Basketball Defensive Drills

Basketball Defensive Drills and Knowledge - "Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships." This is usually true because to win a championship, you have to win many games in succession and your offense may not always show up, but your defense will never let you down if you work hard. So why is it that you never see kids practicing their defensive drills in their driveway? Because they are either too flashy or do not know any. These individual defensive drills will make you the player your coach puts in to shut down the other teams stud.

Drills to build quickness

Lines- Jump back and forth, and side to side over lines with both feet and one foot at a time.

5 dots- Make five dots in an x shape. One in the middle and four around it. Do every combo and pattern imaginable jumping from dot to dot.

Bounding- This teaches you to bound on defense like all great defenders. In this go on one foot and jump for horizontal distances as far as you can and land on one foot, and then from that foot jump again as far as you can horizontally. And do it in random directions for short periods at a time. This is to train muscles, not exhaust them. So go very hard for a very short period of time.

Game Situations

Shuffle- Use the push slide step technique, not overlapping your feet. (The push slid step technique is push with one leg; slide the other one next to it, and the step.) Go back and forth across the lane staying in the defensive stance. While doing this, you must have one hand inches from the ground and one hand up. The one hand up is to be in the players face in game ready to block/distract shot while the low hand is the pesky hand preventing the crossover and therefore forcing the playing you are guarding one direction and always making him uncomfortable.

Closing Out- Start on the baseline and put a cone at the three point line as an imaginary person. Run at it and then shuffle when you get close with your but down and hands up being ready for the shot and drive. Make sure you do this like it is a game or you will be sloppy in the game like you are right now while practicing.

Ball Drill- Shuffle along the wall while passing it off the wall at the same time back to yourself. Remember in all these drills the most important thing is to stay in your defensive stance at all times and that it is about technique, not how fast you go.

The best players in basketball improve their game by drilling themselves with basketball defensive drills.

For more articles about basketball you can visit http://www.greatbasketballdrills.com.

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