Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Basketball Defensive Drills

By Phil Canter

Everyone has heard the "Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships," but is it true? Of course it is true, because to win you need to play defense. You do not know from night to night if your shot is going to go in, but you defense will always be there. That just takes hard work and practice.

So why is it that you never see kids practicing their defensive drills in their driveway? Because they are either too flashy or do not know any. These individual defensive drills will make you the player your coach puts in to shut down the other teams stud.

Building quickness drills:

Lines- Jump back and forth, and side to side over lines with both feet and one foot at a time. You want quick little jumps.

.Dots- In this drills, make 5 dots. Have 4 in a square and 1 in the middle so that they will look like an x. Do every combo jumping dot to dot on them. Do this with each foot or both feet.

Bounding- This drill trains you to bound on defense and not just run everywhere. Start this drill out on one foot and then jump as far as you can in a random direction an another direction landing on your other foot. Keep on doing this, but only do it for a short period of time. You are wanting to train your muscles to be explosive so go hard for a short amount of time.

Practicing Game Situation

Shuffle- Use the push slide step technique. The push slid step technique is push with one leg; slide the other one next to it, and the step. In this technique do not overlap your feet. Go from one end of the lane to the other. While doing this, you must have one almost touching the ground and one high. The one hand high is to be in the players face in game ready to block/distract shot while the low hand is the pesky hand preventing the crossover. This hand is then dictating to the ball handler which direction he can go.

Close Out- Start under the hoop and imagine a person at the three point line. Run at the imaginary person and shuffle or chop step when you get close with your but down in an athletic stance and hands up being ready for the shot or drive. Do not go through the motions while doing this, or you will be sloppy during the game.

Ball Shuffle Drill- Pass the ball along the wall while shuffleing. Always stay in your defensive stance while doing this. Remember that for all the defensive drills and you will get a great workout.

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