Icelandic professional coach Baldur Ragnarsson joined us on the podcast this week and breaks down how he builds opponent scouts, identifies the passing and scoring patterns that shape a game plan, and prepares teams to execute multiple defensive coverages. He also details his approach to in-season conditioning, basketball-specific strength work, aggressive handoff defense, and applying pressure after made free throws.
Here are 10 lessons from the conversation:
- Scout passing patterns, not just scoring tendencies. Where a player can and cannot deliver the ball should shape your help, tags, and coverages.
- Reduce the scout to decisions. Deny the scorer, make the passer finish, run the shooter off the line, and identify which post players require a second defender.
- Use full games for context and filtered clips for confirmation. Full-game film shows rhythm, substitutions, and flow. Databases fill in the specific tendencies.
- Keep an identity without becoming predictable. Establish your pressure and aggression, then adjust the coverage to the personnel involved.
- Add complexity as the season advances. Build energy and habits first. Demand greater opponent-specific precision once the foundation is established.
- Train coverage flexibility through five-minute games. Change the defensive task each segment and coach between games rather than interrupting live play.
- Separate teaching from testing. Clean up the tactic during lower-intensity work, then present the same problem unannounced in competitive play.
- Revisit weaknesses until they hold up under pressure. Recurring problems require spaced repetition across team practice, small-sided play, and individual development.
- Build physical preparation into basketball actions. Use extended top locks, box-outs, post battles, and body contact to train game-specific strength and conditioning.
- Pressure the offense before it is organized. Tag all five players after made free throws, disrupt the primary handler, and attack handoffs before they reach the intended receiver.
Transcript
Dan Krikorian 02:16
Coach we wanted to start with this and something that in our prep know that you spend a lot of time thinking about and that’s preparing scouts and game plans for high-level competition.
Baldur Ragnarsson 02:28
Yeah, I learned this through working with a national team the last 10 years, and then obviously it evolves year by year. But like I’ve been using sideline XPS where you have like formula and stuff like this and mix with Instat. But basically, if I’m doing national team, which is obviously high level, if we talk about Europe basket, for example, in the preparation coming to Europe basket, I did 10 last games with all teams and I just marked basically every possession, offense and defense and players at the same time. And from there, something, you know, gets created.
But like I try to just mark everything if the player is going right, where he’s passing to, if the player is going left, where he’s passing to. So I see like the passing patterns. Obviously, they’re shooting patterns as well, like the usual going left pull up, right hand to the rim type of thing. And just try to mark everything. And from there, I start to work these things like team offense, the sets, the calls, what they are attacking with each set, what they do the most, and then just break it down from the most calls and how they attack and then just how they use every set and what player they are looking for and like where the point of attack is. Defensively, like pick and roll defense, do they do the same defense every time or is there specific they do against the main players or like low post defense? How is that? How do they topple team if they topple team? What do they do when they’re one on one? Do they dig in a little bit or do they stay more home and play one on one, like complete? I just try to go through everything like this. Knowing the players, knowing who is obviously the main scorer and like what is the purpose of each player. And then from there, some plan will happen. And we always like have it in three structures. We start with the players and we go in detail with everybody and try to put it in the mind of the players, how we are going to defend them or take away their main strengths or challenge their main strength, the strong hand, how they create, how they pass, stuff like this. And then it’s like the team defensive concept around their offensive system. And then it’s what do we need to do when they do their defense on pick and rolls and stuff like this? So this is like an inventory very as quick as possible. This is how I look at it.
Dan Krikorian 05:11
Going back to when you clip or mark things early, how much as a coach, like when you’re trying to prepare scouts and all these things, do you like to watch a full game film first, like just to see the flow versus going, you know, like you mentioned in stat or something where you can go directly to their pick and rolls right away and just watch clip after clip a pick and roll versus watching an entire game, like I guess going back and forth between direct clips right away to get a sense of a team versus kind of watching them in action in a whole game.
Baldur Ragnarsson 05:42
It’s always a mix of both for me, especially when I’m learning new players that I haven’t seen before. It’s basically just a checklist of two things that I have to do.
I mean, I may be watching the games and marking it along the way, and I think when you do many games like in this situation, when I’m doing a league game like over regular season, I don’t mark 10 games because I know the players better, I know the league, you understand? But when you go into a new national team, you are maybe seeing a few of these guys for the first time, and you really want to dive into it. And when you just go and mark 10 games, you pretty much get to know all the players, like you are adjusted with the number and the name and what they do after that. But then just to, you know, be sure, okay, this is what the player is. Then you go to Insta. Okay, you see, okay, pick and roll. He has points per possession on the jumper of the triple is this. It’s more like I look at the statistics, and maybe if I have few low post one-on-one attacks, only rolling with a big guy, but I want to maybe see more low post, then I go and look at it on Insta. It’s more like to connect with what you have from the games that you already tagged, and then you use Insta to really get in the blanks, like fill in the blanks, basically. That’s how I use both tools.
Patrick Carney 07:10
Coach, when you move from watching the games, getting the clips to putting together, like you said, your structure, the player’s defense, offensive concepts, what does that filter look like? How do you start to narrow in on like, how do you begin to chunk it down to like, this is what’s gonna matter, this is what we should be concentrating on, and not getting like too overwhelmed and just all of the information you’ve gathered?
