Thank you for being part of this community—coaches and players committed to mastering defensive technique and development.

They Don’t Know What to Say

This week I asked coaches a simple question on X.
Why don’t players communicate on defense?

I’ll admit, I expected any of the other choices to win. Instead, more than 40% of coaches agreed:

“They don’t know what to say.”

And it makes sense. We spend years teaching players how to defend. How to close out. How to guard the ball. How to rotate. But we almost never teach them how to speak.

Instead, most coaches usually just yell one word.

“Talk!”
Or maybe two:
“Talk more!”

Imagine trying to teach shooting that way, or ball handling.

“Just dribble!”

Nobody would coach like that.

We’d break the skill down. We’d teach technique. We’d give players repetitions until it became automatic.

But communication somehow gets treated differently. We assume players will figure it out on their own.

The problem is that communication isn’t one skill. It’s a language. And if you’ve never been taught the language, of course you’re going to stay quiet.

Think about a freshman stepping onto a high school floor for the first time. Everything is moving faster than they’ve ever experienced. They’re trying to guard the ball, remember the positioning, recognize actions...and on top of all that, they’re supposed to know exactly what to yell.

That’s a lot to ask.

I’ve started simplifying for players.

I tell them there are four things you can always communicate. You can tell your teammates where you are. You can tell them what you see. You can tell them what you’re doing. Or you can simply bring energy to the group. If you’re doing one of those four things, you’re helping your defense.

What I’ve found is that once players have a framework, they start talking more naturally. They’re no longer searching for the perfect phrase. They’re simply describing the game as they experience it.

And that’s really what communication is.

Not yelling for the sake of yelling.

Helping your teammates see what you see and act on the same page.

That idea led me to build an entire communication lesson around something I call The Voice. It explores why communication is about much more than calling screens and how it’s the one skill that can impact every single play.

It’s about leadership, emotional contagion, verbal dominance, building confidence, and giving players an actual vocabulary instead of just demanding they “talk.” It also includes practical exercises like building a player’s own communication blueprint and practicing calls through film, so the skill becomes deliberate instead of accidental.

The Voice is just one module in a 5-Day crash course on the mental skills needed to be an elite defender. Check out Built for Stops now to find out more.

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Inside, you’ll get complete clinics on Switching Schemes, Ball Screen Defense, and Transition Defense, plus The Scout That Wins series — a three-part deep dive on opponent prep, adjustments, and in-game management. You’ll also receive Coach Mike’s Favorite Drills Clinic and the Defensive Identity Questions Worksheet, a guided workbook to define your team’s edge, non-negotiables, and flexibility points before the season begins.

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Thank you for being part of this community—coaches and players committed to mastering defensive technique and development.

Most Coaches Get Adjustments Wrong

A team makes ten threes in the first half.

Halftime arrives, and the adjustment seems obvious.

“We need to run them off the line.”

Maybe.

But where are those threes coming from?

Are they being created by a point guard repeatedly collapsing the defense? A post-up generating kick-outs? A stagger screen creating confusion? A transition defense issue? Or is a poor shooter simply having the best half of his season?

Those are very different problems. Yet many coaches arrive at the same adjustment.

That’s the mistake.

One of the challenges with in-game adjustments is that outcomes naturally grab our attention. A player scores 25 points. A team makes ten threes. You’re getting crushed on the glass.

Those outcomes are important. They tell us what happened.

What they don’t tell us is why it happened. And that distinction matters.

A player can score 25 points in five completely different ways. He might be dominating in ball screens. He might be living at the free-throw line. He might be scoring in transition. He might be benefiting from offensive rebounds.

The outcome is the same. The cause is not.

Different causes require different solutions.

That’s why I’ve become skeptical of conversations about adjustment that begin with answers like:

“We need to run shooters off the line.” “We need to trap.” “We need to pressure more.”

Maybe.

But before deciding what to do, we need to understand what we’re responding to.

Spend less time reacting to outcomes and more time tracing those outcomes back to the breakdowns that created them.

The adjustment itself is rarely the difficult part. The difficult part is identifying what actually needs to be adjusted. Because once the breakdown becomes clear, the adjustment often becomes obvious.

Outcomes tell you what happened.

Processes tell you what to do next.

Read the full article about In-Game Adjustments, Winning vs Development, and Coaching the Game in Front of You: Read Now

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Inside, you’ll get complete clinics on Switching Schemes, Ball Screen Defense, and Transition Defense, plus The Scout That Wins series — a three-part deep dive on opponent prep, adjustments, and in-game management. You’ll also receive Coach Mike’s Favorite Drills Clinic and the Defensive Identity Questions Worksheet, a guided workbook to define your team’s edge, non-negotiables, and flexibility points before the season begins.

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🔒 Lockdown Defense Camp less than a Month Away!

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“Four days at this camp helped our son more than every other camp he’s ever attended.”
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The National Anthem

Before every game, during the national anthem, I close my eyes.

The scouting report is finished. The film has been watched. The matchups have been assigned. Whatever preparation could be done has already been done. There is nothing left to add to the game plan in those final two minutes before tip-off.

And yet, that’s usually when I start thinking about chaos.

Not in a nervous way. Not in a pessimistic way. More like a thought experiment.

What if their point guard is hurting us in a way we didn’t anticipate? What if the role player we barely talked about becomes the most important player on the floor? What if they put in a whole in offense designed to counter our coverage? What if foul trouble forces us into lineups we haven’t used all season?

I don’t think about these possibilities because I lack confidence in our preparation. In many ways, it’s the opposite. Preparation is what gives those questions value. The better you prepare, the more clearly you understand what you’re expecting to happen. You know the strengths you’re trying to take away. You know the actions you’re trying to disrupt. You know the matchups you’re counting on.

But that’s also when you become aware of something else.

The game doesn’t always cooperate.

A coach can spend hours studying film, identifying tendencies, building a scout, and constructing a plan that makes perfect sense on a whiteboard. Then the ball goes up, and within a few possessions the game starts moving in a direction that nobody predicted. Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes the problem announces itself immediately. Other times it takes an entire half before you realize the game you’re watching isn’t the game you prepared for.

The longer I’ve coached, the more I’ve become fascinated by those moments.

