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Basketball Drills, Plays and Coaching Tips

What is Turnover Fast Break Offense? PLUS Drill Training Video!

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Fast breaks are most often the result of a good defensive play such as a steal, off a block or a missed shot by the other team.  During the Fast break, a team attempts to move the ball up court and into scoring position as quickly as possible, so the defense is outnumbered and doesn’t have time to set up.

There are various styles of the fast break.  In a typical fast break situation, the defending team gets the ball and passes it to their fastest player, who then sets up the fast break.   That player speed-dribbles the ball upcourt, with several players trailing him.  He then either passes it to another player for a quick basket, or takes the shot himself.

At your level, you are going to have a lot of fast break opportunities that come off of turnovers. When we are talking about turnover fast breaks, we are talking about unplanned play. The team that has the best fundamentals and is the most aggressive will always win the unplanned part of the game.

What is Turnover Fast Break Offense? PLUS Drill Training Video!

Recognition, speed, ball-handling skills and decision making are critical to the success of a fast break offense.  In order to take advantage of transition fast break offense opportunities, your main emphasis should be on training your players to make decisions on the move.  And you need to give your players the chance to learn this as often as possible.

In today’s video, we demonstrate a drill for working on the turnover fast break and unplanned situations. During these fast break offense drills, your players are going to make a lot of errors on the transition, but this is an important part of a player learning to become instinctive, which is essential for unplanned play.

2 important fundamentals involved in a turnover fast break offense (unplanned play) are:

  • If you have 3 people attacking, you want the ball in the middle of the floor and the wings filled
  • If you have 2 people attacking, you want to split the defender and try to take the ball as far into the basket as you can, until you draw a contact and either have a lay-in or drop it off when you do get contact.

 

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Video: “Trash Can” Ballhandling Drill

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In today’s video blog post, I am demonstrating a great ballhandling drill that utilizes combinations for great footwork conditioning, as well as keeping you sharp and responsive to the different situations that you might be faced with against a defender.

“Trash Can” Ballhandling Drill

In this drill, you are going to use a recycling can and a garbage can, or 2 garbage cans – basically anything that you can find. The cans are going to represent your defenders in a game situation.

Start at half court and from this point to the recycle bin or trash can, you are going to run a ball handling drill. So you want to come out, head up, palms spread, balanced and ready to make a move at any time.

Depending on how the guard is going to defend you, when you are approximately 5 to 6 feet away, you want to start making your next move. In this drill, we are going to use the Inside Out Cross, from the right hand to the left.

As you reach the “defender”, you want to get low and protect the ball, but be ready to explode to the basket at any moment. And you have to be ready to take your shot with different techniques. What works in one situation may not be an option in another.

You can also use a “Cross Over”, “Between The Legs” or “Spin Dribble” in this drill. Using different variations of moves within this drill is great, because you can’t limit yourself to just one move. You need to be able to adjust your next move based on the situation you are in at that moment. The more creative you can be in this game, the more successful you are going to be!

 

If you enjoyed this shooting drill, be sure to check out my Basketball Drills & Practice Plans series, complete with video demonstrations, for more awesome rebounding drill ideas!  And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where you discuss this and more great shooting drill tips and techniques with other coaches and players!

4 Workouts to Help Your Team Train

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During this blog post, I’m going to share a number of basketball conditioning workouts with you that will be great for helping your players to train and improve.

Pillars

With this basketball conditioning workout, your players will be in a type of push-up position.

The elbows are straight down from the shoulders. The hips should be raised up so there’s a straight line from the ear right down to the ankle.

The hips shouldn’t be up high that the butt’s up in the air, and we don’t want a sway in the back. A nice straight line through the body, focusing on flexing the abs and the lower back at the same time.

Do three sets of 10-30 seconds.

Side Pillars

With this workout, you’ll be on your side.

Stack the feet on top of each other. With the elbows straight down from the shoulder, keep the body in a straight line and the head in a natural position. Lift the hips up so you’re in a straight line, working your inner and outer obliques, your abs, and your lower back all at the same time.

