All Pro Shooting Basketball Tips

There are tons of basketball drills you can do, but lets talk about how to pick an effective drill and what your focus needs to be while YOU are doing the drill to gain the maximum benefit.

• First of all, basketball drills need to simulate a game situation. Here is a guideline on how to pick a drill that is simulating a game situation: If you can visualize yourself on the basketball court, in a game, actually making that move that the drill is instructing you to do, then that drill is simulating a game situation.

• Second: You need to do the drill at game speed so that you will transfer the skills you are learning into the game. I often say to players that; “if you do a drill at half speed you will get really good and half speed, but come game time your going to be in trouble.” The reason is pretty obvious. When you are doing a drill you are preparing yourself for the game. So you must demonstrate to yourself that you can effectively perform the skills that this drill is helping you to develop, at game speed. This will give you the confidence that you will transfer those skills into the game itself.

• Third: you need to visualize yourself in the game itself, while you are doing the drill, “be mentally in the game.” See yourself being closely guarded by a defender. Keep your eyes up “scan the court” while you are doing the drill. See your teammates on the court and the players defending them.

• Fourth: Set a goal for what it will take for you to complete this drill. If you are doing a drill that ends with a shot, for instance, then set the goal in terms of how many shots you need to make or what percentage of shots you need to make in order to complete the drill. Goals are an individual thing. The goal that an NBA or WNBA player may set to complete a drill will probably be different than what a middle school player might set.

I invented a drill for an NBA player one time in which he had to make twenty shots on this particular drill in order to complete this drill. I knew he had the conditioning and the skill level in order to accomplish the drill but even for him the goal made him stretch. Well, I have used that same drill with players at all levels of play and each person I did the drill with had a goal that was appropriate for them.

Did you notice a couple sentences back that I mentioned the goal made the player stretch? Well that is very important when you are doing a drill. Really work it , get a sweat going,  go at game speed in order to finish the drill. You don’t have to practice out of your comfort zone, but you certainly need to be practicing at the high end of your comfort zone. Setting a goal of 20 makes maybe unrealistic for you, but setting a goal to make 5 shots may not be. So set a goal that is realistic for you, but that when done at game speed it really makes you work hard to complete it. You need to have the confidence that in a game the moves in this drill will be there when you need them and they will be if you follow these guidelines.

A question I always ask players that I am working with is: What is the goal of a drill? Of course I get a variety of answers including, “to get better”…”to learn new skills”…”to get in good shape” etc. All of these answers are correct and I am sure you could add one or two of your own. The answer that nobody has given me so far is to: “Finish the Drill”. The goal really of a drill is to finish the drill so you can move on to the next drill.

Your practice session should be set up so that you move from one drill to the next, accomplishing the goal for each particular drill as you go through your workout. The more goals you accomplish in your workout, at game speed, the more effective and focused that workout was.

I was working with an professional player one day. We had had many sessions together before so I had a good idea of his skill level and how hard he worked as well as his focus level. This particular workout session he was working hard, which I never questioned, but I could tell his focus level was a little low that day. I knew this because he was taking longer to finish the drills than normal. All of the drills ended in him having to make a shot and he was missing more shots than he normal. Finally I said to him, “if you are choosing to miss your shots today do everything else better”.

I made suggestions like, dribble harder, make your change of direction moves faster, be quicker with your feet. He responded to all of those suggestions by elevating his workout session to a much higher level and interestingly enough when he did everything else better he also began shooting better. Can you think of a reason why working harder at everything else in the drills would have made his shooting percentage better? If you said that by doing everything else better his level of focus increased, which effected his shot in positive way, you would be on the right track.

Let’s sum up what your focus should when you are doing your drills.

• Pick drills that simulate a game situation
• Do the drills at game speed
• Visualize yourself in a game while you are performing your drills
• Set a goal for what it takes to complete the drill

I am confident that if you follow these guidelines you will get better each and every workout that you have.
Please leave your comments, suggestions or questions before you leave. I would love to hear them and they may benefit others as well.

Mike Phelps, Director of All Pro Shooting

www.allproshooting.com

 

 

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 11:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.