🏀 Top 3 Takeaways from Jeff Van Gundy on the Slappin’ Glass Podcast
Jeff Van Gundy returns to the podcast this week after his first year back on the bench in the NBA and gives another powerful, insightful, and humor-filled interview exploring a variety of topics. Here are some of the top takeaways from the show:
🔑 1. Fundamentals Still Win – Even Against Stars
Van Gundy emphasized that defending elite players doesn’t start with complex schemes—it starts with mastering the basics.
“Your fundamentals and your habits drive winning. And bad habits and bad fundamentals drive losing.”
Transition defense, defensive rebounding, and avoiding reckless fouls are the non-negotiables.
🔑 2. Use Language That Matches the Action
Great coaching starts with precise communication.
“Don’t say something is good if it’s mediocre. Don’t say it’s great if it’s just good. Make sure your feedback matches their actions.”
Honest, calibrated feedback earns trust and helps players improve faster.
🔑 3. Offensive Rebounding is Back—and It’s Strategic
One of the biggest shifts Van Gundy noted in his NBA return: elite teams are once again crashing the glass with purpose.
“The emphasis on offensive rebounding is long overdue. We’re kicking ourselves that we weren’t the first to start it back up.”
The key? Crash top-side on threes, never from the baseline—and never backpedal in transition.
Transcript
Jeff Van Gundy 00:00
Ill go back to Mike Breen on this, early on when I was broadcasting. It was my first year with him, and it was a run-of-the-mill play. And I said, great pass by so-and-so. At the break, he said, was that a great pass? And I’m like, nah, it was just like run-of-the-mill. He goes, well, then you don’t have to say anything or say, good look, nice find, but have it match. And it’s the same in coaching. Use language that’s appropriate. Don’t say something is good if it’s mediocre. Don’t say it’s great if it’s just good. And don’t do what I used to do. If it was great, say it was okay. Make sure your feedback matches their actions.
Dan 02:08
And now, please enjoy our conversation with coach Jeff Van Gundy. Coach, congrats on a great year back in the NBA as a coach. I’m excited to have you on today.
Jeff Van Gundy 02:22
Yeah, it’s good to be back guys are killing it.
Dan 02:25
Thank you, coach. So wanted to start with this and something we’ve talked a little bit about on the podcast, but it’s always interesting. And that’s defending great players. And no matter what your scheme is for the greatest in the game, they always find a way obviously to make it tough on your defense. And after this year and being what you do with the Clippers, how you think about defending and making it difficult on the best players in the game and disrupting those possessions for them.
Jeff Van Gundy 02:54
Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things, you know, that we also have to improve on one, honoring the first rule, which is the spot up shooter is as important as the star when you over commit and leave guys open. I think that’s as dangerous as whatever you decide to do against the star in the half court. And then I think the main thing with the stars is just basic basketball transition defense, which is something that every team struggles with defensive rebounding and no reckless panic shooting fouls. So if you can avoid those three things and then honor the spot up shooter as much as the star, you’re on your way to being able to take away what stars are good at. And then I think you branch out into trying to take away layups off cuts and free throws that aren’t even off poor body position where you’re overreacting to trying to deny and guys get cutting layups. And so I think that’s where it starts. And then from there, you have to decide as a team, how much do we want to double team? How much do we want to commit a second defender and in what situations? And I think not all stars are created equal. Not all stars put you under the same exact pressure and not all stars deserve the same amount of double teams. So I think you have to have your package that you would like to, you know, against the point guard, bringing the ball up, pick and roll game, what you want to do. Isolation game, post-up game, catch and shoot off, pin downs. You know, those things, you have to come up with whatever your solutions are to the stars, all the while honoring what I spoke about before. Mitigating layups, free throws, reckless fouls and not paying enough tension to the spot up three point shooters. And then, you know, you could go back and watch us and see us violate every single one of those at times, which is one thing I became convinced of after not coaching for a long period of time in the NBA is what wins and what loses, which is both comforting is exactly the same at every level. And so that’s great. How you go about that sometimes is different. You know, the bigger staffs, bigger rosters, less practice time, less walkthrough time, you know, so less preparation time a lot of times then cuts into how much you can do well. But it is comforting to know that the basics still win your fundamentals and your habits drive winning and bad habits and bad fundamentals drive losing. And ultimately, our defense in the Denver series, the basics let us down and to have playoff success, we need to certainly set a higher standard for our fundamentals and habits defensively going forward.
Pat 06:04
Coach, I’d like to follow up on the basics. You mentioned transition, reckless filing, and defensive rebounding. And if I could just follow up with the defensive rebounding aspect and the role that plays in trying to defend a star player or allowing a star player to get going.
Jeff Van Gundy 06:21
Yeah, stars don’t become stars if they’re one-trick ponies. They’ve got different things that they can do to hurt you. And the defensive rebounding aspect, particularly on jump shots, you’ve seen a erosion of the habit to turn, check, hit, and then pursue. It’s more follow the flight of the ball and then try to, you know, anticipate where the ball is going to go. And for those stars, if you can either practice, develop the habits, whatever it takes to truly go back to old fashioned blocking out, I think so much of that stuff is frustrating to the star in that they’re used to having their way. And if you don’t beat yourself, you really have made it harder. It’s the same as flying by on shot fakes. Nothing makes me cringe more than when people say run people off the line. It drives me crazy. First of all, you can’t get people off the line. They’re shooting a ton of threes. And when you fly by recklessly for a shot fake, they sidestep dribble and get an even more open three. And it’s the same way where you see Giljes Alexander or some great offensive talent in the NBA, drive it hard, two dribbles, pump fake guys, leave their feet and bail them out. But if you just stay down and make them all game, make two point jump shots against a wall up or you close to a guy’s body on the three point line when they’re used to playing against a lack of discipline, where guys just run by him and act like it’s, you know, call it hustle. And it’s the same way with blocking out. If you can resist the temptation to follow the flight of the ball and instead turn and hit and then increase your rebounding radius by hitting as far away from the basket as possible, pushing that guy to the baseline as much as practical. Then again, there’s no perfect answer. Stars are stars because they figure out ways to score. But if you can mitigate the ones that you are in control of, then you can make them a tad more inefficient.
Dan 08:33
When talking with your team about defending a great player, what’s the balance between skiing versus outcome? How much are you discussing, hey, technique wise, we want to go over this, we want to go under this, we want to go do this way versus, listen, just don’t let them get to this spot or shoot this shot or do this thing. What’s the balance of how you’re teaching and talking about that?