Not because they invalidate preparation. If anything, I think coaches often underestimate how much preparation matters. Most games are won before adjustments ever become necessary. Your identity matters. Your habits matter. Your gameplan matters.

But eventually every coach encounters the same challenge. The game presents a problem that the original plan isn’t solving.

And that’s where I’ve started to think we misunderstand in-game adjustments.

Most coaches talk about adjustments as if they’re answers. Switch the coverage. Change the matchup. Trap the ball screen. Double the post.

But I’ve become convinced that adjustments are rarely the difficult part. The difficult part is identifying the problem in the first place.

Because a bad diagnosis almost always leads to a bad adjustment.

A team makes eight threes, and we decide we need to run shooters off the line. A star player scores 25 points, and we decide we need to double-team him. We’re losing the rebounding battle, and we decide we need to play bigger.

Sometimes those are the right answers.

Sometimes they’re reactions to outcomes, not breakdowns in processes.

And I think that’s an important distinction.

The best coaches don’t seem to react to what is happening. They seem to react to why it is happening.

That difference may sound small, but I think it sits at the heart of game management.

Because before a coach can make an adjustment, he has to answer a much more difficult question: What process, not problem, am I actually trying to solve?

The Wrong Problem

One of the easiest mistakes to make during a game is confusing outcomes with processes.

The distinction sounds obvious when you say it out loud, but I think it’s responsible for a surprising number of poor in-game decisions. Coaches spend most of the game looking at outcomes. The scoreboard is an outcome. Shooting percentages are outcomes. Rebounding margins are outcomes. Turnovers, points in the paint, fast-break points, and three-point attempts are all outcomes. They’re the most visible pieces of information available to us, which makes them incredibly useful. It also makes them dangerous.

A team makes 10 three-pointers in the first half.

Most coaches immediately recognize that as a problem. And maybe it is. The question is whether the made threes are the thing we should actually be trying to solve.

But outcomes are often poor starting points for adjustments. They tell us what happened, but they rarely tell us why it happened. And if we don’t understand why something is happening, we run the risk of creating an adjustment that treats the symptom while leaving the underlying process untouched.

Take those 10 threes.

At halftime, a coach might decide that his team needs to do a better job running shooters off the line. On the surface, that sounds reasonable. The opponent is making threes, so we need to take away threes.

But where are those shots coming from?

Are they being created by a point guard repeatedly collapsing the defense and generating kick-outs? Are they the result of post kick outs or double teams? Are they coming from a stagger screen that we’re struggling to navigate? Are they even good shots, or is a poor shooter simply having an unusually good night?

Those are very different questions. Very different processes.

And because they’re different processes, they require different solutions.

If we just run shooters off the line, we might be turning one problem into 3 more.

The same thing happens when a star player scores 25 points.

A coach sees the number and starts thinking about traps, doubles, and matchup changes. But 25 points is not an explanation. It’s a result. One player can score 25 points in five completely different ways. He might be living at the free-throw line. He might be dominating in ball screens. He might be scoring in transition. He might be benefiting from offensive rebounds.

Those situations do not demand the same adjustment.

What makes this difficult is that outcomes naturally pull our attention toward them. Human beings are drawn to what is visible. And in many ways, coaching during a game is an attentional challenge. Hundreds of events occur every few possessions. Most of them are irrelevant. A few are incredibly important. The challenge is separating the two.

That’s why I’ve become increasingly skeptical of adjustment conversations that begin with solutions.

“We need to switch more.” “We need to trap.” “We need to run them off the line.”

Maybe.

But before we decide what to do, we should probably understand what we’re responding to.

Because the best coaches don’t seem obsessed with answers. They’re obsessed with questions and processes. They spend less time reacting to outcomes and more time tracing those outcomes back to the break downs that created them.

And once the process becomes clear, the adjustment often becomes obvious.

The challenge isn’t finding a solution. The challenge is identifying what is actually producing the result you’re trying to change.

Learning to Win

Another reason I’ve become increasingly interested in game management is that I’ve started to view winning differently than I did earlier in my coaching career.

Like many coaches, I spent my early years working primarily with younger players. In those environments, development was always the priority. The goal wasn’t simply to win games. It was to help players become better players. We wanted them to improve their skills, develop good habits, understand the game, and prepare themselves for the next level.

I still believe that.

In fact, I think youth sports often become problematic when winning completely overshadows development. Coaches discover shortcuts that produce immediate results but create long-term limitations. Players learn how to win a particular game instead of learning how to play the game well.

But I’ve also become less comfortable with the opposite extreme.

Sometimes coaches talk about development and winning as though they are competing priorities. The implication is that focusing on winning somehow comes at the expense of development, while focusing on development requires us to care less about winning.

The longer I’ve coached, the less useful that distinction has become.

I think it’s more accurate to view development and winning as points on the same spectrum rather than opposing philosophies.

At younger levels, development should dominate. At older levels, winning becomes increasingly important. During playoff basketball, it becomes the primary concern. The balance shifts depending on the environment, the age of the players, and the goals of the program.

What doesn’t change is that winning itself requires skills that must be developed.

Adaptability is a skill.

Competitiveness is a skill.

These aren’t abilities that suddenly appear when players reach varsity basketball or college basketball. They develop over time through experience.

Which is one reason I’ve become increasingly skeptical of the idea that coaches should completely separate development from winning. But for a long time, I didn’t think much about that distinction because most of my coaching energy was focused on helping players improve.

But the further I’ve moved toward the winning side of that spectrum, the more I’ve become interested in a different question: What actually separates teams that consistently find ways to win?

Talent obviously matters. Execution matters. But when two teams are relatively equal—or when you’re facing a team that may even be slightly better than you—those things are rarely enough by themselves.

Very few games are won simply because a coach stubbornly continued doing exactly what he planned to do beforehand.

The game changes.

A player gets hot. A coverage starts breaking down. A role player becomes more impactful than expected. Foul trouble alters the rotation. The game begins moving in a direction nobody anticipated.

And somewhere in that process, a coach and his players are forced to make a decision.

Do we continue doing what has always worked for us? Or do we adapt to what this particular game requires?

