Basketball Drills

This post contains 3 shooting and scoring drills for your players to use in their spring and summer workouts.

I found the drills on the Jes Basketball Playbook site.

It contains several other drills that can be used in your practices and also in individual skill development workouts.

There are several types of drills in addition to shooting drills.

There site also contains a section with plays to run against various types of defenses.

 

 

6 Spot Perimeter Shooting Drill

Submitted by : Brett Coxsedge

Player sprints and picks up the basketball from each of the 4 chairs and shoots from that spot.

 

 

After shooting the 4 shots, player 1 then sprints to midcourt and picks up the basketball, dribbles it to the elbow and shoots, then sprints back the ten second line to pick the other basketball up and repeats the dribble to the elbow and shot.

There are several ways to make this drill competitive. One way is time players form start to the release of the 6th shot. Add 2 seconds to the time for each missed shot.

7s Drill

This drills is from retired Valparaiso Coach Homer Drew and was submitted by Matthew Dunstan

• One dribble lay-ups with a catch and pivot, at each of the seven pylons.

 
• 2 free throws then repeat, this time with one dribble jump shots.

Speed up the drill by adding a rebounder that passes to the coach.

W Shooting Drill

Play submitted by : Brett Coxsedge
Five shots are taken in the following order:
• Right wing
• Left wing
• Right elbow
• Left elbow
• 3pt straight ahead

The shooter should return to home base (X) after each shot. Drill will require a coach to rebound and pass the ball.

These shooting drills came from Fast Model’s Plays and Drills Library. It was contributed by Brandon Bailey–current video intern for the Boston Celtics and former graduate assistant at DePaul under head coach Oliver Purnell.

You can access the page for more Drills and Plays here: Fast Model Library

I hope these drills will stimulate your thinking as to how to break down your offensive system and the shots your players get, into their out of season workouts.

 

 

 

 

 

Baseline Drift

– 1 man sweeps the ball below his knees and drives to the basket

– 2 man simulates his man helping on the drive and drifts to the baseline

– 1 comes to a jump stop and passes to 2 for with his baseline hand for the shot

(NOTE: 2 man, don’t sprint to the corner. Stay in your stance and slide to the corner)

Crack Back

– 1 man sweeps the ball below his knees and drives to the basket

– 2 man simulates his man helping on the drive and drifts to the wing

– 1 comes to a jump stop, reverse pivots with his 1/2 court foot, and passes to 2 for the shot

(NOTE: 2 man, don’t sprint to the wing. Stay in your stance and slide to the wing)

Wake

– 1 man sweeps the ball below his knees and drives to the basket

– 2 man simulates his man helping on the drive and drifts to the wake

– 1 comes to a jump stop, and passes with his 1/2 court hand to 2 for the shot

(NOTE: 2 man, don’t sprint to the wake. Stay in your stance and slide to the wake)

This technique shooting drill came from Fast Model’s Plays and Drills Library. It was contributed by Bert DeSalvo the top assistant for the women’s basketball program at Clarion University. DeSalvo spent four years as the head coach at Penn State-Beaver.

You can access the page for more Drills and Plays here: Fast Model Library

This is a warm up drill that we used almost every day when I was the head coach at Penn State Beaver. I got this drill from Billy Lange when I worked his camp at the Naval Academy in 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This simple, but effective, drill worked on our mechanics and emphasized all aspects of great shooting technique.

Players are able to keep alignment, get on their toes when shooting and holding follow through in this drill. In addition, they really can see which way they are missing because of the use of hte side of the backboard.

Description:

This drill can be used for time (2 minutes) or amount of shots or makes.

I would also work on our two step layups or add another shooter at the front of the rim to utilize my players and the rims more efficiently.

Players line up on the baseline with perfect alignment in reference to the backboard.

If right-handed, players will align thier right foot, knee, hip, elbow and follow through with the thin portion of the backboard.

Players shoot “on their toes” and accentuate their follow through to work on their mechanics.

Players will shoot 25-50 makes (straight bounce back to shooter) on each side.