Jeff Van Gundy 08:57
The players want answers. Obviously, it starts with intensity and proper body position and talk. Now, talk is at a premium in the NBA or at every level, and very few are natural communicators. There’s a lot of people who play quiet. And when we have our worst half-court outcomes, it’s solely due to, I don’t know the nice way to put this, up and down intensity, physicality, and communication. But if you start with those three, you’ve started in a good place. But then I think they need to know, for instance, outside the scoring area, we’re going to try to competitively get under to limit the runway that a guy has to drive it on our bigs or things like that. Now, I will always say, if they have a better technique for them that works, we’re not trying to change that. It’s like a shooter who doesn’t maybe look it, but the ball goes in, you’re not going to mess with it. It’s the same with defense, right? We have techniques and fundamentals that I believe in, and Tai Liu believes in greatly. But the main thing is to get the job done. And I think painting an overall picture of how you see the game, I think the game has evolved offensively, and sometimes defenses have struggled to adapt. And so trying to figure out what techniques and schemes remain the best way to do it and what are begging for better answers, you need to have answers. I think most guys in the NBA are coachable, unless you don’t have what they seem as competent answers, then they can be a little bit less coachable. So it’s paramount that we have answers for them scheme wise. And at the same time, if something works for them, and it’s a little bit different than how you would teach it, keeping the idea that getting the job done is the most important thing.
Pat 10:58
Looking at the intensity, physicality, and communication of a defense, when we focus on physicality, are there techniques that coaches can use in terms of how they scheme, how they tactically play defense to improve their physicality or make them a little bit more physical than they’re otherwise not inclined to be?
Jeff Van Gundy 11:19
I think the quiet teams are the less physical teams. So I think if you start with, and we’re going to be as loud as we can, I think that brings about more intensity. And I think more intensity brings about more physicality. This is something that I think scheme wise, everybody should think about. Hit everything that moves toward the ball. If you’re coming toward the ball, you’re like hit, but hit legally. We’re not trying to foul recklessly or anything, whatever’s legal at your level. And we see playoff basketball. There’s a lot of contact and you want to be the team that’s hitting the most and fouling the least. So I forgot who said it, but a coach way back said his idea of Nirvana was if the first play of the game, all five guys on the first play hit the floor simultaneously. And referees were so confused by who to call the foul on. They let it all go. And I think with the offensive skill, the way it is, if you’re not physical, as the people are coming towards the ball in whatever legal manner you can, it’s going to be really hard as guys are running at the legs of the guy defending the ball and slipping out. If they’re not steered a little bit, nudged a little bit, and hit a little bit, it’s hard.
Pat 12:40
In that effort, coach, to steer screens and hit guys coming to the ball. How do you think about that in terms of maybe their help rotations or the initial position to be in a position to hit players and not chase a guy trying to hit them or chase a guy trying to steer them?
Jeff Van Gundy 12:55
it really does you no good from behind. You’ve got to be almost under them or on the side of them. So you have to start with great body position, but then you also have to, like a football term, bump and release. You’ve got to know how to steer and release so that you’re ready to defend the next action, whatever the next action is. So many times, especially switching defenses, you see this all the time, there’s a pin down and they execute a really good switch, like on a flex pin down. And then that person who got switched on comes into a pick on the ball. And the man who switched stayed to the inside of the screener, ultimately forming a double screen. And so you have to be able to, that’s why dumb gets you beat and dumb is forever. And if you can’t recognize situations where I switched, I pounced, oh, now I have to bump and release, steer and release, because now I’ve got to guard the pick and roll in whatever scheme you’re in, then you’re going to cause problems. And I think that’s why the teams that play in these free flowing chaos type movement sets like Indiana make it really challenging on you because you’re trying to go from one thing to the next and it’s not scripted.
Dan 14:15
On defending the great players and what we’re talking about right now. Does anything change for you on help and rotations as far as a stunt versus a full help and rotate over? Watching you guys this year, I thought you guys were terrific at stunting at the ball, closing gaps, making that great player unsure. I guess just any thoughts on the stunt versus the full rotation of help?
Jeff Van Gundy 14:38
Well, I think like most players, even the stars pass better one direction than the other. You know, very few guys can throw the skip pass going to their weak hand to the opposite corner, where everybody in the NBA going strong hand can snap the ball weak side on point. And that’s a huge change from just 10, 15 years ago, where only the greats could do that. Now the average NBA player to their strong hand can make all the passes. So I think, you know, the teams that have incorporated, like the guy in Canada, I forgot his name, but, you know, they played everything to go to the weak hand. I can see the real value and not just from a, you know, some guys actually shoot better going to their opposite hand in the pull up, like Giljes Alexander is great both ways, but man, he’s so dynamic going left. And that’s when his pump fake off the dribble pickup is dynamic. But you can see for every NBA player, for the most part, it’s harder when they’re going to the weak hand to pass. You have to, for yourself as a coach, and Tai Lu encouraged us to do this. And Tai Lu is such a great coach and a great leader. When we started, you know, back in the summer, talking about our team, it was all about trying to create more turnovers because we were smaller. So we try to be in the gap and then basically one of three things. We either try to attack the dribble to steal it. If the ball is close to us, blind to us or guys going too fast, or we’re going to stun at the ball and try to make them gather it early. And on selected players, or I should say there’s four things. If there’s a total bull by, then we’re going to like execute a go, which is sort of a run and jump. And then on some players that are so dynamic from start potential and guys that we’re willing to live with from a shooting standpoint, we’ll give full body help on those guys. So there’s really four actions when the ball is driven into a gap. And a lot of it is who the player is, what the angle of the drive is. But what we don’t want is our players being hesitant. We’d rather have them. And I think Tai Lu did a really good job at this. He didn’t make them hesitant. If you attack and we miss a steal, OK, we’ll learn from it and move on. But we’re not going to hesitate. We’re going to go and we’re going to try to attack the ball. And the front office did a terrific job getting some incredible defenders and with great sense, Chris Dunn has everything you’d want in a help defender. Great anticipation, strength, toughness. He’s got courage to go for something. Derek Jones, Jr. Same way, you know, some of our returning players just have great timing. You know, Kawhi has got great timing. So does James. That norm got a lot better. We’re blessed with a really good defensive team. And I think they bought into Tai Lu’s message of being super aggressive, attacking the ball, stunting at the ball. And then at times, if you were blown by, we’re going to stop the ball and go and execute a run and jump.
Dan 17:47
The process after a game or after a practice for you, I know you are very detail oriented and you probably got all your clips and notes on defensive coverages and things like that. What would that process look like from a team perspective and also maybe from an individual perspective of how you got these players better, how much you did or didn’t give them things like that.
