Guard Skills

One of the things I have noticed the past few years I have been training/coaching is the lack of specificity when it comes to teaching guards some of the specific skills they need to be able to practically perform in game.  I have noticed that a lions share of the time really skilled guards often imitate other highly skilled guards, and therefore they're definitely things that COULD be taught, but instead its the players themselves who are more in touch with the skills that have the most practical value and therefore simply emulate other players who are effective.  Below you're going to see Jazmine Davis, a talented combo guard that just finished her Collegiate career at Washington.  I wonder if she could communicate exactly what she is doing in all these clips and teach it to another player, or is she simply emulating things she has seen? Either way its my job as a coach to be able to do the former.


Changing Speeds, SLOW to FAST

This is something that get talked about a fair amount, but either kids aren't explosive enough to create a gap between slow and fast, or they don't have the patience to slow down enough to create the perceived change in MPH.


Straightening Up : Here we are going to see JD come off a screen and get a switch, in order to attack the speed mismatch she will pull the ball out to get space, but then she literally stands up to set the defender up for going full speed, I call this straitening up.  two keys here, 1 she slows way down to a standstill, 2 she actually stands up and makes her body look relaxed.  Defenders must be super disciplined not to match their player's rhythm and relax as they straighten up

Step Step Move : here is another speed mis-match situation but I should make this point, When you have a mis-match in the post or on the perimeter its not that you should be doing anything special, it should allow you to do everything you're good at a little better.  Post should still make the post moves they would usually make, guards should attack using moves they usually use, when offenses or players break out of what their "flow" is offensively in order to go at a mis-match it usually grinds the offensive team to a halt.  With all that said, JD uses footwork i call a STEP STEP.  This is where the change of speed comes from a series of gradual jabs forward or a slow to fast step. This can be done with the dribble as well.

Draw back dribble

so now we will see JD use a version of the step step off the dribble, the key is to watch her draw her hand from the top to the back of the ball to create a slow to fast change of speed

Beat your man, or get the defense to make a lateral mistake

When we talk about moves for players with a live dribble it breaks down to this: Good defenders will either take away one half of the floor (no middle, no baseline, push left, etc) or they will do their best to keep the ball handler centered/squared up with no angle to the rim. Therefore the skill is for ball handlers to get defenders to make mistakes to the right or the left.  Are their a ton of ways to do this? Absolutely, but I'm going to show you these two because  I think they're simple, yet can be mastered at advanced levels of speed and deception.

Harden Step, watch JD with hands with ball then jab away from her dribble (this is similar to an in and out)

Lunge cross, watch JD takes a slow lunge stop very similar to the step step, but then snaps a front cross

Intermediate Attack Moves

 This means that in the paint you are having to make counter or additional movements in order to create offense. Could this include floaters, euro steps, pull ups, step through and pro hops? Yep it sure could.

Counter dribbles,  note how JD is able to change direction at a high speed with a wrap dribble in traffic, this may be the best counter dribble to use against secondary defenders when you have broken the 3 point arc.

When you catch on the perimeter and face a long closeout or no closeout and you have a lane to the rim, YOU must be able able to attack that lane aggressively.  Here you're going to see JD catch against a zone defense and have a gap to drive, she is able to take 2 dribbles in a straight line and cover up the ball with a football technique to split the gap.  the skill of hitting the lane with a 1 dribble or 2 dribble attack at full speed and then being strong enough to GATHER through the hands of secondary defenders is the skill here.

Cause a collision, draw a foul

This is related to the GATHER skill mentioned above.  beating your man is one skill/something your offense or teammates will produce, once you have a player on your hip, are you skilled enough to finish INTO contact?  Notice how JD picks up the ball in order to cause a collision with a defender who is in a bad position. (Also notice the defenders disbelief)

Hesitation and re attack when initial move is cutoff

you'll see in this clip JD uses a harden step and is cut off, but she counters by stopping then re attacking.

and here you'll see her attack right on her catch (the best time to attack, don't be a ball stopper like MELO) and when she's cut off she will hesitate then re attack.

Pick and Roll offense

I could write a small novel about pick and roll offense, but the idea behind this post is to try to keep it simple so I'm going to show two skills.

The first is being able to hit a 1-2 pull up on a dime from 15 ft

The next skill is to hesitate against a soft hedge or switch into a speed mis-match and then go slow to fast. This serves two purposes, first the hesitation will cause confusion with the pick and roll coverage and there are times when the hedge will simply leave, secondly the hesitation sets up the slow to fast change of speed to attack the big. (also notice the uncanny ability to get her player in the air and draw the foul, SO MUCH DISBELIEF)

I did not cover shooting, playing off the catch,  passing, or finishing in this post. I will cover those in the future.  In the game of basketball you can do almost anything, so you'd better pick a few things to be better than everyone else at.