Every moment of practice forms a habit. Either you’re creating a good habit or you’re creating a bad one. Most coaches are hyper-aware of the physical habits needed to be a good player. But there are mental habits that are critical to your team’s success. Is your team slow to transition between drills? Does it take several seconds before they can reorganize themselves when you explain something and then restart the drill? Is there confusion and delay when you sub new players into a drill? All of these practice problems will show up when it comes time for the game. Your team will play poorly out of timeouts, you’ll be slow to get into new defenses, you’ll miscommunicate, or not communicate at all, on match-ups.

I would recommend that you don’t solve these problems for your players in practice but that you hold them accountable for solving them. Make them figure out how to make quick mental transitions because, in the games, there are only so many timeouts, and they will eventually have to solve things on the fly without you.