Start with three sets of five seconds, building up to three sets of 20-30 seconds.

Make sure you work each side equally, both right and left. If you’re weak on one side, maybe hold for an extra five seconds to work more specifically to balance out your body so that you have good strength and stability at your core.

Core Rotation

During this basketball conditioning workout, you’ll be laying on your back.

Bring the knees straight up in the air and rotate side to side. Leave the shoulders and the head flat on your back. Keep the arms out wide for a good stable base.

Next, lift the legs straight up in the air, try and bring your toes down and touch your fingers.

Start with three sets of five of each of these. Work to the point where you can do 10, 15, maybe even 20 each direction. This’ll really work your inner and outer obliques and your core for great stability and performance.

Medicine Ball Drills

Start with slams. Reach back over the head, and extend the body as far as you can. Use the core, the abs, and the back to slam that ball down into the ground. Do three sets of 10.

Next, do some figure 8’s. Bring the ball around the hip, over the head, and slam. This is rotational motion.

We want to get that core to rotate and move like we have in a game. We have to be explosive in multidirectional areas.

We want to use everything from your toes to the top of your fingers as you do this basketball conditioning workout. Do three sets of 10 or five each direction.

For the next workout, grannies, you’ll work from a good squat position. Keep the back flat and the core solid as you throw the medicine ball up in the air.

If you’re outdoors and you don’t have to worry about a ceiling, you can rip that ball as high as you want. If you’re indoors, watch out for the ceiling so you don’t break anything. We want to do three sets of 10.

The next medicine ball drill is the partner chest pass. Get the hands up and ready and respond by pushing that ball back as quickly as possible. The more force behind the ball, the more you have to stabilize your core. Keep the knees bent for good balance and stability on the front part of the foot. Do three sets of 10 repetitions.

basketball conditioning workout
Lateral Slide Chest Pass

With the lateral slide with a medicine ball chest pass, you’ll pass the medicine ball back and forth in a lateral motion.

Remind your players to make it short and crisp. Down and back with the medicine ball and then down and back with the basketball is one set. Do five sets.

Next are overhead throws. Keep the ball over the top of the head and the hands ready. Respond quickly. As soon as you touch the ball, pass it back. Keep the knees and hips slightly bent so that you’ve got a good base of support for balance. Do three set of 10 repetitions.

If you enjoyed these basketball conditioning workouts, be sure to check out my YouTube page for even more great training drills!

5 Killer Drills Excellent for Conditioning

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basketball training drillsToday, I’m going to share with you a handful of basketball training drills that will help get your players in shape and ready for game time.

Military Press

Here we want to work that upper power area–the shoulder and the chest area. We get real good lift with our military press.

We’re going to contrast this with an explosive vertical medicine ball toss.

Here we want to respond to the ball and pop it immediately back up in the air as soon as it touches the hands. So we get quick explosive response from those muscles, teaching them how we want them to work.

Sit-Ups

Here we want to work the abs while we’re working the total body.

Have your players place their hands across the chest, touching the shoulders. The back is flat. Bring the knees and the chest up at the same time.

Leg Lifts

Here we want to lift the heels just a couple inches off the ground. With the arms out wide, we have a more stable base. Bringing the arms across the body makes the core more unstable and makes the work more difficult.

We’re working on contracting both the abs and the lower back to stabilize the core.

We want to do five sets of five to fifteen seconds.

Knee-Ups

We want to start with the heels one inch off the ground with the arms out wide, bringing the knees up as high as we can. Bring the knee up, the heel up under the hamstring, and the toes up toward the shin.

Do these for three sets of 10. Bring the arms across the body to make this more unstable and more difficult.

Here’s a variation of the knee lift: Bring the heels just up off the ground. Now, focus on single leg. Bring the knee all the way up, straighten the leg, bring the other up.