I think that’s one of the most overlooked skills in coaching, and even in playing.

Not the ability to build and hone a system. Not the ability to install and master a coverage. The ability to recognize when the game is demanding something different.

Because at some point, winning stops being about executing your plan or system.

It becomes about recognizing when your plan is no longer solving the problem in front of you.

Where Should We Look First?

Once I started thinking about game management this way, another question emerged.

If outcomes are often symptoms, and if successful adjustments depend on identifying the process creating those outcomes, where should a coach actually look when something isn’t working?

At first glance, that seems like a straightforward question. A team is getting beat in a particular way, so you identify the weakness and make an adjustment. That’s how most coaching conversations about in-game management sound.

But in practice, I’ve found the process is rarely that clean.

A team gives up a string of baskets, and someone immediately suggests changing the coverage. A star player gets hot, and we start discussing traps and double teams. A role player makes a few shots, and suddenly we’re contemplating an entirely different defensive approach.

Sometimes those adjustments are necessary.

Often they aren’t. More specifically, we tend to jump toward scheme before we’ve ruled out simpler explanations.

When something is going wrong, I’ve found myself working through the same sequence of questions.

The first question is effort.

Not because effort solves every problem. It doesn’t. But basketball is still a game of physical and mental exertion. Players get tired. They lose focus. Urgency fluctuates. Sometimes the process creating the outcome is simply that one team is competing harder than the other.

The second question is execution.

This is where things become more interesting because execution is often mistaken for scheme.

A coach sees a breakdown and assumes the coverage isn’t working.

But is the coverage actually failing? Or is the coverage being executed poorly?

There’s a significant difference between those two things.

A late rotation doesn’t necessarily mean the rotation is wrong. A missed tag doesn’t necessarily mean the coverage is flawed. A shooter getting open doesn’t automatically mean the scheme needs to change. Sometimes the process creating the problem is simply that the players are not carrying out the plan as intended.

I’ve sat through plenty of halftimes where the temptation was to change everything, only to realize on film later that the original coverage would have worked perfectly if one or two details had been executed correctly.

Which raises another possibility.

Maybe the issue isn’t effort or execution.

Maybe it’s personnel.

This is probably the simplest adjustment in basketball.

Coaches often think of adjustments as changing what the team is doing. Sometimes the adjustment is changing who is doing it.

A different matchup. A different lineup. A player who is better equipped to handle a particular challenge. In many cases, those changes solve the problem without requiring any alteration to the scheme itself.

Only after working through those possibilities do I start thinking seriously about the scheme.

And that’s probably where my thinking has changed the most over time.

Earlier in my career, I was much quicker to look for schematic answers. If something wasn’t working, my instinct was often to ask what coverage we should switch to or when to go to our secondary defense,

Now I’m much more hesitant.

Not because schemes don’t matter. They absolutely do.

But because scheme is often the final answer, not the first one.

Which brings us back to the central challenge of game management. The adjustment itself is rarely the hard part. The hard part is understanding what actually needs to be adjusted.

Playing the Board in Front of You

The way we often talk about coaching can create the impression that every problem has a correct answer.

Identify the issue. Make the adjustment. Problem solved.

In reality, coaching rarely feels that clean.

Even after you’ve correctly identified the process creating the problem, there is usually another question waiting behind it: What am I willing to give up?

Most coaching decisions aren’t about finding perfect solutions. They’re about choosing which problems you would rather live with, in that moment, in that game.

A strange example where I’ve found myself thinking about this is Monopoly.

Like most people, I grew up playing it. And like most people, I spent years playing it poorly.

Then at some point I stumbled across articles about Monopoly strategy. People had studied the game. They knew which properties were most valuable. They understood probabilities. They could tell you which spaces were landed on most frequently and which strategies tended to produce the highest returns.

In other words, they had a plan.

And that’s useful.

But eventually the dice start rolling.

And once they do, the game begins developing its own personality.

The properties you wanted might be owned by someone else. The trades you expected never materialize. The board evolves in a way you didn’t anticipate. At some point, success depends less on the strategy you prepared and more on your ability to adapt to the board that’s actually in front of you.

Basketball feels remarkably similar.

Every coach enters a game with an identity. We spend months building systems because we believe those systems give us the best chance to succeed over time. We spend hours crafting scouts and gameplays to put our players in the best positions to succeed.

And most of the time, they do.

But eventually every game reaches a point where the board develops differently than expected. The point guard is creating more problems than anticipated. A shooter catches fire. A matchup isn’t working. Foul trouble changes the rotation. The game starts presenting choices. And every choice comes with a cost.

If you decide to trap the star player, you may create opportunities for role players.

If you stay home on shooters, you may allow the star to become more aggressive.

If you switch everything, you may create mismatches.

There is no adjustment that only creates benefits. Every adjustment solves one problem while introducing another. But the best game managers aren’t necessarily finding better solutions in isolation. They’re choosing better tradeoffs in those moments.

They’re identifying which problems are most dangerous and which problems they’re willing to tolerate in the short term.

That’s an important one distinction. Because more often, coaching resembles a series of negotiations with reality. You solve one issue and create another. You reduce one advantage and expose a different vulnerability. You continuously move resources from one place to another, banking on the new problem being more manageable than the old one.

Because the goal of game management isn’t to solve everything. It’s to eliminate problems.

And thus, the goal is to choose the problems that give your team the best chance to win.

Coaching the Game You’re Actually Playing

Mike Tyson famously said:

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

It’s one of those quotes that’s become so popular that it’s easy to dismiss.

But I appreciate what he’s actually describing. Not because planning doesn’t matter. Planning matters tremendously.

The goal isn’t to replace preparation with adaptation. The goal is to build preparation strong enough that adaptation becomes the exception rather than the rule.

But even the best plans eventually encounter reality.

The game starts asking a different question than the one you prepared for.

And at that point game management as less about a tactical skill, tt’s a perceptual skill.

The game is constantly presenting information. Some of it matters. Most of it doesn’t.

The coach’s job is to identify the few things that actually matter, understand the process creating them, and adapt before the game gets away from him.

That’s why the best adjustments often look obvious in hindsight.

The adjustment wasn’t the hard part. Seeing the game clearly was.