“Makes” will bounce straight backs, while misses will graze, miss or move to the side.

Some ideas on ways to improve taking care of the basketball.

Limiting turnovers is one of the most important stats.

Worst thing to do against a press is to stand – make a cut, if it is the wrong cut, make another cut

Best way to beat a trap, look to split the trap

You will win a lot of games if you can take care of the basketball

Keep what you do as simple as possible.Just because you are thinking about the game all the time, does not mean your players do —— keep your stuff simple

Move and Counter Drill

Defense throws a high arcing pass to the offense
Offense rips the ball while defense gets into the shirt of the offense
Offense drives by the defense (the defense cannot move laterally)
Offense tries to finish over the help defender at the rim, use a counter move if needed
Keys
1. Be tough (with the initial rip and with the finish)
2. Use counter move on a big defender
3. Work both sides of the floor

2 vs. 1 Half Court

Screener hands the ball off to the offense
Defensive man starts next to the offensive man
Once the ball is handed to the offensive player, the offensive player uses the screener to shake the defender
1. Offensive player tries to score on the help defender or dish to weak side offensive player (probably a bounce pass)
2. The original ball defender can rotate to the other offensive player
Keys
1. Bounce pass is usually the best pass because close out with high hands
2. Get tight off of screen
3. Work both sides of the floor

3 Straight Lines Drill

Offense gets 1 dribble

Have to advance the ball up the floor

Defense needs to stop the ball from being advanced

Offense has to stay in their designated lane

Offense has to make game cuts — look to beat the defense deep

Use North and South dribbles

Option
You can make a rule that the ball always has to go back to the middle man

3 on 2 Full Court

Offense gets 2 dribbles

Defense traps and rotates

When in a trap, don’t shift weight back

Try and split the trap

 

 

3 Guards Drill

1 guard tries to advance the ball against 2 defenders

Try to split the defenders or attack the slower of the 2

This is a drill used by Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs

1. This is a five on five drill full court. Team A against Team B
2. You play to ten points. You get one point for scoring and one point for a stop. * Even if a kid makes a three point shot it counts one point. (You will need a score keeper)
3. Team A is on offense and Team B is on defense. You call a set and throw the ball to team A’s point guard.
4. They will run the play, now we are in regular basketball going full court. Team B will now try and score on the far end of the floor and then Team A will come back to the original end and try and score here (do you see 3 Ways?) (This is a great time to work on your secondary break)
5. After they go down and back (Team A would have been on offense twice) they will throw the ball to you the coach and you will start over again, but this time Team B will be on offense first.
6. If the ball goes out of bounds under a goal you can run an out of bounds play.
7. Coach Popovich likes this drill because he is controlling the scrimmage and they are not just ripping and running while scrimmaging out of control. You can teach after they go down and back.

These are team basketball ballhandling drills from the University of Wahington Women’s Newsletter.

If you would like to subscribe, email me and I will forward your interest on to their staff.

This is what Assistant Coach Mike Neighbors said about the drill:

One of my assistant coaching duties is have a 4 minute warm-up ready to open practice. Many times coach wants it to be a team ball handling. This one has become my favorite in the last couple of weeks. This drill has helped us cut our turnovers down to around .125 per possession in our 5 PAC 12 games.

 

W Handles

Every player with a ball. Split team into two groups. Players space inside the three point lines on both
ends of the court. At least two of them in the paint area at all times.

Players work on individual ball handling. On the whistle, two players from each end sprint dribble to the other end, eluding the players still ball handling to finish at the basket. They get their own rebound and find a spot on that end to work on their HANDLES. Next whistle, two different players go. Repeat.

We start early in the year taking them through the specific drills we want them to work on.

As the year progresses, I will simply say “you work as hard as you want to on them” .

I always learn a lot about how important each player treats the drill and their me to work on ball handling skills.

It puts the pressure on them and you can coach each player accordingly.

Other variations: send three players or four players at a time so they have to communicate and pretend on the other end to finish at different mes. If you have an injured player put them in the jump circle and have them lead the ballhandling.