Baldur Ragnarsson 07:31
Then I just thought too, just a simple explanation is like, okay, we were playing Poland on Eurobasket and Jordan Lloyd was the main scorer and it was obviously super important that he would not get shots. I mean, he’s a lead scorer, like he can create shot out of nothing. The simple explanation is he needs no time to get the shot off and he is super important in the scoring philosophy. You just don’t want him to get the fucking ball, do everything he can to deny him. If he gets the ball, he better than earns it at the rim where we have some seven foot rim protection. We don’t want him shooting.
Then there are some players who are maybe good in that type of defense and then you try to just build it up with simple message like this. Then there is maybe a guy who is not looking to score. He’s just passing all the time, like a passing point guard, very passing structured, organizes the offense. Then we don’t want to have much. That’s my philosophy.
I don’t want to have much on these players. Challenge them to finish more. There may be low percentage at the rim. The health defense should not be aiming to stunt super hard or come into like super deep, like little bit, make them think, oh, they want to pass, but then maybe they should be going into a position where they don’t really go into. I have these guys who are scorers. They can create everything like Lloyd can. And then you have these passing guys. And then you have maybe the shooters who never go to the rim for layer. You try to then challenge them to put the ball on the floor. So it starts to be a little bit, it’s these type of players that you have. You have the scorer, you have the shooter, you have the passer, you have the mop catcher. We really need to bump him no matter what. And then you have maybe the low post scorer. We might think about double teaming him. If our big guy is not on the floor, then we will probably double team this low post scorer. Just try to build from this.
Patrick Carney 09:40
And you said at the top something interesting too when studying the players you said you study their passing patterns If we can just focus on that whether it’s a passing guard or even a score when you start to notice passing patterns What does that maybe start to influence then in terms of you build out your game plan?
If you look at this one type of player
Baldur Ragnarsson 09:59
I think when you know the passing patterns, the similar theme with, okay, the habits of players going to the left, pull up, going to the right, not pull up, go deep. This is like a scoring pattern we see all the time. If I have a small player who is good with a ball and can attack deep and stuff like this, but he is maybe six feet to six to something like this. Usually when they drive, they cannot pass it to the weak side when they go in full speed. They can only pass strong sided. So if I know this, that I have smaller player who is good maybe at going into the paint, but he usually passes to roller or strong side only, and very few weak side passes, then I come in super much on the weak side every time.
Doesn’t matter if I have double tag or single tag, we just come in every time if that happens. This is a pattern you can see a lot. Like there’s players that like only roller, only strong side, no weak side skips, and you can use it in that way. But then you know like, I mean, we had Parko, Jeremy Parko, at 40 winning the Icelandic League this season, and he could make every pass. Like the guy was elite passer, could score at the same time, played great. And when you have guys like that, you cannot use this philosophy obviously.
You just know he can make all the passes, then you need to be more active from everywhere. You cannot be like, hey, this guy cannot pass to the weak side, just go in aggressively. You need to be more like it’s open stance everywhere, a little bit open philosophy with how you defend the good passers who can see all passes, strong side, the rollers, your strong weak side when you give in the weak side. So I think this is a little bit of philosophy about this. You can also like with a double team on low post, you can look at the big players, how they pass out of the, if you send them baseline, how are they passing them? How are they passing if you send them into the middle, and then you can decide a little bit how you want to defend that guy on the low post based on his passing habits, or how you want to hash on him based on his passing habits. Or you want to decide to just don’t hash at all because the guy doesn’t want to score on low posts.
Patrick Carney 12:33
Take it to the next filter let’s say you put together the game plan and you start to present it to your guys and maybe more so if i tell you this question to your season in iceland when you build kind of a new team. Over the course of a season how do you implement your game plans with your team and how does it maybe look at the beginning of the season.
So very the end where maybe you’re hoping you can do these things it’s a small guard that can’t pass weak side let’s help in it’s a big that can only pass going middle how does it look start of the season your game plan to your team versus the end of the season where you hope to like maybe build out and get familiarity with the game plan.
Baldur Ragnarsson 13:10
These small details, of course, in the beginning of a season, especially when I have players that I have not coached before, it’s going to take a little bit of time. And usually, I will give them these information, but I will accept more mistakes. But then when it leads on into the season, then this is the 10th time we talked about this one. Now we better start getting it done because it matters now.
Stuff like this. So I’m not looking for perfection right away. I’m expecting us to just know the players. Okay, now we played them once. Now we play them again and getting them little bit playoffs ready. It always comes down to we are creatures of habits. And I think we are looking for the habits of each player. And when you really like know their habits and you can see the same pattern over and over again, I think it’s about just the players know the main patterns and you just put it into their mind and maybe they can get one weak side steal because the guy always pass to the roller and that’s one possession that matters. So I usually just start with simple defensive game plan, just pressing like crazy, playing quick show, putting the energy as high as possible, tagging on the rebounds to pressure, like playing full court and stuff like this. And I focus more on energy in the beginning than I put in stuff like this. I give them these information, but I’m not looking for perfection. And then maybe later in the season, we should be at the spot where they can use this information better.
