Top 10 Basketball Pump Fakes

By Brian Williams on July 25, 2022

A short video from our friends at Dr. Dish Basketball.

10 varaiations on a shot fake to help clarify teaching points for you, your coaching staff, and your players.

Please make sure your sound is on to see the video.

This drill is hosted on YouTube, so you will need to be on a server that allows you to access YouTube to see the drill.

The video is in the YouTube shorts format so it will look a little different than the YouTube videos that we have posted in the past. The format is narrower than a traditional video.

Click the play arrow to see the drill.

28 in 2 Transition Drill

By Brian Williams on July 4, 2022

In this post Bradley University Head Coach Brian Wardlen shares his 28 in 2 Transition Drill.

This drill serves the purpose of getting the players passing and catching on the run as well as communicating.

Coach Wardle uses practice video that shows clearly how to run the drill but here is a basic explanation.

There are three lines of players stationed one at halfcourt (outlet line) and one under each basket (rebounding lines).

Two cones are placed a few feet from the sideline on the side opposite the outlet line.

The drill begins with the player under one basket passing to the player at halfcourt. The player at halfcourt that receives the outlet pass then passes to another player stationed on the opposite halfcourt who has cut to the basket for a lay-up. (this player is only stationed here to start the drill)

The player that passed the ball for the lay-up sprints across the court and around the cones and will become the next shooter.

The player under the basket rebounds the ball and passes to the person at halfcourt who then passes to the player running around the cones for a lay-up at the other end.

The shooter simply gets in the rebounding line at the basket that they shot at.

The drill continues in this fashion.

The goal is to make 28 lay-ups in 2 minutes.

It will be difficult to reach this standard in the ball is dribbled, dropped or any lay-ups are missed.

This clip was taken from a complete course by Coach Wardle. For more information about that course click the following link: 5 Great Practice Drills To Have In Your Pocket

Jim Boone: Program Anchors

By Brian Williams on July 4, 2022

In this post Coach Jim Boone share what he likes to call his Program Anchors

Program Anchors are the things that are most important to you with regard to winning basketball games.

These are things that everyone in your program knows and can recite without hesitation.

For Coach Boone, these are his Program Anchors

Sureness – Taking care of the basketball. Keeping the ball out of a position of risk to turn it over. His offensive alignment is predicated on his team’s ability to take care of the basketball.
Shot Selection – Nothing beats you faster than taking bad shots, rushed shots or pressured shots.
Team Defense – Coach Boone is well known for his Pack Line Defense and while it’s not for everyone he has had great success and many coaches have sought out his advice on teaching the Pach Line.

This clip was actually taken from his Pack Line Defense Course. If you would like to learn more about that course click the following link: Pack Line Defense Certification Course

The Value of Running Wide

By Brian Williams on July 4, 2022

Coach Cody Toppert, a former Memphis assistant coach and current assistant at LSU, explains the value of running wide in transition and how it helps create early open looks in a 5 out offense.

In the clip below Coach Toppert does a great job illustrating his concepts using game footage.

Here is a quick breakdown of what he discusses in the clip.

Find the nearest sideline
Run wide and keep vision of the ball
Running wide creates opportunities for the trigger man in the middle third of the floor and creates opportunities to stretch the defense and find early shots.
Value the Corners – race to the corner and be shot ready
Put pressure on the rim and fill spots behind the 3-pt line

He also discusses that data shows that the 3pt % drops later in the possession. Players make a higher % of threes when they take them early in the possession.

This clip was taken from Coach Toppert’s complete course. For more information about that course click the following link: 5 Out Systems and Actions

For those interested Coach Toppert is a highly regarded player development coach and he has also put together a training course on that topic: Complete Player Development Masterclass – Turn Your Players Into Pro`s

Slashing Wing Gap Drives

By Brian Williams on June 22, 2022

These ideas for a double and triple gap drive are from Matt Hackenberg’s 47 Gap Drive Sets Playbook on CoachTube.

These 2 concepts are run from 4 around 1.

The playbook is available as a free download from this link: 47 Gap Drive Sets Playbook.

Cutting and Spacing can create momentary gap driving opportunities.

Other factors to consider in creating gap drives are the offensive positioning of players that the defense won’t help off of. Those could be a great three point shooter, or just defending a great player that the defense is trying to keep from getting the basketball.

Below the images, there is a YouTube video with a few more gap driving concepts.

Use these and all ideas as a place to start to think about ways that you can use your personnel and your schemes to improve driving opportunities.

Double Gap Driving Lane

4 sets a wide pin down for 3

1 runs a dribble hand off exchange with 2

4 and 2 space to the corner

2 passes to 3 and then cuts to the wide wing (free throw line extended)

3 drives into the double gap.

Triple Gap Driving Lane

Initial player positioning is the same as above.

3 lifts

1 passes to 4 and cuts through (yellow line)

4 passes to 3 and cuts through (yellow line)

2 should be a player that the defense is reluctant to help off.

More Gap Driving Concepts

NBA Finals Notes Game 4

By Brian Williams on June 13, 2022

These short video clips were put together by George Washington Men’s Assistant Coach Zak Boisvert.

They are some notes that he took when watching NBA finals game #4.

If you missed his notes from the first game, you can access it at this link: NBA Finals Game 1 Notes

You may or may not agree with the notes, but hopefully they will stimulate your thoughts for some ideas that can help your program.

Zak has an outstanding site with posts on various coaching topics at www.pickandpop.net

His YouTube channel has several videos with various types of man-to-man plays, zone sets, and inbounds plays as well as clips on various defensive coverages.

You can subscribe to receive an update when he posts a new video Zak Boisvert You Tube Channel

You can follow him on Twitter at this link: @ZakBoisvert

Click play to see the video

This is a YouTube video, so you will need to be on a server that allows you YouTube access.