How to get your player attacking and scoring (without being a ball-hog)
Your player catches a pass with a wide-open layup available but pauses, looking around for teammates to pass to…
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After 4 seconds, they decide to drive, but the opportunity is gone.
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?Your player drives against a set defender and runs into the help defense, waiting to strip the ball away or steal the pass they know is coming.
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Your player thinks they were fouled. The coach yells something about “taking care of the ball.” You shake your head and make a mental note to talk about turnovers with your player on the ride home.
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?Sound familiar?
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?Let’s rewind to the subtle but critical factor in this situation; your?player took four seconds to decide to attack
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?Four seconds while teammates and defenders shifted position.
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Four seconds that the defender used to get set and ready to anticipate a drive (because surely your player is no longer going to try and?shoot?that shot from a standstill, right?)
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Your player may be a great shooter and a decent finisher at the basket, and they are probably a reasonably quick athlete.
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But after four seconds:
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1) They will never take an open shot.
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2) They will never create a blow-by advantage drive.
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3) They will always pass to a predictable target and increase their turnover risk!?
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Two pervasive causes of this outcome are:
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1) Over-sharing
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2) Option overload
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?Let’s break these down one at a time.
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1) The Problem of Over-sharing
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There’s a cliche in basketball culture that goes like this:
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“Always pass to the open man.”
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I like to turn this around into a question for players – which often stumps them as they hear it as a riddle.
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Question: “Assuming ‘always pass to the open man’ is a rule on our team – if your teammate just passed to you, who are they telling you that?you?are?”
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Player: ??
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Answer: “The open man!”
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This cliche is repeated throughout your player’s career, either explicitly or implicitly, through repeated reminders to “share the ball” until it forms a?core belief that passing is the highest ideal they can achieve.
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When combined with your player hearing the negative comments about a selfish player (or experiencing the black-hole effect as their teammate), it creates a powerful desire to avoid becoming labeled a ball-hog.
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Taken to the extreme,?your player will never attempt to score!
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They will not only appear blind and even claim after the game to “not see” opportunities for wide-open layups and open jump shots, but they may even?actively avoid taking a shot!?
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Given enough time, your player can?always?find a teammate open?somewhere –?because that is what they are looking for. Of course, they will likely justify their decision later by saying, “I wasn’t open,” – but what they mean is:
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“After 4 seconds of looking for a teammate to pass to, I was no longer open”?(More about this next).
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The most frustrating part to watch as a parent is that most of your player’s passes end up going to a less conscientious teammate! Conversely, teammates?who are willing to attack?– and ready to take lower-quality shots – are rewarded with more playing time!
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2) The Problem of Option Overload
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Every time your player has the ball in their hands, seven options are available. They could:
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1) Shoot
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2) Drive right
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3) Drive left
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4) Pass to teammate #1
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5) Pass to teammate #2
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6) Pass to teammate #3
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7) Pass to teammate #4
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Evaluating all seven options takes at least 3 to 4 seconds, so they constantly miss out on opportunities to score!
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The analogy I use with players is:
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“Do you know how a YouTube video has that little spinning circle when loading on a slow Wi-Fi connection?
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In a game, that is your brain trying to evaluate seven options simultaneously,?under pressure.”
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(Spoiler for my old-school dads out there: Jab and shot fakes are primarily used by players who need more time to decide – often developing into a harmful crutch and delay tactic compared with the ideal one-second-or-less decision speed).
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The Solution in two parts:
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1) Simplify all decisions to only two options
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2) Establish an order of operations
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The Solution, Part 1: Simplify all decisions to only two options
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I was late to start playing basketball (starting at age 12) and played with a mixed age group of much bigger and more skilled players. So my instinct was always to play “Hot Potato” with the ball – deferring the pressure of any decision to anyone on my team I felt was more qualified – everyone!
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One of the biggest hurdles for me was processing the chaos of information overload coming at me and the complexity of deciding at all – much less a quick decision – while trying not to make a mistake.
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Evaluating seven options is horrendously stressful for any player, especially when combined with the expectation to “always pass to the open man,” try not to make a mistake, and avoid turnovers!
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In contrast, if your player can learn how to use the context of the game situation, we can simplify every decision to only two options – what I call “2 moves and a cue”.
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For example, let’s use the most frequent situation that happens in a game:
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Your player catches a pass, within their shooting range, with a defender closing out to meet them.?
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In this case, we can create our “2 moves and a cue” as follows:
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Move #1 = Shoot
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Move #2 = Drive (away from the pass)
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The Cue = Defender hand up
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We want to treat this like an on-off switch, where Move #1 = shoot is?always?on, the Cue of “defenders hand up” turns the switch off, and Move #2 = drive is the?only?other possibility.
