he go earlier? What time does he wait go late? And that was a learned process for us from year one to year two with Rudy. We tried to build two different defenses, one with him on the floor, one with him off the floor based on various personnel strengths and weaknesses. And also trying to make sure that we were maximizing Rudy and staying home and all the other things that he was so good at in Utah. But what we realized is that really hard to do that for the other players have this mindset switch when Rudy’s on and off the floor. So we kind of figured out one defense or one kind of consistent defensive foundation, regardless. And if we had multiple guys going somewhere at one point or another, it didn’t matter. I’d rather have multiple guys going rather than nobody, but they did get better at reading Rudy and Rudy got better at communicating. And it’s not communicating by word. It’s communicating by body language, by intent. Like if you’re going to do something, you know, do it early and obvious. So your teammates do know, and it takes a while to build that. But another example is we do give our guys freedom sometimes to chase or shoot the gap and the objective isn’t to do it right every single time. The objective is to get to the other side and stop the guy. So we allow them to choose what we call fastest route and that’s their opportunity to read it and we track whether they get it right or not. You know, like it’s your choice, but if you’re always getting it wrong or you’re always running into the screen, then we got a problem, you know, and then we might say, okay, you’re no longer allowed to read, you have to do X or Y.
Dan 39:34
Makes . Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot. See, thanks for playing that game with us. Did it win? Yeah. You gained an extra possession somehow in there for sure. Yeah. Coach, we got a final question for you to close the show. Before we do, thank you so much again for coming on today and spending time with us. We had a great time.
Chris Finch 39:53
Appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much.
Dan 39:55
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?
Chris Finch 40:02
Oh man, I would say betting on myself. I didn’t chase money when I was growing up coaching, I chased opportunity. It didn’t matter whether the league paid a lot or was a big league or a small league. If I felt it was the right thing for my career, a perfect example is when I was in Europe, I had been coaching for 12 years. I was on a great track making really good money, but I walked away from all that to take a big pay cut to come back to the G-League because I thought it was my only opportunity to work within an NBA franchise with zero promise of anything. But little did I know, you know, the way the game was changing and being at the forefront of analytics and being pushed to kind of be super aggressive and creative. And I mean, just these are the things that paid dividend in my career. And you’re just, you know, willing to take that risk and bet on yourself and understand there’s going to be failure. But through that, you figure out who you are as a coach.
Dan 41:01
All right, Pat. Wow. Great stuff. What is just an interesting conversation that exceeded my expectations. I knew it was going to be great and you know how great of a coach he is. And that exceeded them from just, I guess, intellectual standpoint. Like my brain’s on fire, thinking about all these analytics and little details and things we’ll get into, but obviously Coach Finch has had great success and there’s a reason, great coach, great thinker of the game.
Pat 41:23
I completely agree. I think the amount of vast resources that the NBA franchises have, I mean, I’m jealous. These coaches just get to think about the game so much. And especially like what we got into with clock management, winning extra possessions, because like everything’s just at their disposal and they can get the feedback, the data, make these decisions and really analyze on the margins.
Dan 41:44
Yeah, absolutely. Let’s dive into our top three takeaways here and I believe it’s my turn to kick it off. So takeaway number one, I think like the overall theme of just extra possessions, you very cleverly pivoted the conversation at some point to offensive rebounding, which was just a great job by you.
Pat 42:04
So once he hit on offensive rebounding missed free throws at the top, I kind of circle starred that I knew exactly where we were going with this conversation.
Dan 42:12
That was an elite pivot by you. And because I was taking a note on something else and all of a sudden here we are, getting detailed offensive rebounding. So great job by you, because it tied into that whole first conversation, which ultimately was about extra possession, winning the margins, these little parts of the game that are obviously big parts of the game that he was thinking about.
So starting with end of clock, end of quarter management, flowing into offensive rebounding, just ways that you can win the possession battle. Reminding me of a couple of years ago, we had coach Nate Babcock on and coach Babcock was talking about hitting, and which was the trapping, which we got into a little bit here within this first bucket of really interesting stuff when you don’t have the two for one in your favor. And like coach Finch mentioned, one of the ways you can do it is to gain it back is to trap or try to get them to shoot earlier. Or I loved how he mentioned, if someone’s below a 67% free throw shooter, they’ll foul him.
