by Alan Stein 03-06-2009 03:00 AM
What does finishing strong mean in the game of basketball? To me, finishing strong applies to three separate aspects of the game – finishing a lay-up or dunk, finishing the last two minutes of a game, and finishing the last two weeks of the season. Finishing, in all three cases, has more to do with mental toughness than anything else, a subject I have covered at length in recent blog posts.
How many times, especially at the high school and college level, do you see a player make a remarkable move to get to the hoop and then miss the lay-up? Maybe they just casually throw it up there, or they use the wrong hand, or they don’t use the glass when they should, or they contort their body to avoid having it blocked and just throw up a prayer. Regardless, they don’t finish the play.
Not finishing is on the top of every coach’s pet peeve list. The best players in the game, at every level, finish plays! That is one of the things that make them great. One of the absolute best ways to get your team energized is with a strong finish and an old fashioned 3 point play. At Montrose we stress finishing all of the time. We chart missed lay-ups in practice and players have to run sprints for each miss at the end of the practice. We even, and I am not joking, record missed lay-ups during our pre-game warm-ups! Our motto is simple; every lay-up is important and you have to take pride in finishing plays.
We have several finishing drills we use (sometimes utilize a heavy trainer ball or coaches use padded shields to provide contact) to condition our players to make plays around the basket. We teach them to “go get contact” around the rim; not avoid it. Missing shots is a part of basketball; but if you don’t finish around the basket because of one of the reasons mentioned above – you are coming out of the game.
What about finishing the game? Do you or your team finish the game with the same intensity, energy, and enthusiasm as you do in the beginning? More times than not, if the game is close, both teams probably finish the game with tremendous effort because the outcome is on the line. But what if it isn’t? What if it is a 15 point game with two minutes left? If you are up 15, are you strong with the ball (expecting to get fouled) and making crisp passes? Do you shoot those free throws with the same focus as if the game was on the line? Do you still play defense? Do you try to bump that score up to 20 or are you OK with letting it dwindle to 10? And if you are down 15 with two minutes to go, do you give up and throw in the towel? Do you start to jack up ill advised shots? Do you try to get a few trash buckets to keep your own average up? Or do you play with pride and continue to execute your coach’s game plan? Do you try to shrink the lead as much as possible or are you OK with being kicked while you are down?
If you are a player who doesn’t normally play very much and you are in at the end of the game, either up 15 or down 15, do you make the most of your opportunity? Do you try to use that time to earn more minutes in the future? Or is it a joke to you? Are you just out there grab-assing?
This is my 6th year at Montrose and we are fortunate enough to usually find ourselves on the “up 15” side of the coin more times than not. But this season, we have not done an adequate job putting the nail in the coffin and finishing games with authority. Granted we are winning (20-1; ranked 6th in the nation in USA Today), but we are not making the statements we could be making because we haven’t been playing out the last few minutes the way we should. Errant passes and turnovers, missed free throws, and a lack of defensive intensity have allowed several teams to make the final score look closer than it really was. Several times we could have turned up the volume and won by 20 or 25, instead we allowed them to skim it down to 10 to 12.
A sports nutritionist I know recommended we try a quick energy boost during half-time to ensure there was no physiological let-down in the 2nd half. So we started giving our players a tiny handful of gummy bears at the half (along with water), in hopes of helping us finish games with a little more gusto.
And given it is early March, the home stretch for the regular season in both high school and college, it is so important you finish the season strong. With a similar mindset to finishing a lay-up or finishing a game, it takes both mental and physical toughness to play with the same fire in March as you did in November. Motivation at this time of year can be hard, for both coaches and players. You are constantly tired and your body is banged up. You have to persevere and find new ways to motivate yourself and your team. For most teams and players, a transition to playoffs, where you win or go home, can be the spark to ignite that flame.
Come playoff time, everybody is 0-0, so it is a fresh start for everyone. Most of the high schools in the DC area have finished up their regular seasons and are moving towards conference and league playoffs. This is an opportune time for players and coaches to evaluate things. How has your team played the last couple of weeks? Are you fading off or ending the season with an exclamation point? What goals, for yourself and for your team, did you set before the season? How have you done? Do you still do the little things you did in the beginning of the year? Do you come in early to get in extra shots? Do you stay after practice as well? How are you practicing?
Coach Kevin Eastman, the brilliant assistant coach for the World Champion Boston Celtics, as well as Nike’s Lead Skills Academy Instructor, mentioned a great philosophy (which I think he got from Jay Bilas from ESPN; another exceptional skills instructor) – “don’t try to get through the practice; get from the practice.” This mantra is especially true at the end of the season. Most players (and many coaches), just want to make it through the practice and can’t wait for it to be over. Why not use that practice as a way to get better? If you have to be there anyway, why not get as much benefit as possible from it?
To help you and your team finish the season strong, and to get you in the right frame of mind, you need to take a few minutes every night before you go to bed and every morning when you first wake up and visualize. Visualize your pre-season workouts from early fall. Visualize how hard you worked and how excited you were for the season to start. Visualize the goals you set back then. Now is the time to see them through and make them a reality!
The good news is the light as at the end of the tunnel. You are almost there. You need to stay focused and push through. Please understand I am not suggesting or implying that basketball is a drag or you don’t love playing the game; I just know that the season becomes tougher as the weeks pass and staying highly motivated and finishing the season strong can be difficult at times.
I will end with this. I hate losing. I am an extremely competitive person. But I acknowledge losing is a part of life and certainly a part of basketball. Think about it, every single game played, from junior high to the NBA, somebody loses. And for the most part, with the exception of the team that wins it all, every team’s season ends on a loss. Look at the NCAA; only two teams out of almost 400 end their season on a win (NCAA and NIT champion). The NBA is no different. And for the most part, high school ends with only a handful of state champions as well as a few private school league or conference champions. That means, I know it is a tough pill to swallow, 99% of all teams end their season with an “L.”
Hopefully you are one of the rare few that end with a win. Hopefully all of your hard work pays off and you win it all. If not, if you do end on a loss, make sure you do so graciously, and make sure you do so leaving every ounce of heart, soul, love, sweat and tears on the court. Don’t go down without giving it 100%. If you don’t, it won’t be the actual loss that sticks with you. It’s knowing you lost because you didn’t give it your best. It will be losing because you didn’t finish strong. Don’t let that happen to you! You don’t want to carry that feeling around the entire off season.
If you would like to contact me about this blog, my training and/or camps and clinics, please email me at Alan@StrongerTeam.com. I will respond as quickly as possible!
Train hard. Train smart.
Alan Stein
Published 03-06-2009 © 2026 Access Athletes, LLC
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