11 Lessons from Matt Jones on Shooting Feel, Coaching Voice, and Re-Triggering Offense
This week’s conversation with International Pro Coach Matt Jones International covered three areas coaches are constantly working through: how to develop better shooters, how to communicate with more clarity, and how to help players play with freedom without losing structure. Here are some of the biggest takeaway from the episode:
- Watch before you fix. Matt starts by rebounding and watching. No quick diagnosis. No rush to correct. See what repeats, see what changes, and see what the shot actually looks like in person before touching it.
- The first question is what can be removed. If a shooter has nine moving parts, they need nine things to go right. Matt’s eye goes first to wasted movement: where the ball gets delayed, where the wrist loses tension, and where the shot adds work it does not need.
- The catch is already shooting. A player can be late before the shot starts. If the catch kills the wrist, rhythm, or timing, the rest of the shot is spent trying to recover.
- Show the palm early. Matt wants the passer to see the shooter’s palm. Simple cue, real purpose: receive the ball with the wrist loaded instead of catching on top and rebuilding the shot.
- Game shooting needs a volume knob. A contest, a bad pass, a different pickup, a longer shot, a new footwork pattern — all of it matters. But Matt adds one layer at a time, then watches where the shot starts to lose the teaching point.
- The player’s feel can become the cue. Matt listens for the words players use after a rep: loose, tight, easy, rushed, heavy, balanced. The best cue is often hiding inside the player’s own description.
- “More arc” is not coaching. It may be right, but it is not enough. Matt’s “platter” cue gives the player a picture: get underneath the ball and push up, not out.
- Analytics should sharpen the conversation. If the numbers and the player’s feel do not match, that gap is the work. Is it the catch? The footwork? The shot type? The volume? The pressure? The number starts the question. It does not answer it.
- Terminology is culture. “Play hard” is not enough. Players need to know what it looks like. The best terminology gives the team a shared picture, not just a slogan.
- You find your voice by using it. Camps, workouts, stations, youth teams — they all count. Coaching voice is not found in theory. It is built through reps.
- The next action is the hard part. Matt picked re-triggers as the toughest part of teaching conceptual offense. Players know how to run A to B to C. The challenge is what happens when B is gone. His cleanest line: if you have the ball, you are the point guard. Not by position. By responsibility.
Transcript
Dan Krikorian 02:12
Matt, I want to start with this. Something I know that you’re one of the best at we’ve seen and you’re doing all the time, which is basically developing a shooting philosophy. You’re shooting eye, how you’re developing shooters, and you work with professionals and people all over the map. And I guess just a high level of conversation to start on shooting, what you think about, what you notice when you’re going into help, say, a player or a group.
Matt Jones 02:36
I always think it’s interesting to just start with watching a player and just being a quiet eye for them and just be the rebounder, keep it simple, and see what they’re doing. First, you can watch a player shoot over and over on film.
I just think there’s nothing like the in-person reps and getting a visual, a firsthand view of what’s going on, and then starting to do your diagnosis from there. But I always lean into the fact I’m not going to over-evaluate any player until I’ve seen them in person.
Dan Krikorian 03:09
And when you first see them in person, as someone who does this all the time, what do you look at first or what do your eyes notice when it comes to just a player’s shot, their mechanics, their rhythm, their feet, what is it that you go to?
Matt Jones 03:20
I’m always thinking about efficiency. I always tell players if you have nine moving parts in your shot, you’ve got to do nine things perfect every time. Less is more. It’s a lot easier to repeat three things than nine things. I’m always looking at what can we eliminate first? Where is their wasted energy? Where is our kinetic chain being broken? Just seeking out inefficiencies.
Patrick Carney 03:43
Matt, when evaluating coming up with a diagnosis with shooters and knowing that the demands of the game that they’re going to be faced, I mean, how quickly are you to introduce variability into their shot, their ability to make shots through different movements, through unstable environments? I guess it’s always great.
We talk about they can knock them down wide open. But how do you go from them being like, all right, you got your efficiency. You can make it at a good clip. How do we start to then move towards game and variability?
Matt Jones 04:16
I think understanding where the player is mentally first, every player, I know, I think it was Chris Jett when he was on your show, talking about like your shooting ego and understanding where they are with their ego right now and, you know, how much that ego fluctuates. We all know players, I think, who have a wide spectrum when they can be really high and they can be really low and then there’s players at the smaller spectrum who are a little bit more steady. So I think understanding that’s the first part.
And then variability for me is like, once we’ve identified the one or two teaching points or things we really want to hone in on, introduce one level of variability, whether that’s a contest or the type of pass is being thrown or the distance they’re shooting from and see how they adapt to just one level of variability. And then, all right, do we add a second constraint? Do we add a third constraint? And find that tipping point where, all right, this is too much. And once you got to that too much point, where the constraint they’re getting away from the important things, the things that we’re trying to hone in on, starting to dial it back on the constraints and like, okay, this is our kind of tipping point. And then, you know, the next workout, let’s get back to that same tipping point and let’s see from there, can we venture further or is this just where the limit lies right now?
Patrick Carney 05:34
How much are you actually working with shooters on the technique, the mechanic of the shot? You know, the perfect elbow in, snap your wrist, or more so it’s just about are your feet under you? Are you body balance? Are you compact or whatever your movement pattern is, shooting movement, how efficient are you with it? I guess approaching from that angle versus like the technique driven angle.
Matt Jones 05:56
I approach the mechanical stuff first, some people may describe shooting as like a series of levers, your body’s a series of levers or a series of simple machines. So I always look at it that way first with the mechanical pieces, what I lead into first.
So for me, in my own anecdotal experience is how you catch the ball matters a lot. And part of that comes back to the pass you receive. If you receive a crap pass, you’re already putting your shooter in a bad situation. But how you receive the ball, whether that’s off the catch or a dribble pickup on a pull up situation. So the mechanical piece, that’s the first thing I would lean into. And I think that drives a lot of other things. If you can catch the ball cleanly, I think all the other things you’re starting to talk about with your base and the footwork and all of that, the rhythm piece gets a lot easier. I would say in general, the mechanical stuff a lot of times drives the second part that you’re describing with the rhythm, the feel, the bass, that type of thing.
Patrick Carney 06:52
What are you preaching with the players about how to receive a catch?