Patrick Carney 14:52
On that note, when thinking about like your defensive game plan is the trade-offs in terms of, well, this has kind of been our identity, but maybe this, whatever this strategy works better against this opponent. Like you said, it’s quick show, we want to be high energy, but maybe it doesn’t suit. How do you consider just weighing the trade-offs, like this is our identity, this is what we’re going to do versus, no, this has value if we change it up, or if we change our gap stance this game versus other games.
Baldur Ragnarsson 15:21
I do changes like that. There are some players that are elite against Quickshield, they just hesitate and go downhill all the time. When that’s the case, I just change it right away and go into switch to keep them out of the lane or stuff like this. Or if they are more like scoring oriented, I maybe start to blitz them to just make them, if they’re scoring oriented but bad passers, I start to blitz them maybe to make them pass and stuff like this. So I always have some type of pattern, like the Quickshield and the pressure and high energy and stuff like this.
But I always want to be able to change to a switch, change to a hats or a blitz, change to just going under. Like even in some situations, like some players are bad against ice, like just have the same passing pattern or same habit they do all the time. Like some situations I use that against players I know who just look for the shift rope has only against ice, then I may be ice them because I just know what they’re going to do. But usually high pressure, aggression, denial of the main score of Quickshield, individual responsibility, this is where I start from. And then I am ready to change things up if I need in the moment of the game.
Patrick Carney 16:41
Looking at pick and roll coverages, coach, when you have your base and when you are going to get a little bit more specific against the point guard or whoever’s in it, how much is it do you weigh again, going back to maybe the start of the season? It’s not so much that we’re perfect or that we get it correct, that we’re going to make mistakes, but it’s more so to confuse the offense.
I guess how much time are you able to dedicate in practice if you know at one point we’re going to need under, we’re going to need ice, we’re going to need a hedge, we’re going to need a switch. Is it trying to really work those in practice or just when they arise, just like putting clarity into it and best effort and we go.
Baldur Ragnarsson 17:15
I try to, like, we’re maybe playing five-minute games with clock and referees and everything game-like, and I try to switch it up a lot. We play a game in the league, and then there are like two days that we have in recovery and skill work and lower intensity work, and then I mimic a game again. And when we play these five-minute games, I change the defense every time. I talk to one of the teams, and I’m like, hey, we are just going to be in Quickshow here, this defense. Full pressure, only Quickshow. But then the other team, I maybe give them, hey, we’re going to heads-on everything. And then I maybe change it the next game until now we just switch everything. And then I change it maybe, hey, we go under on this player, but we heads-on this player. Like, stuff like this. And I just try to change the defense in segments of five-minute games all the time.
But again, I push intensity. And if I’m going through this, I’m doing that on the low-intensity practices in between. If I need to teach them better the eyes or teach them better the heads and how we’re going to pick up the shortroll and stuff like this, I do that on the low-intensity practices. So when we are playing these five-minute segments, I am not stopping the game flow. I maybe talk about it between the games, like a timeout in a game, so it’s game-like. Then I tell them, like, hey, you guys are just doing a horrible job here on the heads-on picking up the shortroll. What are you guys doing? You’re all attached on the three-point line when we are heads-ing. Get in there and cover the rollers. Stuff like this. I just tell them in after the five minutes. I try to give them pointers there. So it’s, like, just a timeout in a game. But then, like, after that practice, we go maybe again into some helpful, full activities the day after or some half-court work. And then I start to clean it up more practically where we are, like, me talking. They do. Then I talk. We do it. Then I challenge them again. Like, stuff like this. So I try to keep this flow high-intensity, low-high-intensity, and not stopping the practice with coaching when it’s supposed to be high-intensity.
Dan Krikorian 19:36
Coach, when you come across a team that scouts you well or picks on a weakness that you know you have, what’s the process if you have one of taking either a self-scout or another team’s good scout of your team and then sort of using that to better your team going forward?
Baldur Ragnarsson 19:53
have a player against a team that’s maybe playing very compact like switch defense and they pack the paint and stuff like this and they are very successful with it we are maybe struggling with that philosophy then I maybe try to spend time on it early in some of the practice like after warm up and just really like give them reps day after day and try to make it better and then maybe I spend some time on it after the game but then like I try to hit on it every week at least once if I have issues like this so maybe it’s very tight switching defense pack in the paint then we are struggling with it then I play against that spaced repetition basically or if there’s a player they are successful with the hats and he is not taking good decisions then I try to just hats on him all the time both teaching him where to pass showing the openings against this defense and then I maybe try to use the intensity practices also to throw them off they don’t know now that we are working us but I make the other defense play this defense against them and then they need to figure it out on the fly a little bit and then you just again lower intensity practice you break it down for them then you try to hit them with it when they don’t know in the intensity practice stuff like this so whatever it is is it a low post scorer who has bad at passing against double team then I do that you know is it a transition player who is good at getting to the rim and getting buckets at the rim but he’s bad at passing in the paint I use the same philosophy like I try to challenge them with teaching in the lower intensity but then I try to give it to them when they don’t know I try to give this defense to them when I don’t know about it in the intensity practices
Patrick Carney 21:52
The weaknesses that keep reappearing, do you find that it ends up being that it’s more of a skill player development problem versus like a team tactic problem? Like maybe they just caught you off guard that game, you solve whatever the team strategy is versus we’re constantly running up to this weakness, this scout, because it really, we need to keep addressing it in a skill player development session.