Jeff Van Gundy 18:09
I think you have to have, after every game, you have to have correction. However, you do it. You might do it by film as a team. You might do it film individually. You might do it with a note. You might do it on the floor. Whatever it is, both individual and team, I think they have to understand there’s always going to be correction. And sometimes it’s in a quiet voice, one on one. And sometimes where you didn’t achieve what you wanted to achieve, or you didn’t give yourself a chance to achieve what you wanted to by your preparation or whatever, then maybe the message is a little bit different. I think you’ve got to be comfortable, but the one thing I would say is you’ve got to say it in the right tone, obviously, for there to be good learning, but you also can’t walk on eggshells. You have to be direct. I know there’s a couple of people that think you’ve got to stay a positive thing, then your correction, and then end on a positive. And I’m not sure the message isn’t lost that way. Who’s to say that they just don’t remember the two positive things when you wanted them to remember that they forgot to balance the floor in transition from the slot on a three-point jump shot five times that got you beat? I’m not sure I want them thinking about the good play that they made. I think I want them to focus on, I just contributed to losing because I couldn’t concentrate long enough or hard enough to do what any player can do, which is balance the floor again. And I think you have to be your own personality, and they have to feel that I do believe this with all my heart. Each player has to know how badly you want them to succeed and how badly you want the team to succeed. And then and only then do I think they open themselves up enough to be critiqued.
Pat 21:12
When we look at star players, but then also their pet actions or teams that are going to constantly put their star player in an action. And if we assume your base coverage or all the base fundamentals are there, but you think you guys are going to need more. So looking at that action, how do you think about our way, whether trying to disrupt that action whenever they get into it versus maybe disrupt the possession to prevent them from getting to that action.
Jeff Van Gundy 21:38
I don’t know if this is the same in college, but it is in the NBA. Every time you go up against a good team or a great player, which is like every night, and it doesn’t really matter the level, there’s somebody that on the other team or multiple people that are hard to defend, right? And we’ve gotten into the NBA where every time something’s hard, there are so many suggestions and they’re usually centered around play more zone, pick up more full court and switch a matchup. And there was like frustration, I think on parts of, cause I don’t buy those three things as much as most. I think everything has a time and a place, but I just don’t necessarily think that those bring about sustained winning.
But anyway, I do think those three things, like you said, trying to disrupt before the action takes place. Double teams switching is as it’s occurring, right? I think the bigger thing than all of that is how many things can you do well? Now you may be able to trick somebody in one playoff game or one, and I always go back to this and it’s amazing, like these little moments in time, we were playing in the 1994 finals against Houston. I was in the system with the Knicks. Coach Riley was the head coach and a guy named Dick Carter, who has passed away, but was like a great college coach. First coach of the Charlotte Hornets, you know, tremendous assistant for Chuck Daly, Pat Riley, P.J. Carlosimo. He just did it all. And he was a defensive guru. So anyway, 94 playoffs, we had done a pretty good job against Olajuwon on in the first four games. Back then we were a front team team. We weren’t a double team team. We tried to make it harder to catch. It went through game four. Elijah one got more of a rhythm against it than game five. No, he’s hurting us and coach Riley comes back. You know, he had been standing up, comes back to a seat, slams his fist on the seat and says, what are we going to do with Olajuwon? And I still remember Dick Carter. He said, substitute, we’re not the New York tricks. I’m going to clean up the language. We’re the New York Knicks. And, you know, so there’s that extreme, which that extreme isn’t good, but either is the extreme of change on every basket. Like every time somebody scores, oh, let’s double them without thinking about the consequences for double teaming, which is, you know, maybe more open threes, maybe you do force more turnovers, or maybe you give up more second shots. I just don’t think there’s a lot of nuance when we think about how to disrupt and at what price. And sometimes I go back to Mike Montgomery, who was the great Stanford coach, coach Golden State in the NBA. When I was super young, I think he was at Montana at the time, their slower team, man to man, great execution. And he was asked at a clinic. I was at, if you’re down 14 with five minutes to go, what do you do? And they were man to man, half court sets, right? Down 14, five minutes ago, what do you do? And he said, we lose. moves and that’s a guy who knows his team and knew what their style was and the point is they didn’t get down for a team. You can try to be everything and ultimately you stand for nothing and yet you have to have enough variety as you guys are both saying to be able to defend these actions that are really hard or these players that are really hard so you have to have enough variety but then you have to also decide how much you can do in the amount of time practice time that you choose to use. So a lot of teams in the NBA are choosing not to practice a lot which impacts how much you can do well.
Everybody can do a lot. Any team can do a lot. That’s not hard. Doing a lot is not hard. Doing it well is super challenging and so I think it all comes back to prioritization. So I know zone, pickup full, all that stuff but I think what can you be good at? Certain teams like Indiana with the depth and the speed, they picked up full and they had some real success with it. Now I also found it interesting they backed up more. I think it was game five, six, seven so that they didn’t get the running head start runways to the rim and making their bigs guard further up the floor. So I think it’s so team specific and I was warned when I first took over in the NBA, Tim Floyd was at Iowa State at that time then he came into the NBA and he said to me, don’t be a play a day coach.
And I said, what’s that? And he goes, trying to overcome a fundamental or poor habit or poor fundamentals with something that masks it like a new play. And he said the same thing defensively and he was a master of triangle and two, box and one, all this stuff. But it all starts from a base of being able to get in a stance, getting your floor balanced, closing out correctly and then being five guys tied together and however you want to influence the ball or help on the dribble. So man, these are the hard questions in coaching. How much can you do well? How much practice are you willing to invest to do it well? And how does it tie into your offense? Because they all have to tie together.
Pat 27:20
If I framed it where it wasn’t so much trying to stymie a great player, but more so just to steal a possession, and whether it’s after a free throw or after a timeout. So maybe it’s not really relying on that we can do it well. We’re just seeing more of like a gamble of, can we just steal one possession which can make the difference in a game?
When you look at zone press or a double, does anything maybe change how you view it or think about it? Yeah.
Jeff Van Gundy 27:49
I like how it sounds in theory, stealing a possession. I love how that sounds. And then I think, okay, well, they’re gonna run something they’ve practiced and we’re gonna do something we haven’t. I see a dunk in my future or a wide open three to a great shooter. So I’m not saying I’m right, but now Tai Lu, he’s much more adventurous. And this is where I learned so much from him. He has no problem trying something and we have middle of the game. He has no problem. And I wanna have practiced it. I wanna have enough. I’m not sure I’m just, I buy the idea of stealing a possession by trying something we’ve not. What I don’t understand is if you wanna do something like that, Patrick, can’t we have practiced it? Does it have to be something we haven’t practiced? Can’t we like commit as a team? We’re willing to prepare more and longer and more often than our opponent. To me, there’s so much that goes into winning, but that right there, we’re willing to do more than our opponent to win. That gives you a hell of a start, individually and collectively.
Pat 28:55
I think what’s interesting coach with that with this question, I agree with you like for sure having practice or maybe becoming part of your team’s DNA, but you know, I know coaches will sometimes after every free throw, you know, that we’re shooting, we’re going to be a trapping ball screen team, you know, where teams like to run plays after coming out on the offense, then on defense, like, you know, we know our defense is always going to be a hard trap. I love it.