Matt Jones 06:56
In my experience, and I always talk about like best practices, the last thing I want to ever sound like is I know it all because there’s outliers in everything we do and there’s also people who are high level self-organizers, but in general, most of us aren’t elite self-organizers and that’s why shooting is so hard. So I always just talk about like best practices.
So like for me, best practice, I’m big on catching the ball open palm. I always talk about early palm. I want the passer being able to see your palm. Obviously, if I can catch it above my waist or my chest, I can keep that open palm. If the pass is low below my waist, I’m going to have to do what I call trapping it where your hands going to end up on top of the ball and we have to get back to this loaded wrist position. That’s the main thing. A lot of players, I think, catch it. And the first thing they do is they go from like an open palm to when they get to their dip, they lose the tension in their wrist and now they’re on top of the ball. And now we have to go back to this position. And to me, that’s an inefficient movement and an extra movement we don’t need. It’s the same thing. If it’s a dribble pickup on our dribble pickups, I’m big on most people, especially on a dominant hand pickup, you’re going to pick up the ball with your ball on top of the hands. And that’s what’s stopping the force from the ball. I’m big on continuing to keep your loaded wrist and it’s your guide hand or balance hand that’s going to slow down the energy in the ball. And now we’re already in this position and not having to go from on top of the ball to a loaded wrist position.
Patrick Carney 08:17
When working with a player, what are important questions that you should ask or a coach to think about asking to get input, feedback, and try to like help this player work through whatever adjustment shooting efficiency you’re working on?
Matt Jones 08:32
In my experience, just in player development in general, I think it’s super important to make sure you understand where a player is coming from, whether it’s shooting or any other skill. How did we get to this point? If you’re shooting the ball at a high clip and we’re trying to get you from 42 to 44%, what’s been successful to get you to this point? But more times than not, if you’re working with a player, it’s because they’ve had some struggles or inconsistencies.
So I’m always like, all right, how did we get to this point? What are some of the things people have been telling you about your shot forever? And do you believe those things to be true or they’ve never really connected with you? What works? What doesn’t? And just getting a feel for what they feel good about. And then I’m big on like the feel thing where I’m like, okay, you know, everyone talks about you go and work out and we’re like, we’re in the lab working. People love to say that the summer, but I always tell players like, all right, this is our laboratory. And if you know anything about science, like our laboratories, there’s going to be some experimentation and most of your experiments are going to fail. So I’m going to put you in some situations and I’m like, just try this, you know, just pander to me, try it and just let me know how it feels, you know, and sometimes players will try something like, man, that felt easy. What made it feel easy? He’s like, well, I was able to get to the ball of the rim and I felt like it took less effort or this feels uncomfortable and my shoulder feels tight or my wrist feels tight and just, all right, now try this. Now try this and always asking them what they feel, what their body physically feels. And then with that, people talk about cues with shooting. I have my terminology I like to use, but if a player says, hey, that felt loose or that felt, you know, whatever it is, a lot of times the terminology I use is driven by the feelings that the players share with me about whatever we’re doing and trying to connect a physical feeling with a word where the players I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with will just have five or six words that are my cues and it’s just one word. A lot of those are just feelings and I can say that and they automatically know what I’m asking or what feeling we’re chasing.
Dan Krikorian 10:32
Maybe this is like a conversation where you’ve worked with elite players and coached elite pros. We’re talking about like margins, right? Like trying to go from being a really high level shooter or a little bit more, 42% to 44. Where have you found that those margins are most gained with shooting?
And I’ll explain my question more. Like you’ve been a head coach as well. And when a player wants to go from say 42 to 44% from three, is it a combination of a little bit mechanics, a little bit getting in and working on those things or whatnot versus like shot selection. Like you’ve been a head coach. It’s like, well, you’re gonna shoot 3% better if you just take better shots. And I guess like the balance of a head coach, player development coach, trying to work on someone’s shooting efficiency inching up.
Matt Jones 11:17
Understanding context is important. I always ask players two things. If your life depended on a shot from three especially, what shot on the floor are you gonna take? Where do you like to get shots from it? The offensive scheme wasn’t part of it and it was just like, hey what’s your shot diet look like? Where are you trying to get shots? I always think that’s important. And then also, you know, as a college player, where do you fit into the scheme? What type of shots are you going to be getting? Because that’s obviously what we need to be working on. So I think that’s always the first piece is just understanding their own personal belief and then the context of the situation they’re playing in.
And then from there, there’s always one or two mechanical things you can be cleaning up or getting more efficient or quicker with. And when you’re working on the margins, this is something I’ve learned a lot like an NBA pre draft process especially, is some of these little things I’m going to ask a player to do aren’t easy. It’s not easy to have an open palm tension on your wrist and catch the ball a hundred times in a row like this. And I always tell players, are you tough enough to catch the ball a hundred times like this? Only knowing you’re going to make two or three more shots because you did it or four more shots. You know, there’s not a huge return on investment for something that I’m asking you to do. That’s not very easy. It’s hard. It takes a lot of mental toughness. It takes a lot of concentration and it’s not comfortable to do some of the things I’m going to do. But are you tough enough to do that? Even if it’s only going to help you make two, three, four more shots. But as we all know, you know, you talk about professional players or whatever, there’s a huge difference between being a 35% shooter and a 40% shooter from three. So I think that just the kind of the mental toughness part of it, because it’s like if it was easy, everyone would do it and everyone would shoot a high percentage.
Dan Krikorian 12:55
I really like what you said a few minutes ago about feelings and cues. And for an example, we all have players that shoot flat or don’t have enough arc on it.
Are there examples of cues or feelings with these kind of elite shooters that you work with or if someone is flat or short that you’re helping them with rather than just say like, put my arc on it?
Matt Jones 13:13
I think with the cues, some of them it’s like a word, but also some of them is more of an illustration. Especially when I work with young kids, I was talking about, you ever been to the restaurant and they carry your food out on a platter up here and it’s flat. Their hands not flat underneath that platter, all the food and all the drinks are going to fall off. And so I always talk about like, all right, let’s get to your platter. And that’s something that most people can visualize.