Baldur Ragnarsson 22:14
I think it’s definitely some moments it can’t be this that we just had a off day and like it worked because you know they caught this off guard and maybe it just wasn’t really a thing and the guy just maybe I don’t know had some personal issues and slept badly and just performed badly in the game you know. But when you just coach them every day you will figure out eventually what their weakness is whatever it is like in one on one it’s pick and roll creation there are some things they don’t like to do and if the other teams figure that out you know they can make it a little bit hard for them.
So if the teams figure that out and we really know that like okay this guy’s not good at passing against the hats they figured it out they’re gonna keep on doing it then you just need to work on it like in the way we talked about before and then you also talk to your coaching staff you talk to the individual coach and you tell him like hey we need more reps on this guy passing against the hats or we need more reps on him like turning the corner on this hats and then doing this whatever our plan is against it we need to mix it with individual coach and team practice and get both playing reps and then skill reps however the individual coach wants to teach it.
Dan Krikorian 23:39
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Coach, this has been awesome so far. Thanks for all your thoughts.
We want to transition now to a segment on the show that we call Start, Sub, or Sit. We’re going to give you three options around a topic, ask you to start one of those options, sub one of them, and sit one on the bench, and then we’ll discuss your answer from there. We know that you also have background as a strength and conditioning coach and something that you do dual roles in your position, head coach, and you do the strength and conditioning. These are going to be three different areas that are, in your opinion, most important to maintain during the course of the season. The first option for your team is their movement capacity, how they move, their flexibility, all that kind of stuff. That’s the first option. The second option is their strength, being able to maintain their strength throughout the season. The third option is just their conditioning, being able to play extended minutes or whatnot. Start, subset, most important to maintain during the course of the season. Movement capacity, strength, or conditioning.
Baldur Ragnarsson 25:42
Okay, start conditioning and then movement and number three, strength.
Dan Krikorian 25:47
Coach, my first follow-up would be in your background with strength and conditioning and also being a head coach, what are you thinking about daily? You kind of mentioned a little bit in the first part of our conversation about some of these days that are lower intensity, but throughout the course of the season, what are you mindful of when it comes to the overall package of the player being able to perform and what you do with practice?
Baldur Ragnarsson 26:10
I am just always mindful of this, there needs to be these blocks where I push the energy and I try to raise the conditioning or the uncomfort zone of the player and after these blocks of practice there has to be time to recover so they can do it again. And I basically stick with this rule all the time, like I try to push the intensity of the practice to the highest level possible, if that’s the first what I’m doing. And then I don’t do it again, I either take two days or three days, I don’t do it again until I see and feel on them that they are ready to do it again.
And when I’m talking about pushing the energy, this is not like a typical basketball practice where we are always talking about something attacking this year. It’s just like, this is the one time where I’m like, see the evolution of football, how it has changed in the last year into they are like pressing full court in football right now. And it’s more like moving to, it’s just basically everything is the full court of the game that you are playing, football or basketball. And then just think about it, what is the highest intensity that I can create here? Defensively, what is that? Okay, they are starting, there’s a free throw. How is the highest intensity we can match this after the free throw? Or offensively, obviously it’s sprinting the court in the beginning of the offense and stuff like this. But if someone is not sprinting, I’m yelling at him to sprint. If someone is not picking up, I am yelling at him from the side to pick it up. And like, if they’re not gonna do it, it’s just not negotiable. It is the highest energy-spending you can create. And I think when you do this, you can have very good conditioning. Of course, we add strength into this. And if I feel like the legs are tired and stuff like this, you can do like, zone two no-spring conditioning on the bike and stuff like this, you can add it into it, body contact strength work, on-court strength work, really how is the body-to-body contact? Like the box-out strength, the side-to-side shoulder, who’s seeing all the actions where you’re like top-blocking someone, all that stuff. Like you can wrap it like strength stuff. You can just, now we’re gonna top-block five times with all your intensity and that’s it. Or like box-out for 10 seconds, like stuff like this. Using the basketball-body contact for strength work, of course, like doing multi-directional speed competitions, stuff like this, adding that into these segments. And then many times I do the normal strength work after these practices sometimes. I know it’s not like the sport philosophy rule, you know, but sometimes I just go to bench-press and squats after this. Because for me, basketball conditioning and speed and body-contact strength on the court is the most important because that’s what we’re competing in. And that’s why I many times just start with that and end with moving the bar in the bench in a very structured way.
Patrick Carney 29:42
When it is a high intensity day, what does that practice look like in terms of the length and how quickly are you getting into five on five and how many games are you playing in your level of intervention, which I know you hit on a little bit in the first bucket.
Baldur Ragnarsson 29:54
It’s maybe a little bit like this. We do maybe this 10-minute warmer, but I mix with things there like we are doing this normal activation and mobility work, but I mix with also just some games like reactive games. We also was in this season, I was adding juggling, juggling three balls, small balls or basketballs, because that is a very good focus exercise. For stability, I’m sometimes using soccer, just doing a foot juggling, just because you need to stand on one leg. Nothing about like competing in it, but this is a stability exercise and it’s fun for the guys.
