Coaching Basketball Don Meyer on Using the Dribble

Dribbling Ideas / Live Ball Moves / Penetration Ideas

from Don Meyer

• Dribble vs. Drive. We want our players to drive, but we don’t want them to dribble for no particular reason.
• We always ask our ball-handlers: “If the ball had eyes, would it be able to see when you had it?”
• On all dribbling drills (and as a general rule of thumb): Start slow, get a rhythm, go fast enough to make a mistake.
• Versus pressure in the full court, we teach our players to attack the defense at a 45 degree angle–very hard to guard.
• A good player needs no more than 1 or 2 dribbles to get from the wing to the rim. In all our breakdown drills, we don’t allow our players to use more than 2 dribbles to get to the rim, unless they are using a hesitation move, back dribble, etc. 
• We want our players to drive in straight lines to the rim. We don’t want them veering out. Our goal is to make contact with the defense (make contact with the man guarding you and contact with the 2nd line of defense). We want to put our shoulder into the defensive man’s hip on all drives (put a body on first).
• We want 60% of the weight on the permanent pivot foot on all moves (reduces traveling)
• Play against your opponent’s momentum–Drive the front hand
• We want to go from a medium center of gravity to a low center of gravity
• “Be ball quick” and have eyes on the rim for vision 
• Use the dribble to get out of trouble, not into trouble
• Never pick up your dribble without a pass or a shot
• The back dribble is the most important dribble in the game of basketball, but it is also probably the most rarely used, and it may be the most difficult dribble to master. The key points for the back dribble are:
  1) To Keep eyes on the rim
  2) Have an “arm-bar” with the weak hand to shield the defense.
  3) Point the back toe, dribble near or behind that toe, and get out of trouble as fast as possible.
  4) The back dribble is a great time to get the defense attacking you–perfect opportunity to use a hesitation move to the rim (in the half court). 
• The middle drive is the drive of preference in our offensive system. We believe that getting middle drives forces defensive help from defenders above the drive (great opportunity for crack-backs to 3 or dives to the rim) and from defenders (typically post men) below the drive (opportunity for bounce passes to our post men for easy lay-ups).
• The only reasons to dribble are:
  1) To advance the ball up the floor
  2) To improve passing angles (especially feeding the post)
  3) To get out of trouble
  4) To get to the rim
• Great players typically only have 2 moves with the dribble; the Go-To move, and the Counter move.
  1) The Go-To Move is the move everybody in the gym knows you’re going to make, and they still can’t guard you.
  2) The Counter Move is the move that you make when the defense is trying to take away your Go-To Move at all costs.
  3) Example: Go-To Move is the left-to-right crossover move, and the Counter Move is the In-n-Out (Fake Crossover) with the left hand. It works best if the Go-To & Counter Moves compliment each other. 
• When driving baseline, players have to know what their options are if they can’t get all the way to the rim. In our Drive & Space scheme, on any baseline penetration, the weakside wing will “drift” to the corner, the strong-side guard will “crack-back” behind the penetration, we will have a low-post ready for a feed, and we will have one more shooter in the opposite guard / wing spot looking for the 3-point shot.
• We allow our players to use either a “step-plant” or a “quick-stop” to go into the pull-up game. We typically teach and encourage player’s to use the 2-footed quick-stop, because it is easier to teach and it allows our player to keep his permanent pivot foot on passes in traffic, but we also will allow a step-plant if the player can prove to us that they are comfortable with that move. The step-plant does have benefits, most notably that it is “quicker” and it creates more separation between the offense and defense.
• When a player penetrates and gets too deep into the lane to shoot a traditional pull-up, we teach the player to shoot a one-handed floater over the defender (we also have the shooter use the strong hand on the floater).