Jeff Van Gundy 29:19
You practiced it. I like it. I’ll tell you one thing, there’s some teams in the NBA that come out after timeouts and we would be better if we did something we had never practiced. Because the stuff we practice versus what they practice, the offense has the upper hand they have and there are some teams that are just, you know, so good. We played Golden State the last regular season game of the year and we would have been much better playing two, three zone from side out of bounds. At least until the ball got in, then we would have played man-to-man with Curry as a screener and a cutter. Steve Kerr is brilliant at like play design and so that’s where I always struggle with, you got to have enough. My only thing would be whatever we decide is enough that we can do well, let’s practice.
Dan 30:14
Coach has been awesome so far. We want to transition to a segment. I know that you’re familiar with start, sub, or sit. We’re going to give you three options around a topic. Ask you to start one, sub one, sit one, and then we will discuss from there.
So coach, if you’re ready for round three, we’ll dive in. All right, here we go. Coach’s first one has to do with helping already good players become better scorers. So as we’re recording this summertime, people are working on their bag, what they have offensively.
Jeff Van Gundy 30:43
That just makes me puke right there.
Dan 30:45
Me too, that’s why I said it to you.
Jeff Van Gundy 30:48
All the cliches first of all why can’t these guys get a defensive bag about a rebounding bag how about a pivoting and passing bag is that possible I think got so many I know I’m off the topic of no please go ahead you got me going like like a lot of the role players at any level all we ever do is work out with the ball and then all they’re asked to do in a game is be able to make a layup make a free throw and make a spot up and they’re going into their euro step D cell this that I’m like you’re never having the ball to do that what are you doing that you’re just wasting time acting like you’re gonna have a role that you want versus the role we need you to have would just stop it and get in a defensive stance learn to close out a guy who complain about playing time and then we’ll do nothing that will actually help him get on the floor instead he works on his bag and he doesn’t have a plane bag he has a trash bag like that keeps him off the floor it doesn’t make sense to me it doesn’t make sense to me how many of these role players are working out yeah James Harden going rat-a-tat-tat between his legs 12 times yeah he’s great at it and he can score we don’t need another dude doing that many teams in college like everybody knows that guy gets more leeway than this guy like how can I get on the floor if you’re a role player well let me tell you learn to cut run so you can get a layup and get fouled figure out how you can get fouled all you got to do is dribble two times shot fake guys will go up lean into him get fouled but I don’t see guys going into their bag on cutting
Dan 32:36
You’re dipping into the question, so it’s good.
Jeff Van Gundy 32:39
to sub everybody that’s trying to get into their bag. I don’t want to sit them too. And I want to get rid of them. That’s one you should like, I don’t even want to start any of them. I want to sub sit and get rid of the dudes who are trying to have a bag that have, that’s not their role.
Dan 32:56
So the question for you then is if you’re already coaching a good score at any level, here’s three other great ways that people can learn to score to, you know, increase them as a score. So start sub sit option. One is working on their off-ball cutting, understanding how to cut off the ball, all that kind of stuff. Option two is understanding how to score better in transition, getting out running lanes, finding transition opportunities, or option three is second chance opportunities, offensive rebounds, things like that. So start subset, helping players score better off-ball cutting, transition scoring, or second shot opportunities.
Jeff Van Gundy 33:35
Well, they’re all important when we talked about star players. That’s how we talked about defending stars is trying to take those away. So it’s important that every player knows how to do that. Now I would say I’m going to sit the transition, even though I think it’s vital because against great teams or committed teams, it’s going to be hard to be able to run by them, I’m going to start the offensive rebounding and I’m going to sub the cutting, but you think about it. How much time do your players at Chapman spend in the off season cutting or learning how to cut or crashing or getting in elite shape so that they can run literally all day, think about it. You can improve yourself, but everybody wants the ball in their hand to do something they shoot, like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of spot up shots. Or pull up twos with the one foot step bag dirt, and they may get what? Five, 10 in a season, whereas the running, the cutting and the crashing, you can do that as many times as you want in a game. So even though I sat the running, those three are all vital to being a better, more well-rounded and versatile score, particularly the better you are as a player, you’re going to need to counter and have different ways to score. But even if you’re not a skilled a player, think about it. If you can’t shoot pass or dribble, as well as maybe the real good players at whatever level you are, it is really hard to defend a great cutter because of the concentration it requires because great cutters have great anticipation and timing, and they’re playing from a head start. And the moment you stare at the ball, they cut behind you. I just wish more players looked at it that way because players would improve at a rapid rate if they could do all three of those things.
Dan 35:41
When it comes to, I think it was your sub, which was the off-ball cutting, over the years, have you seen a change in how you teach cutting or the types of cuts for a cut from the wing versus a cut, from a corner versus a slot cut? Have those things changed at all for you?
Jeff Van Gundy 35:56
When teams are five out, you see a lot of when the ball’s along the baseline, the slot cut, and when the ball’s driven middle, the cut from the corner. I think the short roll cutting, when a five catches it, the corner cut is so well taught and executed and hard to guard with the improvement of passing by Biggs, which has taken offenses to a whole different level of difficulty in trying to defend. I just think those cuts, because if you look at the great defenses, they’re very ball-centric and they’re staring at the ball, which automatically makes you vulnerable to cutting. The easiest thing to guard is where you know your guy is gonna be in the same spot in which you turned your head, right? So if you know, yeah, I can turn my head and there’s not gonna be a small burst into an open window if you stay spotted up or there’s not gonna be a cut behind you. I think that’s where the five out and the increase of shooting has opened up the lane so much more to the cutting game. And now some people are just have a natural anticipation and also the size and dexterity and nimbleness to finish, but everyone should be able to at least figure out how they can get a layup, particularly when you have a lot of shooting on the floor.
Pat 37:24
If I can just follow up on the short roll example, you mentioned that the increased passing of the bigs, what passes do you think bigs need in today’s game on top of the short roll, finding the corner, the baseline cut.
Jeff Van Gundy 37:37
I think a lot of it goes back to pass faking. I think that skill is something, for instance, you know, Jokic, not only is obviously a great passer, but he also can misdirect you with his eyes. You know, most people tell you where they’re going to pass by their eyes or their shoulders, where they’re pointed. He does a great job in both pass fakes and he distorts your defensive anticipation because where he looks is not necessarily where he’s going to pass. But I particularly in the lane, I think you can’t throw passes on the same plane. Those are the ones that are deflected. I think everybody, when they get into the paint, has got to be able to throw the bounce pass and the lob. Now, the lob doesn’t have to necessarily lead to a dunk, but you’re playing over the top of the defense. We had a great guy. You can make a highlight film of Derek Jones Jr., his corner cuts off the short roll. Zubac is a tremendous passer in those situations, but it’s not just the short roll. It’s even on penetration, sometimes following the help. If you know the low man’s coming over on like a hardened penetration, sometimes instead of staying spotted up in the corner, follow your man. You know, again, bounce pass lob. You really need all three, whether you’re a guard or a big, you need bounce pass, lob, opposite corner, skip. If you’ve got those three, you can basically combat most defenses.
