For basketball coaches, it is important to keep up with the changing times. Thus, digitalization does not pass basketball by without further ado. The functionality of the classic tactics board is increasingly being questioned. Can a drawing on a drawing board or a magnetic board compactly represent all the important moves? Or are these visualizations perhaps already outdated? Is there THE "better" tactics board?
What is tactics?
For clarity, let's start by showing you the concept of tactics. In sports, tactics is defined as "a system of action plans and decision alternatives, which, under limited objectives, allows to regulate a short-term action context in such a way that an optimal sporting success against the opponent(s) becomes possible."
When a player plays tactically, he can assess whether his opponent deviates from the expected course of a game - accidentally or intentionally. Moreover, he can hide his intentions and enforce his own concept over that of his opponent. He takes calculable risks and accepts short-term disadvantages. In doing so, he always considers the overall goal.
What are the types of tactics?
In team sports, two types of tactics are distinguished:
- Individual or pre-tactics: Depending on the situation, the player uses all individual means as well as techniques. These are given in the respective sport.
- Group tactics: This refers to all interactions of parts of the team (e.g. systems in attack and defense). In basketball, all five players try to achieve a game goal together. The team with the highest score at the end wins, so has achieved their game goal.
The attack and defense tactics
Furthermore, two approaches are distinguished within tactics: The attack and defense tactics.
- With the attack tactics (alternatively: offensive tactics) strengths are to be used optimally and/or the opponent's weaknesses to the own advantage to be used. A goal in basketball is always to break through the defense of the opponent, in order to work out thereby one of the own players a free throw. In attacking, a distinction is made between dribbling, passing and throwing.
- In Defensive tactics, on the other hand, the strengths of the opponent are to be minimized. The goal is to regain possession of the ball before a throw or after an unsuccessful attack attempt by the opponent. Players achieve this primarily by blocking passes, throws as well as running routes of the opposing team.
Unlike handball or soccer, basketball does not have a typical division of players into offense and defense. Rather, all five players must combine both offense and defense. However, each field player usually takes over primarily one task.
What is tactics training?
In tactics training, the coach educates his players regarding all important skills and abilities. These are then applied as tactical behavior in competition.
The goals of tactics training are diverse:
- Perception and reaction training is designed to stimulate tactical thinking.
- Tactics training makes it easier for the player to develop flexible skills as well as schemes.
- Players should improve their deception skills and tactical assertiveness.
- Lastly, it aims to help players better assess their risks of success and ultimately have a high tolerance for frustration.
Weitere Ausführungen zum Thema Taktiktraining und -analyse können Sie im Praxisguide “Videonanalyse im Sport” nachlesen:
And what do I need a tactics board for?
The tactics board illustrates the words of the coach especially in (tactics) training, but also in competitions. Thus, what is described is illustrated graphically in a suitable way. The coach can better explain tactical procedures to his players. A good side effect: this visual support helps the player to memorize the information received more quickly.
Other uses of the tactics board include individual coaching, small group discussions, and team meetings.
Rather quite classic...
Among the classic tactic boards you can distinguish the admittedly very outdated drawing board and the more modern magnetic board.
With the help of the drawing board the coach can explain exercises and visualize running routes. The coach can react quickly and present his ideas and suggestions for improvement clearly. Thus, it is possible for the players to rehearse moves.
For this purpose, nowadays in most cases a magnetic board is used. This offers in addition to the above advantages some more: It is weather resistant and can represent a variety of game situations with the help of magnets. Magnets can be rearranged again and again. It results in an even better vividness for the player.
Disadvantages that arise from magnetic boards are especially the magnets themselves. This is because they shift from time to time or fall off completely, which distorts the display. This results in another problem: As soon as the display is no longer visible, the players can no longer follow moves. This makes it very difficult for athletes to internalize the sequences.
...or digital?
The digital tactics board works with the help of special software. It can be used in the form of an app, for example. It combines, so to speak, the advantages of a magnetic and drawing board in a modern solution.
First of all, we want to tell you about the functions and advantages of a digital tactics board in basketball: Software can determine the half of the court and number of players. Running paths can be displayed using various line shapes (e.g. solid, dashed or serpentine) and colors, and the displacement of players can be recorded. In addition, the visual representation is optimized compared to the magnetic board.
The trainer can prepare basketball training at home and think up exercises. He can then map these exercises with the support of software, e.g. in the form of an app, and demonstrate them during training.
Finally, a digital tactics board is completely flexible usable, especially if it is compatible with mobile devices as an app. The team can transport it better - compared to a DIN A3 tactics board.
One suitable option, for example, is the app "Basketball Coaching", which was created by ccc software gmbh together with FIBA (Fédération Internationale de Basketball), the international basketball association. This is available in both the App store and the Play store. The app has a user-friendly interface and can be used on both smartphone and tablet. On- or offline.
With the help of the drawing tool you can draw all the important plays, drills. You can show only one half of the hall and record the plays of your players to watch them again later. Finally, users can connect with the coaching community to share plays and benefit from each other.
However, there are also disadvantages with the tactics board app: For example, it is impossible for all athletes to have a good view of the screen during team meetings. This problem can then only be solved by using a larger monitor. Another alternative is for each team member to download the app to his or her own smartphone so that everyone can follow what is being said.
It depends!
Which type of tactics board you use is entirely up to you. Only you know which variant best suits your needs. To return to the words of the introduction: There is no such thing as THE better tactics board. Both the classic variants and the digital tactics board have advantages and disadvantages. So the decision is up to you.
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