Online Basketball Drills

Basketball Drills, Plays and Coaching Tips

Drop Step with a Defender Shooting Drill

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In today’s video blog post, we are going to demonstrate an excellent shooting drill for working on the drop step with a defender.

Drop Step with a Defender Shooting Drill

This drill will show you where to set up, how to read a defense, the drop step, through the gate, and up to the basket.

Elements the Shooting Drill

  • Incorporate the spot on the floor where you would like your big men to receive the ball. The spot should give them enough room both ways to drop step, break through the gate, either way, and to get up to the basket.
  • They’re going to have to receive the ball with a dummy defense on them.
  • The player will read which way the defense is playing them and they will drop step the opposite way.

 

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Video – Basketball Practice Tips from Bob Hurley, Sr.

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During the above video, you’ll get the opportunity to learn some great basketball practice tips from Bob Hurley, Sr.

Before we delve into the video, here’s a nugget of wisdom from the coach: “The first step to being successful is conversation, and the second step is observation.”

Here are some of the basketball practice rules that Coach Hurley goes over during the video:

  • Be at basketball practice fifteen minutes early, jump rope in hand.
  • Stop what you’re doing when you hear the whistle or the coach talking.
  • The players are responsible for the practice mood.
  • Finish your plays at practice with a score or a blockout.
  • Know thyself; emphasize your weaknesses.
  • Playing time is won at practice.
  • If an individual lets the team down, the entire team runs.
  • Seniors are responsible for the team attitude.
  • Partners must push each other.
  • Drill rotation: offense to defense to end of the line.

Do you lay out some of these same basketball practice rules? What rules would you add to the list?

If you liked this video, head over to my YouTube channel for even more coaching videos.

Video: Pointers for Consistently Having Good Practices

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Basketball coaching isn’t an easy task, and as a coach, you know how important practices are to the success of your team. In the above video, Morgan Wooten shares some tips regarding basketball practice planning and organization.

The way you start something has a lot to do with the way it turns out. If you start practice with enthusiasm, you’re getting off to a good start and going about your basketball coaching the right way.

At the beginning of each practices, players should stretch on their own. Each player knows what he or she needs in order to be properly stretched out.

The best way to start practice after everyone has stretched is to blow the whistle and have your players get to you as quickly as possible. Whoever is the slowest or takes a little while getting there is called out by the coach—it will be the last time that player is slow or lacking hustle.

If you found these basketball coaching tips helpful, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page for even more pointers!

Tips for Planning an Awesome Basketball Practice

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basketball practice tipsToday we’re going to talk about basketball practice plans.

As a coach, I prefer to practice than to be involved in games. I love to bounce around and get drills from different coaches.

So the philosophy that I’m going to talk to you about today is something that I formulated over the years from as many people as I’ve been able to see at practices and hear speak at clinics.

I have some thoughts about practice itself that I think are very important.

Basketball Practice Essentials

The first thing is that you have to put it down on paper. You can’t wing it. You also have to plan your practices in advance. As I approach my high school season, I know that I’ll have 16 practices in my preseason and I’ll have six scrimmages before my first game.

So as I’m preparing, I know that I have to have certain things on certain days so that I know where I need to be. With that in mind, I’ll keep practice plans for three or four years so I can compare what I’m doing on a certain day, but also so I can compare the quality of the practice. I try to grade them as best I can.

It’s also very important to stay with a schedule. When you write your practice schedule down, don’t deviate from it. Don’t be stubborn about completing something and staying with it much longer than you originally planned–because now you’re losing other things at practice. If it didn’t work well, come back to it the next day at practice and use another fundamental drill. It’s not always the kids’ fault that the drill doesn’t go well at practice. So if you have a variety of particular drill, that’s going to help you.

It’s also very important to alternate the hard and easy segments at practice. If you do one thing and it’s going to be difficult, you want to do it for about five minutes. Longer than five minutes, and it’s going to lose its effect. At the same time, don’t follow it with another difficult thing. Don’t have a drill that’s defensive stance and follow it with five minutes of blockout. Try to separate those two and maybe put a shooting drill in between so the kids are doing something shooting after defensive stance.

You want to build your practice so that two-thirds of it is skill work and one-third is team play. I always feel that if you keep working on your skills, your team play is going to get better because of the skill level of your team.

Practice to improve your team first. Worry about the opponent second.

Do breakdown work daily. If you’re with another coach at practice, have one coach work with the big men while the other coach works with the guards. If you’re alone at practice, stay in the middle of the court, have the two groups working, and kind of go back and forth during the drill.

Allow your senior players to participate a little bit in leadership roles. If you have two assistant coaches at practice, let them each run a segment and walk back and forth instructing so that they’re getting a chance to work a practice and you’re able to oversee what’s going on.

Make sure you get in 20 minutes of shooting a day. All things being equal, if you don’t have at least 20 minutes of shooting, all of the other things you’re doing are going to get you the positions to score, but you won’t have rehearsed the actual shooting and scoring.

Shorten your practices as the season goes on, but keep the intensity up. Several years ago we played for the New Jersey State Championship. Our last practice of the season was 45 minutes long on a Saturday. My seniors basically ran the practice; I had a veteran group. We went from one thing to the other. We felt no need to keep things going. We knew by the way we left practice we were going to have a good day the next day. And we did–that next day, we won the state championship.

These are just some of the things you should keep in mind when planning your basketball practices. What other tips would you like to share with fellow coaches? Sound off in the comments below!

From Lebron to Durant – Secrets of the Small Forward

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Going over the roles and responsibilities of each player is a great idea for any coach at any level at the beginning of every season. It helps players set goals, and figure out exactly what it is you need them to do to be effective out on the floor. Making sure they understand what is expected from their position, and what is expected from them as an individual is one of the most important things you can do as a coach.

Coaching Basketball

Small Forward

The small forward position might be the best it’s ever been in the NBA, with the two premier players in the world, Kevin Durant and LeBron James both playing it. The small forward is a jack of all trades, a versatile and athletic, utility player, who can ideally play both in the post and on the perimeter, scoring in a variety of ways.

They can run the break off of a rebound, which they should be getting quite a few of.  And lastly, they don’t need to be as great a playmaker as LeBron, but they do need to be a sound passer.

Defensive Responsibilities

Much like on offense, on defense, the small forward needs to be able to do everything – whether that’s lock down on the perimeter, or shut it down in the paint. Ideally your small forward can learn to be an attacking defender, forcing steals and generally wreaking havoc on the offense.

Offensive Responsiblities

On offense, they need to be a good scorer, at the very least able to play off the ball and hit open jumpers. An ability to score out of the post, using their size and strength to get an easy basket here and there is a great asset as well.

They don’t need to be an offensive initiator, but if the backcourt is dealing with a press, they need to be able to help, and bring the ball up the floor, and have the decision making and passing abilities that come with that territory.

Rebounding Responsibities

Your small forward should also be a good a rebounder, averaging somewhere around 6-7 rebounds a game. They should be able to get an offensive rebound here and there, but they absolutely cannot allow their man to get any offensive rebounds off of them.

If you liked these posts on tips for your 3 and 4 man, let me know below which position you’d like to see me cover next – point guard? off – guard?

And if you’ve got any other questions or comments, make sure to let me know below!