In this episode we welcome back one of Europe’s most thoughtful and dynamic coaching voices, Andrea Trinchieri. Coach Trinchieri returns for a wide-ranging conversation on defensive identity, in-game coaching, leadership evolution, and the modern coach–player relationship.
With most teams deep into the season, the discussion begins around identity — and whether it’s ever truly fixed. Coach Trinchieri frames the basketball season as evolution, requiring adaptability, clarity of core values, and defensive systems that can toggle aggression without overhauling structure. From simplifying coverage to managing player psychology, this episode dives into the balance between tactical precision and human connection.
At its core, this episode centers on a driving question:
How can coaches evolve tactically while strengthening the relationships that ultimately define success?
For coaches seeking insight into defensive structure, in-game management, leadership philosophy, and sustainable team identity, this conversation delivers a masterclass in both strategy and humanity.
What You’ll Learn
- How to build a defensive identity that can toggle aggression without sacrificing clarity
- Why offensive involvement fuels defensive commitment
- A framework for balancing scouting preparation with non-negotiable core values
- How to address early-game energy issues without overreacting
- A layered approach to rebounding: one-on-one battles, neutral rebounds, and effort incentives
- When tagging principles are most effective — and when they are not
- How defining roles creates hierarchy, chemistry, and clarity
- Why long-term coaching success should be measured by player evolution, not public opinion
Transcript
Andrea Trinchieri 00:00
Long story short, you have only one way to do things as a coach. Your players should love to play for you, nothing else. Not even enough, they like to play. They want to play for you, they love to play for you.
And how to do it? First, you have to show them what you can give them, and then you have to ask them something back. They have to know that whatever you’re asking is for their good. But the same counts for a coach, too. You cannot put the coach above the team because you have to lead by example. Everything is fast, everything is quick, everything is demanding, and you need to convince them that the things that you are gonna ask them to do will be good for them. So you need to find the things that are good for them and put your team very tough.
Dan 01:07
Today, we’re excited to welcome back to the show for a second time, one of the best coaches in international basketball, Andrea Trincheri. Coach Trincheri is back today to dive into balancing the scales of defensive complexity, leaning into team identity, and how core values wins games. And we discuss rebounding, tagging up, and developing an in-game coaching eye during the always fun start, sub, or sit. And now, please enjoy our conversation with coach, Andrea Trincarry. Coach, we wanted to start with this. Right now as we’re recording, most teams are in mid-season and you kind of know who you are from an identity perspective on the defensive side. We’ll start with the defensive side here. And you kind of know who you are. You sure? Well, yeah, maybe not.
Andrea Trinchieri 02:48
No, because we all know everything, but sometimes the team will stuck against some things whenever you don’t expect it. So a basketball season, it’s kind of evolution, okay? So you have to go to Charles Darwin, you know, the evolution has rules, okay? So if you don’t adapt, you and the players, you die. It’s very simple.
Dan 03:14
Correct, and I think that’s where we want to start with on the defensive side at this point where you start to potentially become more complex adding things in adding traps or zones versus being more simple and How you would think about being more simple mid-season versus more complex and that adaption
Andrea Trinchieri 03:34
I will give you very transversal answers because I don’t believe it’s a winning strategy to go through the things from the keyhole you’re doing, the big picture. Why I’m telling you this? I take it really spreading the topic. The thing is that nowadays all the players get in rhythm through offense. They will do things on defense right after they feel part of something on offense, they can do their stuff, they can show their talent, their skills on the offensive end. So I’m not judging, it’s the reality because if you ask your players how do you go in rhythm, what gets you going again? Oh, a steal, a pass break, burning an open shot, doing this. Nobody said sliding, bumping, hitting, diving.
So I would say 10 years ago, let’s say you used the scouting, the preparation, the drills in practice, let’s say it was 60% for the defense and 40% for the offense. So now I would say 80-20, 80 what you do on offense, 20 what you do on defense.
So going back to your question is you have to have a plan at the beginning of the season, what can your team do? And then you have to evaluate step by step, where are we? Are we similar to NBA? I don’t practice. So we do one practice every 15 days, a real practice. So I would rather have the stuff I need from day one and then basically my dream will be I go to play a game and I don’t have to talk about defense because we all know what we have to do.
So for that you need to have a very aggressive defense with trap, a switching defense or a conservative means a defense where you don’t move too many players. Let’s say two and two on pick and roll. I hate drop, but it’s something different. But if you have players to play drop, to play drop, for example, and then you just follow and take care of what is the moment of your team. I don’t believe in doing more complex things within the season, but my experience is few practices. Okay. Not five practices before a game, but this goes against identity. If my identity is that I can be very aggressive, I have to do it by day one. But when you play games, you can’t always win the game just playing, let’s say stubbornly aggressive defense because there is another coach that wears the game with you. So they know that they have to move the ball, where to move the ball. Sometimes your best defense is not the best defense for that day. So you need to have a plan B, hopefully a plan C.