I start with something like this, sometimes even using ping-pong to play with it. But I never spent more than 10 minutes on this, where we are doing some activation, mobility, reactive stuff. Then I am maybe adding this body contact drills, where we are fighting body to body, and we do it basketball-like. So where are we fighting on the court? And we do it for maybe five minutes. Then it’s maybe some sprint work, some slight work, maybe five minutes of this. So maybe 20 minutes we spent on this, dropping balls, competing to catch them, maybe playing one-on-one, where you cannot shoot only rim score. So it’s a lot of body contact. Now we’re maybe done with 20 minutes, but this is high intensity, 20 to 25 minutes.
And then it’s just water and a break. And then we go into the five minute games. And I play as many five minute games as we have quality. So it’s based on the conditioning of the team. If we are very high conditioned, we can maybe go up to five, six games. But I see when the level drops. When it’s starting to be super sloppy, then I just stop or play one more game and allow it to be sloppy. And then I stop. But I never go two games into sloppiness. When it’s off, I just see it’s off. The focus is gone. There is not energy anymore. And then we are out of it. Then we maybe spend some time on shooting pre-throws or just stroke shooting or stuff like this, or a little bit like when we are contesting someone, maybe 10 minutes on this, competition, maybe something fun.
Then we maybe hit the weight room for 30 minutes. And of course, we are following something where we will, in three, four days, we will hit all the body. We do some rehab for ankle, groin. We do that deadlift. We do all this strength work that is done. Activation, all that stuff. We just mix that into these 30 to 40 minute sessions. And sometimes I add on top of these, maybe a 20 to 30 minute bike after this, where we end on that, just to make them do little bit shown too, nose breathing, conditioning, and little bit just extend the workload of the practice so it’s a longer period. So this is high intensity practice.
Patrick Carney 33:06
When you move to the body contact drills and you mentioned whether it’s trying to do strength training through that, if it’s box out, you talked about like top locking. If you’re gonna do a top locking drill to work on your body contact strength conditioning, what would that look like?
Baldur Ragnarsson 33:20
I would just maybe put them into the corner, put a pin down screen and make the guy top lock instead of like some offensive players fight it for two, three seconds, try to get through it. And maybe I just make them fight for five seconds or one guy is trying to go either way through the top lock. So I just instead of just find your way by him, fight him for five seconds and they fight a little bit and then he finds his way. So I just tell them to fight longer than usual.
When it’s defending low post, then we just one guy with the shoulder to the chest and then we just pound like we’re pounding on low post box out, just run into the back and then just shelter to shoulder thing. So like trying to just put these things into wraps a little bit, but never for a long time. This is always like just a five minute segment.
Dan Krikorian 34:15
Coach quick follow-up on the five-minute games in your practices. Why five minutes not or To do you switch it up ever? Is there a specific reason for five minutes for sub patterns or how long they should be able to play at that intensity? How did you settle on the five minutes?
Baldur Ragnarsson 34:30
Yeah, so five minutes is just something that I just had in my mind is because around the five minutes, sometimes we start to see the first time out, at least in my league. Five, six minutes in, we see the first time out. We see the first SERPs either after four minutes, five minutes, or six minutes of playing time. So it’s just a good guess of here might be the first pause.
Patrick Carney 34:57
All right, Coach, keeping it moving, we’ll go on to our next Start Subsit. We like to go back onto the court and look at defense. And as you’ve alluded to, you like to play aggressive style, high energy style. So we’re calling it areas or opportunities where you think you can really increase your aggression defensively. And so the Start Subsit would be on handoffs, post defense, or after made free throws, these three areas, opportunities, which one do you think has the greatest upside to be ultra aggressive, really push the energy.
Baldur Ragnarsson 35:31
number one aftermate free throws, number two hand-offs, number three low post.
Patrick Carney 35:37
Coach, I’d like to start with your sub, your handoffs. We’ll come back to the after-made free throws, but just your handoff defensive philosophy and why you think that is a good opportunity to be opportunistic, so to speak.
Baldur Ragnarsson 35:50
Basically, the philosophy that I use, I completely steal from Baron Mokoy and Anton Gaval when I was watching them cut in Ulm. They use this swipe concept and I think just many of the hand-offs that are happening today in the set place are, we pass it to the picker on the top of the floor and the fireman is running a sumaxion or triple hand-off to either wing. And I think the purpose of this is tripling and then sticking a screen for a scoring-oriented player who’s usually getting the ball out of this. And if I’m just not defending this action aggressively with on the big guy or I’m just staying in the drop and allowing him to get under the three-point line and do a low hand-off, I think shooters who want to shoot just get shots. I think it’s easy to create out of this.
So what I like about this concept is, first of all, I don’t allow the pass easily so they can get into their hand-off triple to the wing or the sumaxion. I want to play the big guy aggressive. I want to make the pass hard to get it. And when he gets it or if he gets it, then let’s say he’s going to his right hand, then I start to pressure him higher on the court and try to go into his lane and even change his direction, like make him think about, oh, do I need to drive here to the left for the first time in the season? Try to break the flow of this hand-off. And then when they go in into the hand-off, stepping into it and swiping, so when he’s going right, I step with my left foot and left hand and I swipe on the same side the hand-off is happening, on the inside of the player, basically. So if I’m super successful with this, the hand-off is happening very high on the court and the guard can easily shoot under and meet on the other side. And it’s not really dangerous. But if the player is super good, then of course I’m going over the hand-off as well. And that’s just sticking the hand-off. Both players are right now just trying to deflect the ball on the hand-off.
