NBA Practice: Training Camp with George Karl and the Sacramento Kings

Basketball January 18, 2017

During the 2015-16 season I was able to take a sabbatical from coaching. This lead me to to many opportunities to observe practices around the world as my family and I traveled. Here are my notes from an NBA practice with the Sacramento Kings and head coach George Karl. I am grateful to have spent three days with the Kings. The two other practices were very similar in structure and focus. The one opinion I will share is that I liked some things, but I did not like everything. Please share any thoughts with me after you read through the notes.

TRAINING CAMP NBA PRACTICE #1

10:00 am Huddle to Start Practice

– Message to the Team on Togetherness

Make each other better
Transition game emphasis
Loves the rim. Getting to the rim makes things happen on offense and brings the action to the defense.

“Playing hard with enthusiasm and how you bring that to your team is what matters.” – George Karl

10:08 am Warm-up and Activate/Transition Defense Walk-Through

Divided the group into two teams. One team was with the strength coach doing dynamic warm-up exercises. The other team was with an assistant coach going through transition defense.
The transition defense group was coached via a lecture, followed by a 5-on-0 Transition Defense recovery drill.
The last sequence involved 5-on-5 vs. five assistants to emphasize getting back and covering a set number of passes from the strong side to the weakside of the floor.
After 10 minutes the groups switched courts and concepts.

Defensive Transition Concepts

“The first three steps in transition have to be important for us to be a successful transition defense team.” – George Karl

Load to the Tunnel – They want the majority of their players to recover through elbows or what they call the tunnel. The tunnel is the area between the two lane lines extended. He wants the second big to help stop the ball. All weak side defenders should recover through the tunnel.

Figure 1 Load the Tunnel Concept

They want to avoid “buddy running” in transition (running beside your check). Recover to help not to your check.
The first three steps in recovery are used to get ahead of the action. Those steps help the recovering defender find their check.
They emphasize getting the ball out of the middle of the floor once they have it contained so that they can load up with weak side help.
The weak side wings hold the rim until the first post is back.
Their transition defense system is basically to double the ball if the trail big is not a threat (ie. Not a shooter).
Coach Karl made a point of explaining why they needed to be effective in transition as he felt like they would figure out the other aspects of the game but transition would be key. He suggested that as a team they had rim protection and the ability to cover one-on-one match-ups so transition defense could help them move from a good to great defensive team.

10:29 am Five Ball Drill

Drill Description:

Three players go 3-player weave. 3 passes to score a lay-up.
The two wings get passes from the waiting wings on the baseline and shoot a shot.
The player that shoots the lay-up rebounds their ball and outlets to the wing to start a 3-player weave back to the original end.
The two wings who shot, rebound their ball and become the next passers.
The goal for the Five Ball Drill was 116 makes in 4:15. Every make was worth one-point and only lay-ups and three-point shots were allowed (this is in line with their offensive philosophy).

Figure 2 Five Ball Drill

10:33 Penetration Reaction Breakdown

Two teams were on separate courts as one group worked on penetration reaction off of a hit ahead pass, and the other group worked on post reaction on various perimeter penetration situations.
Since Vance Walberg was an assistant coach you could clearly see the Dribble Drive Motion Offense influence in these drills.
They always had multiple assistant coaches/helpers at each breakdown basket so that every player could end a repetition with a shot.

Group 1 Drill Description (Perimeter Reactions):

Figure 3 Perimeter Penetration Reaction Actions

Group 2 Drill Descriptions (Post Reactions):

Figure 4 Penetration Reaction Actions with a Post

10:49 am Defensive Stations

2-on-2 Perimeter Position Shell (Guards)2-on-2 Step Up Ball Screen Defense (Posts)

3 Closeout 1-on-1

Teaching Concepts

They teach a lot referencing other NBA players. For example “We use this (ball screen) defense vs. Duncan on the roll but this one vs. Dirk” to give their players context.
A big goal of their defense was to “shrink gaps.” A player defending the corner should be up the line and not flat defending their check.
They worked a lot defending the transition skip pass.
They emphasize how early in the shot clock they can get into their offensive actions
The coaches played a lot in practice especially during transition simulations.
George Karl let his assistants coach.
Utilize a shorter shot clock to get guys into the habit of operating quickly and efficiently on offense (24 seconds down to 18).
To force people to help get your eyes on the rim when you dribble attack.

11:05 am Chat

The team divided into three groups. Each had an assistant coach who was addressing a topic.

11:10 am Free Throws and Water

11:13 am 3-on-0 Reps

Three courts were used to run 3-on-0 repetitions of different offensive actions.
Action 1: Pistol Early Offense
Action 2: Drag High Ball Screen
Action 3: Down Screen Action

11:28 am 5-on-0 Reps

Two groups ran 5-on-0 Two Trips of the actions they just worked on.

Concept on Drag

The posts did not go up-down after the ball screen but rather the post that set the screen short rolled and the bottom post held the weak side block.
This created room for the pocket pass and prevented the low post defender from rotating up to take away the short roll.

11:38 am 5-on-4 + 1 (Or 5-on-3 + 2) Three Trips

Scrimmage Rules

18 second shot clock
6 seconds to get the ball over half-court
4 points for a score at the rim
Play a live ball turnover on the 3^rd trip only
On the 1^st defensive foul on the three trip series, the team runs an inbound. On the 2^nd foul on the three trip series, the offense gets a point.
To win the game must make a free throw. If they free throw is missed or the offensive rebound is not score than the game plays on

“Karlisms”

“The best offense in basketball is simple. Make it simple and trust it.” – George Karl

Got to run the spacing.
The defense makes mistakes so find the mistake.
We are trying to find the rhythm and flow of our offense. Holding the ball doesn’t help that.
Most of the time holding the ball helps the defense.
Everything we want on offense we don’t want to give up on defense.
Need sprinters, not runners in transition.
Need a big guy to run the middle. A rim runner opens up everything else.
A committed wing runner will run the floor 10x to get two shots. That’s why it is a discipline.
Ball movement to the weak side is a good play.
The big guys catching and handing it back to a guard is a good play.
Getting the ball spaced is what we do.
The pass into a crowd is just as bad as dribbling into a crowd.
Ball screen defense is a zone for 4-5 seconds. It goes from man to zone to man.
What’s comfortable and what’s simple is our goal in ball screen coverage.
Pet Peeve “Shooter who misses short” (He used a statistic that 73% of three-point shot attempt misses hit the front of the rim.
Take shots we think are good to great shots in the first 11 seconds of the shot clock.
If we don’t find flow out of transition (i.e. ball movement) run a drag ball screen.