Pat 43:08
Yeah, within the two for one conversation, possession battle, I liked when we got in kind of looking at that second to last possession and how they kind of maximize that and he got into attaching like a play call or a language to a play for the sake of the conversation, we turned it hero. Yeah. Knowing how much time he needed to kill. And so understanding what plays last longer, which plays are quick hitters, but then attaching the hero call. So again, the team understands like, all right, on this action is go time.
We can be aggressive, try to hunt that shot. So then we’re in prime position on second possession to go. And, you know, he talked about like that six second push then on that last possession and how you get five to six generating good quality shot off of just being super aggressive and in transition attacking.
Dan 43:55
You asked a great question because he mentioned in this two for one conversation, their study on when they worked on it, the actions and knowing the time when to go and knowing all those things helped with the efficiency of the first of the possessions of the two for one and not just coming down and you hear two for one or you hear the hero or whatever the term is and a guy just jacks a step back three and it’s like, okay, two for one. Yeah. His point then got into the amount of time they know in their heads where if we do this right, you can get a quality shot in under six seconds, that push, you know, this is interesting.
Like, so for me at the college game, there’s only one time to really do this at this point and on the men’s side, which is the end of half. And so, you know, whenever they switch it to four quarters, you’re gonna be ready. Yeah. Watch out. We’re gonna work on four for threes. Yeah.
Pat 44:46
Yeah. The start clock. Managing with you’re going to have it all mapped out if you win the tip or not. That’s how you do it. Yeah.
Dan 44:53
Yeah, I think that was great. I just want to make another point. Yeah, I was really fascinated with the offensive rebounding and how detailed he was about first of all, it’s quote that 5% more opportunities on the good shot attempts to catch and shoot threes or the rim attacks, which is obviously a play for, you know, the better shot quality teams are going to have more offensive rebounding opportunities. But then the thought about guards rebounding well late in games and getting extra possessions and we were talking about sending four or five. I thought that was really interesting and like the more I thought about and still think about it. It is true how many times as a guard come up with like a big late game offensive rebound because the other guard just not flocking out or ready or you’re just constantly sending them and he kind of had the quote about paying dividends later like you’re going to go all the time and you don’t know when that’s going to pay dividends on everything. But you might get that big one late.
Pat 45:46
Interesting point I’d like to, as he said, that some teams will stay and relocate on the perimeter guards or wings, rather than just, you know, jockels up, sprint back, kind of relocate in anticipation of maybe trying to generate a kick out three.
Dan 46:00
Yep, point number two, I’ll kick that one to you Pat.
Pat 46:03
Yeah. All right. My second point, I’ll steal from your start question about managing moments. And I thought Coach had some great thoughts on just after success, that it’s hard to teach after success. And my biggest takeaway was when things are going well, we as coaches should have more questions. But then when they go bad, then maybe that’s a time where we should have more solutions and kind of instill confidence that we kind of have, here’s a path to get out of this. I thought that was a great point, kind of ring true with our conversation with Dr. Preston Kline that we just released. He also mentioned that coaches in general should be answering questions with questions. And I thought just kind of understanding the moment too, and what that plays into it as well. Like, yeah, three game, four game win streak, things going well. Maybe ask more questions, kind of challenge the guys, challenge yourself, I’m sure, within like staff meetings. Maybe it goes back to our conversation with Coach Murphy, you know, just kind of what was his meetings where they would just try to challenge something.
Dan 47:07
Osceola Magic head coach Dylan Murphy. Yeah, and they had the rumble meeting.
Pat 47:10
So rumble meetings, kind of more rumble meetings when things are going well, but yeah, bad times. Okay. You know, you know, this is kind of where we get paid to like Friday solutions and a way out. So that was my big takeaway there.
