Staying true to your style

I think one of the most important things you must do when running any offense is to stay true to it with everything you do. By that I mean that you can’t teach two different styles of play and expect the players to understand both and especially be able to play both.

If you’re running the Dribble Drive, I think it becomes very hard to run a slow-down offense as a secondary offense – and don’t even think about running the DDM as a secondary offense.

You have to get your players into the right mindset. If you’re running a screening motion, you have to instill patience and if you’re running the DDM they have to be in attack mode.

When I started running the DDM we would walk it up, make sure everybody were in the right position, and then start running it. In other words, we were relying on the X’s and O’s to provide the baskets, and ran it like you run sets. The problem was that the players never got into the right attack mindset.

That’s where I think both Calipari and Walberg have revolutionized the game in a way. There is no fast or secondary break. In it’s purest form both use the DDM where they are just attacking off a basket or a rebound. The ball must be pushed, and it can go anywhere going up the court, and no matter where the ball goes you just follow the basic Dribble Drive principles

While with the Dribble Drive you have to be in attack mode 100% of the time, you might also be forced to run sets and quick hitters. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn’t use sets which change the mind-set of the players. Quick hitters or sets may be useful to open up the defense for the Dribble Drive, but don’t ask the players to run complicated sets that require patience and a different mind set.