Linked below is an interview that ran on the Orlando Magic website with their new coach Steve Clifford. The back-and-forth has a ton of coaching nuggets. Two things stood out to me: (1) Clifford has put so much thought and time into crafting his system that he is able to clearly define for his team what he expects on each side of the ball. The second takeaway for me was his point about being honest with players. While the coaches that read this operate in a different orb obviously than Clifford, I think there’s certainly something to having these kind of conversations.
You have to take what you have and find ways that you can be good offensively and defensively every night. The defensive part of it is more black and white where you can have those hard-and-fast rules. The offensive part, to me, you can have plans, but you have to read the situation and see what changes you need to make to develop. Simply put, offensively, we need to have an aspect of ball movement, playing inside-out, playing unselfishly and taking advantage of one-on-one play, a post-up game and our catch-and-shoot game. We have to be able to depend on guys who have (advantages in) matchups.
For more on Clifford:
-Steve Clifford on defending the side pick & roll (LINK)
-Steve Clifford clinic notes (LINK)
-A coach’s coach: Steve Clifford (LINK)
