Basketball Drills

Defensive Rotations to Transition

By Brian Williams on May 11, 2015

This drill was submitted to the FastModel Sports Basketball Plays and Drills Library by Tim Springer, Girls Varsity Basketball Coach at Castle Hills First Baptist School.

The site has thousands of drills and plays that have been submitted by basketball coaches from around the world.

You can also find out more about FastModel Play Diagramming software by clicking this link: Diagrams created with FastDraw

I hope that you can use this or add some more defensive wrinkles to include some defense and transition to your spring and summer “Improvement Season” workouts. You could also include 10 or 15 seconds of imaginary defense where the player has to simulate defensive positioning sliding, helping, etc… before transitioning to offense.

Great drill to get players reps in different defensive situations and then transition into offense.

Players passes to coach and closes out.

Coach passes to corner coach and player drops into help.

Coach drives and player walls up.

Coach throws ball down court for player to chase down and score.

Progression: 2 player break if you have a second player involved in the workout.

Progression: Add a defender for a 2 on 1 situation if you have a third player in the workout.

7 Second Driving Drill

By Brian Williams on May 8, 2015

This video is with forner Indiana State Men’s Coach Greg Lansing.

The drill works on

1) Driving
2) Dribble Moves
3) Finishing
4) Backup Dribble
5) Being Strong with the Basketball on the dribble.

I like the idea of including the back dribble. I feel that is something that I have not included enough in our driving drills.

The execution in the video is not great–these are not his players and are players doing their best to demonstrate a new drill at a coaching clinic.

He also does not have anyone harassing them on their 7 second dribble.

The idea is to get you thinking about how you could tweak this to fit your philosophy, not necessarily to use this exact drill. You might not want your players dribbling for a 7 count. You might want to make it 4 so that they don’t get a five seconds closely guarded count. Or, you can stay with 7 seconds as an overload principle to improve their toughness while dribbling the basketball since they will never have to dribble that long in a game while being fouled.

You can also include the types of dribble moves and finishes that your players use.

I would throw in one idea if you decide to have someone fouling the dribbler–“Contact is NEVER an excuse for losing the basketball while dribbling or holding it.”

You could also make the drill competitive by timing how long that it takes a player to complete the 3 chair circuit

This is a You Tube video, so you will need to have permission to view You Tube videos.

Make sure your sound is on as you watch. Click the play arrow to see the video..

7 Second Drill

If you are interested in learning more about the entire DVD that this sample came from, click this link: Individual and Team Skills and Drills . Anyone who purchases anything from the store receives one of my basketball coaching eBooks as a bonus. Just email me and let me know which one you would like to receive!

Basketball Drills: Get 1, Get 2, Get 3 Rebounding

By Brian Williams on May 6, 2015

This drill is a part of Arkansas Women’s Coach Mike Neigbors competitive drills packet.

He updates and sends out the packet from time to time in his newsletter.

His basketball coaching newsletter is one of the oldest and best around.

If you are interested in joining his distribution list, email me and I will pass your email address along to him.

This drill is used in his college women’s program, but can be tweaked to fit the resources and personnel that you have available in your coaching situation.

Get One, Get Two, Get Three Rebounding Drill

We use our men’s practice team as the offensive rebounder in this drill.

If you don’t have a full team of men’s players, borrow a JV player from them for a drill. Worst case scenario pick your own best offensive rebounder (or two) and incentivize the drill for them somehow.

Line up the rest of your team.

The offensive rebounder has a football blocking pad in one hand.

The defender will HIT the pad.

The defensive rebounder must keep the offensive player from re-bounding the miss.

If the offensive player can get the ball with a pad in one hand the defensive player must go again.

We have ten players, so we put 8:00 on the clock.

The entire team must get a rebound versus the offense to complete the GET ONE.

After we complete GET ONE, we add a 2nd offensive rebounder. Now your team must GET TWO in a row before we rotate. Again, we go through the entire team.

Then we add a 3rd… Now we must GET 3 in a row to complete the drill.

If we can do that in 8:00 we have done a pretty good job.

Keys to this drill:
1) Create realistic misses
2) Demand HIT/GIT techniques
3) Create atmosphere of toughness

Here is a link to Coach Neighbors HIT/GIT rebounding technique: Hit and “Git” Rebounding

Once you consistently GET THREE, try to GET 4… We have yet to accomplish it in 8:00 but creates a ceiling to shoot for after the GET 3 becomes routine.