They’ve been to a restaurant, they’ve seen that. And your platter is really like what I’d call your set point. But if you’re 12 years old, a set point might not make a whole lot of sense in your head, but that kind of makes sense. So I think talking about getting to a set point, and I always talk about it’s a race. As you dip the ball, you catch the ball. At what point is your hand going to be fully underneath the ball? Because there’s a lot of people, especially those shooters who get on top of the ball, that they get up to this point and they’re not fully underneath the ball. And then it turns into like what I’d call a dart or a push because you’re never underneath the ball fully. You know, I always tell players, if you can catch it with your hand behind the ball, by the time you’re about to your chin, you should be fully underneath. And now we’re pushing up rather than pushing out. And I think that’s part of it that goes with shooting with distance. And I think the other piece for me, at least, is I always think about being in the squat rack, you sit down in the squat rack, your feet are flat to the ground, you have an upright chest, and we’re exploding up. And so you’re getting power from your hips, everyone’s like, Oh, your shot needs more legs. I don’t think it’s legs, it needs more hips, because that’s where you’re generating your power from. And a lot of that comes from strength, think squats and lunges and all that stuff that goes with strength and conditioning is another way to generate force. But the number one thing that I think a lot of players lack is ankle mobility and hip mobility, they’re not able to get their feet flat to the ground. And they’re not able to put their hips behind them, because they’re not strong enough, or they’re not flexible enough in those positions. It’s amazing how many keep going back to pre draft process, you get these guys who’ve been at power five programs with great strength coaches who can get the squat rack and put up 400 pounds on a squat or whatever, but they can’t get the ball to the basket. And a lot of them I think it’s just because they’re not consistently able enough to sink their hips and get their feet flat to the ground because there’s a mobility issue.
Patrick Carney 15:24
Maybe there it’s a good point off this ankle hip mobility with shooters and then also kind of tying it a little bit back to like this quest to just win the margins, be maybe two, three percent better. How do you think about adding footwork variability to a shooter? So maybe their ability to organize their feet given a random situation that can occur in a game. I think a lot of times you’re, well, they’re good at just kind of coming over their right shoulder over their left, but if it’s like a flare or like they have trouble organizing their feet, then you’re going to see their dip in the percentages. And I think a lot of it is tied to their biomechanics, but from a shooting teaching, how do you help guys add footwork variability to their shot?
Matt Jones 16:02
I go back to what I said earlier, I think watching a player, like giving them a 20 shot workout like, all right, we’re going to come on a shake. We’re going to come off a flare. We’re going to come off a zipper and just see how they self organize on their own and just see what’s comfortable for them. And then going past that and like, okay, this is what you did when you came off this flare. This was what your footwork best look like, or most look like. And sometimes I’ll film that I think showing them visually, especially when you work with younger players from like the iPad generation, I think the visual piece is important.
And then trying to refine from there. So it’s like, all right, we’ll come off the flare and let’s go all one, two footwork. I don’t care whether you left, right, right, left, that’s your constraint. And like, okay, now I only want you to hop. Now let’s go one, let’s alternate. You can one, two, and then you got to hop on the next one. And then we go back to now, I just want you to do whatever feels comfortable and just continuing to play with that with a lot of constraints or no constraints. And when you do have the constraints, you know, there’s got to be some sort of accountability reminder, whatever it is, where I’m big on being able to feel what you’re doing. So many players when it comes to shooting stuff in general, and you ask them what they did, and they can’t tell you anything. The players I’ve had most success with, they get to the point where they can, because I’m always asking them what they feel, they can tell me what they feel. And they are automatically like, yeah, I know I didn’t, you know, the ball hit my hands and my feet were hitting the ground simultaneously, or whatever it may be, the more you ask them what they feel, the more they can connect mind and body and they can self correct on their own. Because in the end, like, I’m not going to be with them all the time and all that. If I’m doing my job, they have these words in their heads and feelings that they can fix their own shot. They start out the game, oh, for two from three at halftime, they can get a couple shots up or whatever it may be where they can self correct on their own.
Dan Krikorian 17:50
Staffs have so much access to analytics now, and you can know exactly where a player is most efficient and how they’re shooting percentage from here versus there. You’re working with high-level guys.
How much do you bring that in? In what way do you introduce analytics? What’s the feedback from pros when it comes to what they want versus don’t want to hear when it comes to just all of this stuff?
Matt Jones 18:14
I think the initial discussion, if you’re gonna look at analytics, majority of the time I’m working with a player, most of the time is an off-season situation. So I’m gonna ask them about the scheme they played in that year and ask them like, hey, on a lot of your shots, what areas on the floor, what actions did you feel best about? What did you feel worse about? And then looking at the analytics and be like, well, based on the analytics as a movement shooter or from this spot on the floor, this is what it said. And seeing if there is a connection or a disconnect. There’s also players like, man, I felt great shooting it out of the left corner on catching shoots. And then you go look at the analytics or the numbers and it’s like, well, the analytics say you were very average from the corner. So what made them feel that way? Was it because of the volume they got there? What might it be? So I think trying to, as best as possible, connecting a player’s own feelings and thoughts with the analytics and seeing what connection or disconnection there is.
And if there’s a disconnect, continuing the conversation and that’s where I think bringing in a little video edit or whatever. And you said you didn’t feel good about this. You didn’t feel good about this, I think, because of your footwork or how you caught the ball. This was a more dynamic movement. So it’s gonna probably be a lower percentage shot. We have to refine some of these movements. The analytics piece, I think there’s a piece for it, but I think just leaning entirely into the numbers is a little short-sighted. You have to also understand these are still human beings with fragile shooting egos for the most part you’re dealing with.
Dan Krikorian 19:41
doing workouts, a lot of times you’ll see like in the middle or in the midst of a great shooting workout, hey, go make five free throws or make two free throws will come back or whatever it is. Like free throws are kind of part of a shooting workout, but free throws are such a different type of shot than say coming off of a catch and shoot three or come off a stagger.
How do you treat a free throw as far as their hips, what they’re looking at, their breath work versus shooting off of staggers or catch and shoot three from the corner? Do you work on the free throw routine as its own separate shooting thing versus other types of shots?
Matt Jones 20:15
I think the contrast between the two is a super powerful tool in a workout, especially if you’re shooting movement shots. You’re going from the most dynamic shot in the game to the most simple low variable. It’s the only shot in the game where you control the variables entirely. So I think there’s power in that.
