That Basketball Life

This is a nice video with simple tips to help create separation and make a ball handler's job easier.

Okay.  You're coaching a game and your team is down 5 with 3 minutes left.  You have decided that it is time that your team starts extending the game.  How do you do this?  The next topic that needs to be covered is how to extend a game. In order to start discussing this topic we need to break it down by offense and defense. Offense: On the offensive end you need to be prepared to speed everything up.  You will want to make sure that you have your best players in their best positions and ready to run a quick hitting part of the offense or some quick hitting set plays in an effort to get your team back in the game.  Your team needs to be aware of the fact that this is the point of the game where they need to be super aggressive.  You want to take action towards the basket.  The reason for this is twofold: The other team will not want to foul you for fear of giving you an and 1 opportunity. Taking the ball to the basket increases your chances of getting fouled, stopping the cl

The first topic I'd like to discuss concerning EOG situations is when to begin the process of extending a game.  A coach will want to extend a game when they are trailing in hopes of buying time in an effort to get back into the game.  There are 2 questions that need to be answered: At what point in the game do you start the process? At what point do you not bother with extending the game? The answer to the first question  depends on the age group you are coaching and the kids abilities.  If your team contains a bunch of grinders and its tough for them to score you may want to start the process earlier.  If your team is a good scoring team then you may start a bit later.  In general I like to use a 3 point per minute +1 minute rule.  How this works is that if you are down 3 points you can wait for the last 2 minutes of the game to extend (1 for the 3 point deficit +1 more minute).  If you are down 8 points you start extending the game at the 4 minute mark (3 minutes for the

Over the next few posts we will be discussing our philosophy on certain End of Game situations.  Specifically we will be discussing the when and how of certain EOG situations. Specifically we will discuss the following: 1 When to extend a game when trailing. When to speed up a game when winning. How to extend a game when trailing. How to speed up a game when winning. More to come.

With all of the new information coming out about the dangers of concussions it is very important to spread knowledge about how to spot and treat concussions, along with the steps required in order to have an athlete come back from a concussion.  A great source for such information is on the CDC website. The CDC's heads up initiative is awesome and should be a part of any and all parents or coaches of athletes at all ages.

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get a team ready to play a difficult game.  You know the types of games I'm talking about.  The types of games where the opposition is a big rival or is a superior team to yours in terms of skill.  How do you keep the players focused on the game at hand and not the potential consequences of having to play a tough team?  I like to use some of the following methods: Remind the kids to have fun out there.  Basketball is just a game.  There will be a tomorrow regardless of what the score ends up being (it should be noted that I don't usually bring up score results in this conversation).  What I usually like to remind the kids is to take a deep breath and have fun. Place key words on the white board and mention them during pre-game.  These are process behaviors which help the team get into a focus mentally for the game.  The words/phrases should be simple and preferably words that you use repeatedly in practice.  Use words/ph

When playing sports there some obvious and some not so obvious things that the athlete needs to work on and experience in order to get better.  Some of the things that are obvious, is experiencing the intensity of a game, hitting a jump shot in a game, shooting a free throw in a game.  The list goes on and on.  The obvious choices are almost all fundamentals based and they are all important.  One of the most important areas of a basketball game often gets overlooked by teams and coaches alike.  These are end of game situations and one of the most important is how to close out games that your team is winning. During the game, most kids tend to relax as the game is approaching the final quarter and they find themselves up by a couple of baskets.  This is the wrong attitude to take in a game where a couple of baskets can turn a game completely on it's head. As a matter of fact at the end of a game that is close, against a good team what you should be expecting is their best shot.  I

One of the most important responsibilities that a coach of a team or a director of a club have is scheduling of games for their teams.  This action is so important for properly developing your teams and should not be taken lightly.  A lot of coaches or directors prefer to schedule games for their teams which will help their organization be more marketable.  It looks great on a club website when you see pictures of teams with medals around their necks and mentions of teams that have incredible records.  To me what this shows is a lack of desire of a coach to push his team regardless of how talented they are.  To me properly scheduling games has a balance to it that if optimized can greatly help your teams confidence. When considering scheduling, you need to first take stock of the quality of your team.  How good is it compared to your prior teams?  How much size does it have?  How much speed does it have? After you take stock of your own team you need to think about scheduling.  If

One of the most important parts of destroying a shot is the placement and use of the guide hand.  In basketball the proper shooting form involves shooting the ball with one hand.  Because it is difficult to manage a ball as large in size as a basketball one handed, players use what we call the guide hand to help take the ball thru the process of shooting.  The guide hand is on the ball from the gather, to the load, thru the shot pocket, and all the way up to the follow thru.  It is at the follow thru where the good shooters are able to take the guide hand off of the ball and shoot the ball one handed while the not so good shooters use the guide hand to aid the shot.  What these shooters don't realize is that the guide hand increases the risk of the shot being off left or right because the timing needs to be so precise with this follow thru approach. Think of it this way, the proper way to shoot the ball requires a shooter lining up his body properly, finding the rim quickly, gene

The title of this blog post seems very obvious.  Right?   Have you ever tried shooting with your eyes closed.  It's pretty tough to do even after you spend a bit of time looking at the rim before you close your eyes.  Well there is a huge problem with kids who start shooting and can't seem to find the rim.  This problem has a simple fix.  All I tell my kids is "Find the rim quickly and keep your eye on it until the ball goes thru the net." The problem is twofold when it comes to finding the rim: Find the rim as soon as you begin to gather the ball.  Players need to have enough confidence in their other skills so they can find the rim quicker.  What this means is that many young players spend so much time looking at their dribble or their feet or the other players who may be contesting their shot that they fail to focus on the rim.  This may be because the game is not instinctive to them.  They need reps to get comfortable.  The bottom line is that you need to fin