Pat 06:46
Unlike that balance between like you mentioned what our identity is at this moment and preparing for opponent like balancing between the scout and the identity and when your identity flies in the face of the scouter that What the other team does well is basically What you guys don’t do well, you mentioned these other plans within this simplicity mindset, how do you approach then your plan to be your plan C and With again limited time like prepare them for that opponent without getting too far off of your identity. So
Andrea Trinchieri 07:21
You talk with pro coaches, youth coaches, college coaches, you have a very wide platform. 2025, what is an identity for a team in your opinion? Is what we do or how we do things? Is what we want to do or what are our core values? It’s a little bit complicated, you know? Values wins games, values win a season, values keep the player within a plan, core values. Of course, you cannot change values every day. You know, you have non-negotiable values and this is the identity.
I don’t believe that now you can say, oh, we want to be aggressive. Yes, we want to be aggressive on defense, on offense, when we switch. So we don’t have aggressive mentality, but maybe our identity is to be aggressive in practice. You know, aggressive means the mindset of being aggressive. Maybe being aggressive means I make a mistake and my focus is next play, next play because I’m aggressive. I don’t want to lose any kilobyte of my software in what happened before. And then we will go in post-game analysis and tell you we made these mistakes, we have to do better on that. But identity, it’s, I go back, your question is a very clear question. I just want to pick on you a little bit because maybe I want to win something today, you know? I want to have your opinion. You have a wider platform, you know? So my point is scouting and values.
Let’s say this, on offense, I would say scouting is extremely important. On defense, I would tell you, I would rather prefer to have, I know that my plan A works with this, this and that. My plan B works with that. My plan C is emergency. When it stinks, I have to do that, okay? Because it stinks, shit happens. We know that very well. So I would not change, move too many things on it. I would like my players to focus on reading and reacting on offense. The number of information should be seven to three, offense to defense. So an angle on a pin can change totally the output or your offense on wide pins. Just one step, half a step, how you open the screen, going where? To the short corner, to the basket, to the alley-oop. And you can make a game through that. On defense, you need to bang, you need to stay in front of the ball. And maybe I would say core value that the player that I’m guarding will not score his way. So if he likes to score deep three, I rather prefer to receive a layer to don’t let him get in rhythm, knowing that then maybe I will help and rotate and blah, blah, blah. Then let’s play the game with his tendencies more then go into scouting, in switching. I was giving to my players the stats, where he goes, the shooting map, the trends. And then I saw them thinking when they guard this player. Let’s go to some real street ball. You don’t score on me. Otherwise you lose money, you go to the bench, you lose the game. Let’s make it very simple. So take away a shot, force him inside, and then maybe right or left. Knowing that the position that you established on ball is the key of every defense. If you want to force a shooter inside, it’s not enough to stay close. You have to stay on the hip because sidestep kills every switching defense. And now every team has one or two players that can win the game on contested trees of the Rebel.
Pat 11:32
I’d like to follow up. You mentioned when you’re talking about values and the importance they have in the mindset. With the mindset of the players, what do we as coaches influence in a player’s mindset? Is it something that it’s just recruiting and getting the right guys? Or where can we impact players’ mindsets?
Andrea Trinchieri 11:52
You have 12 hours. Long story short, you have only one way to do things as a coach. Your players should love to play for you, nothing else. Not even enough, they like to play. They want to play for you, they love to play for you.
And how to do it, first you have to show them what you can give them, and then you have to ask them something back. You have to win this, and this is coming also with the NIL in college. The money that is on the table, winning comes very in second place, because players are like a small corporation. So they have to know that whatever you’re asking is for their good. Of course, non-negotiable values. If you put yourself in front of the team, I cannot help you. This is a non-negotiable, but the same counts for a coach too. You cannot put the coach above the team, because you have to lead by example. Everything is fast, everything is quick, everything is demanding, and you need to convince them that the things that you are going to ask them to do will be good for them. So you need to find the things that are good for them and for your team. Very tough.
Dan 13:13
One of the things I want to ask you about was just the reality of players finding their rhythm through offense and how true that is. And I know you’re someone that’s talked a lot about just the psychology of your team and players knowing that that’s how players find their rhythm and team finds their rhythm.
Just then how you think about the beginning of games and trying to get players in rhythm offensively so that they will play defense.
Andrea Trinchieri 13:36
I know where you’re going. I’m telling you, yes, of course. But you cannot have ATOs and special play for 12 players. But it’s like that you have a map in front of your eyes. This player needs this. The other player needs that to get in rhythm. So if you show them that you know what they need and you care about their needs, you already made a huge step towards them. And I always believe that sometimes saying the truth, even if it’s sometimes rough, OK, it’s the only way. You cannot lie to your players. So sometimes say, hey, I could not do that. I planned, but the game went south. It’s enough they know that you care. You care for their evolution, for their development, for their game, for their career.
Dan 14:32
Adding to that, when a player’s, their vision of their identity is a little off from what it actually is and you’re trying to sort of get reality and their expectations closer. Just thoughts on that because you obviously need certain players to play well for you to win, but if their identity is something that’s off from the team a bit, how you think about getting that closer together.
Andrea Trinchieri 14:55
Saying the truth. And the truth is you’re not doing this. How can I help you to do it like this? You shift to, he has to tell you what to do. Okay.
So I believe that talking too much is not good. Not talking is not good to a player. Okay. Talking every day is not good too. And whoever says in a team, I’m going to treat you all the same. He’s lying to himself first because, you know, it’s not like this. Every player has certain skills. And Doc Rivers said, you want to be a star in your role. As soon as we define what is your role, you have to be a star in that. Like this, you have hierarchy, chemistry, and all the pieces going in the right place. But at a certain time, if the thing goes south with a player and you need to tell him, I cannot play you like this. And sometimes less is more. Even with a player that doesn’t come alone with the core values that you established.