Every coach has a plan until the game changes. The best coaches recognize it first.

Thank you for being part of this community—coaches and players committed to mastering defensive technique and development.

The Biggest Misconception in Defensive Development

I’ve spent more time thinking about defensive awareness over the last month than probably any other topic. That’s partly because I just finished a pretty massive article on it, but also because it’s one of those topics that keeps showing up no matter who I’m talking to.

A high school coach asks why a player is always a step late on defense. A college coach talks about freshmen struggling to adjust defensively. Somebody else asks what separates a player with great instincts from a player who’s just athletic. Eventually the conversation always ends up in the same place. Awareness.

What’s funny is that I used to think I understood what awareness was. I probably would’ve told you ten years ago that great defenders simply see more than everybody else. More actions. More players. More of the floor. Watch someone like Draymond and it almost feels obvious. The guy seems to know what’s happening everywhere. Constantly scanning, perceiving, digesting.

The more I’ve coached, though, the less convinced I’ve become that’s actually what’s going on.

The problem is that if awareness is really about seeing more, then the logical solution is obvious too.

Teach players to see more. See more of the floor. See more players. See more actions.

And honestly, I think that’s exactly how a lot of us coach it. See man and ball. Keep your head on a swivel. Talk more... None of those are bad coaching points. I’ve used all of them.

But the more I’ve coached, the more I’ve started wondering if we’re solving the wrong problem.

Because if awareness is just about seeing more, why do some players who are constantly talking, constantly scanning, and constantly moving their heads still struggle to anticipate what’s happening?

Why does one player look overwhelmed by the game while another looks like he already knows what’s coming next?

And that’s where I think I finally started changing my mind.

I don’t think the best defenders see everything.

I think they know what matters.

That sounds like a small distinction until you start following it all the way through. Because if that’s true, then awareness isn’t really an information problem. It’s an attention problem. It’s a filtering problem. It’s a pattern recognition problem.

And suddenly a lot of things that never made sense start making sense.

• Why some players can memorize every defensive rule and still look lost.

• Why some players seem to develop instincts faster than others.

• Why simply playing more games doesn’t automatically improve awareness.

• Why film can be more valuable than another defensive drill.

And ultimately, how we can actually teach awareness instead of treating it like some mysterious gift that certain players are born with.

That idea ended up taking me down a much deeper rabbit hole than I expected. What started as a few notes became the longest article I’ve written in quite a while.

Inside it, I break down the different forms of awareness, the biggest misconceptions coaches have about defensive IQ, the film exercises we’ve used to build anticipation and pattern recognition, and the on-court progressions I’ve used to help players transfer those skills back to live play.

If you’ve ever coached a player who seems overwhelmed by the game or always a step late, I think you’ll find this one interesting.

Read Now: Substack

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Everyone will remember the shots. Jalen Brunson delivered in the biggest moments, and that’s what will make the highlights.

But in a low-scoring Game 5 where every possession mattered, I kept coming back to the defense.

The Knicks didn’t just erase one deficit on their way to the championship. They had to fight back twice. Each comeback was fueled by different defensive adjustments: from changing their ball-screen coverage to altering how they handled Victor Wembanyama and San Antonio’s shooters.

In a game where points were hard to come by, those adjustments ended up deciding the NBA Finals.

In this breakdown, I look at the four defensive changes that quietly changed the game and helped deliver New York their first championship in decades.

In this breakdown, I cover:

• The first-half adjustments that sparked New York’s initial comeback
• Why the Knicks changed their ball-screen coverage
• How the Ice coverage disrupted San Antonio’s offense
• The decision to go under screens and force jump shots
• The adjustment to defending Victor Wembanyama with one Tag
• And the key defensive possessions that decided the championship

One of the most common questions I get from coaches is some version of the same problem.

“How do I improve my players’ defensive awareness?”

Usually the question comes after a coach describes a player who seems to have all the potential, but just doesn’t see the game properly or have a “feel” for it. The player plays hard. He cares. He knows the rules of the defense. Yet he’s constantly a step late.

What’s interesting is that most coaches can identify awareness when they see it.

We know what an aware player looks like and what they don’t.

They’re communicating on defense. Pointing things out before they happen. Rotating early. Arriving on closeouts on the catch. Jumping passing lanes. And somehow they always seem to be where they need to be.

The challenge is that while coaches are usually very good at recognizing awareness, I’m not sure we’re always as good at defining or teaching it.

Read more

The Knicks just completed the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history.

Down 29 points, New York looked finished, many people might have even fallen asleep watching… But then, everything changed.

In this breakdown, I examine the adjustments that fueled the comeback, including how the Knicks targeted Victor Wembanyama in pick-and-roll coverage, why Jalen Brunson’s mid-range attack became so crucial, how this comeback really started in the 3rd quarter, and how Karl-Anthony Towns & OG Anunoby helped swing the game on both ends of the floor.

I also break down:

• How New York manipulated Wembanyama’s defensive positioning
• The offensive play call that unlocked Brunson late
• OG Anunoby’s impact on both ends
• The defensive pressure that fueled the comeback
• The Spurs’ successful zone adjustment to stall the rally
• The critical out-of-timeout mistakes that may have cost San Antonio the game
• And the final possessions that decided Game 4

The Knicks are now one win away from an NBA championship.

Was this the game that decided the series?

Everyone will look at Game 3 and talk about Victor Wembanyama.

But the real story was the adjustments San Antonio made around him on defense.

After struggling to contain New York's offense through the first two games, the Spurs completely changed their approach. They put smaller defenders on Karl-Anthony Towns, pressured Jalen Brunson the length of the floor, altered their pick-and-roll coverage, and then made a surprising fourth-quarter adjustment that changed the game.

Instead of flying around in rotation, in the 4th quarter San Antonio stayed home on shooters and forced the Knicks to win difficult one-on-one matchups.

The result?

Towns finished with just 11 points and no made threes, Brunson faced constant physical pressure, and the Spurs walked out of New York with a win.