Dan Krikorian 38:02
Coach I’d like to ask about your start which is the after made free throws not necessarily what you do But your philosophy on why that’s a great area to increase the pressure
Baldur Ragnarsson 38:11
So basically, the guys who are on the low side of the rebounding area, I tell them we work on this. You tag your player. So whoever on the low side who is boxing you out, who’s going to take the inbunt, you have the inbunt. Okay. The other guy tags the other guy right away and starts to defend him. Then we have the shooter and the third guy in the rebound, there is going to be a pickup as well. And then there are two guys on the outside and instead of going and getting water, like going somewhere to the middle and talking to someone, we tag up the other two guys. So we are tagged up on all five players.
And now I can just start pressing right away, whatever’s going to happen. And now it maybe depends on the other team a little bit. Like what I do is if there is a dominant handler, a player who runs everything for them and needs to start the offense, then whoever has the inbunt there will go and double team. We go and deny the pass to him and we allow the second handler to get the ball. And then we pressure him away from the main handlers. But if maybe they have a press break against this and the main handler is taking the ball in, then we don’t double team anything. Then we just stay attached to all players and we play everybody aggressive. But I think this is like, if you work on it a little bit, this is an easy way to be ready for full court pickup in a situation where not all teams are ready for pickup.
Patrick Carney 39:44
Coach, how are you handling if maybe they throw it to the big man, the X five and then a dominant ball handler is running into a handoff, or if they’re you maybe set like a back court screen to try to shake the pressure for the dominant ball handler.
Baldur Ragnarsson 39:58
If he doesn’t get the ball and they try to pass it ahead, basically at the same time, we are like, okay, we are doing this, we are picking up. We are always denying the pass ahead. Like don’t allow the pass to the five men. So, but to do this, you need to have more mobile guys than the other team. So for example, we cannot do this with Icelandic national. We have a seven footer there. It’s really different, you know, but if you have more mobile guys in all positions, you can do that. But this philosophy, basically, you need to have more mobile guys in all five positions, and then you can do stuff like this.
But if they are killing us with passing it up to the five and we are not able to get it done, then we start to move away from the double team and we start to do this more conservative trying to, if they are scoring on us, and then we start to do it more, then we back off basically. So it’s always, okay, do they have a plan or not type of thing.
Dan Krikorian 41:03
Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot seat. Thanks for going through those options with us. That was a lot of fun. Hey, we got a final question to close the show for you. But before we do, really appreciate you hopping on today and being so thorough. This was a really fun conversation for us. So thank you for coming on the show today.
Thank you, guys. Coach, our final question that we ask all the guests is, what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Baldur Ragnarsson 41:26
I would say the best investment. I would never be a coach unless that I volunteered to work with the national team for many years from the start. And I was volunteering with coaches that I thought was high level, like Vener and Artmar Cudions and some guys who had been in the game for a long time. And I volunteered to work with them. And they were teaching me so much just by doing that. So that’s basically the investment.
But really buying something is instant and sideline mix. That is so big part of my coaching philosophy. That’s a big investment. Another investment would be my strength and conditioning coaching schools. Knowing how the body works and the philosophy behind it and philosophy of training and all that stuff just helps you plan and do things in a good way. So I gave you three things. I can probably give you more. But volunteering with the national team and basically being able to stay on for such a long time there, now you have coached and went up against the elite minds of coaching and elite players. And you are also around elite players and elite coaches. And that obviously is very.
Dan Krikorian 43:00
great having coach on. We were just talking beforehand, like you could tell right away when a coach is just ready to get right into the nitty gritty and the details of basically anything we threw at coach Ragnarsson today. And so really appreciated him coming on at the top here too.
We do want to thank coach Arneson who reached out to us via our podcast guest recommendation that we have on our Sunday morning newsletters and suggesting coach today. And so we appreciate coach Arneson for having coach Ragnarsson come on. I got to work on my Icelandic last names. It’s not my strong suit, but we appreciate coach for reaching out.
It was great having coach on today.
Patrick Carney 43:42
Yeah, no surprise fans of the international game. So anytime we can get an international coach on, we’re all in on it.
So he did not disappoint. It was a really fun conversation and get into the details as we’ll start to hit on here. But yeah, appreciate coach making the time. Appreciate the recommendation and was right up our alley.
Dan Krikorian 44:01
Well, let’s hop right in and for our first takeaway, I’ll throw it to you.
Patrick Carney 44:05
First takeaway is going to come for me from the game planning scouting bucket, first and foremost hearing his process and especially with the national team, the level of depth they go into and how he then starts to filter all that stuff. A lot of really interesting things he said in there, especially when we got into like the player side of it, you know, I think we’ve heard a lot of more about like drive left, drive right, where they like to pull up or get their shots from.