Dan 16:05
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Pat 16:58
When you talked about this roughly 80-20% ratio, that 20% you’re going to devote to defense, keeping it simple. If we kind of pull you out of the mid-season, let’s say you’re starting the season, where are you focusing that 20% on?
Andrea Trinchieri 17:17
I put 120% when I start the season on defense, OK, but I get less from the players. But my job is 100% offense, 100%. We don’t have 200. We are going to buy some, OK?
The thing is, I always ask myself if I would be authentic director, a GM of a team, 2025, what kind of coach I’m going to hire? I would like to hire. With my background of the coach, you know, that becomes that. So I would try to find a coach that is able to adapt, to be flexible, that has core values that are not negotiable. But if I have guards that are very weak physically, and I love to do drop, and they got screened every time, I’m a dead man walking. My demons will stink. And believe me, I’m very good to implement, to build drop defense. But what if I don’t have the personnel, or 80% of my personnel is not suitable for that kind of coverage? And maybe the key players won’t be on the court if I do this defense, because they are not productive. So I need to have something different.
So I have to decide, free season, what is the best defense my team can do? And then the thing that I would do is upgrade it more aggressive, down grade it more conservative, but the same team. Then I need to have a completely different defense that can create problem to tactically to another team that is not very refined in reading. And then I need to have the third option. It is always switching defense. But if you can upgrade or downgrade one defense that fits your personnel, you don’t have 80% of your problems are solved. Maybe not a tie game against the player that can really make the difference. But going from prep to up to touch, you can do it, because the rotations of the other players are the same, just more aggressive or quicker. This is where I use the joystick up now. Full throttle, less. And I felt that sometimes I know plenty of coaches with great ideas, but really amazing ideas. I know plenty of coaches that can write a book about one certain topic. But then you come to the practice and say, hey, today we’re going to do this new thing on defense, OK? This is more for you, for your psychology as a coach, to feel, let’s say, oh, I’m doing everything. Because players don’t want to be bothered by new kind of defense. They want to know what they have to do to stay on the court, what they have to do to win the game.
And I believe if you do, upgrade, downgrade one certain defense. A second defense that is totally different, OK, with totally different rotation that you use very randomly when you know that it will fit against the other team. And switching defense. I believe like this, you don’t have to implement. You just have to correct. And when it sucks, because one day your defense will look terrible, you have to go back to the film room. So we didn’t respect our identity of defense because you put in the same session five clips of amazing defense, same coverage, and the thing that you fucked up the last night. And then we start over, because start over, it happens four or five times in the season.
Pat 21:06
you said with having that second coverage tactically totally different and I believe you mentioned against maybe teams that don’t read well
Andrea Trinchieri 21:15
you know there are players and teams they don’t like a certain coverage and sometimes as coaches we are a little bit afraid to do that because it’s not our thing that we do every day you know sometimes it works let’s say every day in practice you do five minutes a stint of a game with that specific coverage you can take it out from the fridge in one game that you needed okay i don’t believe very much in it may happen that you are successful in creating something during the game but you cannot build a season through that you can win one game one quarter one bad situation turn it but when i say different even just to be clear means everything depends for the rotation on a picket or coverage what to do with ball you force the ball to the screen or off the screen so you need to have one coverage that is your main coverage that maybe you force to the screen and the other one totally different is playing weak for example don’t let him go on the screen win and you understand that the rotations are totally different the defensive rotate but it’s also totally different to attack it
Dan 22:33
Coach, this has been awesome so far. We want to transition to a segment.
I think we play with you last time in the show called Start, Sub, or Sit. We’re going to give you a question and then have three different options around it. Ask you to start one, sub one, and sit one. For this first one, I’m going to pass it back to Pat. He’ll start with the first question.
Pat 22:51
for you. Coach, for this first question, we’re calling this your game eye.
And my question has to do with when the game starts, where your eye is focused on, but start subset in terms of maybe the importance of when the game starts, what you’re looking out for. So start subset option one is what we just talked about your team’s kind of identity, your principles. Are you executing one on one defense, your rotations, your pace? Option two would be the game plan you have in place for that opponent. And then option three would be the opponent that you’re themselves and what they are doing against you.
Andrea Trinchieri 23:31
Very nice question. This is one of your best guides.
And the Oscar goes to. You know, why is a good question? Because there’s no answer and I will tell you why. Regular game, you go with option one. You want to see your team with the right energy, right flow, big game, where of course you put the mustard on, you prepare something in the game plan. And after two plays, you understand that one player doesn’t have it. He’s in a, on a different plan. Okay. He forgot the special trick you prepare.
Pat 24:07
Yeah.
Andrea Trinchieri 24:09
And third option is a game that you are coming from a back-to-back that you didn’t have to prepare, okay, that you flew these two road games, the team is a little bit flat tire, and you see that something they are doing is hurting you. So you understand all the three things you described are option one in the different.
Pat 24:32
Scenario makes total sense coach. I guess then my follow-up would be, you know, based off the principles the game plan the opponent You mentioned if you notice a player or the lineup’s energy isn’t right.
