Brad Stevens' Butler Defense Notes

Perhaps a bit obsolete and past its shelf life as Brad adjusts to the NBA, but still something in there.  It shows a complete and total commitment to preparation and drills.  Doc was about "playing free".  Well, when you're a veteran bunch that is ok but we're not.  His approach is almost Tony-Dungy-like in its structure.  These are notes from a presentation made by Brad Stevens at the Florida Coaches Clinic in 2010.  If you've ever thought "I wish I knew how Brad Stevens thinks and what he says to the players" this will tell you some of it.  Know how there have been a lot of videos and articles written about Celtic players working on their conditioning all summer with Strength and Conditioning Coach Brian Doo?  You see where that comes from in this piece.

Links referenced to in this piece have links themselves to videos and diagrams, so I'm not going to put them all here, you'll have to follow the links and see them for yourselves.  For those of you who like the structure of coaching (as opposed to just watching and enjoying the game itself) there is a lot of good stuff here.  There are links at the bottom of the page on the link below that takes you to other stuff too.  Once again, for the "coaching-oriented" board member or member who coaches youth teams, this will get you through today, get you one step closer to camp and significantly expand your repertoire.


http://www.coachingtoolbox.net/blog/brad-stevens-butler-defense-notes



Brad Stevens Butler Defense Notes





I received these notes from Coach Steve Smiley from a presentation that Brad Stevens made at the 2010 Florida Coaches Clinic when he coached at Butler.

These are notes and the outline for his talk.  Here is a link to diagrams of his drills:  http://www.coachingtoolbox.net/basketball-drills/basketball-drills.html

Coach Stevens Big into the process, statistics, and numbers.
This helps him to coach his team.
Always trying to get guys to do the things that are important.
Having a Defensive DNA is a big part of that.
Gained an appreciation when he became a head coach for how hard it is to prepare the right practice.
Your team has to be good at practicing the right things. This puts a huge premium on the head coach being right.
Broke their Defensive DNA up into 6 categories
Did this because he was coaching a team with 6 freshman who needed to learn how to play  their system
What is the best way to teach something at the beginning of the year that instills your system, but is also able to be changed/adjusted later on in the season?


1. Commitment

Your players must be completely committed to the system
In 11 years, never had a player in the program that worked his tail off on the defensive end that wasn’t a great teammate/student
People that do their job on every play make you feel proud to be a part of the program
Starts with establishing the correct mindset
Referenced Doc Rivers from last year’s clinic: Believe or Leave
If your players believe, you can establish a Defensive DNA
Felt that when he had young teams, having a great defensive team gave him the best chance to win
Challenge your team statistically
Example: Earlier this season, Butler was giving up 45% from the floor, but they found out that if they had gotten three more stops per game, they would be giving up 39%. Defensive FG% dropped 2 percentage points for every stop.
Your team is never too far away from being great, and never too far away from being bad
Uses the 10 day break during the season to be tremendously beneficial .
Really admires how davidson plays-They are unpredictable, yet they have a system that they believe in.
Your system must be built to defend everything, no matter what is being run against it. (i.e. something you didn’t cover in scouting)
At the same time, have a degree of unpredictability.


2. Positioning

First Step to proper positioning is your transition defense.
Your transition drills have to simulate what happens in the game
Goals for transition defense
Stay in front of the basketball
Protect the basket
Pick up the basketball
Find good shooters
Defending the ball
First important question where are you on the floor?
If you have an athletic advantage, you can pressure more
If you are at an athletic disadvantage, you can pressure more
If you are at an athletic disadvantage, you have to trick the offensive player in different ways to keep him off balance
Butler plays a lot of 1 on 1–both bigs and guards.  Everyone must be able to guard 2 dribbles on the perimeter (Bigs will often switch onto a guard late in the shot clock)
Closeouts
Three steps then break down (chop your feet) with your arms up; closeout to his dominant hand
Closeouts are dependent upon personnel
If you’re closing out to a great shooter, close out to his shooting hand and give him less room to get his shot off.
If you’re closing out to a great driver, you don’t want to break down as much.  “A great drive beats a great closeout every time.”