Basketball Drills One on One Moves

By Brian Williams on May 1, 2015

Here are some ideas for moves to include in your players’ spring and summer improvement season workouts.

These videos are with Coach Rich Walton and from his Skill Development Coach program.

The program breaks down skills into a table that is patterned after the Periodic Table of Elements.

If you are interested in the program for coaches, you can find out more at this link: Coaches

there is also a program for Skills Trainers: Basketball Skill Trainers

Please make sure that your sound is on

These are You Tube videos, so please make sure that you are on a server that allows you to have You Tube access.

Opposite Foot Crossover

Fake Baseline Pullout Reverse

Inside Pivot One on One Moves

Basketball Drills 1 vs 2 Post Double Pass Out

By Brian Williams on April 29, 2015

This drill was contributed toFast Model Sports Basketball Drills and Plays Library by Drew Hanlen, an NBA Strategic Skills Coach & Consultant that has helped over 25 NBA and NBA pre-draft players.

Drew is an NBA Strategic Skills Coach & Consultant that has helped over 25 NBA and NBA pre-draft players including David Lee (Warriors) and Bradley Beal (Wizards). Drew is the Head Skills Coach for Pure Sweat Basketball. He has run his internationally renowned Elite Skills Clinics in over 30 states and 4 countries over the past four years. He is also the Head Skills Coach for the Reebok Breakout Challenge and has worked various events for Nike Basketball.

This drill is great for post players because it works on the following:

-Establishing position
-Scoring if you get a deep catch
-Reading the nail defender
-Escaping double teams
-Passing out of traps
-Flashing from weak-to-strong side
-Scoring in a 1v1 situation

Diagrams created with FastDraw

Coach will make a post entry to the offensive player. As soon as the coach makes the post entry, the defender that is guarding the coach will sprint and touch the elbow, then sprint to double the offensive player.

On the catch, the offensive post player can attack right away before the double comes. If the offensive player is unable to score quickly before the double comes, they must retreat dribble out of the double team and complete a skip pass to the coach located on the weak-side wing.

After skipping the ball, the doubling defender will step off, while the offensive post will fight across the lane to re-establish position on the opposite block.

The coach with the ball will pass the ball to the offensive player whenever they call for it. On the catch, players will play live 1v1.

If the offensive player scores, they will stay on offense and the doubling defender will become the defender, while the defender that just got scored on will become the doubling defender. If the defender gets a stop, they will move to offense and the offensive player will become the doubling defender, while the doubling defender will become the defender.

Post Player Skill Development Drills

By Brian Williams on April 22, 2015

Today’s post includes five ideas for drills to use in the spring and summer with any of your players that you count on to score in the low post area.

Or, you can file them and save them to use in your skill breakdown drills during practice next season.

I found the drills on an old Xavier University newsletter.

You can see the archives of all of their old basketball coaching newsletters at this link: Xavier Newsletter Archives

If you can’t use the exact drills, hopefully you can modify them to fit your needs.

There are some other links to other skill development drills in the Related Links at the end of the post.

Diagrams created with FastDraw

Perfect Form Jump Hook

Post Player 1 cuts from the wing and receives a pass from a coach at SPOT 1.

The post player must shoot a perfect jump shot, rebound. and pass back to the coach.

Repeat at SPOTS 2, 3 and 4.

Post Move Rundown

Post Player 1 begins on the weak side block and flashes hard across the key to the ball side block.

Post player calls for the ball and gets a pass from the coach

Post Player then must execute one of the following moves, then pass back out to the coach and cut again to the opposite side.

1) Jump Hook 2) Drop Step 3) Turn around J 4) Up and Under. After 4 shots rotate to another player.

Bump and Roll Shooting

Post Player 4 cuts across the lane and bumps into Post Player 5.

4 must roll or pivot off of the contact to an open area.

At that point he must catch a pass from the coach, make a move or take a jumper.

Rotate players after each shot.

Continuous Sealing

Once Post Player I has a seal on Post Player 2, the ball is passed from one coach to the other.

Post Player 1 must reseal, and hold the seal the entire time. After 5 passes. the coach can feed the post.

Post Sealing Dril

Have two coaches on either foul line extended, and two post players on both blocks.

The ball side post player will go after the off side post, attempting to seal him by putting his lead leg between the legs of the defender.

When he has sealed player 2, player 1 must call for the ball.

When the ball is reversed, player 2 goes after Player 1 trying to seal.

When sealed, he calls for the ball.

The coach enters the ball to player 2 who catches and makes a scoring move.