I know there’s always the bench but I guess how do you address that in the first couple of minutes and if we go back to the conversation where You know, it’s also you don’t want to ruin a player and if player wants to feel involved that’ll get them committed later How are you thinking then the first two minutes of the game? You notice that energy is not right with your team or the lineup out there
Andrea Trinchieri 25:07
Depends who’s the player, not the, depends who’s the player as a person, okay, that are players that if you sub them right away, they will slip out of the game. Okay, they’ve embarrassed, it’s like the light goes down in the middle, the bull eye goes on him and nothing around, oh, they are all looking at my shit, okay, and now you are pointing the finger at me in front of the whole world, okay, so with that player you should say, hey, you are not doing what you’re supposed to do, okay, something wrong, how can I help you?
Like this, you send an alert message, okay, then at the beginning of game you have a lot more time to react, you don’t lose a game in the first five minutes, but if this happened in third quarter, it’s a no-go, you have to move right away with the substitution or changing something, then it’s different if the player coming from a bad week for any kind of reason, bad week, and you addressed to him, hey, you are not focusing up, you are practicing, well, you are not helping, and then he starts the game bad, you over the alert him, so it’s very natural, come to sit here with me, let’s find a way to get you back, I’m going to give you another opportunity, but like this, it’s coming from a bad week, you didn’t prepare yourself for the game, and I warned you, but I cannot let you stay on the court because this goes against our core value, that is, you have to give your best effort night in, night out, not the best game, I don’t ask you to make every basket, but your best effort has to be there, I’m very still understood, I became, year after year, extremely situation, you know, many years I was thinking, okay, in this situation I do that, and after three months the same situation pops again, and now, no more, every situation is evaluated for the moment, for the personnel, for the impact, okay, so I’m very situation, I don’t believe that you can say, in this case I always do this, because the moment of the season is different, the players are different, the team is in a different situation, so I want to be situation.
Dan 27:34
Over the course of your career as a head coach, where have you found that in managing a game you’ve felt most, I don’t want to say control, I don’t know if that’s the right word, but there’s so much out of control in a game, whether it’s timeouts, whether it’s substitutions, whether it’s play calling, that you feel like as a head coach, in game, you have some sense of sort of scoping how the game is playing out and where you feel most comfortable.
Andrea Trinchieri 27:58
You know, the ultimate goal of the coach is to help your players. So you’re going to be very frustrated if, for example, your goal is to put the ball on the block, you know, to punch the ball inside. Okay. And the other team plays very aggressive on pass lines, knee against knee. And basically you don’t have good fundamentals enough to build the line of deployment and put the ball inside. And this goes against your game plan, goes against what you work on. But the other team is better than you in putting pressure in practice. So if this gets you out and loses your poise, you are going to impact negatively your team, because what means being situational, sometimes the other team is better than us in doing something and we need to accept it.
We need to swallow it as a coach because we coaches, of course, we have an ego and you ask your players to check your ego and then you don’t check your own ego. This is not leading by example. So again, players don’t like somebody on the bench to do this or that. And I do it. Okay. And I do it. Sometimes I do it. Okay. When they make mistakes, because it’s like that you double the mistake because you show everybody that makes a mistake. So I go to my player and I said, listen, I cannot, I will do that, but don’t take it personally when you do other stuff on mistakes. And I do this usually on mental mistakes. Okay. Not on tactical mistakes. Okay. Because I’m not good. It’s always, it’s a relationship. You need to be the relations. They have to know your weaknesses because we all have weaknesses. You are able to swallow things, but not everything. You’re able to go through walls for them, but not on everything. They have to know what is your weak point because you know what is their weak point. It’s like a contract. You know, we put everything on the table and I believe that whenever I saw a big coach admitting his mistakes in front of the team, the team wanted to play for him. So we have to check out on ego. There are things that are non-negotiable and you tell them on this, I will always get mad, sorry, but I’m of this, I’m coming from that and I can do other stuff. But this is something that I would try to get better, but never take it personally.
Pat 30:38
Over the course of your career, and you talked about getting more situational, when you’re trying to help your team or find solutions for your team, how have you trained your eye to switch between the macro and the micro? And maybe the best way is an example, if you’re struggling to penetrate in a ball screen, whether it’s, well, do we need to change the tactic?
Do we need to flip the screen? Do we need to re-screen? Versus the big needs to set a better angle, the guard needs to prepare. And how you’ve learned just to be able to see them both or toggle between going in to see more of the details zooming out to see the strategy needs to change.
Andrea Trinchieri 31:13
you have to do both. I will explain you why, my personal opinion. You have to do both because in order to change something, you have to try to do what you’re supposed to do at your best. If we don’t set screens and we can’t get concentrations, how can I know is the defense, the tactical, the alignment, the spacing, or just because we have poor screens? Of course, in a game you cannot talk about.
