Everyone has heard the “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships,” but is it true? Of course it is true, because to win you need to play defense. You do not know from night to night if your shot is going to go in, but you defense will always be there. That just takes hard work and practice.
So why are people not practicing defense. It will separate them from your competition. It is because they are either too flashy or do not know how to practice defense. That is what these individual defensive drills will help you with. They will make you the player that your coach loves and always puts on the other teams best offensive player.
Building quickness drills:
Lines- Jump back and forth, and side to side over lines with both feet and one foot at a time. You want quick little jumps.
.Dots- In this drills, make 5 dots. Have 4 in a square and 1 in the middle so that they will look like an x. Do every combo jumping dot to dot on them. Do this with each foot or both feet.
Bounding- In this drill you want to jump as far as you can off one foot and then land with your other. Then you will regain balance just on that other foot and jump off of it onto your other foot. Do this in random directions. Do this to train your muscle to bound, not exhaust them. This means, go hard for a small amount of time.
Different Game Situations
Shuffle- Use the push slide step technique, and never overlap your feet. The push slid step technique is push with one leg, then slide the other one next to it, and then step back to where you started. It is that simple. To do this, go from the end of the lane to the other while staying in your defensive stance. Your defensive stance is having one hand inches from the ground and one hand up in someone face. The one hand up is to be distracting the player ready to block his shot or get a hand in the face while the low hand is being pesky and is the hand preventing the crossover ready to steal the ball and therefore making the playing you are guarding to go the direction you want him to go while making him uncomfortable.
Closing Out- Start out of bounds and put a cone at the free throw line. Imagine the cone as an imaginary person. Run at it and then chop step when you get close with your but down and hands up being ready for the shot and drive. Practice like it is a real game, or you will get burned in a real game.
Ball Shuffle Drill- Pass the ball along the wall while shuffleing. Always stay in your defensive stance while doing this. Remember that for all the defensive drills and you will get a great workout.
Comments on this entry are closed.