In this breakdown, I cover:

• How the Spurs neutralized Karl-Anthony Towns
• The physical defensive plan against Jalen Brunson
• Why San Antonio changed its pick-and-roll coverage
• The fourth-quarter adjustment that sealed the game
• The biggest defensive plays of the final four minutes
• The counters New York may use heading into Game 4

The playoffs are a chess match. Game 3 was San Antonio's move.

Now we'll see how New York responds.

The Knicks take Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

But as always, the interesting part is in the details.

In Game 1, San Antonio found success with a handful of actions built around Wemby. Then New York adjusted.

One subtle defensive tweak changed the spacing, the help responsibilities, and changed the looks San Antonio was generating.

In this breakdown, I go through:
• The adjustment New York made
• Karl-Anthony Towns’ defense on Wembanyama
• The Spurs actions that still created problems
• The counters I expect to see in Game 2

One of the most common questions coaches ask me is how to hide their worst defender.

It’s a reasonable question. Every coach has had that player at some point. Maybe he’s your best shooter. Maybe he’s one of your primary creators. Maybe he’s simply too important offensively to take off the floor. Whatever the reason, you know teams are going to attack him, and you’re trying to figure out how to survive it.

I’ve asked the same question myself.

But over the years, I’ve found myself becoming less interested in how to hide those players and more interested in how to use them.

I think part of that shift came from how I started thinking about matchups in general.

A lot of us were taught to match up by hierarchy. Your best defender takes their best offensive player. Your second-best defender takes their second-best player. Then you work your way down the lineup.

And sometimes that’s exactly what you should do.

But it shouldn’t be as automatic as we often make it.

One of the coaching ideas that stuck with me came from Bill Belichick. There were games where he wouldn’t put his best cornerback on the opposing team’s best receiver. The first time I heard that, it sounded backwards. Why wouldn’t you want your best defender on their best player?

But his logic was pretty simple. If the game plan already called for constant help, double teams, and extra attention on that receiver, then why commit your best individual defender there too? The defense was already investing resources into that matchup. Instead, he’d use his best corner to eliminate another receiving threat entirely.

The goal wasn’t necessarily to win one matchup. It was to create the greatest overall advantage for the defense.

I’ve found myself thinking about basketball similarly.

There are some players where we’re helping no matter what. We’re trapping. We’re loading up. We’re rotating early. We know that’s where the defense is going to spend its energy. If that’s the case, is my best defender actually creating the most value there?

Sometimes yes.

Sometimes no.

Sometimes my best defender can create a bigger advantage somewhere else. Maybe he can completely erase a secondary scorer. Maybe he can take away a pivot man for the offense and blow up actions. Maybe there’s a matchup he can dominate instead of merely surviving.

I don’t know that there’s a universal answer. I just think it’s worth asking the question.

And that’s really what got me thinking about weak defenders differently too.

Because if we’ve identified a player as a weak defender, the conversation usually becomes about protection. How do we cross-match him? Where do we hide him? Which offensive player can we stick him on?

Again, those are reasonable questions.

But they assume that hiding him is the objective.

I’m not sure it always is.

Let’s say we’re in the beginning of the season. The player is going to be playing major, or at least consistent, minutes for us. Chances are he’s helping us somewhere. Maybe he’s scoring. Maybe he’s creating offense. Maybe he’s one of our best shooters. Whatever the case, we’ve already decided he’s valuable enough to keep or put on the floor.

If that’s true, then we’re probably not transforming him into an elite on-ball defender by February.

That’s not a criticism. It’s just reality.

Player development takes time. We can improve him for sure, but miracles are left for the off-season.

What we can sometimes do, though, is identify a defensive role where he can become valuable much faster.

The first one that comes to mind is face guarding.

I’ve seen players who struggled in traditional defensive situations become surprisingly disruptive when their job became singular. Deny catches. Stay attached. Make life miserable for a specific offensive player.

There’s something powerful about simplifying the role.

Instead of asking the player to process everything, you’re asking him to master one thing. And if he can effectively remove a quality offensive player from the game, suddenly the conversation changes. We’re no longer talking about a player we’re trying to hide. We’re talking about a player who is actively helping us win possessions.

The other role is roaming.

Not hiding in the paint. Not standing around waiting for something to happen. Not resting.

Actual roaming.

The kind where a player becomes an extra set of eyes for the defense.

I’ve seen players who weren’t great individual defenders become really useful this way. They start seeing actions develop. They communicate. They point things out. They become early rotators. They help organize the people around them.

In some ways, they start doing some of the things that make Draymond Green so impactful. Not because they’re Draymond Green. Few people are. But because they’re learning to contribute through awareness and anticipation instead of pure defensive talent.

And what I’ve found is that those skills often develop faster when you commit to them than complete defensive mastery.

A player may never become a lockdown defender in one season.

But can he become a great roamer? A great helper? A great face-guarder?

I think those are much more realistic paths for weaker defenders.

They can still become valuable. And that’s really the point.

So whenever coaches ask me how to hide their worst defender, I understand the question.

But I think there’s a better one.

Before we ask how to hide them, let’s ask how to use them.

Because sometimes the biggest defensive improvement doesn’t come from covering up weaknesses.

They come from finding a role where that player can actually create value.

And once you start looking for those roles, you often discover that the player isn’t as limited as you originally thought.

From X: Weekly Recap on Most Popular Posts

• Kobe reveals a dirty defensive technique (Link)

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The Switching Defense System

Most coaches teach switching as a coverage.

The best defenses use it as a weapon.

In this clinic, you’ll learn how to eliminate screening advantages, neutralize shooters, disrupt offensive flow, and force opponents into the shots they don’t want to take.

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Lockdown Defense Camp

The Lockdown Defense Camp is open for registration — a 5-day intensive built for players who want to transform their game.

This isn’t a typical camp.
It’s a complete defensive system — covering footwork, positioning, anticipation, disruption, mindset, and so much more. Every session is designed to translate directly to game performance.

“Four days at this camp helped our son more than every other camp he’s ever attended.”
— Sonya Pusey

“There is no camp like it.”
— Jared Goldstein

Spots are limited and tend to fill quickly.
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One of the questions I got during the first live Coaching Series this week was about the biggest adjustment players struggle with going from high school basketball to college basketball.

And honestly, for me, the answer came pretty fast.

