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How to Teach Transition Offense at the Beginning of the Season

November 5, 2016 by Jeff Haefner 2 Comments

This is my first official week of basketball practices — this week I have practices with 4th grade boys, 6th grade girls, and high school varsity boys… That’s a wide range of ages!  Yet I teach them all our transition offense the exact same way.  I start teaching our 4th graders the same way I […]

Filed Under: 4th Grade Basketball, Transition

How To Develop Great Spacing On Offense – Spacing Drills For Your Motion Offense

December 1, 2015 by Jeff Haefner 1 Comment

I explain motion offense to our teams in two sentences… “We want spacing and ball movement until we get a good shot. Get all the rebounds and loose balls.” That’s how I explain it to our 3rd graders, 5th graders, and 10th graders.  Everything we teach comes from that.  Those words are repeated hundreds of times […]

Filed Under: Offense

Our Transition Offense. Super Simple.

October 7, 2015 by Jeff Haefner Leave a Comment

We run a really simple transition offense.  I run this with our 3rd and 5th grade youth teams.  I also plan to run this with our 10th grade high school team this year. In the half court, we run a 5 out motion offense.  I mention this because I think it’s important for your transition […]

Filed Under: Transition

Fill and Backdoor Cut Drill – Improve Team Offense & Skills at the Same Time

May 24, 2015 by Jeff Haefner Leave a Comment

With most of our drills, we take a “piece” of our motion offense and turn it into a skill development combo drill.  This allows you to work more efficiently because you’re practicing your team offense and improving skills at the same time. Here’s a drill that incorporates the “filling to the ball” aspect of our offense […]

Filed Under: 4th Grade Basketball, Drills, Offense, Player Development

Another Favorite Drill – Triangle Pass and Cut

April 25, 2015 by Jeff Haefner Leave a Comment

Here’s another one of my favorite drills…. Triangle Pass and Cut. We use this drill with our 4th grade girls team and our 10th grade boys team. I like this drill because it takes a piece of our offense (pass and cut) and allows us to work on our skills (passing, timing, lay ups) at […]

Filed Under: 4th Grade Basketball, Drills, Offense, Player Development

4 Out 1 In Motion Offense Rules

March 23, 2015 by Jeff Haefner 76 Comments

With our 10th grade boys’ team, we ran a 4-out 1-in motion offense. We used this offense against man to man defense and ALL zone defenses. It worked great!! Other than a couple “end of quarter set plays”, we never changed what we ran. We always ran our 41 motion offense regardless of what defense […]

Filed Under: Offense

Should You Use the Popular “High Ball Screen Play” For Your Youth Team?

March 20, 2015 by Jeff Haefner 22 Comments

I’d like to share my opinion on a popular ball screen play that I see all the time. While coaching my daughter’s 4th grade team, the high ball screen for the point guard is the most common play I see.  Seems like almost half of the teams run a variation of this play. I hope I […]

Filed Under: 4th Grade Basketball, Offense, Player Development, Practice Strategy

Trying New Drills – No Dribble is Still One of the Best

January 21, 2015 by Jeff Haefner 1 Comment

I’ve tried dozens of new drills this year with both our 4th graders and our 10th grade high school team.  I plan to keep using several of them. I’ll start writing up the drills and sharing them with you soon. But I keep going back to a really simple drill that is still one of my […]

Filed Under: 4th Grade Basketball, Drills, Offense

New Article: Stupid Simple Entry that Always Works – How to Initiate Your Offense

February 25, 2014 by Jeff Haefner Leave a Comment

I wrote a new article called A Stupid Simple Entry that Always Works – How to Initiate Your Offense. We recently started using this entry with our high school sophomore boys and our 3rd grade girls.  It works at all levels, it’s simple, and I really like the aggressive “attack” mentality that goes along with it. […]

Filed Under: 10th Grade (Sophomore) Basketball, Offense

8 Components of Good Motion Offense

February 11, 2014 by Jeff Haefner Leave a Comment

I want to share something that I “rediscovered” this season. After every game or scrimmage, ask yourself the following 8 questions about your half court offense… Do we have good spacing? Do we have good ball movement/reversals? Do we have good player movement (cuts, screens, fades, etc)? Are we getting the ball inside (via dribble […]

Filed Under: 10th Grade (Sophomore) Basketball, Offense

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About Me

I’m a basketball coach, skill development trainer, and Co-Owner of Breakthrough Basketball. I currently live in Marion, Iowa with my wife, two kids, and our golden retriever (Izzy).

Right now I am coaching two teams. I will be coaching... Read More...

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