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Even a third option to drive right or left overcomplicates (and slows down) the decision process. But getting back to the context of the game situation – we can solve that problem quickly using base principles:
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领英推荐
Defense Principle #1:?
The defense is always on the ball side of the court.
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Based on this, we can assume the defense will be coming from a slight angle in the direction of the pass (ball side of the court).
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Therefore, any drive attempt should always be?away from the pass?(but still toward the basket) to attack maximum space and create the most significant advantage.
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Wait a minute, what about passing??
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With the two options of “shoot” and “drive,” only two outcomes are possible:
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1) Your player took an uncontested shot in rhythm at the catch (and therefore at a higher percentage shot).
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or
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2) Your player created an advantage drive because the defender tried too hard to stop the shot.
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If Your player took the shot, that play is over (the start of a different situational decision: Move #1 = pursue rebound, Move #2 = back on defense, Cue = made shot)
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If Your player created an advantage drive, they are now playing five against four, and passing becomes easier and more apparent to make as a second-layer decision.
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IF to pass, and specifically WHO to pass TO, is now isolated into another “2 Moves and a Cue” decision.
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Defense Principle #2:?Driving to the basket is a significant threat to any defense.
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So again, we have two options, either:
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1) No help defense comes, and your player makes an open layup
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or
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2) A help defender has to leave their man to stop the drive, and that teammate is now open for an obvious pass!
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When asked about their options, most players will tell you that there are 3: shoot, drive, or pass – but they often list passing first!
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Let’s solve this next.
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The Solution, part 2: Establish an order of operations
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Shoot or Drive, which should come first?
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If we want to hit the accelerator for decision speed, we have to know the answer to this question.
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I worked with a high school player several years ago, a great finisher and a good quality shooter. The problem he came to me with was that he was a “streaky” shooter, and even though he was left open, he couldn’t hit shots consistently in games. However, technically and mechanically, his skill level was solid, and he could hit 40%+ from 3 point range in practice.
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Watching the game film, I quickly identified the problem:
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He always tried to drive first!
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As a known finisher at the rim and a streaky shooter, defenders quickly learned to drop back and even double-team his drive, leaving him open to shoot.
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In his mind, he was?always?supposed to attack the rim. So, whenever he caught a pass in a game, he was leaning forward in a lunge and, in many cases, had already dribbled before realizing he was open to shoot!
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With his defender now closing hard, he was in a challenging position – trying to pull his body up and back into a balanced stance to shoot a 3pt shot – or pull up after a rushed dribble toward his defender and try to hit a long, contested, 2pt shot!
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We practiced closeout decisions after watching the game film (using our exaggerated length tool called?The Realistick ). We changed his thinking about “order of operations” from “drive first, shoot second” to “shoot first, drive second.”
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In 10 min of work, we made a drastic change that allowed him to use both of his skills more effectively. When he took a shot – it was balanced, in rhythm, and uncontested. When he drove, his defender had to rush to overplay and stop his shot – so now his drives were more open to the rim where he could excel in finishing and getting to the free-throw line.
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Given the three options of shoot, drive, or pass, most players will say pass first, drive second, and shoot third.?
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If you always pass first, defenders will be able to anticipate and steal your passes.
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If you always look to drive first, defenders learn to lay in wait for you.
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If you never shoot on the catch, defenders learn that they don’t have to guard you.
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And, if your player takes time to evaluate all three of these, they will be too slow to create a scoring opportunity!
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We already discussed the “2 Moves and a Cue” framework and decided to leave passing as a secondary decision, but now we can add another layer with an analogy:
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There are only 1’s or 0’s in binary code – like an on-off switch, yet a skilled programmer can use that basic code to create nearly infinite possibilities.
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It is essential to understand that one option has to be the default, “always-on,” primary move in our decision framework.
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The second option is a countermove, triggered in the presence of our Cue for that situation.
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It’s equally important to know that?there can be only one Cue?for each decision.
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Even one additional Cue adds complexity and slows down decision-making.
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If we returned to our closeout situation and two options of shoot or drive – our primary move is to shoot, our countermove is to drive, and our Cue is “defenders hand up.”
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Do you need to look for your defender’s hand to see if it is down?
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No!
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The magic of binary decisions is that if the defender’s hand is not up, visible between the shooter’s eyes and the basket, it must be down, so we don’t have to look for it!
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We can quickly get off track and distract players from what to look for if we either choose the wrong Cue or attempt to give them two or more cues.
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The thing to remember is that these two options are not equal.
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Shooting must come first, and driving must come second.
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This simple consistency will make a difference in your player’s ease of mind in games. I can guarantee they will be attacking more aggressively and shooting more confidently in as little as a few weeks of focused work!
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“Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.”?
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– Bob Knight
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In summary:
See you on the court,
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Coach BJ