Basketball Drills

I hope that you are able to use this drill in practice for some of your better shooters. Or better yet, can adapt it to the skills that your shooters have or need to acquire.

These drills were originally posted on FastModel Sports Plays and Drills Library by Coach Greg White. Here is what he said about the drill:

I saw Stephen Curry doing this before a game so we decided to make a drill out of it. This is a great drill because you (1) get conditioning and game type shots, (2) movement and (3) you can use both sides of the floor.

Drill starts with pass to the shooter for a wing 3. After the shot the shooter runs back to half court. The rebounder with the ball passes to the passer so the drill doesn’t lag

On a make the routine is the same. After a miss, the passer throws the ball out in front of the shooter. The shooter must catch, make a move and take a mid-range shot.

We set the scoring as follows:

The Shooter must make 3 3pt shots to complete the drill. They do not have to be in a row. Mid range Shots do not count as a make.

Advanced: The Shooter must make 4/5 shots including the mid-range if they miss a 3pt shot.

Expert: The Shooter must make 3 consecutive 3pt shots.

This video is of an individual defensive drill used by Duke to work on help and recover, closing out, and conditioning.

The video is a YouTube video so make sure that you are on a server that allows YouTube access.

If you are not, I have a link to be able to watch the video on the Championship Productions site.

I have also listed some other drills from the Duke program at the end of the post

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The video is a little over a minute long.

To find out more about the DVD that this sample came from, click here: Mike Krzyzewski: Duke Basketball – Agility & Conditioning Drills for Defense

Make sure your sound is on.

This video is of Fran Fraschilla coaching a couple of drills that you probably already use

The video is a You Tube video so make sure that you are on a server that allows You Tube access.

If you are not, I have a link to be able to watch the video on the Championship Productions site.

I have also listed some other defensive conversion drills at the end of the post.

You can also see other basketball defensive drills that are a part of our site at this link: Basketball Defensive Drills Site

I like to use this drill to simulate and practice converting to defense when we commit live ball turnovers, which in my opinion are more difficult to defend than a missed shot.

You can run this defensive change drill either half court or full court.

If you run it as a half court drill, it forces the offense to adjust to defense more quickly. If you run it as one of your full court defensive drills, it is more game-like in terms of the angles and distances that your players will need to use to convert to defense when they turn the ball over.

I like to run the drill with a coach calling “Change!” rather than having the coach blow the whistle. We want our players to play as hard as they possibly can until the whistle blows, so I don’t ever like to use the whistle to do anything in practice other than to stop the action.

Here is the basic setup to run these 2 basketball defensive drills.

If you are running the drill half court: Offense, runs their regular offense and attempts to score. I think it is best to develop a scoring system so that the offense is intense in their execution of screens, cuts, passes, catches, and all other fundamentals. We have a scoring system for all of the drills that we run. If they know that they are not being scored and that the drill is not competitive, their natural human tendency will be to relax.

We keep score for the drill just like we keep score in a game, 3s, 2s, and free throws. We have one of our assistants keep track and make sure that both teams have an equal opportunity to take shots before we yell “Change”

One team is on offense and one team is on defense. When “Change!” is called, the player with the basketball puts the ball down on the spot they are on on the floor. You have to set that rule for both of these basketball defensive drills site or players will roll the ball away from their opponents to gain an advantage. When that happens, we give the other team 2 points. (You could deduct 2 points from the team committing the rules violation of rolling the basketball, but that gets difficult for the scorekeeper to keep track of.)

On the “Change!” command, the defense becomes the offense and the offense becomes the defense. However, the new defensive team must all guard a different player than was guarding them. This rule in the drill forces them to talk to each other to get this accomplished. It creates confusion, just like there is in a game when they turn the ball over. As a matter of fact, when they get frustrated by the confusion, it is a good time to teach them that they can cut down on that in a game by taking care of the basketball and not turning it over. Another important teaching point is that in a scramble situation, the first two things that must happen are that someone needs to take the basketball and someone needs to get to the basket to protect it. After those two items are covered, the final job is to match up with the remaining players.

The full court version of these two basketball defensive drills is run the same as the half court, with the two differences being that the team going from offense to defense is not required to guard a different player than the one guarding them and that the team transitioning from defense to offense goes to the basket at the opposite end of the floor rather than trying to score at the basket that they were just defending.

If you are interested in purchasing this or any other Championship DVD, you can use this link:

Defensive Awareness Drill

Make sure your sound is on.

Below are more links to other basketball defensive drills sites that are posted on the Coaching Toolbox:

This drill will help you incorporate the skip pass into your zone offense for open threes or post shots.

The idea is to shift the zone with the first skip pass, then skip back over the zone to the original side for an open shot.

Using a good screening angle on the second skip your best shooter can prepare to knock down a big three point basket.

This drill was posted by Coach Randy Brown in Fast Model’s library. The library has thousands of diagrams of basketball drills and plays.

We start with an entry pass to 2 on the right wing. Defenders are set up to simulate the defenders in the zone.

X2 take the ball as zone shifts. Ball is skip passed over the top to 3.

The idea is that “one skip deserves another.” Once the defense shifts to the first skip the offense sets up for a second skip. 3 catches with eye on rim then dribble up the sideline to set up screening angle on opposite side.

As 3 dribbles up sideline, 5 “screens in” X2 to open 2 in the right corner. Scoring options are; 1. Open three point shot for 2 or 2. Pass from 2 to 5 in the post as he seals X5 as he rotates to him.