Move Your .....

As a coach I wish I had a penny for every time I said it.  If so, me, my entire extended family and all my friends could have retired to our own private islands by now, with plenty of money left over.  Its that all important phrase uttered at least 50-75 times or more a game and about triple that at practice.  Most players have probably heard it so much that they don't even hear it anymore, and that truly showed at our games this weekend.

If you haven't figured it out by now that all important phrase is :  MOVE YOUR FEET!
I have told every player I've ever coached in Junior high, high school and now college that in order to play good defense you've got to stay on the balls of your feet and move those feet.  I tell them that the best way to play defense is with your FEET NOT your hands.  But yet, they still get those silly fouls called by holding, grabbing, pushing and hacking.  99% of all fouls have one thing in common: HANDS.  If this is the case, all or at least most could be stopped by the simple defensive philosophy of - MOVE YOUR FEET!

If moving your feet is the #1 rule in defense, then #2 would be a tie between EYES and MIND.  In order to move your feet "correctly" one has to see what the offense is doing and where its going and also think about what the offense want to do.  If FEET, EYES, MIND can all work in tandem, then you will be in the right place at the right time.  Your defense will be a shut down force. 

You've heard the saying, "offense wins games but defense wins championships."  I think this is mostly true.  Why?  Think about it.  If you score 100 points on a team but they score 101 against you, what have you accomplished?  If a team makes 100% of their filed goals but still loses, have they done anything?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!  But if your team only scores one basket and holds the opponent to 0, guess what?  YOU WIN.  So you see, it isn't how many or how few points you score - if you can't stop your opponent , you lose every time.

So to all the basketball players out there, make Coach happy and simply --