Turning bad shots into good shots

I wanted to talk about the differences bewteen a good shot and a less-than-good shot. Watch this video of number 35 on the team in black.

You'll notice a few things he did with all of his shots:

• He was always square to the basket. His feet were pointed towards the hoop every time.
• He used his legs to make every shot nice and smooth. His leg bend with his free throws and three pointers was a little different so that he could get more power in his shot the farther away from the basket he stood. Since the power came from his legs, his arm motion always looked the same.
• He kept his eyes focues on his target, either the backboard or the rim. He wasn't distracted by his defender. Once he decided to shoot, he kept his focus on the target.

We'll talk more about turning less-than-good shots into good shots tonight at practice. We have players who can make three-pointers and I hope that, with some advice and practice, they can become more consistent with the three-point shot.

January 5th Practice Review

Today we covered a few things that will help us all better play and understand the game of basketball:

• Close outs: When running out, or closing out, on a shooter, remember to stutter your steps a few feet before you reach the shooter. Keep you body low with your hands up to challenge the shot.
• Run and recover: If an offensive player in able to drive past you while you are playing defense, don't run behind him or to the side of him. Rather, you need to run to a point on the court in front of him and then get in a defensive stance.
• Passing: Get in the habit of faking passes before you make a pass to keep the defense guessing where the ball is going to go.
• Defending the fast break: Our first priority when the other team is running the ball down the court on offense is to guard the basket. Don't give them a layup. Slow them down until the rest of the team can catch up and play defense.
• Rebounding and turnovers: The team that gets the most rebounds and has the fewest turnovers is the team thats going to win.

For our next practice, Coach Jared is going to work with the "bigs" on post defense on the ball and help defense, rebounding, and low post scoring. Coach Bryce and I and will work with the "wings" on dribble moves, fast break offense, and shooting. As a team, we will work more on the dribble-drive offense that we will use in games.

Remember your homework for the week:

• Ballhandling drills. Use the drills that we use as a warmup at the beginning of practice.
• Rebounding drills. Use a wall that your mom will let you use. Toss the ball off the wall and practice jumping and grabbing it above your head at the peak of your jump. You can also bounce the ball on a mother-approved floor and grab the ball at the peak of your jump.

Developing shooting consistency

No matter how good we become, we will miss shots from time-to-time. When you think about it, we can miss shots in one of or in a combination of a few ways: long, short, right or left. I want to talk about how we can keep from shooting to the right or left of our target:

Basic Ballhandling

These drills can be done everyday. Trust me when I say that all of the great ballplayers have done and still do drills like these.

 

 

My next post will talk about offensive footwork.

 

Welcome to my blog! I will post various videos and messages regarding basketball training with a focus on drills that can be performed at home along with reminders of what we've learned in practice.

Here are a few videos from a series that TNT did a few years back.