What I tell players is we’ve all, I think as coaches, I know me and my coaching experience, there’s a lot of times where it’s like a player struggling and it’s like, man, get to the basket, get fouled, get to the free throw line, see the ball go through the rim. I think that’s kind of a common thing we’ve all heard as a player or a coach. I always take it a step further and be like, you get to the free throw line. This is a chance to shoot a form shot. If you’re committed to this craft, the form shooting is what we all should feel good about. So is my hand placement right? Do I have proper tension on my balance hand or whatever it may be? So I think it’s a great tool to treat it as almost like a form shot because all of us shoot a high percentage when we’re shooting form shots because there’s low variability. We have time to think, we have time to seek out perfection. There’s definitely value in it and the contrast between the two, but in the end, you’re shooting a similar shot. The common thing is always like every shot needs to look the same or be the same and not every shot is going to be the same. I talk about there being a groove or you’re creating a path. If you walk along the same path in the grass every day, you’re going to wear out, it’s going to become a dirt path, but it’s not going to be a path with each individual footsteps. There’s going to be some variance because my steps are always going to be a little bit different, but in general, it’s a similar groove we’re creating and that’s kind of how I view shooting. The groove you shoot it with from three is the same groove you’re shooting with from the free throw line. That doesn’t mean it’s identical, but it’s going to be similar.
Dan Krikorian 21:58
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Learn more at NEBC.com. Matt, this has been awesome so far. We wanna transition now to a segment on the show. We call start, sub or sit. We’re gonna give you three options around a topic, ask you to start one, sub one, sit one and then we’ll discuss your answer from there. So Matt, if you’re all set, we’ll dive into this first one. Let’s do it. All right. First one has to do with finding your coaching voice as an introvert. And I think this is a really interesting topic. All of us in the coaching profession are not equally introverted, extroverted. And then as you’re trying to find your voice, say as more of an introvert, things that are most important to develop in a skill set wise as you’re an introvert. I’m gonna give you three different things that an introvert can develop to help with their coaching voice and your start here would be what you think is most important. The start, sub, sit first option is just your preparation. Your pre-coaching preparation as an introvert, like knowing your stuff, knowing what you’re gonna say so you feel prepared when you actually are in those situations. The second option is your, we’re calling it your energy management or your ability to say decompress, have your own alone time outside of the major social interactions of coaching. And then your third option is developing the power of listening. So leaning into something where you’re really able to listen to players, coaches, and use that to build trust in your own voice as more of an introvert, as a coach. So start, sub, sit, finding your coaching voice, preparation, energy management, or the power of listening.
Matt Jones 24:30
I’m going to start with preparation because I think word choice is super important, taking the time before a practice, before a workout, what are our objectives? What terminology do I want to use? Because just the attention span of players and just humans in general is shorter than we even think. So I would lean into that as my start.
I would sub in the communication with players and just understanding what else is going on with what their opinions are, outside opinions. And then as much as I love to, for me, I always talk about my social battery being low. I would love to put that in one of my first two, but for me, I think most coaches agree with this is you’re going to run out of energy when you’re an introvert and you got to just find a way to bring it anyways and no player cares that I’m introverted or no one that I’m working with. So unfortunately, that’d be the one I’d have to say, even though I think a lot of times that’s the one that we neglect as coaches as well.
Dan Krikorian 25:28
Diving into this, I mean, something that we kind of discussed off air, just overall, like your thoughts sort of more of in a non-START subset fashion, I’m just developing your coaching voice as an introvert and obviously someone that’s coached at a high level, coaches at a high level, you know, the steps, the process to that, to where you’ve gotten to today.
Matt Jones 25:47
I think coaching reps are the most important thing, whether you’re coaching 12-year-olds, you’re coaching pros or whatever. So as a young coach especially, some of the best advice I ever got was, never turn down a coaching opportunity, whether you’re leading a station at a camp or you’re coaching a sixth grade team where you can just get those repetitions and figure out what works for you, what doesn’t work for you, what’s best for keeping a high level of energy. So I think not turning down an opportunity to develop that voice, especially as a young coach.
And then I think the back end of that is filming you coaching or running a workout and doing your own little evaluation or bringing in someone else with more experience. Some of the best feedback I’ve ever gotten is bringing in coaches with more experience than me to watch me run a practice or a workout and hey, what was too much? What was too little? What was too positive? What was too negative? So I think a constant state of valuation. If I was a great, unbelievable communicator, super outgoing, all those things, a lot of those things come naturally to those type of people. I’m not that type of person. So some of the things that for those people that are a little bit more intuitive are not intuitive to me and not natural. So I need to bring in someone who does have that lens to keep it real with me.
Patrick Carney 27:04
When communicating in front of the group or even in person, I mean, you mentioned words are important.
What have you learned about how you prepare or think about those conversations and what you’re gonna say, how you’re gonna say it that has helped you within this framework of just developing your coaching voice?
Matt Jones 27:21
Having consistent terminology is important, where you can just have words and phrases. I’m a huge believer in your terminology as your culture, and a lot of those times, your terminology encompasses more than just one thing.
Coaches love to say playing hard, you got to play hard, define what playing hard is. So when I talk about playing hard, players know for coach, these are the one, two, or three things that it looks like to play hard. So I think that leaning into your terminology and making sure your staff and those around you, are you leaning into those terms as well? And even like in a workout environment, I’m working with some high school kids right now, where it’s like, I make them use the terminology I use when we talk about stuff. I like to ask questions in a workout, and if they don’t use the terminology, I make them use it again. I would really lean into the terminology piece when it comes to communicating to the group, and then kind of taking the second part as you know, like I said, in the start, subset, taking information you’re taking from players or your staff and that open communication and sharing that. So I think terminology and then your output from your staff and your players is the second piece and properly preparing to communicate to a group.
Patrick Carney 28:32
You know, we’ve talked a lot about question asking and your sub was listening, how you’ve learned over the years to really listen with an open ear and react to new information that maybe you weren’t even fishing for with the question.
Matt Jones 28:46
going back to the preparation piece, if you’re going to ask questions to your team as best as possible, I know it’s not always possible to be thinking about what questions you want to ask going into the practice or the workout because you’re going to want to have some follow-up questions. Taking the time to like, all right, this is the questions I’m going to ask and this is what I think the answers are going to be.