I always talk about how I want to set the screens, but every day you have to have, it’s like the checklist of the pilots on a runway on the plane. They took flaps, engines, tanks, so for the ball screens I have a checklist. Reject, set the screen, okay, use the screen, open the screen, and then I have a small flag, aggressive coverage, don’t set the screen. Then I have a little more detail how to open a screen because against a certain coverage I need to use front favor or certain spots on the court like empty side pick and roll or middle pick and roll or angle screen. The best way to go out of the screen and change if you’re going to be available or not going to be available. Okay, but these are the checklists, so we do it every day. You cannot come in the game and talk about the reject just because they are forcing very strong to the screen and then, oh, the book of the good coach page 97 said you have to reject. Yes, it’s true, but you have to build the foundations of your game. Then if you have this, you can say like this, even without the timeout, hey, we are not rejecting, we are not preparing the screen, we are not putting the defense in the screen. Then they do it, oh, the big guy is not putting his body. Hey, next time you don’t screen I send you on the bench and then you see the other defense is better than your package on offense. You need to go with changing, it’s alive, it’s all in the game and five possessions are enough for all these things. But if you have the routine that in practice you do it, you will do it like this in the game. You have always to, even if you don’t have a lot of practice, there should be always a part of practice where you play your game with points, with something that is close to the game. All coaches were saying, I will make your practice harder than the game, this is mine. I love it, but it’s never like this because your blood pressure never goes to one AD in practice. They say in Serbia, when the water enters your ears, you don’t hear anything. This means when you have pressure and you cannot build the same environment in practice. So they need to know whatever they have to do with the priority, the timeline, first reject and how to set the screen, the jump stop, this, boom, boom, boom, and then you see they are not doing this, you have to change.
Dan 34:30
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Andrea Trinchieri 35:31
We throws turnovers.
Dan 35:32
Okay, so turnovers would be the sit for you could you go a little deeper on why turnovers would be I guess less important in this
Andrea Trinchieri 35:39
Knowing that there are bad turnovers, live turnovers from the pass, from the dribble, and other turnovers, I believe that if you produce a lot of game, get to the line, and you don’t convert that, you still create problems to the defense with the fouls, with the bonus. And I believe that a solid way to control a game is rebounding, super solid. If you win the battle of rebound, usually you win the game.
The second thing, to control both ends of the court, get into the line. And the third thing, turnovers. Yes, there are games where if you turn over the ball, you’re dead, true.
But I had to make a choice, and I made my choice.
Pat 36:24
Yes, coach, similar question to the mindset, why do we as coaches control in rebounding? you
Andrea Trinchieri 36:34
Bill Belichick will always tell you that everything begins with recruiting the right players for what you need to do. Very true. But then what if I cannot get la creme de la creme of 180? Okay.
Pat 36:46
Yeah, exactly.
Andrea Trinchieri 36:47
So, I divide the things in layers, okay, first layer is get your own rebounds means my rebound against you, okay, that is a way to survive, you know, we always say box out but we don’t teach box out, for example, we don’t have time for that, okay, there are different ways to box out, now box out the player coming from a three point line, if you turn your back by the book, he’s gonna just slip around you, okay, to box out the player that is one step from you is the easiest thing, you go, he says, you box him out, you hold the position. So let’s say that if I don’t have a good rebound, I say, you won’t get the rebound, your opponent won’t get the rebound, let the ball fall on the floor, and we are going to go to dive on that ball, because we are not good in the air, for example, the second layer, it is the winning layer to teach your players to reward your players, reward big time in practice in the game, praising them, if they go to get the rebounds in no man’s land.
So it’s not in my zone, my area of operation, but I go to get that ball. And this can be from one to five and be a point guard with no leaping ability, going on the elbows to catch these long rebounds, okay, these are the most important rebound, in my opinion, not mine, the no man’s land, a neutral area.
Dan 38:27
I would just go back to teaching this, you said earlier, you don’t get a chance to practice very much in the season.
So when you’re trying to get your team a little bit marginally better, rebounding wise, taking outside of personnel, like, is there anything practice wise, other technique that you’ve gone to that just can help.
Andrea Trinchieri 38:44
I believe that you can do everything playing five on five. You can prepare the whole season playing five on five. It depends only on what you put the focus on.
If playing five on five, every time I get an offensive rebound, I get an extra point. Okay, but every time and every game, three on three, two on two, five on five, four on four, who cares? Every drift, there is a winner or loser like this. I believe it’s wrong to say we want to put the focus on something as coach is known. We want our players to put the focus on that thing because this is a team problem. It’s not the coach’s problem that wants the rebounds. So for example, and then you link offensive rebound, three point shot is six points because the most difficult thing to guard is the three point shot coming from an offensive rebound situation because you don’t have a match. Yeah. Okay. And warm up. You do very stupid drill for your shooters. Okay. Coach rebounds and they have to re space on the rebound, shifting, sliding. Okay. And when it comes to play the game, they already have, Oh, I’m practicing that kind of shooting reel of the rebound. So like this, sometimes the best way to put the focus on thing is not going from the front door. It’s going from back door. You talk about offense to have something on defense. Sometimes I have in the playbook plays that I hate that I don’t like just to make my players defend on them. And he’s in our playbook and I really hate them, but it’s a way to stress your team, to prepare your team. It’s my games. It’s all my games basically.
Pat 40:32
Yeah, it’s taken on this rebounding and I think we’ve been kind of focusing on like team rebound and defensive rebounding with offensive rebounding You know I think we’re seeing a lot of teams start to tag up send all five Were your thoughts on offensive rebounding how many to send or how much to really doesn’t matter like, you know Is it player personnel player dependent who goes who doesn’t?
