Over the years I’ve been given a lot of advice about dribbling from some very respectable coaches. However many of these opinions oppose each other with regards to whether dribbling, shooting, passing drills etc. should be performed at an all out pace or as slow and perfect as possible.
Here are some of the arguments I’ve heard.
FAST: Dribbling drills should be performed as fast as absolutely possible, causing you to lose control of the ball and also fatigue yourself. The idea behind this is that once you can master these drills at such an intense pace, you will easily be able to handle the slower pace you find in a game situation. Also, the fatigue factor will help with the same sort of overcompensation idea, you get tired and lazy and have to focus a lot more on perfect form thus in a game when you may (or may not) be less tired, then these moves will come second nature and seem relatively easy.
SLOW: Dribbling drills should be practiced at a very slow, relaxed and repetative pace. Drilling the perfect form into your head (muscle memory). The idea is that when you become fatigued and lazy you will no longer be practicing “perfect form” and then your body will be remembering that slow and lazy stuff you have been practicing when you get into game time. By doing everything slowly without any fatigue you can clearly focus on your form and engrave perfection in your mind so then when you get into a fast paced game situation you won’t know how to do anything BUT perfect.
Soooo…when working on my dribbling, should I be focusing on slow, repetative movements, fast, tiring drills, or some combination of both?
Use the slow dribbling to perfect a certain move when first learning it. Once you master it, then move to the fast dribbling. Of the utmost importance however is simply being able to dribble with both hands doing basic moves while keeping your head up.
I dont know however, if I would go until fatigue while doing the intense dribbling. I would say, as long as you do it fast, and dont mess up most of the time, then its ok. If you are messing up due to fatigue however, then I would stop and rest.
So for the fast dribbling, just think of some combination involving 2-5 moves and do that combo as fast as you can.
For instance:
Cross -> B/W-LEGS -> behind-back -> behind-back-> in and out.
Try it a few times, and if you mess up just pick it up and try it again. Including messups and restarts, this shouldnt take more than 5-7 seconds. At this point just go shoot some layups with opposite hand or shoot free throws until you’re rested up for another combo.
Some other things that can help are:
dribbling with thick work gloves
dribbling with a heavier ball
even better, dribbling with a smaller heavier ball, like a small medicine ball that bounces
doing moves with eyes closed
dribbling with a tennis ball (honestly I dont have much experience with this but its somethin to try out. steve nash said he used tennis balls though not everyday, around campus, in his sleep, etc. as rumors said he did)
Make sure you master one move before moving onto the next. It’s better to be excellent in a few than ok in alot. Michael Jordan only had something like 6 main moves he used.
Be sure to learn moves with both hands. Learn to throw/pass/layup with both hands.
And make sure to actually use moves in the game! I think many people actually FORGET to implement what they have practiced individually once they get in a game, even if they have perfected it.
I completely agree with the keeping your head up and using BOTH hands. That’s probably the most important, and most over looked skill in the sport.
Many coaches will acctually integrate the dribbling and shooting drills (especially free throws) into the practice after a really hard workout or a set of lines or something. They feel that this level of fatigue will resemble that of a game situation. Do you agree with that theory or do you think that at this level you will no longer be able to perform as crisply as necessary for practicing?
I can see the important of practicing a combination of 2 moves because often that’s what it will take to beat your check. However I don’t see many situations in a game where as many as 5 consecutive moves would ever be needed all strung together. I play pointguard mostly and my general thought is you should be able to beat any check in full court pressure with one GOOD full speed move.
I’ve heard about the work glove idea, also that it’s very effective for shooting, to increase neuromuscular receptivity to the ball so you’ll be hugly overconmpensating without the gloves and thus be insanely accurate.
Also, my coach told me that I need to work on my timing for passes. I seem to hesitate before sending it off. I’m not sure if these are just mental errors or if there are any drills I can working with at home to help get the passes away quicker. Any suggestions?
Andrea,
I’ve had experience with the methods of doing suicides, wall sits, 4-6-4s, horses, etc. followed by ballhandling/shooting for the purpose of getting used to performing under fatigue. I can’t really say it worked, although I was such a raw athlete as I didn’t grow up in the United States so my fundamentals were greatly behind other American players. I just know it sucked bigtime.
But why not simply, train so that you DONT GET tired and then do the shooting on its own with good quality? Do the skills when fresh, so as to enforce good motor patterns, and train your conditioning separately so that you’re as fresh as can be for as long as possible.
As for the combinations up to 5 moves, yes you are correct in that one would never use this. But its just a drill to challenge yourself. There are many other drills that are not useful in a game but will still improve your handles. But again, basic fundamentals: both hands, head up, basic moves, should be mastered first. Something to note is that practicing a move with the non dominant hand will make the dominant hand even better than if it were solely practiced with the dominant hand. Dirk Nowitzki’s trainer Holger Geschwindner believed this and thusly made Dirk the skilled machine that he is today.
By hesitation before passing do you mean that it just takes some time to do the action or there is a mental freeze before you start the action? If its a mental freeze then maybe your court vision needs work or you just need some more experience so as to know how to see the floor effectively, find the correct matchups/mismatches, make your drive/shoot/pass reads, etc.
If its the action that is slow, then you just need to practice passing off the dribble or passing with either hand off the dribble and whipping it to a cutter.
Maybe other ballers can chime in on how they organize their skill training in the offseason? I think this aspect of the basketball section could be brought up more because this whole site addresses the physical part of the game.
believe that you should sort of combine the fast and slow like you said, i basically just use the slow dribbles while standing still to warm up and get ready for the for intense work
i also just like to do some basic moves like between legs, behind back, crossover etc. in a zig zag fashion just to warm up and get some basic moves down
one of the best drills i can contribute my improve ball handling is just setting up a bunch of cones in any sequence you can all over the court… and just use any moves you can think of as you reach a cone, while trying to vary speeds etc…
try and do will not thinking just use combos that you are not comfortable with… and you will probably lose the ball, but it happens and it will only make you better
i believe that trying to do more advanced moves to really challenge your self is the best method…
if your able to perform a combo such as a double between the legs with a crossover, im pretty sure you can make a simple between the legs move by itself, so i think going extremely hard, and continuing to push through even while your tired is the best way to do it.
So you don’t agree with the whole slow, steady and repetative to drill everything into your head, and progressively moving up then?
I guess my worry with doing it the way you’re talking about, which is the way most coaches prefer, is that by “pushing through” I’m not going to be performing my absolute best, and I’ll be practicing bad form as I try to learn these super hard moves. But I can definitly see your reasoning behind it. It’s the same kind of theory as speed reserve, if you’re able to do more, that just makes it a lot easier to do less.
To be honest I don’t know exactly what she means by it, but I’m sure that practicing the passing right off the dribble can’t hurt in any way. And in case it’s some kind of mental block that I’ve got going on then I guess I’ll probably have to spend some time visualizing, running through game situations in my head etc.
you have to realize that in game situations there are very rarely oppurtunites where you are going to stay true to your perfect form your talking about
there is always going to be alot of defensive pressure on you in games and in think that performing high intensity work is the best way to get ready for that… in a game you are going to have to be able to go from all sorts of different dribbles in a game and you just have to react, and that is why i believe that going as hard as you can is the best way
but any extra dribbling you do, if your just sitting around and want to work on your form and doing everything perfect will definitely only help improve your overall ball handling