And then having a follow-up question ready based on what those answers may be. But then also, I think we’ve all been in these situations as coaches where you ask a question and you get an answer that’s totally off the wall and there’s agreeance amongst the group on this topic and something comes to light that you weren’t prepared for. Taking that and most of the time if you’re not prepared for the answer, your follow-up, you have no preparation in your follow-up question and that sometimes it’s best just to sit on it and take in the information, okay, we can discuss this in the locker room afterwards or this is a discussion for tomorrow or I need to talk to my staff about this first or I may need to talk to this individual player before we discuss it as a group. So I think the preparation piece as best as possible and if you’re unprepared, take the time to go back and before you respond, have a prepared answer, have a prepared line of thinking because I think sometimes when we just fly off the cuff as coaches, we can get ourselves in trouble and sometimes we end up in a place that we don’t want to be in where we might’ve been better or not even asking the question in the first place.
Dan Krikorian 30:14
zooming out for a second looking at creating a career in coaching and for someone that’s an introvert needing to create those connections, be out at social events, network, all the things that every off season coaches talk about, finding mentors, going to places, doing that kind of stuff. From my standpoint, knowing you over the last four or five years, you seem to do a really great job of that.
Every time I land in the final four, I’m texting you to figure out what’s going on. How have you done that so that it feels like it’s a true thing and you’ve created really quality relationships, because I know there’s a lot of coaches listening that they’re here to network, they’re here to go out and do stuff, but you want to do it in a way that’s thoughtful and it helps actually build value in your career.
Matt Jones 30:56
Repetition, like anything else, as an introvert, it’s hard for us to put ourselves out there. It’s like a core tenet of being an introvert you’re going to keep to yourself. I’m always telling, especially young coaches who ask me what I think. It’s a numbers game. It’s like, I’m going to knock on more doors than anybody else. Some of those doors are going to get slammed in my face. Some of these conversations I’m going to have are going to sound like an idiot. Some of them you’re going to hit home runs and it’s going to be, you create a real connection with people. In the end to me, it’s always going to be a numbers game. That’s always been what I tell too many people. They get frustrated when 10 doors get closed in their face and just being like, well, I’m going to move on to 11 and 12 and 13. I’ll continue to do this until doors open.
In the end, doors may never open, but you’re going to get more comfortable in who you are and figuring out your voice. Most of us introverts, it’s not that we don’t have things to say, we just keep them inside us. Figuring out how to take some of these inner thoughts and say something meaningful, and that only comes with repetition. The second point I always tell people is, you like who you like. Your type of person is your type of person. One thing for me I’ve always leaned into is, I don’t really care where a person is from or what level they coach at or whatever. If you’re my type of person, you’re my type of person. I’ve been able to build up a rapport with some really great people. They’re my type of people. If chances are, if they’re my type of people, they know other people who are similar to us and view basketball and view the world similarly, and then they connect me to them. There’s a chain that happens, a tree of like-minded people. I’ve been really blessed to meet a lot of people where it just started out with one initial connection and it branches out because they say, hey, this would be a good person for you to talk to. I think you all might get along.
Patrick Carney 32:45
All right, Matt, keeping moving here, our next start subset, we’d like to go to the offensive side of the ball and talk a little bit about conceptual offense, but we want to approach it. What’s the toughest phase of the possession to teach when going conceptual?
So I’ll clarify it here with our three start subsets. Option one would be early offense. Option two would be re-triggering through possession. Or option three would be late clock. And which one is the toughest to teach when working with the conceptual offense framework?
Matt Jones 33:19
I would start the re-triggers for most players in my first year, this year, really teaching conceptual offense is so many players are used to going, I’m going to go from A to B to C to D to E to F and what do I do when I’m at A and I can’t go to B or C and just reprogramming minds, be like, I’m always talking about finding an action. What’s next? Find an action. If the ball’s in your hands, you’re the point guard. You have to help get us into the next action. To me, that’s what I would start.
I would sub late clock. If you look at points per possession, that type of thing, when you look at under seven seconds under the clock, that type of thing, obviously it’s super important. It can be difficult for players at times. You end up in these unorganized situations and then trying to find structure out of unorganization while the clock is getting to the end. From my experience this year, we had, even with our late clock pick and roll stuff, we had two triggers with that based on middle pick and roll. You go into the one side, you go to the two side, just the repetition with that, finding ways to be efficient at the end of clock. Then I would sit the early offense because early offense for most players is the most intuitive thing because most players have been dealing with playing early offense their whole career. It’s not that abstract of an idea to them.
Patrick Carney 34:39
I’d like to start with your start when working with re triggers and trying to help your team. Have you found that it’s okay, giving them one or two actions they can always get to, or is it more important to get them to understand the spacing and more importantly, not only how their space but who their space next to and like kind of the strengths of maybe this player over here versus mine that can dictate what action we should or what I should or should not be doing.
Matt Jones 35:06
If you have the ball in your hands, you’re the point guard. So I think you’re in charge of directing traffic. So you catch it. This year we talked a lot of catch. Take a breath. Obviously we’re trying to make half second decisions as best as possible. But my first half second decision is going to be past dribble shoe. We don’t have anything. I want you to take another half second, breathe. Look at our alignment. Is it an empty side? Is it a two side? Do I have someone who’s a 45 cutter, whatever it may be? And now it’s your job to be the communicator as the ball is in your hands.
And then with that, you know, we kept it simple and then progressed in terms of, all right, we had two actions we can get to, and then we’d add a third and identifying if it’s just you and one other player, it’s probably going to be some sort of DHL or pick and roll situation. If there’s a third player, that’s when the communication from whoever has the ball in their hands becomes more important. I’m giving you a roundabout answer because I’m kind of both of them, but I think whoever has the ball in their hands is their job to communicate with what we want here. And I’m big on like offensive talk. That’s the number one thing when people talk about coaching in the United States and then, you know, I’ve coached abroad and all these people ask me questions about European basketball. And I was talking about in European basketball, in my experience, there’s way more offensive talk. United States, we talked shell defense and being in your gaps and talking and flying around where my European experience is the offensive talk, even from a young age is way better. And so I’m always talking to my guys about offensive talk, just like five guys got to be talking on defense. We almost have to have five people, especially with conceptual offense because we’ve got to be on the same page. We need five offensive people talking as well.
