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Thursday, August 22, 2024

Basketball: Practice, Fast Five Fun (with Purpose)

"Play hard, play smart, play together, have fun." We know it, but are we practicing that way? 

Five fun practice activities that work: 

Dribble tag - Six or fewer players inside the arc with a ball. Someone is 'it'. Add difficulty by requiring non-dominant hand dribbling and/or other constraints like crossovers every third dribble. 

Gauntlet - Two players must navigate the 'gauntlet' of full court with no more than one dribble per touch. Difficulty level - high. 


Ultimate (or Olympus) - Five versus five (or 6 v 6) full court. Pass and cut with the goal of either 1st version reaching the "end zone" or 2nd version scoring. Problem? No dribbling allowed. This forces 'pass and cut' basketball. If the ball hits the floor for any reason, turnover with live ball going the other weay. 

Pressure free throws - shooter plus partner...ten shots. Partner may say or do anything except touch or physically interfere with the shooter. Teenage boys and girls can say some pretty mean things, worse than playing before 5,000 people in the Garden. 

3 x 3 x 3 - usually run for five minutes. This helps conditioning and shooting. Passer calls out player's name to help communication. 


Short version (can use as pregame warmup) 


Lagniappe. Tatum teaches. In addition to 'his moves', this teaches 'dribble pickups' into a shot. 

Lagniappe 2. Love the process. Create great habits.  

Lagniappe 3. Part of your culture is passing it down to younger players. Teach and encourage and never "bigfoot" them. 

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