Basketball Drills

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 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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