Patrick Carney 36:43
From a practice training standpoint, how do you think about the environments, the drills you’re going to create to put them in these situations where they have to self-organize and find the re-triggers?
Matt Jones 36:57
balancing between teaching part and whole, I think is the first aspect of it. The second part of it is finding ways, maybe leaning into your staff for randomization, whether we play off an offensive rebound or you have players spread out all over the place or offense all of a sudden, they have to drop the ball in the half-court and offense becomes defense and it’s just playing out of a scramble.
So I think finding ways to create variability, randomization, and then obviously having a shot clock, and even when mixing up the shot clock. Some of the times we do stuff where we have some sort of randomizer, and then we start a shot clock, whether it’s 15 or seven or 20 or whatever it may be, enforcing them under pressure with unknown variability of how much time to find an action. Oh crap, there’s only seven seconds on the clock. There’s one or two actions we’re going to get to out of this. Oh, there’s 20 seconds on the shot clock. The world’s our oyster, but I got to find an action. I have the ball in my hands, I’m the point guard, I got to get us into something.
Dan Krikorian 37:53
Matt, you said this was kind of the first year you really leaned in with more conceptual offense and I guess my question would just be why and what was the overall take away from doing it this first year?
Matt Jones 38:05
I leaned into the conceptual offensive stuff because I think it gives players a little bit more freedom with my player development stuff and with my coaching experience. I always give the illustration, it’s like a coloring book when you’re a kid. I’m going to give you the lines and then I want you to color in between them and how you may color in them and how I may color in them are going to be different, but obviously it’s the same picture we’re coloring and it gives players a little bit more freedom. Now more than ever, players want some freedom, especially if you’re going to demand a lot from players on the defensive end, there has to be some sort of freedom on the offensive end.
The other piece for me, personally, like most of the jobs I’ve had, whether it’s abroad or when I was a prep school coach, I never quite had the budget or the talent of some of the upper echelon teams. So I knew we had to play different, you know, I’m not going to beat anybody else who’s got better players or more money or whatever doing what everybody else does. So I think trying to be different is part of it as well. And it’s harder to scout teams knew what actions we were going to get to. And I really, the experience I had this year was the second time playing teams was so much more. We really did have a leg up because we had all this film from the previous time to see how they guarded certain actions and we’re charting what works, what doesn’t work. The deeper it goes into the season, the more I think it helps because you start to figure out how teams are going to guard you.
Dan Krikorian 39:28
With conceptual offense, there is kind of a base structure or spacings or triggers underneath it all that allows it to keep being conceptual. I guess, what did you find is most important at the base of it so that it does run with, it’s not just five guys running around kind of unspaced or not know what they’re doing, but there is something that they hold onto at the beginning to build off of.
I mean, what were those things that you thought were most important early?
Matt Jones 39:55
Cutting rules was what we based everything off of, because someone gets downhill, especially when it’s an attack. No matter what the alignment is, baseline drive, we were going to 45 cut, and it doesn’t really matter what your alignment is, the rules are the rules. That was a big piece for me.
I think the cutting, we’re going to end up in some weird alignments. People are going to take us out of stuff, but when it’s this drive, this is what we’re going to do. So cutting was our foundational, and the second thing would be the spacing or alignments. We played out at two separate alignments this year, depending on who our five was at the time, and those are always the two foundational pieces, and then build on from that. But chances are, if you’re cutting the way you need to be, and your alignment’s right, everything else gets a heck of a lot easier. You’re setting yourself up for success if those two pieces are at least decently consistent.
Dan Krikorian 40:45
You sat it, which was early offense, and I agree with you, a lot of players, they get it, they play in it, growing up. Thoughts for you though on, in early offense, getting players away from the ball spaced, deep corner spacing, opposite 45, whatever it is, versus bringing players towards the ball.
You see a lot now of high horns entry stuff, or like a high ghost screen, or step up screen from the corner. So instead of that player running deep corner, they’re gonna come and set a step up screen. Rules versus decisions that they could make in early offense, whether you want the thrust to be get spaced and get out, versus, hey, we wanna push it, but also we can bring guys at the ball in random drags or 77s or whatever, and was there any discussion or balance between that and early offense?
Matt Jones 41:29
We did hard rules this year just because majority of my players, this was the first time they had done anything like this. I think, you know, if you’re in a system where you’re going to have similar players year to year, I think adding those early actions to, you know, kind of shuffle the deck and disguise things and create double gaps. I think that’s the second progression. I think that’s where anyone who really leans into this type of offense, that’s where they hope to get. But I think that’s going to take a lot of players some time to understand, because as soon as you start moving the puzzle, the pieces around, you end up in a different alignment.
And can you understand what actions we’re getting into in that alignment? The only caveat I would say with that is if you do have one really good screener, if you have a four or five who’s, you know, good at, going to get people open, creating advantage or good at ghosts or whatever, giving them a little bit of freedom and, you know, living and dying with the advantages they create versus the maybe messed up alignments they can create. And I think that’s, you know, on every coach, you’ve got to decide risk reward on that. I think it is important with this. You know, I just talked about giving players freedom and all that. If you have a player who’s really good at one of those things, I’m not giving them the freedom to do what they excel at. Then I’m kind of going against my own word.
Dan Krikorian 42:42
Matt, you’re off the star subset hot seat.
Matt Jones 42:45
It’s an honor to join the club.
Dan Krikorian 42:47
That was a lot of fun. Thanks for going through that.
Hey, we got a final question to close the show. Before we do, really enjoyed having you on today. Thanks for making the time with all you got going on in your busy schedule, so we really appreciate it.
Matt Jones 42:57
It’s good to be here, I appreciate you guys.
Dan Krikorian 42:59
Matt, our final question that we asked all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Matt Jones 43:05
My best investment was buying an Amtrak train ticket to go to a basketball camp. While I was still an undergrad, I had an opportunity to go work at a camp in Philadelphia. My 1994 cut list I didn’t think was going to make the 12-hour drive very well. I was thinking about backing out, and I’m like, I know I need to go to this. I know it’s a good opportunity, and I took like a 15-hour Amtrak train ride there. And that camp, I met probably three or four people who ended up connecting me to different people who ended up being like the most influential people in my basketball life. So for me, I think I spent like $125 on an Amtrak train ticket, but it really ended up setting me up for the rest of my basketball career.