Dan 47:21
This was also, I just circled for myself, was a miss for me personally, not from Coach Finch. Of course, I just wish I had more time to ask about that after success question asking review process for them. So 100% agree with him and I would have loved to have gone deeper on. Well, what does that look like then? So you’re coming off of a three game win streak on the road, everybody’s feeling good. What are the questions you’re asking and then how do you stay on point? Okay, we’re asking a bunch of questions, we’re winning, we’re feeling good, but then also whatever you’re doing is working. So there’s that fine line of wanting to rinse and repeat versus tweak, keep going forward. And I just would have loved to hear him speak a little more on that process.
Pat 48:05
Yeah, I think it’s always interesting. That’s the challenge of like, what is working? Let’s keep it well. Stay on top of it. But what is a problem? What’s maybe a leak? And let’s not, you know, make it become a bigger, sink the ship.
Dan 48:16
And before we move on to the third point, I just get a couple of good quotes in there about how big he is on messaging, how important that is with the team at all times. And then he had the quote of making it okay. So like, don’t just say it’s okay, but make it okay to anything like that. So that’s some good points there.
Pat 48:33
Okay, I’ll set you up here. Your third takeaway from our conversation with Coach Finch.
Dan 48:39
So it was within us solving how to guard a flare conversation
Pat 48:45
If someone scores on a flare, it’s definitely not my fault this season.
Dan 48:48
Yeah, we did our best. But of course, loved the details of guarding flares. I think, you know, everybody listening this knows that a well-timed flare screen with a good shooter and all that is definitely hard to guard. I liked his point about, well, I’m not even going to talk about that at first. I’m going to talk about the ball pressure. And it’s so true. I had some good quotes about buying little half seconds defensively for everybody. So I thought that was great. And then at the end, we kind of found ourselves in a great defensive player conversation and how you navigate that as a coach with letting them have some freedom to make reads and get things done. I really enjoyed that part of it hearing him give some good examples about, you know, McDaniels and Rudy Gobert and some of their just natural tendencies and how great it is for them to have those. And then how as a team and a staff you build around it gave an example of, you know, Rudy on versus Rudy off the floor last year and early trying to have two different defenses and that not working overall. So I just like to hear him kind of work through when you have great individual defenders, how that ties into the whole team philosophy.
Pat 49:58
Definitely. I love the example he gave with Rudy Gobert. I mean, obviously it’s having an elite defender and elite player. That’s a great luxury to have, but there are some subtle things as we as coaches have to think about and he’s elite defender, you’re going to allow them to go off script at times. Like he mentioned building that defensive chemistry. So guys are ready to react and work off of him and not just, well, I thought he was chasing here, so I had to be in this spot and then he didn’t. And now I’m completely caught off guard. Yeah. He mentioned it with, I think they tried to cater to, okay, well, when Rudy’s on, we’ll play to his strength solely. And then when he’s off, that is a challenge for three, four other guys who aren’t necessarily elite defenders and probably do better with more structure, with more rules base.
Dan 50:39
Yeah, just a couple quick things here to add to your point in what Coach Finn said. He kind of said a blueprint of the 80-20 rule for them of 80% rules, 20% reads, but then he also mentioned that they will stat their decisions. So it’s like some accountability there too of, all right, you want to take this quicker route or you think you can get here this way, that’s fine, but then you better get there. And then if you’re showing over the course of time, you’re not, then I assume then you’re going to start becoming more, this is, well, no, you’re doing it this way. This is a rule now. And they have the evidence.
Pat 51:09
To back it up.
Dan 51:10
Yeah, exactly. So, Pat, I gave one of my misses there. Anything else from your end you wish we would’ve had more time for?
Pat 51:18
hit on a little bit too, but when he talked about the internal friction and the messaging under pressure, I think my mind kind of took me like how he approaches team meetings and just addressing the team off the quarter in a team meeting setting. Ever since our conversation with Dr. Klein, I’ve been also thinking about that a lot and wish I’d kind of followed up a little bit there and just, you know, he mentioned that his messaging and hitting the high notes important to him. So what he’s thinking about, what he’s considering, how he’s mindful of the guy’s time and, you know, delivering a message, getting it across within these team meetings.