Online Basketball Drills

Basketball Drills, Plays and Coaching Tips

3-12 Drill for Offensive Rebounding

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In today’s video blog post, we are demonstrating a great individual improvement drill called the “3-12 Drill”. This drill is all about offensive rebounding. You’re just crashing the glass, trying to go right up and score with it.  It’s a no holds barred, all physical contact drill, that’s all about trying to finish.

3-12 Drill for Offensive Rebounding

  • The drill begins with three players
  • The coach stands underneath the basket and the players are down low in their stance, behind the block area and ready to catch. The coach may throw it off the board, or out for a loose ball – even on the floor. Whatever it is, the athletes are trying to catch it and go right up and score.
  • Once the ball is caught, it becomes 1-on-2. If you’ve got the ball, you’re going up to score, and the other players are trying to stop him without fouling.
  • If the ball goes outside of the lane area, you don’t have a shot, and you’ll throw the ball back to coach.

 

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Post Play Drill for Building Hand & Arm Strength

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While playing in the post, 90% of the time your hands and your arms are extended over your head. In this drill, we’re going to concentrate on developing strength with your hands and your arms extended over your head, which will help you achieve aggressive play.  When you extend your hands and your arms over your head, you automatically become weaker and you become more off balance.

Post Play Drill for Building Hand & Arm Strength

The object of this drill is to make the players work harder than they’ve ever worked in their life. You want to raise their level to a point that they’ve never been to before. With about 30 seconds left in this drill, they are going to get very tired and they’ll want to quit. But if they keep working, they will raise themselves up to the next level.

Breaking down this Post Play Drill:

 

  • Get four players on the board and the first two are going to get the ball and grip it as hard as they can.
  • They’re going to look for a spot up on the board, and then go up and bring the ball behind their head, following up with pounding the ball off the board as hard as they can and come back down.
  • Immediately explode back up and pound the ball off the board and come back down.
  • Continue this for approximately 45 seconds.
  • Say “Switch” and they’re going to hand the ball to their partner and that player will repeat the same steps.

 

How to Use this Post Play Drill for Guards and smaller players:

 

  • If you have guards or some smaller players that can’t get up and pound the ball off the glass, you’re just going to put these players up against the wall.
  • They’re going to pick a spot on the wall and they’re going to go back, and then bring the ball back behind their head and slam it off the wall, come down, and go back up, for 45 seconds.
  • Say “Switch” and they’re going to turn around and hand the ball to their teammates and those players will repeat. It’s up to you (the coach) to determine how long you want to do these drills.

 

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Transition Basketball: Game Tempo & Running

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In today’s video blog post, I’m going to talk to you about transition basketball and running, and then present some transition basketball situations and best plays for success.  (I’ll also touch briefly on creating game tempo, but will explore that topic more in a follow-up article!)

Transition Basketball & Running

Why do you run?

  • Hustle points or conditioning points; those points you get when your team is just more able to get to the offensive end of the floor than the opponent.
  • To create tempo. You want to be able to have a tempo in the game that fits the way you play. For example, we play pressure defense. We think it’s logical for us to go from pressure defense into a style that keeps the pressure on the opponent, so we like to advance the ball up the floor quickly.
  • Use more players. In a coaching situation, it’s very important for you to try in a rotation where you stretch your team a little bit. It helps make practice a little bit stronger and with a tight rotation, you’re able to make use of more players because of the speed of the game.
  • Keep teams off the offensive boards. When a team knows that you’re running, they’re going to have a tendency to keep two players back because they’re concerned about you running on them. So a team that has a decided height advantage is very concerned about them keeping the floor balanced.
  • Neutralize the size of an opponent. When the game becomes a game of quickness, size is being neutralized by the line-up you put out there. I’m more used to having small teams play. I think that we’ve been able to neutralize the size of other teams by playing at such a speed that it’s more a game of quickness than it is of size.
  • Works against Zone & Press. Because of your ability to get the ball up the floor quickly, you can attack spots in a zone that they’re not able to get guys back. You can also get the ball inbounds and throw over the top of presses before they’re set. These are two great advantages as well.

You want to get your best players in situations where they can be successful. When you’re a team that has small players, your players are going to be the most successful when the court’s open. A little guard with the opportunity to take the ball in the middle on the break or in a game where the opponent is pressing him, he’s able to utilize his quickness. So when your personnel’s small, it’s an opportunity to utilize those players.

Transition Basketball & Game Tempo

We try to run in three different ways:

  • Run off made field goals
  • Run off misses
  • Run off steals

When we are in a situation during a game where we get a steal, I allow the players on my team, minus my center, to advance the ball on the steal. So if we get a steal on the wing, that player is going to bring the ball up the floor. If he’s not comfortable handling the basketball, he may take it up the sideline. If he’s confident in his handle, we’re going to allow him to take the ball towards the basket.

Transition Basketball Situations

Free Shot

We have a rule that certainly helps our defense and we call it free shot. When we do get a steal, my team is now going to be in position where my bench gets up and they yell to the player, “Free shot.” Which means this is an extra possession for us and we want to make sure we shoot the ball.

So that player has a definite green light to go down and look to try to score. The other players will come down the court and run with him, looking to get on the offensive boards in the event of the miss, and they know more than the opponent does that the player with the ball is looking to score.

Defensive Rebound

The second way that we want to run is on a defensive rebound. And on a defensive rebound, we want to run in a very simple 3-lane break. What we do is I allow the forwards on the defensive boards when they get the rebound – if they don’t have the clean outlet and if they haven’t been jammed up by the defense – we allow them what we call bust-out.

