Closeouts

Here is another post on one of the most important but often neglected parts of the game.  As I've mentioned before, footwork is so important yet so often neglected by coaches.  It should be a part of every practice especially early in the season and often reinforced during the year.

In an effort to cover all of the important elements of footwork, I am prepared to discuss another of the essentials.  Closeouts are a very important part of the game.  Closeouts are the moves a defender tries to make to cover a man who generally has the ball.  The quicker you close out the better off you will be.  There are different steps to a good closeout:
  1. Dig deep and sprint to the man you are closing out on as quickly as possible.
  2. Once you are about 2/3 of the way there begin chopping your feet.  This serves 2 purposes:
    • It helps you slow down and prevents you from over running the offensive player.
    • It keeps you in balance and your feet close to the ground in an effort to keep you low and prepared for a move around you by the offensive player.
  3. At the same time you are chopping your steps, raise your hands over your head.  This will help defend both the pass over the top and the shot.

When closing out you also need to be aware of who you are covering.  There are 3 different types of players you can be facing so there are 3 different types of closeouts.
  1. Driver-Doesn't have much of a shot but is a good penetrator.  With this player your closeout will be early and not too close to him.  You will be prepared to deal with the drive.  You don't want this player to get around you on your closeout.
  2. Shooter-With a shooter you will closeout right into him. You will not give him any space.  Your goal is to prevent him from shooting a rhythm shot.
  3. Combo-This is the toughest player you could face because he could do it all.  You want to defend the 3 but you also want to keep him from driving because he is very adept at both.  With this close out you need to closeout tight as in the shooter described above but also be prepared to move on a potential drive.  This is the toughest player you will cover.
I've included a great video showing how to practice this important piece of footwork.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Drill: 5v5v5 Fast Break

Image
This is a nice drill that emphasizes a whole bunch of game like situations.  Here is the list:  Fast Break Secondary Break Offensive sets Transition Defense Transition to standard defense Recognizing and attacking odd man opportunities.
Read more

Burpees (HIIT) Bakers Dozen

 Below is a great burpee workout that you can use to challenge yourself.  This challenge is called the baker's dozen.  Below is the rep range for each set and rest intervals between each set. 13 burpees 1 minute rest 12 burpees 1 minute rest 11 burpees 1 minute rest 10 burpees 1 minute rest  9 burpees 1 minute rest 8 burpees 1 minute rest 7 burpees 1 minute rest 6 burpees 1 minute rest 5 burpees 1 minute rest 4 burpees 1 minute rest  3 burpees 1 minute rest 2 burpees 1 minute rest 1 burpee 1 minute rest During the rest period you should be walking and getting yourself ready for the next set.  Don't sit down. Once completed you will have done a total of  91 burpees in about 20 minutes. It should be noted that the balers dozen method to HIIT training can be used doing different types of exercises including mountain climbers, push ups, pull ups, squats, lunges, 20 yard sprints and others. If you are in outstanding shape then you can decrease your rest periods to 45 seconds, 30 sec
Read more

Layups, Layups, Layups

Image
 When we go to youth games we like watching how the kids warm up.  To us youth basketball is an easy game to coach.  As a youth coach you need to teach your kids how to play good aggressive man to man defense and on the offensive end teach them how to pass and move towards the basket.  In a pass an move offense, layups are so important.  This goes back to our opening statement about watching youth level warm ups.  Most of the teams warming up spend a lot of time shooting shots, but the good ones are always working around the basket.  We've always found it entertaining that youth teams spend so much time working on jumpers and so little time on layups.  In addition, the little time they do spend on layups is spent doing basic layups using the right hand on the right side and the left hand on the left side.  There is so much more to it than this however and kids should be exposed to different types of layups in practice.  No one can predict what kind of layup opportunity will present
Read more