#164: Coach Phil Jackson: Leading on game day

Sport and the Growing Good

We’ve studied many aspects of coaching including having a system, running practice, and forming team identity. Much of what we’ve learned addresses the broad notion of preparing teams to compete. Today’s topic will build upon these and other topics we’ve discussed to engage several specific aspects of “leading on game day.”

1. Coach Jackson’s favorite routes in driving thought the Midwest and western US states.

2. Organizing game day so that the players would have mornings of instruction and activity.

3. Game day meetings with coaching staff. Identifying priorities and roles for coaches in communicating the plan with the team.

4. Shootarounds. Basic drills. Activating the body.

5. Mike D’Antonio focusing on offense.

6. Coaching in the CBA: “We had no scouting system. We had no film… It was pretty sight unseen. Most of it was just reaction.”

7. The heartbeat: “I would send a rookie out with a drum…’Get them in here with a beat.’”

8. Gameday meditation. From five to ten minutes. Changes throughout the season. “If it was early season, it might be that guys were new to this process so we might be talking about the body, relaxing from your breath down through the feet. A talking meditation. Or it might be in the playoffs or later in the depth of the season, we would just sit. We would just have meditation space. I called it breathing together. One breath, one mind. That was how we tried to sync guys up together.”

9. “At some point in that team meeting, I would ask a player, what do you think is important in this game? ‘What do you think the focus should be?’ And sometimes it would be a reserve player so it wasn’t a hierarchy. Someone who was observant.”

10. “’Let’s talk about your perspective, how you feel about how they guarded you the last time. Or what your force is going to be this time around. What are your thoughts?’ So we would be in synch.”

11. Working on specials in the last minutes of the shootaround.

12. Pregame speeches. Limited effects. Focuses: information and emotion.

13. “It’s overrated, the ‘Gipper’ speech…There are times when you need to pull something special out, but for the most part it’s just telling them to get into the game fully.”

14. Dennis Rodman’s pregame routines. Arriving an hour before the game. Video, weights, shower. Not on the court until that final moments before the game.

15. Sending assistant coaches out in pregame to make sure everything was going right in warmups.

16. Albert Mehrabian rule: “7% words, 38% tone of voice, 55% body language”

17. Why Coach developed his whistling skills and used hand signals. “You really have to be able to communicate with your team when you’re coaching.”

18. Codes for communication.

19. “I think the voice is resilient and authoritative. I think it’s really important for the coach to have a strong voice.”

20. “There’s a locker room voice that is commanding, yet assuring. It’s instructive.”

21. The Horace Grant example – and how the move toward positive coaching is more effective in today’s game. Positive Coaching Alliance.

22. Timeouts. Getting players composed. “I want you to find the rooted nature. Something that you know that gives you solace. And you can go to the bench and think of that space for ten seconds.”

23. Examples of the rooted nature. Where you were nurtured.

24. Others who were not in the game could encourage teammates while planning was going on. Then the coaches would come back in with the plan.

25. Sitting vs. standing in timeouts. “They relax too much sometimes when sitting.”

26. Communicating with the team during crunch time of a game: Research on best strategies for leading during critical/high pressure times include:

-use brief, clear commands

-control body language and tone (players look to coach as model in these times)

-activate leadership within the team (tie into a player-leader during time-out, etc)

-emphasize the next play and focus on the process

-encourage deep breaths

-reinforce trust and confidence in the team and system

-acknowledge the pressure …and frame it as a challenge that we’re ready for

27. Red Holzman during crunch time. Defensive berating… then, “What do you guys what to run? What do you think will work?” “He left it entirely up to us…That was a real eye opener for me. I enjoyed that a lot.”

28. “Michael Jordan was such a great finisher and so was Kobe Bryant. A lot of that was part of the success I had as a coach.”

29. “I think the breath is really important. Take a deep breath and relax. We’re going to go into this. We’re going to be successful. Just be alert and react.”

30. After the game in the locker room. “Temperament is one of the things you have to watch for… Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. You need to find that balance.”

31. The Lord’s Prayer after the game for calming down.

32. After leaving the arena on game day. “I used to take a few minutes by myself.”

33. Coach Jackson and Coach Winter continuing to focus on their video analysis even as the plane seemed to be going down.

34. Communicating during the flow of the game with players, including a player who repeatedly made mistakes and was berated by others: “I’ll be looking at you. And you look at me. And then we won’t have to communicate about it anymore. Just know that ‘I made a mistake and that’s something we talked about. And we will move on from there.’”

35. “Sometimes stopping the activity and getting your players to reset is important. And you have to think of creative ways to do that.”

36. Accounting for different players’ pregame rituals. “It’s great to let them have that.”

37. Ensuring that your teams don’t start slow. “Something physical is good to do…Something that gets them back into their body. Because sometimes we get too into our heads. We’ve got a lot of information and we’re up here thinking about disseminating it and trying to get it all together, but you need to get back into your body.”