Pat 39:03
Coach, you started second chance scoring opportunities and teaching to go offensive rebounding. And I guess kind of similar vein to when I was asking about disrupting possessions, because I know you’ve heard the conversation or have been in the conversations. Your stance are on offensive rebounding and maybe what you think of maybe change or not change or say the same in terms of how many guys you would encourage to send to the offensive glass.
Jeff Van Gundy 39:26
That is probably the biggest change in NBA basketball from when I last coached in Houston to when I came back to Boston and this year to LA, is the emphasis on offensive rebounding. And it’s long overdue. I think all of us who coached when we weren’t putting pressure on the defense by crashing, particularly on the three-point shot, we’re kicking ourselves that we weren’t the first team to start it back up. And I think there’s a couple of things. Let’s just take a normal spread alignment. And let’s say there’s penetration. So you have somebody in a dunker, two guys in the corner, and one guy in a slot. Everybody on penetration holds their position because the ball’s at the rim, but at the last moment, there could be a kickout. So you can’t start back early. So when that ball is shot on a layup, the defense is vulnerable if, let’s say, the five man’s come across to try to alter or block, they’re vulnerable to the offensive rebound. And you’re vulnerable to not being able to balance your floor. When I worked for Joe Missoula in Boston, he said something very interesting. He goes, there’s no transition defense on a miss layup. Basically, you’re screwed. And I think in some ways, he’s absolutely right. Like you can hustle back, but because of the way you’ve held your spacing to be able to be the recipient of a pass, and now the ball is shot, or there’s a turnover, you’ve got four people along the baseline. So you’re not going to crash anymore. You can’t crash from the corners on the layup. You may have cut, and then you can be on the glass. But if you’re spotting up, there’s no crashing on a layup. It’s almost the same on a pull up too. The timing doesn’t necessarily work out where you’re holding your spot because the ball is penetrated. You’re holding your spot. So you have to be basically in or around the lane to be able to crash on a two point shot. Now it’s on the three point shot that the timing works out well, that the corners do have the ability to crash. And Tyloo always emphasizes crashing to the top side, not crashing below and crashing through the elbow. That has never hurt our transition defense. If they make the immediate decision on a three to crash top side and through the elbow, where we get hurt is if there’s hesitation to crash or get back and we just stand in the corner and watch the flight of the ball, or we crash below the defenders along the baseline, which puts you in a poor spot.
But the number one thing that or in order is what do you do with the man in the slot? To me, it’s non-negotiable. You get back on a three point shot, you get back. And when we don’t or we backpedal, that’s my new thing. I think it should be fine. I think every team should be able to employ a sniper. So if somebody backpedals in transition defense, it’s legal that he’s taken out for life. It never works. It’s awful basketball. It’s lazy. And teams always do it. And it never works. The backpedal basically is the middle finger to I do not care if the other team scores on us or not. So I have no problem with you having three crash on the three, like the two corner guys.
Jeff Van Gundy 43:00
If we get our slot guy all the way back, it was amazing how many times in a game, the man who had the task of being all the way back was partially back. And it usually started with the what the backpedal.
Pat 44:28
All right, Coach. Our last Start, Sub and Sit for you. Of the many reasons we were excited to have you back on today, one was knowing that your first year back in the NBA, I mean, you had worked with Team USA, so you weren’t completely out of coaching, but we wanted to follow up with what you’ve taken away from the broadcasting booth that you think helped you become a better coach this year or impacted your coaching this season. So Start Subsits from broadcasting to coaching, looking at the analytics over the course of your broadcasting career, late game decision-making, just having the opportunity to see so many different games, so many close games, or option three, personnel management decisions that come with lineups management watching those decisions.
Jeff Van Gundy 45:16
As far as for my role, focusing in on defense, I think the late game would be the start. But I also think it kept you more up to date on personnel, too. So I think that’s critical, like when you come back in from broadcasting, you studied, but you didn’t study like a coach studies. And I think relearning the league, learning like all these great players, it drives me nuts when people disrespect the role player in the NBA and just how good they are. Just pick a random guy, Blake Wesley, from San Antonio. He’s so fast. He’s so good. It’s unimaginable. These guys are not normal. When you get to sick courtside, you know it. When you have to try to coach against them and you combine the incredible size, athleticism, with the skill level that these players have, it’s humbling. And thankfully you have guys on your team who have the same sort of abilities and learning personnel would be my sub, you know, that whole personnel game. What am I sitting? Okay. I love stats. I love them. You know, I think you just have to learn how much you can use with players and teams to change habits and fundamentals. In and of itself, stats don’t do you any good. It’s got to lead to a behavior change or a improvement. So that’s a reluctant sit. But if you were going to say, you know, to have partners that you like with like Breen and Jackson, that would definitely have been the sit like, yeah, yeah. Once I got fired, they have nothing to do with me anymore. So I’d sit them.
Pat 47:04
I’d like to ask another follow-up to your back, and it’s something we’ve talked to you before. This myth that you have to be a young assistant coach, or that young assistant coaches relate better to the players, and so maybe it is kind of following up on knowing the players. Your role, your experience being, I mean, obviously you had your experience, everyone knows who you were coming in, but being an older assistant coach, and kind of that myth of ageism.
Jeff Van Gundy 47:31
You know, people say like, oh, they know who you were. When I was in Boston, I had a coach on our staff come up and said to me, he goes, he was young and he said, have you ever been in the finals? I said, yeah, but you were barely born then. So yeah, I get it. You know, like you just have to be in humble is probably the most important thing, but I would say the ageism is real. There’s a lot of isms and you know, you just have to be yourself. And I always go back and I think I shared this with you before when coach Riley had my end of the year meeting after my first year of working for him, he said players don’t care if you’re played or didn’t play in the NBA, black, white, tall or short. They didn’t care. They care about four things and four things only competence. Are you competent? Do you know your job? That’s number one to sincerity, three reliability and four trustworthiness. And if you’re those four things, then the NBA player will allow you to coach them. And I think that is absolutely, it was spot on.