Andrea Trinchieri 40:53
by this. I guess because I made a lot of thoughts about this. I decided that I will never say always and never. I already made the mistake.
I will never say, and I just said it. I believe the tag up works very well, but should be very clear when to do it. There are some situations that tag up is not very efficient. So tag up, I believe, should be strictly on a three-point shooting because the spacing and everything is perfect. On a layup, it opens up the core very much. But then it’s very important to link your tag up, your detransition rules. They are not separate. This is one topic. And detransition rules is not only when to match up, how to match up, but what I do on ball screen in transition because they are all related. So it’s a very important topic.
I love tag up. I just want to be clear with my players when they have to do it around.
Pat 42:03
And with that coach, as you build your transition defense, if it is a layup, and so you’re not going to emphasize that they tag up, will you still hold them accountable that they have to locate their man, you know, not on a layup, it’s someone’s run into the rim, it’s, you’re still matching up, if there’s a layup, just not demanding.
Andrea Trinchieri 42:21
Sorry, but this is exactly what I wanted to read from you. This is the question.
On tag up, you never locate your man. You locate the closest player because you don’t know what kind of match that you’re going to have, especially on switching defense. So you tag up the closest player. The rule is you guard who’s guarding you from day one. This is not something that you can implement within the season. Yeah, absolutely. From day one, you guard who is guarding in that specific play.
Dan 42:51
Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. We’ve got one final question to get you out of here on, but once again, thank you so much for coming back for a second time.
This was a blast. We enjoyed having you.
Andrea Trinchieri 43:03
No problem. I like it.
Dan 43:04
Coach, our final question that we’ll ask you is, we asked you last time what your best investment was. This time we’re going to ask you, what is something about either coaching or basketball, the game, kind of wide open here. What’s something that you’re most curious about that keeps you up at night that you’re thinking a lot about when it comes to coaching and leadership?
Andrea Trinchieri 43:23
The crystal ball and to look ahead of time to see what is the most efficient way of building the relation coach’s player for the next five years. So I don’t let winning or losing define my success. Basically, I don’t want anybody to define my personal success. There will be always somebody with an opinion, you win the game, you did good, you lose the game, you’re an idiot or whatever, and I don’t go against the word. With the keyboard, you just build an opinion, with texting something on the phone. You have always an opinion on everything. I don’t want to fight that. I don’t want to lose any drop of my energy, so nobody can define for me if I did well or bad.
They can say, I win the game, I lost the game, and totally fine with the output of that. What I believe is if you find a way to have a very efficient, with some love, relation coach’s player, I will be very happy because my goal is the evolution. I want to take a player from one level to take him to the next level. What is this? I don’t know. Something. One level, two levels, three levels. Evolution. And at the same time, I want to evolve as a human being and as a coach. So I’m trying to… I’m not saying with criticism, but society changed. Social media, phones, the platforms, and devices changed everything. We don’t talk anymore.
I look this through my kids. They don’t talk with other friends the same I was talking. I didn’t have the device, so I had to talk. The only way to do something was talking. Okay, I’m not judging. I’m just seeing that it’s changing. So I would love to be one step ahead of this, knowing how can I get your attention. I know that if I do something for you, I will get your attention. But I’m not always in the position to first do something for you because I have other 11 or 14 people that need my attention.
Dan 45:54
All right, Pat, once again, such a fun, insightful guest to have on. Was one of our favorites from a few years back and did not disappoint once again. So awesome having coach can carry back on.
Pat 46:05
Those without saying one of the guests that also keeps us on our toes
Dan 46:09
No doubt. Let’s dive into our top three takeaways here for number one. I’ll throw it to you.
Pat 46:14
So we were super excited to have this conversation, especially with him, as we talked about mid-season, kind of as we’re attempting to figure out our team’s identity and figure out where we go next. We’re all trying to improve and how that improvement looks, how you assess a team. And I don’t want to misquote him or overgeneralize, but I think kind of where the game seems to be going in terms of is just being simple. I think simple usually results in the best outcomes, so to speak.
But obviously within that simplicity, there’s complexity, of course, to everything, but I’m not trying to just add more and more without really putting more band-aids on a problem that’s not fixing anything. And we focus on the defensive end. And I think he raised another really good point that we’ve had some conversations about is that players want to feel good and involved on offense first in order to really get them to commit to defend. If you can just get them to defend hard, like I think you’ve done like you’re more than halfway there to being a good defense. We talked about mindset. I really enjoyed his thoughts on the mindset, but he tied it all together that if they love to play for you and that obviously if you’re giving them some opportunities on offense and building a relationship, usually that’ll then translate to your defense.
I mean, it’s not going to be a world beaters, but you’re going to have guys that defend hard and want to defend. And that’s the big thing. And he talked about, I really, maybe it was when we got into the start subset, but within this simplicity versus complexity on your defense, like having your one base coverage, but the ability to toggle up the aggression and decrease the aggression, get a little bit more conservative, but without overhauling and like, okay, we’re going to do this now, which changes how we rotate behind it. And I thought, yeah, that kind of leads into that. It’s simplicity, you know, just getting good. And that’s what I think we’re seeing with a bunch of teams throughout several leagues, just getting good in your base and you just keep working on and finding, you know, situationally, what maybe needs to be more aggressive, maybe need to be less aggressive is the solution rather than applying a whole new coverage or tactic.
