Offense »
Features
Competitive shooting drills to challenge players
Pushing the pace of your players during practice, or forcing them to compete against one another, properly prepares them for game-time situations. Here are two drills you can implement into your system, helping them improve shooting, rebounding, pass...
Developing young players who adapt to the competition
Is it better to understand directions or learn how to read a map? The first gets you where you want to go, as long as you have someone who can tell you all the roads, turns and landmarks you’ll encounter along the way. But with the latter, you can...
How big-on-small screens give offenses a greater edge
Ball screens and countless types of off-the-ball screens are difficult enough for the opposition to defend. When offensive packages use those screens with different players at different locations, it’s even harder. One method that defenses use agai...
Support for high school shot clock going strong
This summer, my home state of Wisconsin became the latest to implement a shot clock for high school basketball. The change, which won’t take effect until the 2019-20 school year, was met with overwhelming support, despite the growing pains that lik...
Drills to teach the single-post offense
Almost all our team shooting drills will incorporate actions or concepts out of our single-post offense. Practicing the field goals you attempt in a game will only increase your shooting percentage. Furthermore, the proper execution of these breakdow...
Using ‘Elevator Screens’ to close the door on defenders
The “elevator screen” is appropriately named because it has two stationary screeners that are stacked together but leaves just enough room for a teammate to cut through to the opposite side for a perimeter shot. Once the cutter has passed through...
Don Meyer’s shooting games and free-throw drills
Don Meyer, the NCAA's winningest all-time men's basketball coach, loved to keep his practices simple in nature. He shared his favorite six shooting competitions (with six free-throw-shooting games to follow) that he used at practices to help develop ...
Teaching your players to be true point guards
Editor's Note: Shaka Smart wrote this article for Winning Hoops in 2002. At the time, Smart was the coordinator of basketball operations for the University of Dayton. Good point guards are hard to find. Sure, every team has a player or two who's...
5-out motion offense helps players read the defense
Our high school is small and our team lacks size. As a coaching staff, we felt that we needed to develop an offense that would help overcome this size differential and allow our players to do what they do best on the offensive side of the court. The ...
Effectively using brush screens in your offense
The brush screen is more popular in the college game and has been modified from its original form: the downscreen. With a brush screen, the cutter breaks from a screen that is in motion and stays in motion. There is no jump-stopping by the screener b...