Basketball Drills

This video was sent to me by Jon Giesbrecht. Jon is currently an assistant coach with the University of Regina Women’s program.

Jon is also an assistant coach with the 17U Male Provincial team for Team Manitoba (Includes National Championship 2013-14). In previous years, Jon spent two years with the University of Manitoba as an assistant coach, he was also the head coach of the John Taylor Collegiate Junior Varsity Boys team for four years.

To contact Jon, please email him at [email protected]

He has a Tweet from Steve Nash about the video below. Steve said:

“Very nice breakdown for pg’s. Not just coz it’s me ha. Well done @jandgies”

Jon;s Twitter handle is @jandgies

The video is a YouTube video, so please make sure that you are on a network that allows You Tube access. Some school networks may block YouTube access.

Click the play arrow to watch the videos.

There is sound with the video, but there is no narration.

“Editor’s Note from Brian. I realize that 99.99% of the coaches viewing this page do not have and never will coach a player who is as good as Steve Nash. I also believe that no one will be able to apply all of the moves in the video. The purpose of this post and the video is to offer food for thought (even if it is only 1 technique or teaching point) for you to come up with ways to help your players to improve.

This drill is from the Xavier Men’s Program Basketball Coaching Newsletter.

You can see the archives of their basketball coaching newsletter at this link: Xavier Newsletter

Editor’s Note from Brian. A lot of teams run a drill similar to this, but the idea behind this post is to set the expectation of perfection, no bobbles, bad passes, missed layups, etc… when you are doing warm up or technique drills.

Diagram created with FastDraw

1. The drill begins by your team forming one line along a baseline. The line has two balls in it. The following progression takes place:

a. A player dribbles the length of the court and shoots a right hand layup. He gets his own rebound and dribbles the length of the court and shoots a second right hand layup. The next player in each line goes when the player in front of him is at half court.

b. A player dribbles the length of the court and shoots a left hand layup, he gets his own rebound and dribbles the length of the court and shoots a 2nd left hand layup. The next player in each line goes when the player in front of him is at half court.

c. “Box to box”- two players stand as wide as the lane. One ball is utilized. Both players run the length of the court passing back and forth to each other without dribbling. A player shoots a layup. The passer rebounds the ball and the shooter continues on, turns and runs back. The rebounder passes the ball to the shooter and they once again pass back and forth to each other without dribbling until the second layup is shot at the other end.

d. “Michigan”- Three players are standing along the baseline. The middle player passes to the player on his right side. The right player passes the ball back, the player on the left side runs wide to the basket and prepares for a pass from the middle. No dribble is allowed. A lay up is shot. Right and left cross as the middle player rebounds. Middle then passes the ball to left because he shot the layup. Repeat on way back. (see diagram #4)

e. “Three man weave”- Three or four passes. No dribbles allowed.

f. “Three man weave with jump shot”- Instead of a layup, a ten foot pull up is shot. A dribble by the shooter is permitted.

Rules
Any travel, bobbled pass, turnover pass or missed shot (exception for F) the group or player must go again until perfection takes place. Every player on the team goes once each on A, B, and twice each on C-F segments of perfection.

Diagram A: The M player passes to the R player. The L player runs wide and at an angle to the basket.

Diagram B: The M player receives a pass back from R and delivers a pass to L on the run so that L doesn’t have to dribble.

 

Diagram C: The L player shoots the lay up and crosses with R to return back to the original end. M rebounds the ball.

Diagram D: M passes to the L player – because L shot the layup. L return passes to M and M delivers a 3/4 court pass to R in stride for the groups second layup.

This drill is from Mike Neighbors, Arkansas Women’s Basketball Coaching Newsletter. It is back and I just sent him several email addresses for coaches who were interested in joining his list. If anyone else wants to be added, let me know and I will pass it on.

You might be able to incorporate this drill into your practices or possibly for your players who are looking to get in some extra shooting during winter break.

Here is what Coach Neighbors said about the drill:

This one will challenge the best of your best.

Put 1:00 on the clock.

One rebounder. One passer. Two Balls.

Round 1

Shooter must make one shot at each of the five spots. Time starts when ball is released on first shot and ends when ball clears net on final make. The time that remains on the clock, stays on the clock.

Round 2

Add 1:00 to the remaining time from Round 1.

Shooter must now make two shots in a row from each spot in the time on the clock.

Diagram created with FastDraw

This procedure continues as long as the shooter finishes with time remaining on the clock… add 1:00 per round and increase the number of makes in a row by one.

It’s imperative the shooter “build up time” each of the early rounds as the sheer number of shots increases in the later rounds.

If you find your team/players struggling to advance, you can change the drill to total number of makes rather than in-a-row.

We chart records on how many rounds and shots can be completed before time hits 0:00.

Keys to this drill:

1) Build time in early rounds
2) Avoid long slumps of makes
3) Get hot in one round when needed to survive

This shooting drill is coached by former UNLV Men’s Coach Marvin Menzies.

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

The video is hosted on You Tube, so you will need to be on a network that allows you to access that site.

The video is from the Championship Productions You Tube Channel

The possible point total for the drill is 42. One thing to consider would be to shoot 8 free throws either at the end of the circuit, or you could insert 4 groups of 2 shots between some of the spots.

Another few thoughts on ways to modify the drill:

1) Time the drill to make the pace more game like. After collecting a few times from your players doing it, you could determine what is a good time for your players to complete the drill.

2) Coach Suggests having managers pass. You could use players as passers to work on throwing the pass to the shooting pocket of the shooter.

For Division I men’s players 33 is a good score.

If you are interested in learning more about the Championship Productions Basketball Coaching Video (available in both DVD and Instant Video Format) that this drill came from, you can click the following link: Marvin Menzies: Practice Drills to Improve Your Team