Dan 48:14
Yeah, I also like he said that your core values win games and just going back to sort of the simplistic the base of yeah We can toggle up and toggle down very aggressive trap conservative You kind of have the toggles he talked about but the end of the day kind of had the Talk to in the middle about when it comes to like scouting and all that being simpler there And if you’re guarding this kind of playground and you didn’t want to sit for two hours, or there’s money Thing and then I’ll just add before going back to you I did also like his thoughts on players got a love playing for you But then he was subtle with it doesn’t mean they need to become your best friend It’s like within being demanding and them loving to play for you It’s because you’re showing them how you can take them to another level and how that level is good for both them and the team I thought that was really good in there, too.
Pat 49:08
Something about telling them the truth, but through questions. And I think he also talked in like the relationship aspect, knowing what to give them.
I think you had a good follow-up on just like offense, we can’t run 12 ATOs to get all guys involved, but just kind of understanding what to give them, but then asking those players to and allowing them to talk goes a long way. And like you said, I think Coach Trincura really approaches probably everything from the human standpoint and how he applies his tactics from there. My last thought here is, you know, when he said, you know, he thinks a lot if he was a GM or, you know, hiring a coach and athletic director that talking about these non-negotiables, like being adaptable and flexible as a coach, but with non-negotiable values. And I thought that was just like a really clean, obviously broad, but just like a base of just where probably the modern coach needs to be as you start to build a team, your identity and who you are.
Dan 50:01
Yeah. I thought Bob Ritchie talked about that really well from Furman last year, just about how important the alignment of the values and core identity is. And then everything else on top can be adjusted, toggled, changed a little bit. But we’ve heard that from tons and hundreds of coaches at this point on just getting back to how underneath all this stuff, how important that actually is. Yeah.
Pat 50:25
All right, Dan, let’s keep it moving here. I’ll throw it to you for the second takeaway.
Dan 50:29
I will go to your start sub sit, the end game, what you’re looking at as a coach. Yeah. My first thought was, wow, we could do a lot more podcasts on this because it’s just so much there. And I think to coach Jim Carrey’s point, it’s situational, it changes. I mean, he kind of went through why each one would start in certain situations to him. Big game, early season, you know, those kinds of things are coming off of back to back or you don’t get a lot of time to prep. So I thought that was like a good nuance in there. Of course, these are all nuanced. But I think my biggest takeaway was just that everything is situational. Kind of came back to that, that throughout the game, it’s situational.
And he’s not necessarily saying, I’m going and I’m always watching the principles and identity or I’m always watching, which is sort of the, of course, it’s the truth. But you and I were talking beforehand, like what would be potentially his answer or what would our answer be? And it is true that certain games demand different things. And I guess certain games, you come out and you look flat as a team and you’re not playing hard and it’s like, okay, well, now I’m pretty laser focused on our principles or identity or they were playing hard, we just can’t get the shots. So it’s like, what are they doing tactically? Like it changes, but I think it’s no small feat. It’s a hard thing as a coach to figure out what am I looking at here? And there’s a lot going on. Yeah, I don’t know if it was this one or the, I think it was in this one. You had the quote, the Serbian coaches say like about the water level in your ears, right?
Pat 51:53
Like once the water is in your ear, then you know, it’s pressure
Dan 51:57
Yeah, there’s like just a ton of good thoughts on there about game dependent, but what you’re looking at. And then I think we had some follow ups about sort of toggling managing from there.
Pat 52:08
Yeah, two points I wanna follow up was when we talked about fixing the energy, you don’t lose a game in the first five minutes, but yeah, when it’s clear to see whether you’re looking for the principles, the game plan or the opponent, that the energy is not right. I think we had a really good conversation with Coach Loeffler too, second time he was on the pod, just about this more so when yeah, your teams are flat and you gotta know the player that’s flat and how he’s gonna respond, whether you yank him or you gotta have a conversation and you gotta tell the truth to these guys, but that approach that you don’t lose in the first five minutes, but now if it’s the third quarter, it has to be, then that’s again, the situationality of it, then you gotta make changes.
I thought that was a really good point. And then I love, he talked about like the contract as a coach and of course we know player’s weaknesses and part of in-game coaching is also knowing, I guess your weaknesses, but I like to tell your framework, like what will cause you to lose your poise as a coach, and kind of knowing what triggers you so to speak and understanding that and then it helps you if you kind of know your poise maybe to reset you so you can start to get back to whether it’s, I think then maybe it bleeds into like the pick and roll reads like what needs to fix the technique of it or the tactic of it, but if of course you’re losing your head because maybe it’s something that’s triggers you or it’s like what caused you to lose your poise or then you lose your, let’s say your coaching vision or your coach and I, I thought that was another good point he raised there.
Dan 53:31
Yeah, we got to come back to this conversation in more podcasts because I think there’s just so much there. But yeah, this just depends on I think for you as a head coach, how many staff members do you have? What’s your roles of your staff? Because like one thing we didn’t get into is what are you kind of offloading to your assistants so that that’s not on your mind?
