Defensive Basketball Drills and Advice

By Phil Canter

"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.

Building quickness drills:

Lines-Jump side to side and back and forth over the half court line or any line with one foot at a time and then both feet at a time. Go as fast as you can. You want little quick jumps.

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, 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 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. - 27772

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