Jeff Haefner's Coaching Blog

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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

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

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

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 77 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

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

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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