The New York Knicks’ brief winning streak is history, and the Boston Celtics nearly made history ending it.
The Celtics cruised to their biggest victory since Larry Bird was in high school, beating New York 104-59 on Thursday night to send the Knicks to their third-worst loss and their second-worst scoring performance of the shot-clock era.
“Of course I am embarrassed. We lost by nearly 50 points,” Knicks guard Stephon Marbury said. “I’m angry. I’m always angry when I lose, but that was just flat-out embarrassing. To lose that bad was just ridiculous.”
It was the sixth-biggest win in Celtics history and the biggest since a 153-107 victory over the Baltimore Bullets in 1970 — five NBA titles ago.
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There is a wealth of information available for the beginning basketball coach, however a lot of it is too advanced for someone who may be just getting started. Those men, women, or teenagers who will be coaching youth teams need to be fed information relative to their own knowledge and level of experience, and to that of the youth they will be coaching. They need to learn how, what, and when to do the things relative to that sport. Then, they need to be able to translate this information into meaningful teaching activity for the youngsters.
Teaching requires that learning is taking place. Just going through motions isn’t teaching. Just telling or directing traffic is not teaching.
Let me make something clear right here—there is a difference between coaching and teaching. Coaching is telling or directing. Teaching is explaining and showing how something is done, and why. New players to the game need more of the latter. Professional basketball players still need teaching, so teaching certainly can’t go missing at the youth level. Most people don’t even give a thought to the difference between the two terms, yet it is vast. We teach in practice—we coach during a game. A lot of “coaches” yell, direct and play traffic cop while moving players around. The good ones teach. Here is an example: A class room teacher teaches the basics of math, with all the nuances of the particular kind of math being taught–lots of explanation, demonstration, examples, practice, homework, etc. When it comes time to take FCATS or SCATS, etc., the teacher now coaches the students on how to take the test—not on how to do the math.
In sports, the basics are taught for every aspect of the game. They are explained, demonstrated and drilled. They are instructed in how everything they are learning comes together in order to play a game. Once the game begins, the teacher becomes a coach, directing the play of the game. The game moves too quickly for any more teaching to effectively take place—especially for young children. Once the game is over, the coach reverts back to the teacher, using the game experience to illustrate areas where weakness needs to be worked on and encouraging the areas where what has been taught was indeed caught by the youngsters.
If an adult can’t play the piano, how can they possibly teach a child how to play the piano? If the coach of young players has never played basketball, how does one teach movement, passing, dribbling, floor balance, shooting, etc.? We would rarely see such a novice at the game attempting to guide a group of teenagers. It could be disastrous. The teens would most likely already have some experience at the game—maybe several years of playing—and already are advanced over the newbie coach. The new coach would be better working with very young players with little or no experience, where the coach can learn skills as they go and impart them to their charges without so much angst.
God Bless the Volunteer Coaches! Where would most sports programs be without these volunteer adults, parents or teenagers who show up, regardless of game experience, to direct a group of youngsters? Now comes the hard part.
Even if a coach has played the game, or is not “brand new” to coaching, is that coach well-schooled in how to coach basketball—especially at beginning levels? How have they been trained in child-play and psychology? Well-meaning adults often have no clue how to formulate a teaching plan for this age level, much less carry out the teaching of the varied skills necessary to play the game, even moderately well.
The children are really coming out for a sport to have fun and learn a little about the game. These kids are not pros in training. The coach can take it slowly and instruct at a very basic level. This is an important set of concepts for coaches to understand. Young kids just want to have fun. They want to learn. They want to play. But if it’s not fun, we’ve probably lost them.
We should feel fortunate if a 6-9 year old can tie their own shoe laces and walk and run without stumbling. The time for other-handed layups, between-legs dribbling, and attempts from 3-point land are for the future. The time for team offenses and defenses, out-of-bounds plays, etc., is for the future. The coach that places focus here is not teaching. This coach is creating frustration for himself/herself and for the youngsters. Because this coach is trying too hard to bring advanced skills and play to players not physically, emotionally or experientially ready, the fun will not be there for players or coach. This kind of focus will usually mean winning games is very important to the coach.
Coaches, I challenge you to ask the kids—what would they most like to do–win games or have fun? Later on in a playing career, part of the fun is connected to winning, for sure. But at the lowest levels, at least through grade 6, let there be fun and let the game be for the children, not for the adults.
Youth sports are a great universal pastime. They are a place for children to learn skills, to experiment with a sport to see if it resonates with them, to be socially interactive, and to have fun. Sports are indeed a metaphor for life. All the lessons for group dynamics are present here–how to function in a scaled down society, how to act and react to the myriad of experiences that will come into play as they progress in sports. Yet the fundamental experience here must always be to allow the child to be a child—not to have to think, behave and participate as an adult. That’s for the future. Youth sports are for the youth. They are for the participants to learn, act and participate in a child’s activity. The best thing an adult director or coach of a youth sport could do for the children is to allow them to be children, functioning within a child’s society, and to above all, have fun.
As a teacher of the game for coaches and players, my particular specialty is working with beginning coaches. I feel that if, in the process of my teaching, the coach learns and understands how to perform the skills of basketball, they can in their turn become teachers of the game. Becoming a teaching-coach is the highest award I could bestow on any prospective coach. My web site is devoted to helping the “newbie” to become a teaching-coach. Please check Basketball youth drills and Basketball workouts at our site
Montserrat Dominguez used “Matchpoint” from Woody Allen, to comment on (the last two seconds of) the Eurobasket final; Pao Gasol threw the ball and after circling around on the ring it seemed to enter but it didn’t finally… The Russian team won by only one point.
Another view on the game is this; the last two seconds in which Gasol threw the ball was symbolic for the rest of the game, at least for the last quarter. Everybody was hoping that Pao would, that he would save the game, but he didn’t.
The Spanish team led the game in the first three quarters. It was noticeable that during the third quarter and the fourth Pao was underperforming. “I admit I wasn’t at my best, “he said afterwards (1). This caused a dilemma for the team. Pao is the star player of Basket in Spain, so this knowledge serves the team and the coach to trust on his capabilities.
Why wasn’t he changed? Is what I asked myself. There are enough top players in the Spanish team, why trust on someone with a track record who is not performing as he should?.
“But I take responsibility for that,” is what Pao added when he got interviewed. That is strange. He is not responsible for the team to loose the game. They could have won easily if they continued as they played in the first two-and-a-half quarters.
Leaving Pao in the game is a decision of the coach, in a decision where he is to weigh creativity and innovation on one hand versus tradition on the other. But it is also about balancing between performance management and competence management.
In the first view the challenge for the coach is to measure the impact of a new team that is not centered around the star player. Where will this lead to? It is the same uncertainty as with leaving the best player in, but with the risk that he will under perform. It is common for any business to trust on proven methods, to trust on what worked in the past.
On the other dimension the coach will have to choose between performance management and competence management. In the performance management approach someone who is under-performing in the team will be changed for another team-player. In the competence management approach this is not required as long as the star is believed to hold the team together. But with the risk to loose when the star “is not at his best.” Any sport today requires a performance management approach.
I would therefore argue that the responsibility for the defeat is closer to the coach than to Pao. But that is from a management point of view.