Do three sets of 10 with each leg. With the arms out wide, we have a much more stable base. Bringing the arms across the chest creates an unstable base and makes the work much more difficult.

Super Persons

With this basketball training drill, you’ll lay on the ground, on your belly.

Here we want to extend the arms and the legs as far as possible. Flex the lower back, lifting the chest and the legs up off the ground. Hold for approximately a two-second count.

Stay under control. Don’t flop down to the ground like a fish out of water.

Do three sets of 10-20 repetitions. We can also do these single arm, single leg.

You can also do Super Persons using opposites–right arm, left leg; left arm, right leg. Try not to push with the opposite arm and leg. Make the core of the body and the back do the work.

Focus here on three sets of 10 with each side.

Want to learn about even more basketball training drills? Head over to my Twitter page!

3 Workouts to Get Your Players Warm and Limber

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During today’s blog post, I’m going to go over some basketball training workouts that your players can do to get warm and ready for game time or for a great practice.

When we go into our individual workouts, we want the players to come up somewhat stretched. They’re not going to necessarily be loose, but we want them stretched because we work out back to back–four players and then four players. So we want them to come up with their bodies limber. We want to have a little sweat going. Then we’re going to go right into it.

tipping drill basketball training workout
Tipping Drill

Tipping Drill

The first thing we do is a little tipping drill to get the blood flowing.

And I think that’s where we’ve got to continue to get better as coaches–making sure that our players are continuing to talk to one another, talk on the floor, and get the most out of each other.

So the first thing we do when we start this tipping drill is that your players must call everybody’s name out as they go. And you, the coach, are going to give the different command. You’re going to say “right hand,” “two hands,” “left hand,” etc. Your players’ job is to keep tipping the ball off the board to each other, calling out his name as you tip it to him.

Now you may get behind, he may trip and stumble, but you’ve got to make sure that we’re communicating tipping the ball as well as we can and giving them an opportunity to do it.

We start this for two minutes on the clock. If at any point in time the ball drops in two minutes, we just start over. And it’s amazing how quick we get this done.

cut series basketball training workout
Cut Series

Cut Series

Now, we’re going to start with our cuts. We just want to start getting our blood flowing, start moving, and going at it right away.

You, the coach, make the pass. The player will take two hard steps down, set up, and get around him. And what we want to do is catch and go, and catch and sweep.

When we come down – and depending on how coach plays us – we want to put that ball out in front of us as quick as we can. We don’t want to put it on our side.

When we’re coaching the little things in this, we want to make sure the ball’s not behind us, make sure it’s not on our right angle with our shoe, and that we push the ball out. We want to exaggerate it in these workouts.

When we catch the ball on a sweep, we’re going to catch it and sweep the ball hard. Remind your players to push the ball out and get to the basket in one or two dribbles. And they should keep going from side to side.

We usually start in the corner and work all the way around.

To break it down: Your player is going to give you a good pass, take two hard steps down, get open, and catch and sweep. Catch and sweep and going to the rim, as soon as he goes, the next player will go right behind him.

cut basketball training workout
Cut Series with Extra Defender

Cut Series with Extra Defender

You can do this is if you have enough people. This is where you can utilize managers, utilize extra coaches, etc.

Have an extra person step into be the defender in the lane. Now the players have to read that extra defender as they make the move. So not only are they getting open on the coach, but they have to make a move in the lane and finish on him.

Now it’s up to the players. They can catch and sweep or catch and go. The only rule is no soft shots–don’t take anything weak to the basket. Make sure everything’s off the glass when you go to the rim or make sure you make a strong pull up by pounding that ball out in front of you.

Not everybody’s blessed to have guys with great first steps, but you can all make your first step better by pushing the ball out in front of you.

With the cut series basketball training workout, start in the corner, rotate to the wing, rotate to the top, come to the left wing, come to the left corner. And it’s rapid fire. We try to do that in about four to five minutes.

Did you enjoy learning about these three basketball training workouts? If so, be sure to follow me on Twitter for even more practice ideas!