John Calipari’s best teams have been great defensively, and the funny thing is, he hasn’t even started teaching defense yet.
Calipari has been working on the dribble drive offense for 16 practices now, and is actually teaching defense at same time and the players don’t even realize it.
George Dohrmann of SI.com talks about Calipari’s defense and how it will be the key ingredient in winning another championship.
But there is no madness in Calipari’s methods and more than a little genius. “First, I don’t want [the players] to be miserable right away playing basketball. I want them to enjoy it,” he says. “They enjoy offense.” Second, by focusing almost entirely on teaching his Dribble-Drive Motion offense, Calipari is pulling something of a Mr. Miyagi, Wax-on, Wax-off trick on his players. “Having to guard the ball is the hardest thing you have to learn,” he says. “Guarding against screens, against the picker and rolls and all that, we have schemes for that stuff, but it starts with a guy with the ball coming at you. By working on the Dribble-Drive right away, we are working on guarding the dribbler from the start.”
Dohrmann also talks to former players and how the defense is still the same, even from the UMASS days, and how if you missed a defensive assignment players might as well walked to the bench.
In other words, when you see Kyle Wiltjer walking to the bench tonight, it is probably because of a missed defensive assignment.
After you watch the game tonight, come back and tell me what you think of the Cats defensively.