3. Prioritizing

Are you prioritizing what’s important?  The goal is to stop the other team from scoring
Scouting is a large part of the equation
Their system must be adjustable and flexible in terms of guarding different teams/players
Coach Stevens gave an example of how he used their trip to Italy to work on some different things, and “it took (Butler) three months to get back to our identity.”
Even though you (as a coach) are thinking about jumping to the ball/your identity all summer doesn’t mean your players are.
Learned that you need to start back over every year
Tony Dungy example from his new book: Concept of “regenerative leadership”  Older players spreading the culture to the younger players, and the younger players continue the cycle when they become older players


4. Awareness

Awareness can allow a marginal athlete to become a very good defender—more so than a great athlete with marginal awareness
The 4 levels of competency:
Unconsciously incompetent-You don’t know what you don’t know
Consciously incompetent-You know that you have no clue
Consciously competent-You know what’s going on
Unconsciously competent-You begin to see things before they happen.  You can rely on your habits because of how many times you’ve done it before
Coach will allow players to have “mature freedom” to make reads when they are in this stage of competency.
When you’re in the first two categories (unconsciously/consciously incompetent), you should be a great follower/listener.
60% of awareness comes from what you have built through practice/drills/habits
40% of awareness comes from who you are guarding or what the other team is running
Uses lots of 4 on 4 work in practice


5. Execution/Technique

Technique is easy to work on in indivìduals
Coach Stevens spent some time at the Indianapolis Colts offseason
Was struck by the consistency in their approach
Quarterbacks spent 5 minutes per day watching their handoffs with no defense. (Attention to detail)
Described Peyton Manning as “Elite in his preparation”
Butler ¡s big on drilling and technique
Be deliberate in your practice and approach
The strength and conditioning coach will drill the players in the offseason around techniques that the players will be executing all season (i.e. hedging a ball screen) “Deliberate conditioning”


6. Completion

The importance of “finishing plays”
Guys that really care and understand the concept of blocking out
Butler teaches blocking out based on the individual personnel of their players
Less mobile player’s responsibility is to keep the offensive player from getting the ball
A more mobile player (with a nose for the ball) may just hit his man then pursue the ball.I will be posting the drills from the notes later in the week.


http://www.coachingtoolbox.net/basketball-drills/basketball-drills-butler.html




bob



.

At first blush, Brad's almost the anti-Red because Red coached so instinctively whereas Brad (in his own words) coaches deliberately.  On second thought, when one thinks about it, both guys have/had the same basic goal of ensuring that the player and the team get the very most out of their potential so that the whole equals/equaled much more than the sum of the parts.  And both guys felt that defense wins.  

Red's approach was sterner than Brad's to the point that at least one of his players (Loscutoff) was determined to kill him.  But, when Red and Loscy had a closed conference upon Jim's retirement, Jim came out bawling his eyes out in gratitude for what Red had meant to him.  Brad's approach is more cerebral and required less of a leap of faith by the players because Brad has concrete examples/proof of practically everything he espouses whereas Red depended on his reputational credibility (and, as time passed, his winning record) to convince players he was right.

When one thinks back to the "Red on Roundball" television series, Red did a great job of outlining strategies and plays, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if Brad had watched that series.  But Red's overall philosophy pertaining to basketball was much briefer, more instinctive, and to the point, whereas Brad has a litany of cerebral points to back up his philosophy.

In short, Red was more of a dictator (in a good way), and Brad seems to be more of an encourager.  There's every possibility that the independence and egos of today's players responds better to encouragement than dictation.

Two different approaches, but almost identical goals.  Hopefully, over the years, we'll see Brad's coaching lead to the same successes Red had.

Sam