Basketball Weak Side Defense and Help Positioning is Important!

By Jeff Haefner

We posted a NEW article about basketball defensive positioning and weak side help.  Everybody knows that guarding the ball is important, but GREAT defense happens AWAY from the ball…

Weak side help positioning is critically important for your defense.  In this new article we review key elements to proper positioning and provide you with some simple rules that make teaching defense to players SO MUCH easier!

Check it out and let us know what you think…

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/defense/help-positioning.html

A Secret to Chris Paul’s Success - Change of Pace

By Joe Haefner

How does Chris Paul blow by defenders so easily?

I feel sorry for all of the defenders trying to guard Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets as he blows by them for a jump shot or dunk.  I am amazed at the way he finds that 3rd and 4th gear and CHANGES PACE so quickly and effortlessly.

Chris Paul goes from really fast to super fast and he’ll stop at the drop of a dime which is nearly impossible to adjust to as a defender.   That’s why he has asserted himself as one of the top NBA MVP candidates along with Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett.  

Do you have Chris’s amazing speed and quickness? 

Most likely, you do not.  Don’t worry.  You can still be extremely effective by CHANGING SPEEDS.  Change of speed or pace can make a slow player very difficult to guard.  You think Larry Bird was quick?  If so, think again. 

Larry Bird might be one of the slowest players to play the game, but he still utilized the change of pace and was voted as one of the top 50 NBA players of all-time! Have you ever tried guarding somebody who changes speeds all of the time?  I have and it sucks!  You never know when he’s going to explode by you or slow down and pull up for a jump shot.  You can never relax as a defender!  

How You Can Practice Change of Pace and Become Harder to Guard

With that being said, you do need practice more than two speeds (Fast & Slow).   Good defenders can adjust to this after just a few possessions. Many of the great players have 4 to 5 different speeds to throw the defender off.  I remember watching Mike Conley of Ohio State in the NCCA Tourney in 2007.  I thought he had 6 different speeds and he was never out of control.

In order to practice this you can simply dribble the ball up and down the court.  Do your change of speeds at two to three times up the court.  For example, change speeds at the free throw line, half court, and the opposite free throw line. You can practice different speeds…. 3/4 speed to full speed, 1/2 speed to full speed, 1/4 speed to full speed, and stop to full speed.  Try to minimize the time it takes you to reach that top gear.  This basketball move is also known as the “hesitation dribble”. You can even practice using multiple speeds.  For example, going from 1/2 speed to 3/4 speed to full speed.  Mix it up to portray game-like situations. When you get the hang of this, you can practice at a hoop going in for lay ups and pull up jump shots.  Once, you perfect this, this change of pace will have defenders’ heads spinning.

Thoughts on the John Calipari Roast…

By Don Kelbick

While my friend John Calipari is being roasted over the coals for not calling a time out at the end of regulation last night (maybe he should be fired) here are a few things to think about.

Last week, Bob McKillop of Davidson called a time out to set up his last second shot against Kansas. They got nothing. Last night, Bill Self also did not call a time out either(I don’t remember if he had any left. If not, also an error, maybe he should be fired. Anyway, whether he had one or not is irrelevant) and they got the shot that effectively won the game.

If Cal had called a TO would the kid have missed the shot? Don’t know. If  Kansas did not have a time out, did  Coach Cal not want to call one so Kansas could not set up a play? Don’t know. If Kansas did have a time out left, would Bill Self call it?  Couldn’t have gotten a better outcome. If they did have one left, why didn’t he call it. If McKillop did not call a time out, would they have gotten a better shot? The bottom line is, one kid hit the shot, the other didn’t.

Everyone gets to play the result (including the assistants) except the guys who made the decisions. Why can’t we just say “Great game and it is the players that decided it, not the coaches.” Which is what happened in both games. It is usually what happens in all games.

Cynical Thoughts on the Dribble Drive Motion Offense

By Don Kelbick

Just a couple of cynical thoughts as I watched Memphis wipe the floor with Texas. As, they run their “Dribble Drive Motion,” you can’t tell me that the type of offense they run will make any difference with how good they are. They are great athletes with terrific skills and any offense they run will not only be successful but due to their skills set, no matter what they run, it will turn into a “Dribble Drive” because they are all very good at that. Somewhere, in northern New Hampshire or western Idaho, or eastern Montana, some coach is sitting in his living room, taking notes and planning to install it with his program of 5′10″ rural farmers and will be genuinely surprised when he doesn’t get the same results as Memphis. Once again, it’s not the x’s and the o’s, it’s the Jimmys and the Joes.

Picture by shundaroni

Way back when, in the 70’s and early 80’s, there was no shot clock in college basketball. Dean Smith had an offense called the “4 Corners.” He used it to isolate his great guards (Larry Brown, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, etc) and to run the clock. One of the games that precipitated the use of the shot clock was a UNC game against Virginia with Ralph Sampson. UNC held the ball with the 4 Corners and the half-time score was 7-0. I believe the final score was something like 16-9. After that game, people started calling for the shot clock.

My first real job was at a Div. III school called Longwood College (now a Div. I school). Our Head Coach ran the same 4 Corners as UNC, except we called it “4 to Score.” We ran it with exactly the same rotations and cuts, except to we tried to get the ball handler to penetrate instead hold the ball. The result was that the same exact offense that produ ced the 7-0 half-time score allowed us to average 91 ppg. You know what? It looked EXACTLY like the “Dribble, Drive, Motion.” That was 30 years ago. We just called it something else. And in reality, it wasn’t new even when we ran, we took it from someone else. Old coaching saying, “Nothing new has been invented in basketball since the jump shot.”