But I think what stood out to me was when he talked about how he looks at their passing patterns and how that can start to influence their scout, their game plan, undersized guards. I think it was a great example that knowing if they want to drive deep, then it becomes hard for them to really hit weak side passing and it’s either going to the roller or strong side and talking about then we’re just going to really, like you said, tag from both guys, but really pack the paint versus he gave the example of Jeremy Pargo and their elite passer. And then it’s more, we got to be more active in the gaps, open stance, I’m assuming be ready to fly around and they can’t overly commit because the guy’s going to make the pass. So I won’t over talk it. I’ll throw it back to you, but just the level of detail he goes through. And he’s obviously a coach that he does put a lot into a scout and I think prioritize being very scout specific talking about then the player tendencies and the passing patterns and like how all that like trickle down effects. And I think he spoke really well and just the trade offs of what they want to do versus their identity and how they’re going to practice it.
Dan Krikorian 45:32
I thought there were a couple of really high level nuggets that he threw in when it came to his process today that we touched on a little bit, but that I really liked. I wanted to highlight one. I asked a follow up about watching a full game film while clipping versus going straight to the clips. I think that’s such a great point that he made because there’s so much access to just going straight to clips or when I’m going to scout a team, I want to go just to their pick and rolls or all the things you can do when you go right into whatever editor that you have, which are tremendous tools that we all use. Like he mentioned, the value of also when you’re scouting, just watching a team for the first time in the actual flow of a game to get the sense of how they play, I thought was like a really great point that he mentioned.
I think based off how much time you have in between games, things like that, being able to go back and forth between, hey, I need to know about this team quickly, so I’m going to go to just some already filtered clips versus I’m going to actually just watch a half of a game or I’m going to watch late game in its full transition back and forth, subs, all that. So you get the sense. I thought that was like a really high level point in him saying how he clips or tags while he’s watching a full game. And then I also thought he was really good on, he started to give really specific examples of how they would do this stuff in practice. I thought that was great. We kind of moonwalked our way back into some of the practice design stuff and he kind of gave that throughout the show. I thought there was some really high level, how he thinks about chunking practice and put these things in so his team gets it and then he can sprinkle complexity throughout the season was really good.
Patrick Carney 47:11
I agree. And I think we’ll probably hit on it a little bit more in our start, subset, but I think it is always interesting when you choose to be very scout specific and you want to change strategy based on who’s in the pick and roll or various strengths and weaknesses of opponents, how you then work on this stuff, as we know, like our time is limited.
And I think the way he structures and uses his high intensity days was elite and was probably the biggest overarching takeaway. I think we hit on in the main bucket, start subset with his strength and conditioning background, how he then applies it to put in these moments to maybe in the low intensity days, like you said, build up what the ice is, what the under what they’re trying to do, how it should be looking, feeling, rotating, whatever. But then efficiently using those high intensity days to like maximize the reps, get the guys used to it. So then when it comes game day, they are in a competent place to use these various coverages based on of who is going to be in the pick and roll or just who the opponent is and how they want to use it.
Dan Krikorian 48:08
I agree. And then I didn’t want to forget to mention the passing patterns was just a highlight of the first bucket two and makes like a ton of sense.
It’s a reason I think historically like just let’s take lock left or force left. Whenever we had coaches on to talk about that defense, it’s because it forces players into situations where they’re not good passing out of it with their left hand or going left. And I thought same thing you got like a sense of how he builds a defense potentially or changes game to game around if a player’s you mentioned Pargo, he mentioned that is a great passer. And I also thought that was great because all of us can think back to our scouts this year. Great scores are obviously problems, but like, great passers create so many more gray areas for your defense, I think.
Patrick Carney 48:55
completely. And I think, you know, every coverage has its limitations or weak areas.
And if you have these great passers that can find them because you’re just going to stick to your coverage, your rotations. But, you know, his point was, well, if it’s a great passer, we’re going to try to make them score. And maybe whereas bad passer packed the paint, or can’t pass weak side, but great passer, just stay fanned. Don’t over commit to the ball change, big and roll coverages. And, you know, maybe throw on some unders, but trying to just turn them into a scorer and not just getting dead set. I’m like, well, this is what we do. This is our coverage. And we’ll just be at the mercy of him being able to find the one weakness of that coverage, so to speak.
Dan Krikorian 49:33
A great passer can solve the game for other people on their team. A great score can score for themselves, solve things for themselves, but like the great passer can just make other players’ jobs easier, which is tougher on your defense.
And then like, you know, a great score. A lot of times you can just send another body at them to make it more difficult where sending another body at a great passer is risky. I really like those nuggets too. Definitely.
Patrick Carney 49:59
So Dan, let’s keep it moving here. I’ll throw it back to you for the second takeaway.
Dan Krikorian 50:03
The second takeaway was just a slight one, but it was a great day for Huddle and Instat on the show. It was. We did not plan that.
Patrick Carney 50:10
We didn’t pay him any extra money to come on
Dan Krikorian 50:13
Yeah. So for our partners at Huddle Instead, they had a great podcast today too. But I think my second takeaway, I’m going to go to your start subset. I’ll just stay tactical for a second. I enjoyed just hearing about the dribble handoff coverage, the after free throw stuff.