Defensive awareness.

Not effort. Not toughness. Not athleticism.

Awareness.

Actually seeing the game.

And the more I’ve thought about it over the last couple years, the more I think this issue is bigger than basketball itself. Because players today consume basketball completely differently than they used to.

Everything is highlights now. Short clips. Mixtapes. Reels. Ten-second possessions cut perfectly so all you see is the move, the shot, the celebration.

Even when players are “watching basketball,” they’re usually not really watching basketball. They’re watching the ball. And when that’s how you consume the game all the time, eventually that becomes how you see the game when you play too.

You only lock onto one thing at a time. Either the ball or your man, and lose the other.

But the real game is usually happening somewhere else. Weakside movement. Spacing. Screening.

That’s the stuff young players are missing right now and not even taking in. And honestly, I don’t think we talk about it enough.

Another coach on the call mentioned that almost none of his players consistently watch basketball. Not NBA games. Not college games. Nothing. And I just sat there thinking about how hard it is to develop defensive awareness if your eyes never practice seeing the game.

Because defensive awareness is pattern recognition.

That’s really all it is.

Seeing actions before they fully happen. Recognizing danger early. Feeling where the next pass is probably going before it gets there. And if you never train that part of your brain, then yeah, defense is going to feel overwhelming.

You’re always late because everything feels surprising.

So how do we fix this?

Well the main issue is that players have never really been taught how to watch basketball. And some of the ways you train this honestly look boring from the outside.

Sitting down with film. Watching the same possession over and over. Diagramming movement with a pen and paper. Predicting actions before they happen.

None of it looks cool on social media. But here’s the thing.

A lot of players spend hours training movement and skills, but almost no time training perception.

That gap starts showing up fast at higher levels.

One of the concepts I talk about in the video is something called padding. Basically you watch one possession and follow only one player the entire time. Every cut. Every movement. Every screen. Then you rewind it and do it again for another player.

At first it feels tedious.

Then something weird starts happening.

You stop watching basketball like a fan. You start seeing structure. You start noticing that a lot of basketball isn’t random at all. Actions connect. Patterns repeat. One movement sets up the next movement.

And eventually the game starts slowing down. Not because you got quicker. Because fewer things catch you off guard. That’s what great defenders are doing.

Guys like Draymond Green are not magically reacting faster than everybody else. Most of the time they just saw the problem earlier. They recognized the pattern sooner. Their attention was already leaning toward the danger before everybody else realized there even was danger.

That’s defensive IQ.

And honestly I think coaches probably need to think more deeply about this too.

We spend so much time training effort, conditioning, closeouts, footwork, shell drill rotations. All important. But how often are we deliberately training perception? How often are we teaching players how to scan the floor? How to organize attention? How to process multiple moving pieces without panicking?

Because if awareness is a skill, and I absolutely think it is, then we should train it like a skill.

Not just hope players magically develop it by playing more games.

That’s also why there’s a full section inside the Built for Stops program focused on defensive awareness, anticipation, and mindset development. I also have a full video on YouTube dedicated to helping players with this problem, with film exercises, pattern recognition and an anticipation test.

But honestly, outside the resources, I think this is one of the most important conversations happening in player development right now.

Because I really don’t believe most young players are struggling defensively because they don’t care.

I think a lot of them simply grew up learning to watch the wrong things.

Watch YouTube Video Here: [Link]

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Built for Stops
Elite defense requires an elite mindset.

Most players train their body.
Very few train the mind.

Built for Stops is a 5-day defensive mindset transformation designed to reprogram how players think, react, compete, and respond on defense.

Inside the program, players go through five short lessons and daily challenges focused on building the mental weapons elite defenders rely on:

• Alter Ego & Competitive Identity

• Anticipation & Awareness

• Reprogramming Fatigue & Discomfort

• Defensive Communication & Presence

• Confidence, Focus, and Resilience

No fluff. No empty motivation speeches. No “just believe in yourself” nonsense.

This is practical psychological training backed by my background in psychology and years spent studying elite defenders.

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One shift in how you think as a defender forever.

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Lockdown Defense Camp

The Lockdown Defense Camp is open for registration — a 5-day intensive built for players who want to transform their game.

This isn’t a typical camp.
It’s a complete defensive system — covering footwork, positioning, anticipation, disruption, mindset, and so much more. Every session is designed to translate directly to game performance.

“Four days at this camp helped our son more than every other camp he’s ever attended.”
— Sonya Pusey

“There is no camp like it.”
— Jared Goldstein

Spots are limited and tend to fill quickly.
Registration is now open. Early Bird pricing available.

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Everyone will look at this game and say OKC shut down Wembanyama.

But the interesting part is how they did it.

Because for most of this series, Wemby has created impossible decisions. Put a small on him and he punishes you with lobs and rebounds. Put bigs on him and help too much and open shooters. Stay home and he attacks size in space.

In Game 5, OKC decided they were willing to live with almost anything else if it meant changing Wembanyama’s game.

And what was fascinating was some of the ways they did it. They stayed attached to him in actions, even pulled out a “Boston” style coverage we really never see. Last time we saw it was last year’s playoffs when Minnesota was trying to solve Jokic.

In this breakdown I go through:

• How OKC changed their defense
• The adjustments that limited Wemby’s impact
• Why some of San Antonio’s offensive choices may have actually helped OKC
• And the counters I think the Spurs can use in Game 6

This is why I love the playoffs. Seven-game series. Great players. Great coaching staffs.

Problems. Counters. Adjustments happening in real time.

San Antonio ties the series 2-2 after one of their best defensive performances of the playoffs, holding OKC to one of the lowest playoff scoring outputs in franchise history.

But the story wasn’t just effort or desperation. Instead the Spurs made major adjustments on the defense end.

No longer did were they trapping SGA or committing in gaps and giving up open threes to OKC’s role players, they stayed home more often, trusted their individual defenders, and forced SGA into tougher one-on-one situations. Wemby also changed his approach, stepping up higher in ball screens, taking away pull-up space, and becoming much more aggressive rotating out to shooters.

