Basketball Drills

These two finishing drills are among the thousands of resources for both coaches and player available from basketballhq.

They have several more videos as well as basketball coaching resource articles.

The Coach in the first video is Matt McCall, Head Men’s Coach at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

At the time this drill was filmed, he was an Assistant Coach at Florida.

The idea is to modify these drills with the types of finishes that you want your players to use.

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Post Line Ups Finishing Drill

This second drill is a perimeter drill, but is still a good finishing and conditioning drill.

The Coach in the second video is Sean Hanrahan of Warner University

One foot Competitive Finishing Drill

I found these scoring drills from Archie Miller (Indiana University Head Coach, formerly University of Dayton) on his outstanding site with posts on various coaching topics at www.pickandpop.net

Some of these drills were set up to be used during improvement season workouts, but I hope you can find ways to use them in your practices too.

Diagrams created with FastDraw

“Sideline Touches”

Player passes the ball to the coach, sprints to half court and then back to the basket where he receives a pass from the coach for his finish

• Will do same finishes every day (2 reps of each finish on each side of the floor). The fact they do the same finishes allows the drill to run quickly. 6-8 mins
• Will start practice with this (you can tell really quickly who is ready to practice).
• Next guy goes as soon as the guy in front of him catches the ball from the coach.

• Finishes:
1. Power Finish (off 2 feet)
2. Baby Hook (dribble with outside hand / skirt across the lane to use the other side for a defender approaching from a block from behind)
3. Pull-Up Jumper (top of the block)
4. Step Through (counter to jumper, finish with outside hand in front of rim—jumping off 2 feet)
5. Jail Break (ball thrown to him at half, try to get to rim in 1 dribble—2 dribble max)
6. Perimeter to Post (Attack into a crab dribble)

-Using the pad is important because you need to get your players to not pick up their dribble when they meet contact. Give them a way to play when they make contact.

-I want all my players to do the same skill work. Our bigs do the same drills as our guards.

-We are a “dominant pivot foot” program. Our right-handed players play with a left foot pivot, lefties play with a right. First to last day, same way every day.

“Explosion Series”

• Coach throws the player a bad pass to make it more difficult for him to get to triple threat.
• Keep that ball in tight and get your nose over your knees (in triple threat).

• Finishes:
1. Power Finish (off 2)…baseline + middle
2. Baby Hook (off 1)…baseline + middle…using the other side of rim
3. Perimeter to Post (as he blasts baseline, he flips his hip when he meets resistance to back the defender down to play in front of the rim)…going baseline + middle (get to elbow).

-Ball-handling work is useless unless the player is tired when he does it. The player needs to be tired in order for the drill to be effective.

“Circle Scoring”

• Shouldn’t be any more than 2 dribbles after the can/cone.
• Put the can/cone anywhere you want/any angle.

• Finishes:
1. Power Finish (off 2)
2. Baby Hook
3. Pull Up Jumper (inside FT line)
4. Drop Dribble to Step Through (rather than circling the can, as soon as the player gets behind the can, he drops the dribble back to the side he
came from to attack with his right (outside) hand. He dribbles hard at the right block and makes a step through move).
5. Wrap to “Perimeter to Post” (square your shoulders to rim as you get behind the can and wrap the ball around your body to attack back
left.

“Full Court Finishes”

• Coach slams the ball on the floor. Player leaps to grab it and heads up the court. On the Coach’s “Stop” call, the player foot-fires. When coach calls “Go” he explodes down the court.

• Moves (every finish is a “Power Finish”)
1. Hesitation
2. Inside-Out (ball and body to opposite knee)
3. Crossover (finish on other side of rim)
4. Through Legs (finish on other side of rim)

-We never shoot without a clock. We never talk about shots in terms of reps with our players. I don’t care how many shots you can get up unless they’re on my terms.

-We shoot in 60-second intervals, 90-second intervals and, only sometimes, 3 minutes at a time.

-We chart all our shooting drills and talk about everything in terms of percentages. The big goal is trying to break 70%. That’s a good shooter for us.

