As coaches, SO MANY times we can be our “own worst enemy.” We tell our teams exactly WHAT to do and WHEN to do it and HOW to do it and exactly WHO to do it to. In other words, our teams and players don’t need to think TOO much because we do all the thinking for them. And then, when the game is going on we just can’t figure out WHY our players can’t adjust.
In an A to B to C system, you don’t need a lot of problem solving because the theory is that the “SYSTEM” is set up to take care of it. RIGHT? WELL WE HOPE SO! So where am I going with this.
The Run and Jump Press is a wide open, free thinking, problem solving defense. First and foremost, that means we don’t know what the offense is going to run against it and quite frankly, WE DON’T CARE! All we want to do is pressure and run and rotate and trap and rebound and have a boat load of fun. Then we score and do it all over again.
Think about your best teams. I promise you they not only were GREAT thinkers, but secretly, you might have wondered if they even needed you. They were a bunch of players that made adjustments on the fly and simply GOT THE JOB DONE! However, they DID need you.
They needed you to encourage problem solving. They needed you to encourage free thinking and open up their minds to different possibilities. In other words, they needed you to get them beyond the A to B to C mentality.
The Run and Jump Press is all about the encouragement of PROBLEM SOLVING and FREE THINKING. In other words, you are training your kids to make adjustments which is quite UNPREDICTABLE and trust me, unpredictable is AWESOME. Is that not what we want out of our teams? Our continual statements to our teams are and should be-
- JUST GET IT DONE!
- TAKE OWNERSHIP!
- FIGURE IT OUT!
- COMMUNICATE!
As coaches, we all tend to stifle free thinking and problem solving. Of course, we are there to help them, offer ideas, teach the process, but the bottom line of the bottom line is that they are the ones that have to DO IT! So continually PROMOTE them to think, to adjust, to communicate with each other, to problem solve with teammates, and to “JUST DO IT.” The Run and Jump Press is the ULTIMATE thinking engine that will drive this process.
In our camps, we hold a session of problem solving. Line up a 1-4 Press Breaker and let them figure it out. How about sprinting the back line up to the front and the middle flies down the court. Yup – FIGURE IT OUT! And then the Clear Out (another article coming)- We let the players think and adjust and of course we OFFER ideas.
COACH EDDIE ANDRIST 