That Basketball Life

Nice breakdown of what made Steve Nash so good.

When you talk about dribble penetration and what separates the best from the rest the one catch phrase that we like to use at TBL is "be strong down low and soft on top."

The last part of our series on dribble penetration deals with which hand you should finish with.  Determining which hand to finish with depends on the angle the defender is taking when he is guarding you.

Continuing our discussion of dribble penetration, we would like to talk about how a player who will drive to the basket can reduce the chance of his shot getting blocked by taller or more athletic players.  In a nutshell the name of the game is to eat up the space between you and the player covering you.  This seems counterintuitive at first glance.  Most players initial instinct would probably be to run away from the defender.  However, moving away from the defender just gives the opposition more space to time the block and to take a running start into their leap. I found a cool video which helps describe what I spoke about above.

In our first installment on the topic of dribble penetration we will discuss how to protect the ball when going through traffic in the paint.

The next topic that we will be covering here at TBL is dribble penetration in traffic.  What we mean by this is how can a player properly enter the lane when it is heavily congested and protect the ball (keep it from getting stripped) while still giving himself a chance to score.  All of the great penetrators I have seen have an uncanny ability be "strong down low and soft on top."  What this means is that good penetrators can be really strong in protecting the ball as they are going through traffic, absorbing pressure without allowing it to impede their progress, while being soft when they go into shot mode.