In this breakdown I cover:

• San Antonio’s gap stunts and stays

• Wemby’s new role in ball screen defense

• The increased physicality on SGA

• How the Spurs hunted steals and disrupted rhythm

• The counters OKC may use heading into Game 5

The chess match is still going strong in this series!

After Game 1 I broke down how San Antonio’s defense was so effective. But if we really want to understand this series, we can’t just study one side of the ball.

We also have to study how OKC responded in Game 2.

This way we can appreciate and identify the adjustments, or maybe even anticipate them, for Game 3.

So in this breakdown I go through the 4 major adjustments OKC made and how they changed the game:

Read more

The difference between Game 1 and Game 2 wasn’t just that OKC put size on Wemby.

That was the obvious adjustment.

The more interesting part was everything that happened around it.

In Game 1, San Antonio’s double ball screen actions repeatedly put OKC into impossible situations. Castle downhill, Wemby’s rolls, shooter popping behind vs their big.

By Game 2, OKC quietly changed everything. They went under screens for Castle. They jammed Wemby on rolls and forced him farther away from the basket. And in doing so, they didn’t necessarily stop Wemby. They changed where he lived on the floor.

That one shift changed everything:

• Fewer paint touches
• Fewer offensive rebounds
• Different spacing dynamics
• Different reads for San Antonio

And that’s what makes OKC so fascinating defensively. They rarely rely on one giant adjustment. They stack small advantages over and over until suddenly the game feels different.

Over the last week watching the playoffs, one thought kept sticking with me: the playoffs don’t expose bad defenses. They stress test great ones.

That’s what makes playoff basketball so fascinating to study. Teams spend an entire series searching for weak points. Moments where your defensive rules become harder to execute. Rotations become longer. Closeouts become tougher. Matchups get manipulated.

Eventually every defense gets dragged into uncomfortable decisions.

And honestly, that’s why I thought the Cleveland vs Detroit series was so interesting.

Detroit was one of the best defenses in basketball this year. Tough. Physical. Connected. They shrunk the floor, protected the paint, and forced teams to protect the ball all season long.

But in Game 7, Cleveland kept manipulating the geometry of Detroit’s defense; where Ausar Thompson was. the help rotations, and eventually, the way the Pistons protected the paint became nearly impossible.

That’s playoff offense at the highest level. Not just running plays. Solving problems.

I broke down a lot of those adjustments in the film room here:

I also thought we saw something similar earlier in the week with San Antonio against Minnesota too.

Minnesota tried to adjust to the Spurs’ traps. The Spurs adjusted to those adjustments. Then Minnesota countered again. And so on. Possession by possession it felt like both teams were trying to out-think each other.

That’s what elite playoff coaching and elite defense really looks like to me.

Not rigid systems. Connected layers.

Preparation. Execution. Flexibility. Players understanding not just what they’re doing, but why they’re doing it and what the next rotation or adjustment might be.

That’s a huge part of why I push back sometimes when defense gets reduced to “just effort.”

Effort matters. Obviously. But under playoff pressure, effort alone usually isn’t enough. The margins become too small. The spacing becomes too orchestrated. The decision-making gets too smart.

The teams that survive are usually the teams with the clearest process.

That applies to player development too.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that a lot of defensive workouts train movement without training the actual problems defenders need to solve. The footwork matters. The athleticism matters. But so does anticipation. Timing. Reading space. Understanding where the next pass or dribble is likely going.

And honestly, all these ideas are really the foundation behind the virtual Coaching Series starting next week.

Not just collecting more drills or random coverages.

Building an actual defensive process.

How your scheme fits your personnel and program.
How your drills reinforce your system.
How you teach and install the foundation.
How you scout without overloading players.
How you adjust under pressure when teams start attacking your rules.

Because the playoffs always remind me of the same thing:

Under pressure, randomness gets exposed. “Try harder” gets picked apart. “Communicate more” gets beat.

The best defenses usually aren’t the teams with the most schemes.

They’re the teams where everything connects.

If you want to join the Coaching Series, there are still a few spots left: https://www.lockdowndefense.com/coachinglive

Join Now

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• My #1 offensive clinic by Mike D’Antoni (Link)

• The Psychology Behind Unlocking a New Mindset (Link)

• 10-Minute Defensive Workout (Link)

• Defensive Thought Experiment (Link)

• The Fake Contest (link)

🚨The Playoff Bundle

Disruption. Adjustments. Curveballs. Self-Scout.

This defensive bundle was built for coaches who want more than coverages — they want answers when games shift, momentum swings, and opponents start hunting weaknesses.

Inside:

• Designing Disruption Clinic — a 90+ minute clinic on forcing turnovers and manufacturing extra possessions through intentional pressure.

• Invert Defense Packet — an 11-page curveball defense designed to disrupt rhythm and break offensive flow.

• Winning in the Playoffs Isn’t the Same Game — a 10,000+ word postseason defensive philosophy on adjustments, margins, and edge-finding.

• The Midseason Window That Decides Your Season — a 12,000+ word self-scout blueprint for evaluating identity, personnel, and execution before the season turns.

Most coaches prepare for opponents.

The best coaches prepare for moments that change a game and season.

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Lockdown Defense Camp

The Lockdown Defense Camp is open for registration — a 5-day intensive built for players who want to transform their game.

This isn’t a typical camp.
It’s a complete defensive system — covering footwork, positioning, anticipation, disruption, mindset, and so much more. Every session is designed to translate directly to game performance.

“Four days at this camp helped our son more than every other camp he’s ever attended.”
— Sonya Pusey

“There is no camp like it.”
— Jared Goldstein

Spots are limited and tend to fill quickly.
Registration is now open. Early Bird pricing available.

Sign Up Now

But in Game 7, we watched one of the NBA’s best defensive teams get eliminated from the playoffs… while putting together one of their worst defensive performances of the season.

So let’s break down what happened.

After struggling for most of the series to consistently generate paint touches against Detroit’s size, physicality, and help rotations, Cleveland completely changed the geometry of their offense in Game 7.

They moved away from empty-side isolations.
They attacked through the middle of the floor.
They manipulated Detroit’s help defenders differently.
And suddenly, one of the league’s most disruptive defenses started cracking.

This wasn’t just “Donovan Mitchell or James Harden got hot.”