“1-2 Step Spot Shooting”

• Passer/rebounder/shooter
• 60 seconds: aiming for about 25 attempts.
• Stress the importance of passing in these drills (assuming it’s a player passing).
• We’ll either do 60-seconds for that day or 90-seconds.
• 5 spots.
• For 3-minutes, a good score is in the 40’s. If we’re doing 3-minute intervals, we’ll only go 3 spots (9 minutes total).
• Coach’s job is to make sure fatigue doesn’t wear the player down and causes him to stop shooting the same shot every time (happens with players not 1-2 stepping).
• The best shooters get good at the end of the round.

“Hubies”

• Corner-to-wing. One shot in the corner, one shot on the wing.
• 60-second rounds. 4 rounds (corner-to-wing; wing-to-TOK…flip side). Anything above 40 for the day is really good.
• Shoot while you’re breathing.
• Run to each spot, don’t slide.
• Skip pass as the player moves away / chest pass as he moves towards the passer.

“3 Men / 2 Balls”

• Groups of 3 players all over the gym at their own hoops. Get your rebound and pass to your partner. The three players at one hoop are on a team competing against the other baskets.
• Regular scoring: 2’s = 2, 3’s = 3’s
• Dock points if they’re not sprinting
• Rounds:
1. Catch & Shoot 2’s
2. Catch & Shoot 3’s
3. Eye the Rim One Long Dribble (catch outside the 3, one dribble to a pull-up)
4. Half court finishes (3 guys spread out across half court. Have to catch over half court and start in triple-threat. 3 players alternating through 2 balls.
5. 3 in a Line: pick your spot. Coach/rebounder
• Add the scores up and declare winner

-It is so so so important to chart and record your players’ shooting numbers. You need to be able to show them their progress (much like you would do in the weight room). I have a file that shows me what Kendall Pollard has made in every shooting drill he has ever done at Dayton.

These 2 full-court drills were located in the FastModel Sports Basketball Plays and Drills Library.

The first drill was contributed by Kyle Gilreath. Kyle Gilreath is a Pure Sweat Basketball skills coach in the Central Florida area and the VP of Operations & Digital Media for Pure Sweat Basketball. Kyle previously served for seven seasons as the head boys basketball coach at Astronaut High School (Titusville, FL).

Here is what Coach Gilreath had to say about the drill:

This is another drill that I got from watching Bellarmine University practice. This is a great drill because it not only works on scramble situations having 4 players defend 5 in the half-court, but it also forces the offense (new defense) to sprint back after change of possession to prevent any easy lay-ups.

After making your one transition stop after a made shot or the defense secures the rebound and repeat the drill the other way. Make sure you switch the offense and defensive teams who must scramble each time and rotate the players that are back. Do this drill for time or until a team reaches a pre-set point total.

5 on 4 to 5 on 5 Transition

Team plays live 5 on 4 until a score or missed shot.

On score or missed shot, defense is pushing the ball down the floor as as quick as possible.

The 5 offensive players (now on Defense) must Sprint back to the pain as the 5th offensive player is already down the court.

Bob Hurley Sr. 3 on 3 Conversion

This drill was contributed by Dan Murphy, Assistant Coach at St. Thomas More School.

Coach Murphy describes the drill in this way:

Drill stolen from Coach Bob Hurley of St. Anthony H.S. He in turn got it from Dick Harter. As a rule the player who defensive rebounds or takes the ball out of bounds after a score is on offense and the old offense always converts to defense. This is similar to 11 man break or other 3-3 drills where the defense comes in from the sideline, but in my opinion is a little more practical because the defense had to convert from offense and is in a more realistic game scenario.

Many successful coaches believe transition defense is one of the top 3 skills a team must have. As such, defensive transition should be drilled daily. A note about drills-make sure to teach the skills you want. Stopping the ball, protecting the basket, communicating, screening, passing, cutting etc. You can play this drill for a set amount of time ie. 8 minutes and keep score. Depending on what you as a coach want to emphasize, points can be given or taken for offensive rebounds, turnovers etc. Because it is 3-3 conversion, a short clock can be used to promote an aggressive offensive attack.

1,2,3 play 3-3 vs x1, x2, x3

Defensive player that rebounds or takes ball out of bounds outlets to x4 or x5

Editor’s note from Brian: IMO, it is better to have x4 and x5 inbounds to receive the pass.

 

 

x2, x5, x3 are now on offense

1,2,3 are now on defense

3 defensive rebounds

3 outlets to 4 or 5

 

 

3,4,5 now convert to offense

x2, x5, and x5 who were just on offense now convert to defense