And we let the kid with the ball take the basketball, advance it up the floor, looking to push it ahead, throw it ahead or advance it down into the foul line area. As we advance it down, we’re going to play and focus on taking advantage of mismatches and giving the guys some freedom on their defensive stuff.

Fast Break on Scores

Our third situation is one that we don’t like to run, for obvious reasons, but we want to be in an organized fast break on scores. However, we don’t want to give up any field goals during the games. So we really discourage this as a way of playing. We call it the quick offense because when we’re in these situations on made foul shots or made field goals, we’re going to look to quickly get ourselves a shot before the defense is set.

 

If you enjoyed these transition basketball tips, be sure to check out my video program that includes a whole multipart series on transition basketball!  And don’t forget to Like Me on Facebook, where you can discuss these and more great transition basketball fundamentals with other coaches and players!

Basketball Drills for Rebounding, Defending and Shooting Strength

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basketball drills for strength2

In today’s blog post, we’re going to talk about basketball drills for Developing Strength for Rebounding, Defending and Shooting. The way the passing game has gone today, we all know that our guards are stuck underneath the basket at times just like our big people. So these drills can go for both big people and guards. If you’re looking for an instant result within four to five weeks, you can get them by the basketball drills that we’re going to discuss today.

Basketball Drills for Developing Strength for Rebounding, Defending and Shooting

Basketball Drills for Strength: Number 1

The first drill we’re going to do here today is concentrating on building strength with your hands and your arms extended over your head. While playing in the post, 90% of the time your hands and your arms are extended over your head.

When you extend your hands and your arms over your head, you automatically become weaker and you become more off balance. So I’m going to do a few drills here right now just to develop the strength and some aggressive play.

I’ve got four gentlemen here on the board and the first two gentlemen are going to get the ball and they’re going to grip it as hard as they can. They’re going to look for a spot up on the board, they’re going to go up and bring the ball behind their head, and they’re going to pound it off the board as hard as they can and come back down.

Immediately explode back up and pound the ball off the board and come back down. They’re going to do it for approximately 45 seconds. When I say switch, they’re going to hand the ball to their partner and then they’re going to do it.

The object of this drill is to make the players work harder than they’ve ever worked in their life. You want to raise their level to a point that they’ve never been to before. With about 30 seconds left in this drill, they will get very tired and they’ll want to quit. But if they keep working, they will raised themselves up to the next level.

Basketball Drills for Strength: Number 2

Okay, this drill here is going to be primarily the same drill that we did with the big men bouncing the ball off the glass. But if you have guards or you have some smaller players that can’t get up and pound the ball off the glass, we’re just going to put these players up against the wall.

They’re going to pick a spot on the wall and they’re going to go back, again, bring the ball back behind their head and slam it off the wall, come down, and go back up, for 45 seconds. When I say switch, they’re going to turn around and hand the ball to their teammates and they will do it. It’s up to you or the coach to determine how long you want to do these drills.

Basketball Drills for Strength: Number 3

In this drill here, again, we’re going to concentrate on developing strength with our hands over our head. The player is going to go up and bang the ball off the board as hard as he can, come back down, explode back up, and make a lay-up.

Take the ball out of the net and go to the other side of the board, explode up, bang it off the board as hard as he can, come back down, and explode it back up. When he’s on his right side he needs to use his right hand.

When he’s on his left side he needs to use his left hand. And it’s going to be hard work, but we’re going to coach him through it.

Basketball Drills for Strength: Number 4

What we’re going to do next is basically the same drill except instead of him banging the ball off the board once, he’s going to bang the ball off the board twice. He’s going to go up and bang it, come down, go up, bang it, come down, and then he’s going to explode up for a lay-up.

Take the ball out of the net and go to the opposite of the board. The drill is going to get even tougher now so we’re going to have to encourage him as we go on and he’s going to have to lift his level of play up to the next level.

Basketball Drills for Strength: Number 5

Next we’re just going to take the drill one step further. The player’s going to bang the ball three times off the board with a vengeance before he powers it back up. He will take the ball out of the net, pound it three times with a vengeance on the other side, come down, and go and power it back up.

So what the player has done is he has given us four good efforts. He has pounded the ball off the board three times and he powered it up. What you want to tell your players about this drill is when the ball comes off the rim, you’ve got to go up and get it; you might have to go up two or three times before you get the rebound. And once you get the rebound, you’ve got to be strong enough to power it back up.

 

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Rapid Fire Post Breakdown Drills

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Today’s video blog post features two excellent rapid fire Post Breakdown Drills for your bigger players!  These drills allow your players to work on important mechanics such as power moves, driving lay-ups, set ups and avoiding travels.

Rapid Fire Post Breakdown Drills

Post Breakdown Drill #1: The player is going to come in strong and make a left handed lay-up

  • The player is going to take the ball out of the rim and throw it to the coach
  • The coach will throw the ball back to the player, and the player is going to catch the pass with two hands and two feet, and make a power move and score with the left hand.

 

Post Breakdown Drill #2: The player will set up the shot with the left hand and score with the right hand

  • The player will throw the ball to the coach, and then sprint over to catch the ball when the coach passes it back
  • The player focuses on coming hard and getting above the block
  • The player then takes one hard dribble and scores coming across the lane
  • This drill can be performed with two players, which will help players to think more about awareness of what is happening around them.

 

Do as many of these drills as you can in 2-3 minutes, keeping up a rapid fire pace.

 

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