Tight Spaces Ball Handling Drill - Helps Develop You Into An Elite Scorer

Joe Haefner: Hey, this is coach Joe Haefner. This ball handling drill forces you to develop tighter handles and makes you more explosive and quicker with your dribble moves.

Joe Haefner: This is also a great drill because it self-coaches. You don't need a trainer or a coach there to tell you what to do. If you don't do it correctly, you're not going to have success in the drill. You have to develop great ball handling habits and attack in straight lines. If you don't attack in straight lines, then you can't get to the basket as quickly.

Joe Haefner: You also have to be deceptive with your moves. You have to use your eyes, your shoulders, and other body movements to shift the defender to create a gap to attack. Also, due to the smaller space, there's going to be contact. So, you have to learn how to manage contact to get by the defender.

Joe Haefner: You even learn how to initiate contact to your advantage to get by the defender. Of course, you don't want to plow into the defender. That would be a charge. However, if you attack the defender's hip, you can knock them slightly off balance and get to the basket. This delays their recovery and gives you a better chance to get to the basket to score or create a scoring opportunity for one of your teammates.

Joe Haefner: Additionally, through trial and error, you learn to recognize the exact space that you need to get to the basket and score.

Joe Haefner: This is great for any age level. If they're a little bit younger or less skilled, you can widen the cones, or if the player is more advanced, you can actually tighten the cones.

Jim Huber: Hi. This is called one-on-one tight space drill. What we're going to do is, to make it game like, we're going to sit through and act likes somebody is at the top, they're attacking the basket with the defender on them, trying to control tempo, gain separation.

Jim Huber: We have these six cones here to have them in tight. So, they have a limited amount of space they can work with. If they go outside these cones when they're attacking, it's a turnover, so a switch from offense to defense. If they get through these cones live, and they're attacked, and they get through here past them, then it becomes one-on-one.

Jim Huber: What we want to do with this drill though, too, is we're making it where they have four dribbles, a maximum of four dribbles to attack and go score through this. If they take more than four dribbles, it's a turnover. Right?

Jim Huber: You can give them five dribbles, six dribbles, whatever. We're just going to give them four on this one in particular right here. Okay? So you can decide how many dribbles you want to give them.

Jim Huber: So now, we're going to have Zach be on offense. Dek's going to be on defense. We're starting here. They're playing it.

Jim Huber: Well, he took five dribbles on it. So, we'd call that a turnover, and now we go switch up offense and defense on the drill.

Jim Huber: This is a harder drill. You're making this war, that it's game like. You're making it difficult more than the game so when they get in the game it doesn't become as difficult for them.

Jim Huber: Again, that would be a turnover as well.

Jim Huber: So, he got it done. Zach there was efficient. More than that, he got it done in four.

Jim Huber: Again, whatever you need to do. It's going to be different on your age. These are juniors in high school. Again, I would probably have four to five dribbles around there. If it's youth, you might give them a little bit more so they get used to it, so they have some success in the drill as well. You don't want to get them defeated all the time where they got their head down and they think they can't succeed.

Jim Huber: Kind of balance that out as an individual and figure out what's going to work best for you.

Joe Haefner: Hey. We hoped you enjoyed the video. Now, if you're serious about becoming a better basketball player, we wanted to let you know about our Breakthrough Basketball camps.

Joe Haefner: There are hundreds of locations across North America, and there are camps for youth players to overnight camps for high school players. Last year over 12,000 players attended Breakthrough Basketball camps, and over 120 camps sold out.

Joe Haefner: If you'd like to learn more, go to breakthroughcamps.com or click on the link below or in the description.