This was a full offensive adjustment game:

• spacing changes

• lineup tweaks

• matchup hunting

• drive angle manipulation

• help-defense distortion

In this breakdown, we go through exactly how Cleveland solved Detroit’s defense and why these adjustments could matter moving into the Knicks series.

Over the last decade, I’ve become obsessed with one question:

What actually builds an elite defense?

Not just a defense that has good moments.
Not a defense that looks good on the whiteboard.
A defense that consistently shows up over the course of a season.

I’ve studied elite programs, broken down hundreds of defenses, talked to coaches at every level of the game, and coached on teams that finished among the best defensive groups in their conference and nationally.

And the biggest thing I’ve learned is this:

Elite defense requires an elite process.

The best defensive teams don’t just play harder. Their entire program is aligned around what they’re trying to become defensively.

The coverages fit the personnel.
The player development fits the scheme.
The drills reinforce the habits they need in games.
The scout sharpens the identity instead of changing it every night.
The adjustments build off a foundation instead of replacing it.

Everything connects.

That’s what makes great defenses sustainable.

But coaching today can feel overwhelming because we’re constantly exposed to more information. New coverages. New trends. New teaching styles. New systems.

And most coaches aren’t lacking effort or ideas.

They’re trying to figure out how all of it fits together.

That’s why I built the Lockdown Defense: Coaching Series.

A 5-week live coaching series focused entirely on how to build an elite defense from the ground up.

Not just what to run, but how to create a complete defensive process—from identity and personnel to practice design, player development, scouting, and in-game adjustments.

The goal isn’t to give you more disconnected ideas.

It’s to help you build something cohesive, adaptable, and clear enough that your players can actually execute it.

Small group.
Live sessions.
Real conversations.

Starts May 26.

👉 [Join the Coaching Series]

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The Spurs didn’t just trap Anthony Edwards.

They built an entire defensive game plan around constantly changing the picture.

Minnesota adjusted throughout the game:
• luring traps higher up the floor
• using off-ball actions
• posting Edwards
• attacking out of zoom action, floppy, and pin downs

And San Antonio kept adjusting right back.

This was one of the best defensive chess matches of the playoffs — a battle between Minnesota trying to free Anthony Edwards and the Spurs constantly changing how they defended him.

Anthony Edwards finished with 20 points, but more importantly, one of his most inefficient playoff games this year.


🏀 Join The Lockdown Coaching Live Course:
https://www.lockdowndefense.com/coachinglive

The hidden teaching demands, schematic tensions, and defensive tradeoffs behind basketball’s trendiest defense.

The lock-left defense is one of the most talked-about systems in basketball right now.

And on the surface, it makes a lot of sense:
Force players to their weak hand. Limit decisions and play-making.

But the deeper youI studied it, the more you realize:

Lock-left doesn’t just change your on-ball defense. It reshapes your help rules, gap positioning, closeouts, and ball screen coverages depending on where the ball is on the floor.

In this new breakdown, I dive into the hidden teaching demands, schematic tensions, and defensive tradeoffs behind basketball’s trendiest defense—and why I’ve ultimately never chosen to run it myself.

Watch the full video + read the full article below.
[Read Now]

Most coaches I talk to care about defense. They’re watching clinics, studying film, collecting drills, and trying to improve.

But when the season starts, it still doesn’t always show up the way they expected.

A lot of coaches don’t actually lack effort or ideas. They have good pieces. The problem is those pieces don’t always fit together. The coverages don’t connect. The drills don’t transfer. The scout changes standards week to week. Everything exists separately instead of reinforcing one clear identity.

That’s why I created Lockdown Defense: Coaching Series (Live) — a 5-week virtual coaching experience focused on helping coaches actually build a defense from the ground up.

We’ll cover:
• Building your defensive identity around your personnel
• Practice structure and installs
• Individual defensive development
• Scouting and simplification
• Adjustments and in-game management

The goal isn’t more information. It’s giving you a process that helps everything connect.

Starts May 26
Tuesdays at 8 PM ET
Limited to 20 coaches

If you feel like you have the pieces but want more clarity and confidence in how it all fits together, this is for you.

Register Now

How the Knicks Are Dominating With Defense

The New York Knicks defense has taken over 4th quarters and closeout games.

In This video breakdown I dive into the aggressive trapping the Knicks have used against Maxey and Paul George down the stretch of these 76ers games. The role of matchups (Josh Hart’s physicality, Mikal Bridges’ length, and OG Anunoby roaming). And why they’re daring everyone else to beat them. This is the kind of late-game defense that wins playoff series.

Watch Now: The Knicks’ 4th Quarter Defense Is Different

The Lakers’ SGA Game Plan Worked… So Why Did It Fail?

In this breakdown, we dive into the Lakers’ aggressive game plan against SGA—trapping him in the post, in ball screens, even at half court—and how it completely changed the way he had to play.

But more importantly… we look at why it didn’t matter.

Watch Now: The SGA Game Plan

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• 3 Closeout Drills that Actually Work (Link)

• Lakers’ Trapping Defense (Link)

• Protect Your Top Foot (link)

  ---

🚨Preseason Bundle

The best deal right now!

Inside, you’ll get complete clinics on Switching Schemes, Ball Screen Defense, and Transition Defense, plus The Scout That Wins series — a three-part deep dive on opponent prep, adjustments, and in-game management. You’ll also receive Coach Mike’s Favorite Drills Clinic and the Defensive Identity Questions Worksheet, a guided workbook to define your team’s edge, non-negotiables, and flexibility points before the season begins.

👉 https://www.lockdowndefense.com/product-page/preseason-bundle

🚨Lockdown Defense Camp is Back!

The Lockdown Defense Camp is officially open for registration — a 5-day intensive built for players who want to transform their game.

This isn’t a typical camp.
It’s a complete defensive system — covering footwork, positioning, anticipation, disruption, mindset, and so much more. Every session is designed to translate directly to game performance.

“Four days at this camp helped our son more than every other camp he’s ever attended.”
— Sonya Pusey

“There is no camp like it.”
— Jared Goldstein

Spots are limited and tend to fill quickly.
Registration is now open. Early Bird pricing available.

Register Now