That was probably like 33 years ago, 34 years ago. And it’s spot on today. You know, coaching, it’s not relating from, they have plenty of friends, right? It’s not like they need a friend. What they need is they want to make money, provide for their families. And so what they need and want is someone to help them play better and to win more because when you play better and win more, you get paid more, right? Which everybody wants to do. And so do you have to employ different modes of communication, sometimes reassuring, sometimes put up the ass, sometimes whatever mode of communication that’s going to probably change due to whatever the situation is. If you know your job and you can, it goes back to what we were talking earlier. I think NBA players, they don’t always want to hear me or hear you as a coach. That’s why I’ve never believed in this whole notion of a coach, a head coach has either lost the locker room or has the locker room. It’s ever evolving. Sometimes they listen more, sometimes they listen less, but what they want at the moment of truth of their season and their career is help and answers. And it’s paramount that you can provide those.
And that doesn’t mean you’re always right. That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be heated discussion at times because there’s a difference of opinion. But at the end of the day, if they think you’re competent and you’re trustworthy and you’re reliable and you’re sincere in your efforts and that you care deeply about their success and the team’s success, they will listen. And that doesn’t mean they’ll always agree. That doesn’t mean they’ll always implement or maybe can implement at that time. But that’s your charge as an NBA assistant coach. It’s not to high five them or dap them up. Or you guys were asking in the pre-show, so I don’t want to miss this opportunity. I would advise any coach, but particularly the young coaches that are trying to learn how they want to best relate to these great players. Whether they’re in college or the NBA is use language that’s appropriate. Don’t say something is good. If it’s mediocre, don’t say it’s great. If it’s just good and don’t do what I used to do, if it was great, say it was okay. Right. So make sure your feedback matches their actions.
If they made a incredible play, say incredible. And I’ll go back to Mike Breen on this. When you’re asking about broadcasting, Pat, early on, when I was broadcasting, I forgot what it was. It was my first year with him and it was a run of the mill play. And I say great pass by, uh, so-and-so at the break, he said, was that a great pass? And I’m like, nah, it was just like run of the mill. He goes, well, you don’t have to say anything or say, good look, nice find, but have it match. And it’s the same in coaching because if you said something was great, that was mediocre because you wanted to quote, relate to a player. Well, then how do you drive him out of the sphere of mediocrity to better play if your standard has already been set? If you said something was great, but it was only mediocre, well, that’s confusing to a player and it’s hard the other way too, because I’m older. You didn’t hear great a lot as you were growing up as a player. You heard more about mistakes than you did about what you did correct. And I think that’s where I’ve tried to learn to be as enthusiastic in the praise as you are in the critiquing. Just make sure it matches up. If something’s unacceptable, be unafraid to say that’s unacceptable. That effort in transition, that backpedal is unacceptable. That’s going to get us beat. And the reaction may be from a player, not great in the moment. It may be they blow you off, they shake their head, they roll their eyes. But overall, over the course of your time working with that player, he will know that you will deal directly with them in an honest manner. And I would just say, I’m talking to myself here, be just as enthusiastic when he does something great, as when maybe it doesn’t live up to the standard.
Dan 53:01
Going back to the start sub sit, you started late game decision making as being one of the big takeaways. And in prep for this conversation, I was actually last night going back through your 2017 America final versus Argentina, where you were the head coach for Team USA in that tournament. Kind of in that game, one thing that was interesting to me to ask you about was, you know, you guys came out and you were down double digits in the first quarter, first half, and came back a one by five. And I think it’s a hard thing and coaching to know what to do when things aren’t going well, and how you like find footing in the game. And I guess just asking you about that is like, how do you find your footing in a game that’s not going well as a coach?
Jeff Van Gundy 53:43
that’s still perplexing, right? Because sometimes you think you have all the answers and everything is working, everything you diagram, every game plan part is working in harmony and you’re unbeatable. And then there’s other games where nothing is going the way you want. And I think, first of all, it starts with poise, right? Sometimes you go and you have to raise your voice to either gain attention or not, but more so usually what works is more poise. And I think Tai Lu to me, his poise in stressful or under duress situations is like, I’ve learned so much. It’s so elite. I think if you have a checklist in your mind of, are we doing it hard enough? Are we doing it smart enough? Are we doing it together enough? If you’re doing all three of those things and just like good shots aren’t falling and maybe they’re hitting a couple of late clock shots that defy the odds, then you stay the course. But if you’re coming up short in the effort or the unselfishness or those basic core values that everybody knows you need to win, then you have to be willing to change. Now you don’t want to be too early to change because you stand for nothing. If you’re changing on every basket, but you also don’t want to be so system oriented that you’re loathe to change even when you know change is needed. And that could mean substitutions, that could mean schemes and strategy, that could mean match-ups, whatever it is. And so reflecting back on that one particular game, which nobody except the team that was there for us and the team that was there for them and the sellout crowd even know existed. And that’s what I loved about USA Basketball. We’re down 20 and a half. And I thought for the most part, we were a little nervous. We need to settle down, figure out how to get the best player of the ball more in the best spots. And so we more stayed the course in that game than we did changing. But there are times you do need to change. And that’s where I think having worked for Ty Luebe, he has elite feel for when to stay the course and when a jolt is needed by a change or even a radical change, I’ve learned a lot from.
Dan 56:12
Coach, you’re off the start-sub sit hot seat. Thanks for going through those. Once again with us, that was a ton of fun. We’ve got a final question to close the show before we do. Once again, thanks for coming back for a third time.
Jeff Van Gundy 56:24
A trophy for a third performance, like a triple crown or something like that.
Dan 56:29
I will send you a bag. Coach, our last question we’ve altered for you being third time on the show and it’s the question of how do you know what skills to go after next in your career? So wherever you’re at in your career for this instance, coaching, you know, whether you’re 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years in, how do you know what to do next and how to go about obtaining that skill to help your career?
Jeff Van Gundy 56:59
I think often about coaching and, you know, I was raised in a coaching family with a brother that coach, my dad coached forever. And all of them, I too, I was going to be a high school history teacher and high school coach, by the way, the worst student teaching history teacher of all time. What I learned is I had no interest in, but anyway, to be really good as a basketball coach, you’ve got to be a teacher. So you got to know your subject matter, A, but it’s not a battle of how much you know, it’s a battle of how much you can get your team to do. So hand in hand, it’s being a great student, being very curious, and then also understanding how to prioritize what wins and what loses and stick with the most important things. I think secondarily, never losing sight, like in any business, that fundamentals and habits are everything. Quick fixes and tricks may buy you a possession, but in the end, it will not be the answer or the difference between winning and losing over the course of a game. And then I think the third one, and I wish I would have done it earlier, is public speaking, learning how to speak specifically and the way to try to not alter your message, but have interested learners because of how you speak and how you communicate, how to try to eliminate catch phrases. What wins and loses doesn’t change, but being able to vary your message so that those same values that you believe in, that win and lose, can be communicated, but in a way that they’re open to listening and learning, that could be individually, that could be with a team. But I wish I would have taken speech classes all the way through school.
