The Basketball Podcast: EP196 with George Galanopoulos on Defense

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George Galanopoulos Coach Quotes:

“Coaching is adaptability. You have to be adaptable; you have to expect the best and prepare for the worst.”

“In the G League, we’ve had weeks where we’ve had seven players for a practice, so you’ve just got to pivot and adapt. When you expected having 10 players and a guy might be hurt, a couple guys get called up, you’ve got to pivot and play 3-on-3 break down games instead of 5-on-5.”

“Culture starts with people. You want to get high character people all pulling in the same direction that have defined roles and understand exactly what is expected of them. Whether it’s staff, players, or management, they’ve got to know their role in order to help push this thing forward.”

“We talked today after practice about how grateful we are to be playing this game in a great gym . . with people that we like and enjoy being around.”

“I think if you develop your players properly, you will win basketball games . . but what we’re trying to do every single day is not worry about winning . . we’re just going out and working out every day and working on individual skills.”

“Part of development is preparing guys to play their next opponent and win that game . . We said from day one, we’re not going to talk about winning. We know every time you step between the lines, we’re keeping score, whether it’s practice, a drill, a scrimmage, or it’s a game, we are trying to win the game.”

“At the end of the day, you are preparing guys to play at the next level to win basketball games. We’re not trying to get guys ‘called up.’ We want guys to create longevity in their careers . . we want them to get called up and we want them to stay and become the best version of themselves so that they can have long stable careers.”

“As much as we can we talk about and reflect and internalize the impact that we are having on a global scale . . and it goes for G league players too. You never know if there’s a five-year-old kid sitting in the stands who ends up wanting to play basketball because of the way that you played that day.”

“I think you see guys playing harder when you create more clarity as far as what guys are supposed to do individually in their roles and how you’re supposed to execute on both ends of the court. Once you see and feel that clarity and there’s a system in place that holds players accountable to their roles and what they’re supposed to do on the court, I think you start to see teams play hard.”

“Defense is not just playing hard. It’s creating clarity in what you need to be doing based on the action and the spacing that you’re being presented with. The game offensively is played so much faster, with so much more pace and in so much more space than it ever has been, so you need to talk about these things.”

“Besides coverages, you want to define what shots you want to take away. And you want to define what shots you’re trying to force the other team into.”

“Switching should not be lazy. You shouldn’t be out there point switching, because that’s what we love as offensive coaches is a point switching team. What you want to do is to switch physically, so that you can take teams out of their actions and keep yourself out of rotation. It actually should be an aggressive, physical mindset.”

“Ultimately defensively, you want to keep bodies on bodies; you want to make sure, no matter what, whatever defense you’re in, that the offensive player that has the ball always sees a body in front of them.”

“There’s a lot of guys that just don’t want to embrace that contact at the rim . . I think most guys, you need to teach them specifically the technique of jumping straight up in the air with their hands and absorbing [contact] in the chest.”

“You’ve heard the term ‘jump to the pass.’ We don’t want guys to jump, we want guys to sprint; we want them to pivot and run and sprint to shrink . . it’s just something that you’ve got to hold guys accountable to and they’ve got to hold each other accountable to it. And once they see that the ball stalls because that offensive player sees help behind and he sees that next man, that’s when you’ve got a high level defense.”

“I think it’s important to embrace your experiences, to enjoy it and not be so focused on where you’re going next. I would say the guys that I’ve seen get called up are the ones that enjoy the experience and don’t worry about the call up. Everybody’s got a different career trajectory, whether they’re coaches or players. Just enjoy it [because], like we said, the last 18 months has taught us that it can all be taken away from you in a heartbeat.”

“That’s my advice to young coaches: go into a job with no agenda other than you’re just trying to help guys get better. And you’re trying to help yourself get better every day, so that you can better help others. I think if that’s at the core of your profession, and your teaching, and your approach, then everything will work out.”

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