Yeah. We kind of asked this question to coach Will Hardy, Utah Jazz head coach about what is he looking at in the game? He kind of mentioned at that time he talked more like global stuff, like macro stuff. I guess his answer would have been the start was more the principal identities. Are we playing hard enough? Do we look connected? And then, you know, your assistants as the game goes on, timeouts can be filling you in on backside tags and little minor details that, you know, it’s just impossible to pick up all of it by yourself the whole time.
Pat 54:19
I agree. And maybe this was like the missed for me too, you know, cause he mentioned that he became more extremely situational. And maybe if that helped him be able to process information better, you know, I would have loved to follow up.
What was he looking at before? Was it all a macro approach or what his approach was to kind of in-game coaching before he really leaned into situationally? I think it was something I was amiss by me to follow up on.
Dan 54:42
Well, yeah, I mean I think both of us felt like there’s no misses by Trinkery in this episode But like it would have been fun to keep going down different rabbit holes
Pat 54:50
Because might have been a bigger conversation or it is a bigger conversation than maybe start subset
Dan 54:55
Yeah, part three for coach. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pat 54:58
Oh.
Dan 54:59
So let’s keep it moving though. And we’ll just put a little hanger out there, probably some more podcasts on in-game coaching stuff coming up here.
But let’s go to the third takeaway. I’ll throw that back to you.
Pat 55:10
The third takeaway, I’ll go to your start-sub-sit question on analytics with the halftime stats. You know, the conversation quickly moved away from stats and into rebounding.
Coach spoke really well on the mindset approach of players. I think rebounding kind of falls in that category. There are ways, as he discussed, to influence it, but yeah, where can we impact it? Either it’s also nice to have a physical advantage or guys that just pursue the ball. And we’ll get to the tagging up, that definitely is an interesting point. But I like the layers he spoke on of rebounding and kind of just putting the onus on the one-on-one. And whether it’s you got to try to win that one-on-one or just basically make it be neutral, no one gets it and the ball bounces, you know, like we all like to say, you know, let the ball bounce and then we’ll all pick it up as a team. And then to the second round, like the guys that are really valuable are the ones that actually pursue the ball outside of their areas and that no man’s land. And then he talked about just heavily incentivizing it and he had different scoring systems. But, you know, again, it’s just always interesting how we trying to teach these skills that maybe are a little bit less, let’s say, technique orientated and more like energy effort and how coaches try to, yeah, just their best practices for trying to get guys to do what can be some dirty work.
Dan 56:23
He hit at the start about, you know, Bill Czech saying, you know, getting the right players and that’s a lot of this. But then I liked the framework of players that are not great. Go get it outside their area type of players. You can at least hold them accountable and demand that like you don’t give up.
You’re one on one matchup. You should be able to at least not let your player get it. Not everybody is going to be able to hit. Go find and go out of their area to go get it. If you do, then good for you. Yeah. Yeah. If you’ve got a few of those, like you’re going to be good, but like you should be able to at least get the guys on the court that can not get physically always beat one on one matchup like that was a good way to I guess like that does add up. If you got, you know, two or three guys that can really go get it and two or three guys that just you don’t let them get beat one on one like that helps.
Pat 57:09
I think it alleviates the burden, not that, hey, I need you to get more rebounds. I just need your opponent, your matchup to get less or none. Yeah.
Dan 57:18
Correct. And then I’ll just go to a miss of mine, not by coach Jancuri of course, but the tagging up was a tantalizing kind of cliffhanger at the end in a good way.
And I thought he gave really good points on, and this is something I have been thinking about a ton. I know other coaches have is just looking at tagging up, can you do it all the time versus a situational? And I kind of goes to what he’s been talking about a lot of things like it’s situational, situational. And going back to, he said, it is on the three point shot. And I think my miss, or just like if we had more time would just ask like, I guess more situations like what about a long two? Like what about a pull up? Are you tagging that? Are you back? And I think you kind of asked, but like going deeper on on a layup or on a post touch, it sounds like, you know, are you still just kind of tagging your closest man? Or are you getting too back on the, like what’s your defensive.
Pat 58:07
principles there. Yeah, if we had more time, it would have been, I mean, again, it’s a whole nother conversation as self a bucket, but yeah, just what stays the same and maybe it’s like the pick and roll principles, how your transition defense is all the same, your tag, your rotation behind a pick and roll is all the same, it’s just, you’re toggling the aggression, three point shot, very aggressive, everyone tag up, layup, not aggressive, we don’t go, but you still have your tag match up.
Correct. I would have loved to have gone deeper and I think anytime we can have a tagging up conversation, I don’t think we’re chomping at the bit. Yeah, I’m here for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sign us up.
Dan 58:42
Yeah. Pat, you had mentioned a little bit of a miss or if we have more time, anything else from your standpoint that we could have gone deeper on potentially.
Pat 58:51
Another myth is when Coach went into his pick and roll, reads the reject, the set, the use, the open, and I know he’s well known for just their pick and roll offense, teaching the pick and roll, but he mentioned the two different types of ways to open up with the reverse pivot, the front pivot, and how, again, some are situationally based on coverage or maybe in location. I wish I had asked. I should have followed up on that one and just diving deeper on the types of way to open up the ball screen. Which one and why and what situations was a big miss on my end there.
Well, maybe next time. Yeah, exactly. That’s why I figured we’ll just get a third one so I don’t want to waste all my bullets. Good stuff.