Week of 12/4-11 Coaches Tip of the Week

Saving your timeouts. Only having 5 time outs, 3 – 60 second timeouts and 2 – 30 second time outs coaches would be wise not to let their players call timeouts. I only allowed my players to call a time out when I told them to. We did not call timeouts to prevent violations, ball going out of bounds, prevent jump balls, prevent 5 second throw in violations or 10 second violations.

I wanted my timeouts saved. They were always told that time outs were on red which meant I only called the time outs. If late in the game I would then give them a green light which meant that they could call a time out to avoid a violation.

A violation to me is no worse then a turnover or a missed shot and I wanted all my timeouts for late in the game.

How many times have we seen teams waste  time outs trying to prevent violations and then not have enough left when they wanted them late in a close game?

I tried never to use a timeout in the first half of any game.

Coaches just think of those violations that are caused because your players didn’t call a time out as just turnovers or as a missed shot, you will be glad you did in a cllose game when you need a timeout and you haven’t usued them just to prevent turnovers. Greeen light means the players can call a time out in that situation because we have saved our timeouts.