You got a little insight into tagging up after free throws and how that can work. And then really going back to some of the conversations we’ve had the last two or three years about ways to apply pressure, create situations where you might either throw off an offensive possession because they’re just scrambled the whole time or generate a turnover, but without just having to be a whole pressing trapping system for 40 minutes. It’s just like these isolated situations. And I thought hearing both of those was really interesting, but I specifically liked the after made free throw, kind of him walking through why, how they would do it and keeping the ball out of a dominant ball handler’s hands or doubling it out. And then he talked about once the secondary ball handler gets it, trying to force them away from the dominant ball handler. So that possession after a free throw is disorganized for the offense and kind of the way that they would think about doing that was really good.
Patrick Carney 51:23
Yeah, just another great example of how applying the scout or the personnel to your strategy. I mean, I don’t think there’s anyone listening who’s just going into games blind or that we’re breaking news here that scouting does have its benefits.
No, just another good example of yeah, dominant guard, how we can kind of disrupt taken out of stuff. I think the same for when we talked about the handoff defense, and he walked us through tactically what they’re trying to do. But I also liked just the recognition that when teams are playing handoffs, it’s at least what they’re seeing is most time out of a set play to get to a shooter get to a primary scorer. And so why he thought it was so important to really be aggressive on these handoffs, try to blow up the action versus sitting back letting the big find the angle, get the ball in the scoring area versus trying to really pressure up and almost encouraging him to spin back and drive and just breaking the whole setup that way.
Dan Krikorian 52:17
And if anybody wants a visual on, I think what he was talking about, we did a one, maybe two full edit breakdowns on the handoff coverage that he’s talking about on SGTV, which we’ve been big fans of personally, a way to really put heat on the ball. And like he mentioned, too, a lot of times that handoff’s coming from a big or four or five that’s not usually able to dice you up by faking it and getting to the rim or spinning back. And even if they are trying to do that, it kind of takes them out of their flow of the offense. So yeah, well, good stuff.
Pat, let’s keep it moving and for the last takeaway, I’ll throw it to you.
Patrick Carney 52:50
Yeah. So my last takeaway is going to come from your start subset. This is a conversation I know you’ve heard me talk at ad nauseam this season and one kind of we’ve been after just the whole applying strength and conditioning to a season, to a basketball team. And I think it’s a growing area of importance or I think it was always important, but really looking at it through a different prism rather than just the static in the weight room or just sprint work to hear him talk on how he’s especially approaching like strength training all through as much as they can on the court, taking different facets of the game, rebounding. He gave us a great example of top locking shoulder, shoulder contact, pushing, finding these moments to give them like a real basketball feel that requires strength. Like you said, when he talked about like the high intensity days, just hitting on it for five minutes, I really, really enjoyed this conversation because I think it’s so invaluable to really think about stuff that ways and a little bit differently.
And, you know, we’re always talking about five on five and practice getting into as soon as possible, the most representative environments. And I think it’s like slowly starting to really creep into how you approach movement, strength, conditioning training as well. So I liked him talk about that. And then what we already talked about a little bit. And I mean, here’s for sure where we really dove into it, the blocks, his training week and how he views the low intensity days and then what a high intensity day was, how it’s going to start to finish. And I really enjoyed hearing his philosophy, especially when I think he also came across that he’s a high energy, high pressure playing style.
Dan Krikorian 54:27
Yeah, Pat, there’s a ton here today. Was there anything, any misses, anything, not from coach, of course, but anything we could have gone deeper on or missed pivots, we could have tried out.
Patrick Carney 54:38
I think one thing, just cause it’s always an interesting conversation, I think year after years, you know, he talked about, I think when you asked when opponents start to prey on your weaknesses, how you fix them. And he mentioned just switching defense. And I think it’s just always an interesting conversation, how coaches are thinking about attacking switch. So what is it that they’re going to work on in that five minute segment to help his guys get better at the switch or what is it from a skill tactical standpoint? So again, no miss of coach, but I think just always an interesting topic to tug at and dive into.
Dan Krikorian 55:12
For sure. My miss was I just didn’t get a chance to ask this, but it was kind of in that vein in the first bucket. Potentially scouting or prepping or game planning for other coaches’ tendencies. So as you start to play teams in your league or people you know, obviously you’re knowing players and sets and calls, but when do they do those things historically? How do they sub historically? What do they do at a time out? It’s like from a watching another team’s coach perspective, I just wonder about that sometimes is really knowing obviously the other team, but knowing the other coach and what they are and how that might play into how you prep.
So I had two misses, I guess that was one and then my other one, I wish this podcast was live on air so everybody could see you’ve got a terrific mustache you’re growing and I wish people could see, you know, from a video standpoint.
Patrick Carney 55:54
limited time only
Dan Krikorian 55:56
Yeah, just see your your your post you post season depression Yeah, you’re off season mustache. It’s high level.
So it’s too bad This isn’t more of a video based one for people going into YouTube, you know the channel Well, once again, we thank coach Ragnarsson for coming on being so thorough We appreciate everybody for listening and we’ll see you next time
Patrick Carney 56:24
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit SlappingGlass.com for more information on the free newsletter, Slapping Glass Plus, and much more. Have a great week coaching, and we’ll see you next time on Slapping Glass.