And I wish schools offered public speaking more and required it because in all aspects of your job, if you’re a high school coach, you’re having to deal with administrators, players, parents, boosters, other coaches, younger players. You’re trying to build a whole program. You’re trying to impart the same wisdom or messages, but you’ve got to do it in different ways. And then I think, I don’t know this technology stuff. These young coaches, they know everything. I’m so happy when I can go to my, I forgot what they call it, this editing thing that we do, that I press these buttons and I can… Sports code. Yeah, yeah. I can press my own buttons and make my own edits. And these guys are whizzing around. So I would say for the young coaches, learning to do all of that as well, the technology that can help you not just to gain a new, it’s not a trick or a toy, but again, with the end in mind of making the players and your team better. How can you use technology to make your team better? Those would be the skills that I would really concentrate on, particularly if I was just trying to start out in coaching or I’d been in coaching and I’m trying to make a breakthrough in my own career.
Dan 01:00:18
Alright Pat, always good times around here when Jeff steps by and never disappoints, always knowledgeable, always fun and just a great perspective on the game. So of course, awesome to have him back today. Yeah.
Pat 01:00:31
Yeah, two things I always love when Jeff or Stan come on is that you’re going to learn something and we’re going to be entertained. Yes. And as I’m sure we’ll get into Jeff’s new sniper rule and then his thoughts on the bag were definitely some highlights.
Dan 01:00:48
No doubt. Pat, let’s dive into our top three takeaways and I’ll give you the honors and send it to you for number one.
Pat 01:00:56
So my takeaway was our first bucket when we looked at defending star players. And I think what I really appreciate with Coach Van Gundy, whenever he’s on, is how he just preaches the basics, the fundamentals, and the clarity of thought and how vital they are and the trickle-down effects that then they can bleed into in other aspects of the game. In this example, the star player defense. So right off the bat, he hit us with understanding that the spot-up shooter can be just as valuable as the star player. I thought that was a really good perspective and thought. But then the role that transition defense, defensive rebounding, and reckless fouling plays in your ability to contain star players. And I like that we followed up on kind of the defensive rebounding and the conversation that took us from there. But just, yeah, again, to better clarify, yeah, like all these trickle-down effects that maybe it’s not necessarily how you slant your defense or hedge them, trap them, whoever, however, but more so it’s like the things you’re going to do on a daily basis, the habits you’re going to have. And, you know, if you can just make the star player take tougher shots or play more in the inefficient basketball rather than giving them, yeah, some easy runouts, just extending their possessions with offensive rebounding for maybe some kick-out freeze or easy putbacks, how critical those are to then allowing a great player to get confidence. And I think then at that point, if you give them confidence, it’s going to be a long, long night for you. So I’ll start there, but I like just the conversation about the role of the basics and the three phases that really matter.
Dan 01:02:32
Yeah, I really like this conversation too because obviously he’s scheming and trying to defend the best players in the world, but it translates to every level. Like he mentioned on the show, it doesn’t matter, high school on up, you’re facing another team that has probably a player that’s causing your defense some sort of trouble. If not, you’re probably in good shape that game. So I thought that it was a good conversation because yeah, we’re not all defending Jokic and SGA, but we’re defending someone comparable at our levels and what do you do? How do you build your scheme? How do you bend your scheme? Like I thought you asked to really, it was really interesting kind of rabbit hole. He went down with disrupting so that if they have a pet action or something that’s really great for that great player, do you focus on trying to disrupt before they get to the action or do you focus on what you do in the action and kind of led to a little bit of the, he’s not a huge fan of just switching all the time to zone or four court press or different matchup stuff, which he went down, which I thought was just like an interesting conversation going back to what you’re saying is just the fundamentals of how you’re built from the ground up. A couple of other really good points. I just, a couple of quotes about playing quiet, usually the quiet teams or the softer teams. And you asked about kind of physicality and things like that. And he mentioned the level of communication is often an indicator as to how physical they are. He had a hit everything that moves towards the ball quote, I thought was really good too when it comes to being baked into your physicality. And then I also liked within all this too, I think I asked him about the stunts and gaps. And you know, I think that like, that’s like a great player question. Also it’s a, I think just like your base defense question is how gap and stunt heavy are you? And so then when it does come personnel decisions and things like that, how much do you stunt the ball versus give gaps? Cause I thought he had another good point about even the best players in the world don’t pass out of their weak hand. And if there’s something stunning at them as well as to their other hand. So just a ton of great little coaching nuggets in there that kind of went back and forth between fundamentals of a great defense and also how that can disrupt a great player.
Pat 01:04:40
Quotes and you mentioned one of them already, but I like when it came to the physicality, you mentioned the talkative teams, a lot of teams are usually more physical teams, but I like the chain of events that he said, loud breeds intensity, then usually intensity breeds the physicality. I like that, we’ve had some physicality things, but I don’t know if we got into, maybe I’m mistaken somewhere along the way, but the role that communication can play and just kind of raising the level of the team’s physicality. And then going back to when we started talking about whether disrupting the action, disrupting the possession, and he mentioned just, you gotta have enough. And I thought that was another very simple, nothing fancy about, but in terms of, yes, you gotta be good at your basics, like we talked transition defense, your help side, all that stuff that goes into just good defense in general, but going back, you gotta have enough so that you will have moments where you need to maybe have something else, like a curve ball, so to speak. And I think we talked briefly before the wrap of that, Coach Van Gundy, it’s definitely, his comfort zone is knowing that they’ve got reps and practicing. You don’t need to have too much, but you do need to have enough. Yeah.
Dan 01:05:48
I’ll give a quick miss of mine here at the end of this in that first part of the conversation, obviously not from Coach Van Gundy, of course, but got into the process of improvement, what it looks like with the team, what it looks like individually. I thought it was well taken about how you address and give feedback, whether it’s being too nice and the compliment sandwich where you say something nice, say what you mean, and then we could have gone down that path a little bit more just on his thoughts on feedback, improvement, how much to give, what that looks like maybe on a day-to-day basis, going from a team perspective to an individual perspective, because you and I both got to know Coach over the years and highly detail-oriented and was there any more learning process into how much he gave them this year and learning about that. I thought it could have been another little avenue we went down had we made this a three-hour podcast.
Pat 01:06:40
Yeah, definitely for the fourth episode. Yes.
