Transition/Conversion Drills

These two transition drills are from Drew Hanlen’s Transition Drill Book.

Drew is an NBA Strategic Skills Coach & Consultant that has helped over 25 NBA and NBA pre-draft players including David Lee and Bradley Beal.

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.

Diagrams created with FastDraw

Push it 4v4

Set Up: Players will be divided into four teams. A team of four will start on offense, a team of four will start on defense and another team of four will start on each baseline.

Step 1: Black Team will play live 4v4 against the Red Team in the half-court. On the shot (regardless make or miss), the Blue Team will transition against the Black Team who will transition back on defense.

Step 2: Blue Team will play live 4v4 against the Black Team in the half-court. On the shot (regardless make or miss), the Green Team will transition against the Blue Team who will transition back on defense to continue the drill.

Additional Info: If the defense gets a steal, they will transition in the full-court against the team that turned the basketball over. On the score, the team waiting on the baseline will transition against them to continue the drill.

We Need You Back Conversion Drill

Set Up: Players will be divided in two teams. The Black Team will start with a rebounder (1), a defender (5), an outlet player (2), an attacking guard (3) and a player at half-court ready to transition (4) in a two on one situation. The Red Team will start with a defender (x1), a trailing defender (x2), an outlet player (x4), an attacking guard (x5) and a player at half-court ready to transition (x3) in a two on one situation.

Step 1: Player 1 will outlet the basketball to Player 2 who will advance the ball to Player 3, who will attack x1 in a 2v1 situation with Player 4. x2 will sprint back and try to drop to the level of the basketball. Offense gets one shot attempt to score.

Step 2: Offensive player that shoots (or turns the basketball over) must sprint back on defense, while the defender must secure the rebound or get the made field goal out of the net and then outlet the basketball to their teammate at the angle. If the defender gets a steal, they can quickly outlet the basketball to their teammate at the angle as well. As soon as the player receives the outlet, they will advance the basketball to their teammate that is ready to attack on the wing. As soon as the basketball crosses half-court, the waiting offensive player at half court can attack.

Step 3: Offensive player that does not sprint back on defense will rotate to the half-court waiting position. Defender that made the outlet pass will rotate to the outlet line, while the other defender will become the waiting defender in the paint.

Today’s post was submitted by Alan Peel of CoachPeelBasketball.com

Hope this gives you some thoughts as to what you can do with your warmup and or conditioning portions of practice that utilize your full court transition and or press break systems. I have always felt that anytime you can involve handling the basketball. drilling your schemes, and competition in conditioning. Putting a time requirement to complete the drills is another way to make them competitive and hold players’ attention.

I also like the idea of setting “standards of execution” for your warmup and conditioning drills requiring concentrating on a specific number of perfect passing and catching, layups, and all other areas of execution or requiring the players to repeat the drill. It stresses the importance of concentrating on every drill.

Four and Five-Man Break Drills

By Alan Peel, CoachPeelBasketball.com

Two of the warm-up drills that I have done in the past to build a transition offense are Four-Man Break and Five-Man Break. These drills get your players to learn how to run the floor, are great conditioners early in practice, and place an emphasis on footwork and finishing with lay-ups in transition.

Like Three-Man Weave, these two drills require the players to make a predetermined number of lay-ups or consecutive lay-ups without making a mistake. If a ball hits the floor for any reason, a player uses the incorrect hand in shooting a lay-up, a player travels, or a player runs the drill incorrectly, the lay-up does not count even on a made lay-up.

Four-Man Break

Diagrams created with FastDraw

Four-Man Break requires a point guard, two wings, and a big. Any player can play any position in the drill.

The wings (#’s 2 and 3) will start the drill in the corners, the point guard (#1) will start at the top of the key, and the big (#4) will start near the basket. The drill begins as shown in Diagram 1 with #4 throwing the ball off of the backboard and grabbing the rebound. #1 will then get into a position to receive the outlet pass from him and look to pass up the floor.

#1 will look to pass the ball up the floor to either wing. If, as Diagram 2 shows, the wing receiving the pass cannot score the lay-up, he will pass it back to #1 who will then pass to the opposite wing. If the wing with the ball can score the lay-up, he will shoot the ball.

The sequence will begin again with #4 taking the ball out of the net, stepping out of bounds, and inbounding the ball to #1 (Diagram 3). We also want the wings to cross between the backboard and the baseline.

We will go up and back twice with the big man who inbounded the basketball to start the last trip to score the lay-up to end the sequence (Diagram 4). As soon as we have made the required number of lay-ups to finish the drill, we will then move on to Five-Man Break.

Five-Man Break

Five-Man Break requires a point guard, two wings, and two bigs. Like the four-man break drill, any player can play any position.

There are notable differences between Four-Man break and Five-Man Break. The first of these is to whom the first big (#5) will pass the ball to once he collects the rebound. Instead of passing to #1 on the outlet, he will instead pass the ball to the other big (#4) to simulate a pressure release (Diagram 5). Once #4 receives the ball, #1 will cut to the middle of the floor and look for the pass from #4 before passing to the wing on the opposite side (Diagram 6).

Another difference, also illustrated in Diagram 6 is that instead of passing the ball back to the point guard, we want the wing who receives the ball from the point guard to make a cross-court pass to the other wing. The second

wing to touch the ball will score the lay-up if he can do so without traveling.

