That Basketball Life

Scrimmaging is one of the most popular parts of practice for players.  They love the idea of forgoing drills and just playing.  This drill makes a coach very popular with the players but is it beneficial in preparing your team for games?  The answer to that question is yes if used correctly.  There are different ways to run a scrimmage and all of the ways that will be described below are designed to help your team become more of a team. Types of Scrimmaging: Let them run - I like to use this type of scrimmage at the beginning of the season.  With let them run the whole idea is to split the team up and let them go up and down the court.  There are no fouls called, and the ball is pushed up the floor even after makes.  What I'm looking for with this drill is how the participants play with each other.  Do they play well together or is there a lot of "I'm getting mine" out there. The up and down action also allows for conditioning to take place in an ...

We have included an expansive list of posts focusing on the finer elements of man to man defense in the past.  Those blog entries are always good to refer to as a reminder of what good basic fundamentals of man to man defense are and how you should coach them.  The one issue that you run into as a coach however is how do you teach this concept in a way that is effective yet not overwhelming. Over the next few weeks we will be going over practice plans which will show you our way of coaching man to man principles in a way that is not overwhelming. As a preview, our approach is one of showing them the whole thing via 5v5 and then begin to break things down and then build them up again.  We will do this by using various combinations including: 5 man shells 1v1 2v2 3v3 3v2 4v3 5v4 5v5 As one might guess by looking at the above list, we do believe in having the kids go at each other.  The best way to have them learn how to play defense is to play defense against a p...

The most important thing that a coach needs to do in order to avoid boredom and as a consequence your kids from being disruptive is to keep them engaged.  During practice kids should always be busy during drills.  Don't have them wasting too much time in line waiting for their turns to run a drill.  Choose drills which minimize the amount of time that kids spend waiting.  Keep them engaged.

I've often sat back and wondered about basketball.  I really love the game and during most days I find myself thinking about various elements of the sport.  Today I was wondering about what a coach can do in order to make players work hard in practice.  It is a belief of mine that the harder a player works, the greater the chances are that the player will improve and this is what you want as a coach. Your goal at the start of every year (especially when coaching at the youth levels) is that each player you coach is better at the end of the season than they were at the start.  How do you do this?  The answer to this question deals with competition.  You need to make sure that every practice is competitive and that the players on the team have the opportunity to leave everything they have on the floor at practice as well as in games.

A while back I wrote a post about my general philosophy on coaching kids under the age of 10.  As a coach you shouldn't spend too much time exposing your players to exotic defenses or offenses.  What you should be doing is exposing them to the fundamentals of the game along with various coordination and athletic development drills (covered in another post soon). However, if you are going to expose them to games you do need to prepare them by introducing some basic ideas which will keep them competitive.  In today's post I will discuss some of the basic team offensive concepts you should expose your kids to.  I will break these down into 2 groups: 7-8 year olds 9-10 year olds Today we will be discussing the 7-8 year old group.

This is a nice drill from Danny Miles.  This drill helps you run your offensive sets and helps with your team conditioning at the same time.

This is a nice drill which helps a coach cover a lot of fundamentals using one drill.  When you have the option of using one drill to cover multiple facets of the game that is a true blessing for a coach.  Especially for a coach who may have limited practice time. This drill covers passing, dribbling, receiving the ball, rip moves, layups, and conditioning.

One of our mottoes here at That Basket Life is to take nothing for granted.  This is why we spend a lot of time covering topics like pivots, and close-outs and all sorts of topics related to footwork and screening.  They may be boring on the surface but if you master the details you will become a better more efficient basketball player.  In this post's discussion we are covering another one of these boring yet important topics.  Specifically, we will be discussing some of the more popular cuts involved in basketball.  Cuts are very important in basketball.  So important that in order to stand a chance to challenge a defense, any offense should have at least some sort of cutting action in it. Some of the cuts we'll be covering below are: Basic Cut V-Cut L-Cut Flash Cut Backdoor Cut Curl Cut Loop Cut UCLA Cut Flare Cut Laker Cut

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: Dig deep and sprint to the man you are closing out on as quickly as possible. 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...

Two of the most ignored fundamentals to the game of basketball are passing and footwork.  Most coaches will make sure to find time for dribbling and shooting drills in practice and then figure that footwork and passing will be covered during drills that cover these other fundamentals or during scrimmage time. 

As a coach you wear many hats.  It is your job to be able to manage the team, prepare the team, get the team up from lows, and keep them from getting overconfident.  It's your job to make them understand what the goals of the team are, teach them how the team is going to get there, and then keep them focused on the task during the long hard grind of a season.  It's like a tight rope that you need to carefully manage.  One false move and you will fall off.  The price you pay when you do fall off is that you lose your team.  From the outside looking in, some may think that coaching a team of players is easy but it's not.  In many ways you are like a good symphony conductor who is able to bring all of the wonderful talent that surrounds him into harmony. So how do you get started on this task of bringing a group of players and form a team?

If you visit the internet and search for how to shoot a basketball, your search results will be loaded with information on the topic.   Some of the information is great, some is okay, and a lot of it is junk.   Many people on the internet will spend a lot of time telling you every minute detail on how to shoot.   My biggest pet peeve is telling players where their release point is.   I’m here to tell you that there are many ways to shoot the ball and there is no great mystery to the art of shooting.   It’s as much about finding your comfort zone as it is mechanics.   That being said there are some tips that should be followed in order to maximize your chances of making baskets.   I like to break down the sequence into the following categories: Footwork Stance Shot Pocket Eyes Release Follow Through Non-shooting Hand

There are many different metrics which are used by coaches to gage why a result of a game may have turned out the way it did.  Some like to use turnovers, others like to use rebounding differential, others like to use field goal percentage, and the list goes on and on.  The one metric that I like to use takes many of the stats other coaches use and combines them into one figure and it is called Quality Possessions Percentage (QP%).

Coaching young kids under the age of 10 is a huge responsibility and one that should be taken seriously.  There are a lot of decisions that need to be made.  You need to teach them fundamentals at that age but how do you go about doing it?  How fast should you go?  How do you keep them interested?  Do you toss in coordination drills as well?  How often do you have them play a game?  Should those games be played 5 a side or with less players.  How about defense?  Do you teach them man to man principles from a young age and have them build on that or do you teach them a zone? Finally what about offense?  Do you teach them a structured offense or do you teach them about floor balance and pass and move basketball?  This post is aimed to addressing all of these questions.

The Comfort Threshold As a coach I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to push players to improve.   Whether it be ball handling, shooting, passing, defense, rebounding, or footwork there is a natural tendency for a player to stay in his/her comfort level when playing basketball.   I call this comfort level the comfort threshold and it is the point where a trigger occurs in a player’s mind which warns the player that if you go beyond this point there is no guarantee of success and the odds of failure are greatly increased.