Dan 01:06:43
That’s cause he needs to keep the crown cause we’re gonna get Stan. We’re gonna try to Stan
Pat 01:06:47
Yeah, his brother’s coming for it. Yeah, so Dan will keep it moving here I’ll throw it to you for the second takeaway of the podcast
Dan 01:06:54
Yeah, so I’m going to steal from your Start, Sub and Sit the broadcasting to coaching one. I thought there was like a lot in there. We kind of bounced around to different ideas and sort of just got a nice sense of what he’s learned over the years coming back into the game. The one thing I really liked, and I’m pretty sure it was in that Start, Sub and Sit he got on about appropriate language. I thought that was really well said about a don’t say something great. If it’s not great, don’t diminish stuff with your language, with your words. And then he also kind of said, growing up, he never said things were great and he wishes he had things like that. And I thought that was a good takeaway. And just that lesson from Breen, he said, when early on in his broadcasting careers told him, hey, if it wasn’t a great pass, don’t say it’s a great pass type of deal and really applicable to coaching. I thought that was like a really good takeaway. And then he said some good stuff about Tylue in there as well. We were talking about when Jeff was coaching the America final for Team USA and the poise you need and when to adjust, when not to. And I thought that was well taken in there as well.
Pat 01:08:00
Yeah, applying proper feedback to the honesty of the action, don’t just seen or deployed, however executed. Again, just a piggyback, like I really, really appreciated that part of the podcast and that conversation that he had there. And I think it tied in really nicely to he’s mentioned on this podcast, too, that players really care about competency, trust, reliability, and care, using the appropriate language to compliment or criticize, plays a major role in building trust with the players.
Dan 01:08:30
You followed up with the question about hey going back after a long time and being termed a quote-unquote like an older or more Experienced coach then you see a lot with younger somewhat not more relatable younger coaches But that’s often the younger coaches roles to try to they’re closer in age those kinds of things Yeah, bridge the gap so to speak. Yeah, I thought that was you know for him the way he answered That was great about you know at the end of the day. They do want leadership. They do want direction They do want someone that’s competent and he does a great job obviously of showing that on a daily basis And then he’s able to bridge that gap Pat will keep it moving or take away number three. I will send that to you
Pat 01:09:08
For the last takeaway, I’ll go to your start subset, where we look at ways to help good players become more efficient or great players find some easier baskets, you know, kind of looking at the other side of the coin when we were talking about defense and taking them away. I liked the conversations we had in regards to cutting, but the two things that stood out was one big man passing and kind of what passes they need to. I enjoyed hearing coaches thoughts, especially as the games shift. So ball screen heavy, playing in short roll or pops, you know, what helped. These big men that are being tasked at times was deploy multiple skills and keep the offense flowing. And then I liked his thoughts on the transition defense offensive rebounding. You know, he said second chance points were the start. So just what rolled up he thinks about sending players to go. And we’ve mentioned, of course, that got on his great tangent about the back peddler, but I think understanding the shot type in terms of how that affects your transition defense or ability to offensive rebound or ability to defend the transition, you know, looking at a layup and whether it makes sense to really try to go off the corners to offensive rebound versus all right, it’s a layup, like we should just sprint back versus the three longer trajectory, more time going high side, really trying to crash. And of course, the role of the slot defender. And I think, you know, this is working very sending off five, you know, we’ve heard a lot of times either get back or go, but don’t stand. I enjoyed that part of the conversation, these transition defense factors, offensive rebounding factors And again, like the trickle effects of the shot types. And I go back to a great conversation with coach Julie Fulks and their ability to tag up with relied heavily on the shots they were getting.
Dan 01:10:53
Yeah, I thought Jeff’s point was well taken, just layups and certain types of long twos are tough to truly offensive rebound well from those corners because of the unpredictability of the shot. Also, just where players were spaced, are they cutting, are they spacing, you know, it’s much easier to say tag or go high side obviously on those long threes.
And I’m just checking my notes at the beginning of this question, was he or was he not a fan of a player’s bag?
Pat 01:11:19
I think he advocated for more bags the better.
Dan 01:11:22
Yeah, even though he was ranting about a player’s bag and whatnot, within all that, it’s a point well taken of, and I think you and I talked about this too, of just as a player working on the things that actually help their team.
Pat 01:11:34
Thoughts on like a role player and what they should be working on to keep them or get them on the floor.
Dan 01:11:40
Yeah, absolutely. And so I thought funny and comical in a sense, but also true over the course of the summer when you have limited hours to get better as a player, how do you truly get on the court? That was funny, but well taken here at the beginning of this Start, Sub and Sit. And then I’ll just briefly touch on the very end. I think that the second shot thing, to your point, another miss of mine, if we had more time was to, I think we’ve talked about his thoughts on tagging up before a little bit, but we were kind of going around the tagging up a little bit. And he mentioned, you know, Tyloo and them really going high side from the corners, especially. And I think the big difference is he said that slot players always got to get back to him and obviously not backpedal, but sprint back. But the difference being we’re tagging is that players going. He mentioned always looking at other ways to make a team better and earlier in his career, he wished he would have spent more time with the offensive rebounding piece. I just wondered his thoughts on are there discussions about rather that player getting back to send them to have that extra offensive rebounder.
Pat 01:12:43
Yeah, you know, I was just reminded as Jeff was going through the corners and, you know, with it going high side. And we’ve recently been looking a lot at that baseline cut. I don’t want to go into the two man side and with our conversation with coach tabellini, I just go back to the value of that cut and its ability to aid your transition defense, you know, in terms of if that cuts always going, you know, it clears that indecision, should I go, should I not go, but you’re always going to go on that and he mentioned, like if you’re cutting, putting the paint, then you’re in position to offensive rebound. And looking then, if you can put pressure on the offensive glass, you’re in the next position is like, answer the pauses. As we talked about with coach tabellini and pickup pressure, at least bother the outlet pass or the inbound pass. So to me, it was kind of, you know, I hear Jeff talk about it. It’s kind of like a full circle, the value of this baseline cut and just kind of making an automatic cut, especially in the NBA, they’re always trying to get, you know, the example was like a shake ball screen, let’s say. And they’re always trying to get that one guy behind. So you’re attacking the two side and just, again, we’re players are kind of sitting there waiting for that catch and shoot spray out three, and you just kind of clarify baseline cut you drift. So you still have that catch and shoot three opportunity, but you’re putting another guy in the room with a hard cut. So again, there is no indecision. We’re always going to have that offensive rebounder there. And we’re going to be able to then transition nicely into picking up our defense full court.
Dan 01:14:07
Pat, I gave a couple of misses throughout. Is there anything for you you wish could’ve went deeper on?
Pat 01:14:12
One miss was in the broadcasting question, you mentioned during the analytics, the value of them and helping players change habits. And I wish I’d followed up just on tools coaches can use to help change habits beyond analytics and maybe also then kind of tying it into how he’s noticed or didn’t notice from kind of being back on the bench, just a shift in learning and teaching and helping players build habits was a miss of mind that I wish I’d kind of followed up
Dan 01:14:43
Yeah. I imagine different now with him being back. So much player development, as you mentioned, things like that in the NBA, that how do you bake in better habits to what they’re doing daily with player development coaches and staff. So definitely a little bit interesting. But once again, we thank Coach Van Gundy for coming back for a third time and thank everybody for listening. See you next time.