Basketball Drills

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 Coach Mike Neighbors said about the drill:

One of my assistant coaching duties was to 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.

This shooting drill came from the University of Washington 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:

“Team shooting drill we did a number of times during the break and our team really likes it. Rare shooting drill that also forces them to pass, rebound, and communicate effectively. See if you can beat our records.”

Competitive Team Shooting Drill that takes about 8 minutes to complete.

 

Maryland Shooting

Begin drill with 4 balls. 2 balls in each of the lines shown above and one line without balls.

The middle line passes to the corner. The player in the corner attempts a 2 or a 3.

After making the pass the player cuts to the top of the key where they receive a pass from the third line. The player at the top of the key attempts a 2 or 3…

The pattern continues to repeat itself for 1:00.

Quick rebounding and communication on rotations is key to keep the drill flowing and insure maximum possible attempts in the 1:00.

Tell your players that when they shoot it, they always rebound their own make/miss. They must then rotate to the proper line. Let them figure it out on their own.

This is part of the drill. Hopefully in time they will learn to follow the person that starts in front of them and the more you do the drill the more ways they will figure out to get more shots.

There will be some frustrating moments for you as the coach and for them too. But resist the urge to “tell them” how to rotate.

Them communicating and experimenting is part of the battle.

2 point makes are worth 2 points and 3 point makes are worth 3 points. On average we score 40-50 points per 1:00.

For the next 1:00 we simply move the lines to new spots so that we can shoot the two wing shots.

Scoring is the same. Rotations are the same.

Don’t be surprised though when simply moving the lines cause rotation issues. I can’t explain it, but it happens to every team we use it with.

For the third minute, you only need to move balls from the corner to the wing. Now you get shots in the corner and the back at the top again.

Once again scoring is the same.

For minute 4, 5, and 6 all we do is switch ends of the court. Too many teams only utilize one end of the court so this gets us equally number of shots on both ends.

For scoring purposes, we chart individual spot scores while also calculating an overall 6:00 total score. We use this score to measure ourselves and challenge ourselves to reach new goals as the season progresses.

If you have a large team it is possible to do it simultaneously on both ends with the switch after 3:00 minutes of shooting.

Our all time record is 368 points. Our average score per spot is 45.9 this year. Our all time high spot is 89.

We keep a board with our Top 10 scores on them and bring to practice on the days we use this drill. Players love to compete against themselves and your former teams.

This year we have been challenging other teams. I have shared the drill with some coaching buddies and they use it with their team. Tell you team some “other” team got a certain score and just watch them compete to beat it!!!

The more you do the drill, cut down the time in between spot and end rotations.

3 Trips – 3 Buckets

by: Online Basketball Drills

I’ve always been a big believer that as a basketball coach, you should try whenever you can to mix conditioning with developing basketball skills. Not only because it’s a more efficient use of time, but because it teaches your players to think and perform well when they’re exhausted, which can be a huge advantage in the fourth quarter.

That’s why I also try to add some element of pressure, so that there is something on the line (usually more running) if the players fail to complete the drill.

One of my go-to conditioning drills is one I call 3 Trips, 3 Buckets. And it means exactly what it says.

 

Three players will line up at one end of the court, one under the hoop (player 1), one on the right baseline (player 2) and one on the left baseline (player 3).

This drill can work well taking jumpshots as well, especially, in the drive and kick variatio, but if you want to focus on conditioning, I would just leave it at layups,. as missed shots slow the drill down.

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This is the second part of some basketball shooting drills from the Xavier Men’s Basketball Newsletter.

If you are interested in seeing the archive of their newsletters, click this link:

Xavier Newsletter Archives

Here is a link to the first part of the shooting drills: Xavier Shooting Drills Part 1

 

 

 

 

32 Shooting

Shoot in partners. One partner completes the whole cycle and the other partner rebounds. They switch. There are five spots on the court–corners, wings, and top.

The shooter takes a jump shot, a shot fake–one dribble pull up, and a shot fake-one dribble–then a dribble move to beat a helper in for a layup from each spot. That means three shots starting from each spot. The shooter gets 2 points for each make for a total of 30 possible points. The last two possible points come from shooting 2 free throws at the end. Winners get a reward or losers run or do pushups.

X-Out Layups

It is essential to teach finishing at the basket as a part of your shooting work. I like this drill for it. Put one minute on the clock. Players start at the right elbow at each basket. Player dribbles in with right hand and finishes on right side. Catch the rebound, dribble out with left hand to left elbow, jump stop, pivot and face the basket in triple threat stance, Attack basket on left dribble and finish with left hand. Players keep track of makes in the one minute time. Work on different kinds of finishes, running layup, 2 foot power layup, reverse, and any other finishes that you teach.

Oak Hill Full Court Shooting

Great drill to work on dribbling, hustle, and shooting. The drill is fun for the players.

Split players into two teams. Each team starts on a lane line on the same end of the court facing the opposite basket. When drill starts, players dribble to opposite end using using outside hand away from where the defense would be. Shoot a pull up jump shot at the elbow of the opposite end. If the shot goes in, it is worth two points. If it misses, the player must get his own rebound and shoot layups until he makes it. The layup is worth 1 point.

When the ball goes in, player takes it out of the net and dribble back to the end he started on using outside hand and shoots the pull up shot at that end. Plus 2 for a make, if it misses, rebound and shoot layups until it goes in for Plus 1. Get the ball out of the net after the make and pass to the next player in line.

In a Row Free Throws

When players are shooting free throws, have them keep track of how many they make in a row. When they shoot in partners, they shoot until they miss and then switch. Have players record their streaks to track their progress.

This drill really helps concentration. I like to display the top ten longest streaks on a board in the gym. When we started doing this, we had some 10s and 12s. I had a player in the summer who went nuts for this. We would get done with summer workouts and 9:00 pm and he would still be there at 10:00 shooting his streaks. He ended up being the only one on the board with all 10 top streaks. Most importantly, it showed during the season.

Sutton Pivot Shooting

How you do the drill is determined by how you teach pivoting.Player start under the rim. A passer/coach starts at the volleyball line. Players pass to the coach and sprint towards their pass. As they do, the coach at the volleyball line passes the ball back and shouts a direction. Players must pivot in that direction and shoot. The drill makes players work on pivoting and shooting. Great drill.