I love telling that story because I’ve been very blessed to do so much and see so much, but a lot of those things would have never happened if I had tried to risk it with the 1994 cut list, so it is not done at all.
Dan Krikorian 44:06
Hi Pat, hey, let’s hop in here. Was a long time coming, getting Matt on the show. Someone that we’ve gotten a chance to know over the last four or five years, starting way back, Las Vegas at a secret pancake place off the beaten path. Since then, yeah, been really great guy to get to know and then fantastic coach who obviously has done a lot so far in his career. And so it was great to finally get him on the show today.
Patrick Carney 44:31
Yeah, as you alluded to, long overdue, getting to know Matt, and especially I think he has a really unique perspective on wearing, let’s say, so many hats from coaching in Europe, coaching in the States, player development. He’s touched on many different phases of the game, been all over, and it was really a fun conversation today.
Get to just, yeah, kind of pick his brain and his expertise. For sure. So with that being said, Dan, let’s dive right into it for the first takeaway.
Dan Krikorian 44:58
So I’ll start with the first bucket, which was shooting and sort of like developing a philosophy, your shooting eye, those kinds of things. And this is something I think we aspire to on the podcast is starting to have better and better conversations about shooting. And Matt’s like one of those people that can have that deeper next level, high level conversation about shooting. And I guess what I mean is moving on from the, hey, you wanna have backspin and you want this arc and you wanna have your elbow. I think that conversation has been had and there’s a lot out there. It’s like, okay, what’s kind of next in really developing the art of shooting? And there was a lot of great stuff that Matt talked about today. I think he’s one of the premier shooting coaches that we know when it comes to this stuff. And what I liked about today’s conversation was talking about the margins, talking about these little gains that high level shooters can make and variability and all that stuff. But my first takeaway is when we got into feelings and cues and words, that stuff I think is really interesting and how you train that obviously and he got into some of the background on it, I think is really good where you’re not just yelling all kinds of instructions at players about shooting or even like what can you really say to them during a game?
He gave the example that, player misses their first two or three threes and the conversation can’t be this elongated thing. It’s just these feelings or these cues that helped snap them into correcting what they ultimately feel in their own bodies. And so I really liked that part of the conversation. I thought that tied in with the movement stuff. I know it’s something you’ve been high on, but like the ankle mobility and how players move, I really think that stuff is a big part of the shooting conversation.
Patrick Carney 46:42
you hit on everything that stood out to me as well with question asking being number one and building off your point of like just the hit mobility, I mean, the biomechanics. I mean, of course, you know, if you’ve had the opportunity to study that, that’s a big plus. But for most of us, we haven’t myself included, of course. And I think like this is where questioning asking can really benefit you.
And I mean, even before we get into like the nuance, the details about I think to just with shooting, especially in a one on one session, we’ve talked about before, any time you’re going to maybe try to improve a margin or tweak something like it’s going to get worse before it gets better. So it has to be collaborative. And I think this is where question asking has the greatest value because you get to know where they’re at. And I like what Matt said, it’s not about just always, you know, how do you feel is a big part of that? What did you feel? But I think starting from where they at, like just asking them and then like, what do they believe? What do they believe? And then being able to just know where you start. And like he said, the quiet eye, just kind of watching. But I love to the point he made using the feelings part to drive his terminology then to how you build the cues off of like what the conversations have been with the shooter, this player, I thought was like a really important point as you start to then build out, improve margins, whatever it is from how they move from their mechanics. So he mentioned, you know, get to your platter, you know, load the hand how you catch, but knowing how they feel tailoring the terminology, that sharing a terminology. So yeah, you can then in real time start to auto correct. But more importantly, I think when he kind of got to the end of the conversation, my last point here is how it allows you to then the player to self correct because they can now effectively organize their mind and body through kind of rehearsal of these cues that you’ve built throughout your sessions.
Dan Krikorian 48:31
I agree and not to belabor the point that you’ve already made but I thought he spoke well on why that’s just a better way to help players I’d say more in game but also in a training session just get better repetition rather than over spending time on technique or form or you know players just don’t grasp it the same way so that was really good and then I always enjoy someone like him hearing how they think about analytics being brought in and different levels have different ability to get to high level analytics but like when you and I were playing we didn’t have this stuff you know a player development coach wasn’t saying hey you shoot this percentage from here and you’re shooting this from here the players now they’re in an era where everything is known about their game and like just always the balance of when you talk about the feeling and how a player feels shooting I think it’s important to know what that balance is and what are the analytics that we need to know as a coach to help them get better verse they need to actually know but they don’t need every stat rattling around their head so interesting stuff well Pat let’s keep this moving and move to the second takeaway and I’ll throw that to you
Patrick Carney 49:35
My second takeaway will go to your start subset when we talked about developing your coaching voice as an introvert. We were looking forward to this question. I’m getting to know Matt and then of course, kind of knowing who we are as coaches, I think we were really curious to hear his thoughts on this. So yeah, without a doubt, it stood out in my mind.
The point he made about the decompressing your energy management, and I think being really realistic that yes, that’s probably like would be the best factor or most important thing. But realistically, as a head coach, like it’s very hard. And whether you’re introvert, extrovert, we’ve been hearing this through years throughout this coach and getting the opportunity to talk to coaches, your time management is everything, but it’s also very hard. You’re getting pulled in so many directions. So yeah, I mean, yes, you got to make time for it. But at the end of the day, if you haven’t, as a practice, no one cares, you got to get up, you got to go to work, so to speak, put on the hard hat and just kind of put out the good face. And I thought that was just a real good kickoff point there too, as to why he sat it. I’ll finish here just talking about the preparation and again, going back to the value of the terminology and helping him and how he speaks to the group, how he speaks to the player, like if they have that shared communication, I think my takeaway is it breaks down maybe sort of the energy required or that kind of the anxiety that can come with introverts at times, because it’s a shared language, the knowledge is there, the base knowledge is there, and I think it helps facilitate communication if we’re all kind of talking from the same point or same, not point of view, but on the same common ground. And I really thought that was a good point to be made when trying to find your coaching voice.
