Make as many late-game, pressure decisions during the non-pressurized time of the offseason as possible. That was my philosophy as a college basketball coach.
The idea that most college coaches have a magical clipboard and pen and draw up game-winning plays at the end of a game is wrong, although being able to think quickly, improvise and adjust on the fly to an opponent's strategy is important.
Instead, the art of being a successful decision-maker in the final minutes or seconds of a close game should start, for a coach and his staff, way before the arena lights come on. So when faced with the pressure of the final moments of a game, I wanted to rely on well-thought-out ideas that had been analyzed from every angle months before in the quiet of a coaches' meeting room.
The first thing a coach has to do is to come up with all of the late-game decisions that have to be made. Some examples: How does your team play from behind and how does it play with the lead? How do you treat defending the late-game 3-point attempt when we lead by three points? How do you teach fouling? Which players can you rely on to create scoring opportunities at the end of a game and where on the court do you get them the ball? Do you call a timeout or let your team play on?
When you systematically think through those and many other situations before the season starts, you can incorporate them into preseason and in-season practices, so that when those situations do pop up in a crucial moment of a game, they have been rehearsed already.
No one was better at that than North Carolina's Hall of Fame coach Dean Smith. The Tar Heels' comebacks at the end of games were legendary. In 1974, Smith's team trailed Duke by eight points with 17 seconds to go. Without a 3-point shot, the Tar Heels tied the game and eventually won in overtime.
Smith's ability to inspire confidence in his team was all about preparation. In fact, his former assistant coach, Eddie Fogler, once said, "In 15 years, I never saw Dean Smith write a play on a clipboard during a time out. It was all talked about or worked on in practice."
Butler's Brad Stevens does very little coaching by the seat of his pants but rather has a well-thought-out plan for every special situation in a game.
In Butler's thrilling win over Pittsburgh in the second round of the NCAA tournament, it was his well-executed side inbounds play out of a timeout to set up Shawn Vanzant's drive and dish to Adam Smith that put the Bulldogs up late in the game.
On the play, Vanzant "rejected" Matt Howard's ball screen at the top of the key, keeping the second defender from trapping him. The corners were filled with shooters Zac Hahn and Shelvin Mack, insuring that their defenders could not help on the drive. That left Vanzant to beat the Panthers' Gilbert Brown in a 1-on-1 situation to the basket, opening up the pass to Smith.
When I went back to the Synergy Sports Tech video, which catalogues every play of the college season, I found the same side inbounds play for Vanzant, who made a game-changing 3-point shot in the final minute in Butler's Horizon League semifinal win over Cleveland State. I guarantee the Bulldogs worked on that play in practice long before it was needed.
When John Calipari and I were young coaches at UMass and Manhattan College, he gave me a great late-game play called "Winner" on the phone one night in the middle of the season. I put the play in for my team at the next day's practice but told them we wouldn't use the play until we absolutely needed a critical basket at some point during the season.
Over the next two months, we practiced "Winner" every day. It wasn't until we were in the final seconds of our conference championship game that we pulled it out. It worked to perfection, as we were fouled with one second on the clock. It gave the Jaspers their first NCAA appearance in 35 years.
There are ways to add plays or "wrinkles" to plays as a part of a coach's late-game repertoire. It takes a team with a good basketball IQ to pull these off. It is what I call being "coached on the fly," and it is a definitive basketball skill.
When Indiana's Tom Crean was coaching at Marquette, he would routinely add new set plays or late-game plays, even on the morning of a game. Because he had many NBA coaching friends who constantly encountered late-game situations over the course of a 100-game season, he would see a play that they ran that he liked and incorporate it into his next practice. His teams got good at recognizing adjustments on the fly.
Before a game against in-state rival Wisconsin, a visitor to the team's walk-though showed Crean a lob play on an inbounds underneath situation. The coach liked it and added it to the team's game plan on the spot. It resulted in a dunk for Dwyane Wade that night.
Remember that during a 30-second timeout late in a game, there often isn't much time to draw plays up. The time flies. Instead, it is more prudent that your team runs a play it is already familiar with because it has a better chance of working.
Some coaches keep a play card with four or five late-game plays -- the Celtics' Doc Rivers has this down to a science -- that are already drawn up and easier to read than being scribbled on a clipboard under the duress of time, and with water and sweat flying everywhere.
One of the key decisions to be made late in a game is whether to call timeout to set up a final play. I have always believed that calling a timeout yields a worse shot than if my team attacked without allowing the defense to set up or adjust its look during the time out.
This is the perfect example of a situation that is talked about by a coaching staff in the offseason then practiced throughout the season. And, not calling timeout in key situations is the equivalent of a football team going 70 yards in 45 seconds without timeouts. It must be worked on.
Of course, calling timeout can often benefit the offense.
Kemba Walker's magical game winner against Pittsburgh in the Big East quarterfinals came after an offensive rebound by Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and a timeout call by coach Jim Calhoun.
Because the Panthers rarely trap the ball out of an opponent's hands, Walker and Calhoun knew they would either get a good matchup against a guard or a great matchup if a big man switched out. Walker's last-second step-back move on Gary McGhee was one of the best one-on-one moves of the entire season. More importantly, it was a great use of a late-game timeout.
When Pete Carril's Princeton Tigers knocked out UCLA in the 1996 NCAA tournament, in one of college basketball's all-time stunning upsets, he set up his team's final play out of a timeout. It was the same backdoor play that created an easy layup against the Bruins at the end of the first half. This time, his "wrinkle" was that the Tigers' Gabe Lewullis' first backdoor cut would be just a decoy, as the UCLA defender bit on his second fake and the defending NCAA champions were beaten.
It's also a coach's job to practice what I call the "running timeout," when the clock is stopped because of a foul or a dead ball and the team can sprint to your bench for 15 or 20 seconds of instruction without wasting a timeout.
Speaking of timeouts, I remember first hearing about the idea of practicing "timeout organization" from Hubie Brown at a coaching clinic. He felt it was critical in a late-game timeout situation that everyone know exactly where to sit in relation to the head coach so there was less room for miscommunication. I always wanted my point guard directly in front of me so that I could look him in the eye when giving him directions. It makes sense.
Surprisingly to me, in my travels during the basketball season, I see little in the way of late-game preparation at practices. Maybe I have had bad luck or bad timing in terms of when I've observed practices, but I don't think so. I just think some coaches utilize their practice time in other ways.
Ultimately, the job of a good basketball coach is to prepare his team for every situation that may arise in a game and give his team a chance to win. Being good in late-game situations is just as important as a football team having great special-teams play. It should result in more wins.
It doesn't always play out that way, and preparation doesn't always result in success, especially when talent may not be equal. But Brown puts it best when he says that a coach's in-game reputation "is a direct result of his team's execution under pressure." It's what a good coach is paid to do.