The first big man down the floor will inbound the basketball on the trip back each time (Diagram 7). We will repeat the sequence with the wings changing sides of the floor by crossing between the backboard and the baseline. Also, we will have the bigs changing responsibilities based on who gets down the floor first. The first big down will take the ball out of the basket, step out of bounds, and inbound the ball to start the trip back.

Any given sequence with Five-Man Break ends with the last big man down the floor on the second trip back scoring the last lay-up (Diagram 8). As soon as we have made the required number of lay-ups to finish the drill, we are done with Four- and Five-Man Break.

Click here to see Coach Peel’s version of the 3 man weave full court

These 2 defensive drills come from Xavier.

You can see their archives at this link.

I hope you are able to modify one of these drills to help your team.

I like the idea of timing the players as they are converting to defense.

4 on 4 Defensive Conversion Drill

1. The drill begins with live four on four action taking place at a basket. On the shot by the offense or the command of “change” by a coach, a conversion takes place. If a shot is taken two forwards or bigs attack the offensive glass while the two guards get back on the shot. A coach is assigned the offensive rebounders and a second coach is assigned the two guards “getting back.”

2. On the conversion, all four defenders must cross the halfcourt line in 2.5 seconds or the drill stops and the four converting defenders will run. Editor’s note from Brian: IMO, this is the most significant takeaway from this post–giving your players a specific standard of what getting back quickly means to you as a coach.

As the drill continues the defense gets set and live four on four action takes place at the other end. Once again, on a shot by the offense or the command of “change” by a coach, a conversion takes place. There is no out of bounds. This action takes place for several minutes. The coaches are paying particular attention to offensive rebounding, getting the guards back on the shot and making sure all four defenders cross half court in 2.5 seconds or less.

3. To ensure more shot attempts the shot clock can be shortened for the offense promoting more rebounding opportunities and more conversions.

4 on 3 Offensive Movement Drill

1. The drill begins with a coach having the ball on the baseline under the basket. Three defensive players are facing the coach. There are four offensive players surrounding the three point line.

2. The coach passes the ball to one of the four offensive players. On the catch by an offensive player the offense can move anywhere in the halfcourt. Each offensive player is allowed two dribbles.

3. The three defenders closeout on each catch by the offense and begin to work together. One of the three defensive players must be guarding the basketball at all times. On a shot by the offense it is a four on three rebounding advantage. The defense must find a way to rebound the ball.

This video is of Tom Izzo going through a conversion/transition build up drill.

The drill starts out 2 on 1, then comes back as 3 on 2 into 4 on 3 into 5 on 4 and completes with 5 on 5.

You can make it competitive by diving into different colored teams and keep score.

To learn more about the entire DVD that this sample came from, click here: All Access Michigan State Basketball Practice.

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!

Make sure your sound is on as you click the play arrow for the video.

To learn more about the entire DVD that this sample came from, click here: All Access Michigan State Basketball Practice. 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!

The name of the drill is Quick Strike and its purpose is to work on both transition offense and conversion defense.

The drill is from Arkansas’ Mike Neighbors.

I heard him speak at a clinic and he said that if he were allowed to use only 2 drills, this would be one of them.

The description below the video is a slightly different version of the drill that he used to run.

Like all of our drills, this one has evolved and improved over time.

The video of this rebounding drill is hosted on You Tube.

You will need to be on a network that allows you to access You Tube.

Click the play arrow to view the video.

There is narration with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

Quick strike emphasizes both transition offense and defense. It also reinforces shot selection, decision making. and eliminating turnovers.

The drill is about the scoring and teaching opportunities that it presents as you try to teach transition offense and defense.

You must have a score clock (shot clock is best) or a stop watch that counts down.

Divide players into two-colored teams all on one end of the floor. Begin the drill by tossing the ball to the white team putting them into transition attack mode and blue team into transition defense.

The clock starts at 15 seconds since we are emphasizing transition offense and a quick attack.

If blue scores they are awarded points based on how much time has elapsed from the 15 second clock… For example, if they push the ball up quickly and score with 10 seconds left they get 10 points. The action never stops and White now attacks in transition as Blue defends.

No points are scored if the team does not score. You will need to decide how you score points for fouls. One way would be to award all 15 points to the offense if the defense fouls, regardless of how much time remains on the clock.

Again the clock is re-set as they begin their attack. This continues for a set # of possessions, to a certain score, or a set amount of time…

You can imagine the importance this places on communication and decision making.

LOTS of teaching points for your transition.

“Milk the Clock” using the Quick Strike Basketball Transition Drill

You can also use it as a drill to teach and rehearse milking the shot clock if you have a lead. Even if you are a high school coach in a state without a shot clock, you can use this drill to have your players practice running clock at the end of the game without going into an actual stall.

To practice milking the clock, run the same drill, but the team scores for how much time they took off the clock when they score. For example, if you have a 30 second shot clock or want to practice running 30 seconds off before you score without a shot clock.

An example would be: Put 30 seconds on the clock and give one team the basketball. Stop the clock when the ball goes in the basket. If it goes in at 8 seconds left on the clock, they score 22 points. If it goes in at 5 seconds left on the clock, they get 25 points. When there is a change of possession, either on a made basket, a defensive rebound, or a turnover, start the clock again at 30 seconds for the other team.