Dan Krikorian 51:16
Yeah, you and I were talking about this before the show a little bit, and it was the term. So there’s an introvert, there’s extrovert, there’s like sort of the scale of where you can be on it. And then there’s the ambivert vocab, where it’s like you’re a mixture of both and sort of task dependent. You know, there’s so many times as a coach where like, you have to have that extroversion, you have to talk in front of the group, you have to code, I mean, there’s no way around it. But then finding times in your life or wherever where you can recharge and get your energy back, whether it’s just small moments, I think you and I were kind of talking about that.
And the demands of a coach are one that is obviously it’s a public facing deal from the social part of it to the game part of it to the coaching part of it to player interactions and all that and being mindful of that. And I think his sub was listening, powerful listening, like you think about especially early on in a career where I mean, I guess it can be especially early on, but your whole career, when you’re trying to gain your own voice and trust within a group, if you are more introverted by nature, but just leaning into the fact that well, I mean, I can be just a great listener and have someone’s ear and understand what they want their needs. That then I think grows confidence in a young coach that they then have a confidence of players because they’re a good listener or they’re willing to sit around after practice and rebound and just hear players out can be a way to develop that voice rather than feeling like you have to come in and have all the answers and give great speeches and say the right thing all the time.
So I thought it was a unique conversation. I agree.
Patrick Carney 52:48
I do want to add just one last point to the listening conversation we had at the end. I thought when he talked about the value of them, like follow-up questions, like one to be a great listener, be open-minded, but the value then of whether you’re first approaching the group, maybe preparing possible answers follows, but I think too even individual settings, I think like that’s also another strong component to listening.
And I think there’s real value and then continuing to just master the art of question asking that includes follow-up questions as well. For sure. All right, Dan, let’s wrap it up here. I’ll throw it to you for the third takeaway.
Dan Krikorian 53:22
I did just caveat really like his best investment answer with taking that training ride, which is cool, but I’ll go to the star subset with conceptual offense and you see it here a lot right now. I think it was interesting to kind of dig into, all right, what parts of it can be difficult or the harder ones to get players on the same page or to coach through when you get underneath the hood. And so I’ll go to his start, which was my takeaway, which is just the retriggers. And I liked that conversation around it and just, okay, spacings, players. The term I liked that he used was anytime you have the ball, you are the point guard. That kind of setting the stage for like, you are the one that’s in charge of what’s happening next and those kinds of things. And then later he talked about things really being built around cutting rules as well. That being something that shapes it, I think I asked him later, what are the more foundational pieces early? And he talked about the cutting rules and all of that stuff. And so that was a good part of it.
Lastly, I liked when he got into a little bit about playing out of randomized environments, offensive rebound, steel, all those kinds of things. I thought that was really good way to get into teaching it. So a few years back, we had Michigan State women’s head coach, Robin Freilich on and coach Freilich, it still sticks with me this day. She talked about the best teams are great in the conversions of the game. These little moments where the game flips, offensive defense, rebound, and just adding those things in to teach your offense, I think is what some of the great coaches do.
Patrick Carney 54:55
The point I like that he also made with in the man with the balls the point guard He brought up how Europe is good at offensive talk or the value of offensive talk and he was dead on I mean, I think everyone talks about the value of defensive talk and we build our shells around it Talk your spot talk your teammates position whatever their responsibility, but yeah, it’s not as Emphasized as much on the offensive end and I think you see some of these great teams I mean I think of Valencia with coach Pedro Martinez I mean, I’m not there to hear them talk But you see them using a lot of hand signals to communicate actions I think that of course is the same thing like developing some sort of hand signals But even yeah, just communication point waving guys through especially in these retrigger moments I think that’s the difference between success and failure in these moments at times You know because not all five guys are gonna be able to self organize me on the same page all at once But if the one guy is with the ball, you know Whether it’s a cutter tells them to move, you know, whatever it may be or screen if you can just get clarity in the action You’re gonna find more success than trying to find the perfect action I think is an important point that can arise out of just preaching offensive talk
Dan Krikorian 56:05
Yeah, offensive talk, not offensive talk, right? Was his… Well, depending on…
Patrick Carney 56:09
On what you need to get done out there Yeah That line I think the coaches role is the offensive talk. Yeah
Dan Krikorian 56:19
as people dive more into conceptual offense and, you know, read-based, re-triggering, these conversations are always interesting to be had. Matt being one that ran it at a high level, you know, he was in professional basketball working on these things, so it’s good to get his standpoint there.
Tons of stuff we went over today. Is there anything, any misses, anything we could have gone deeper on from your standpoint?
Patrick Carney 56:42
I think it’ll come as no surprise to you when Matt started talking about ankle hip mobility, biomechanics, and how the body moves. That’s like a passion project of mine this summer, thinking about it more and how we can introduce it more on the court.
It’s always like a fine line between getting way too biomechanical and over my head. And this is a podcast, but also just how like practical teaching ways we can think about movement, especially for a shooter. So always an itch when it gets brought up that I would have loved to have gone deeper on, but I exercise some constraint, I think, for you as well. I’m tired of probably hearing me rant about this all summer.
Dan Krikorian 57:21
Off air closeouts and ankle mobility is all you’re about. Yeah.
Patrick Carney 57:24
And maybe they impact both, and that’s just gonna be a mind-blower when that day comes, that intersection.
Dan Krikorian 57:30
Yeah, yeah. You want to close out ankle mobility guy? You got to go to Carney.
Patrick Carney 57:36
Ankle flexion will determine what type of closeout angle you need. Yeah, no doubt.
Dan Krikorian 57:41
Well, I’ll just add, I would have loved to ask him a little deeper on his cutting rules. So going to the conceptual offense, maybe not so much just cutting rules, but I think the next layer, he kind of mentioned the layers of conceptual offense, because I think what we talked about, the sort of early offense, retriggers, late clock, a lot of that is advantage creation conversation. But he kind of talked about, well, what happens once you do get the advantage and the cutting and the slides and the opening and teaching that next layer, I think would have been interesting to pick his brain on even deeper because I know he thinks about that and teams do it well. So just deeper on the second layer of the conceptual offense would have been interesting, but it was awesome to have him on today.
So once again, we thank coach Jones for coming on. We appreciate everybody for listening and we will see you next time.