Teaching Basketball by Drill Progression

From the Coach’s Clipboard Basketball Playbook, @ http://www.coachesclipboard.net

This article discusses and demonstrates how we teach various aspects of the game using a progression method. We break things down into parts, drill those parts, and then put it all together. We start with individual 1-on-1 drills, progressing through 2-on-2, 3-on-3, 4-on-4, and finally 5-on-5. Many of our drills are competitive, with losers running or doing push-ups.

Early in the season, this method is especially useful for installing your half-court offense and defense, as well as your transiton offense and press break, and your full-court press defense. We also use progression in teaching how we defend screens. Teaching by progression is especially useful early in the season when you are introducing something new, whereas later in the season, you can focus more on certain aspects and details that need more practice and re-inforcement.

Most of the drills listed below are found in the Coach's Clipboard's drills section.


Progression for teaching your half-court offense and plays

First, we will teach our basic half-court motion offense. We break this down with perimeter players on one end of the court, and post players on the other, and will breakdown for 15-20 minutes each practice. We use drills outlined on these pages:
Motion Offense Drills
1-on-1 and 2-on-1 Drills
Guard Breakdown Drills
Post Player Breakdown Drills

5-on-5, full-court drill
We use this 5-on-5 drill for putting it all together. Flowing into your motion offense after running your fast break or secondary break is more game-like, and is better for conditioning. In this scrimmage-like drill, both teams play man-to-man defense, and will fast break and score in transition whenever possible. If a team scores off the break, the action is stopped and they get the ball back, at the top, in their half-court set, and will run the motion offense. Additionally, any time the fast break is stopped, our point guard will call out and execute the motion offense. We play to 7 baskets, and losers run or do push-ups. All of our drills are competitive.

Similarly, we teach our zone offense(s). We will first demonstrate in the half-court, our "Zone-23" offense, or our "Zone-2" offense, and point out what we are trying to do, how we want to attack the zone, rules, etc. Then we run our 5-on-5, full-court drill as above with the same rules (running the offense after the break), except now both teams are playing zone defense and zone offense.

When teaching new half-court plays, we will demonstrate in the half-court and run through the various options. Then we will split the squad and go 5-on-0 on each end of the court, calling out and executing the plays. Our next practice, we will run the plays out of the secondary break, using our 5-on-0 down-and-back drill, running a different play each trip. Then the next 5 players does the same. We will then run our 5-on-5 full-court drill as above, with both teams playing man-to-man defense, and the offense running plays. To disguise the plays from the defense, we periodically allow each team a quick 20-second huddle, so they can call their plays (for example, our "Carolina" play might be called "play-1" or some color, while "Kentucky" could be "play-2").

On subsequent practices, our offensive drill progression may look like this:
If our next opponent plays mainly man-to-man defense, we will spend most of our 5-on-5 time on motion offense and man-to-man plays. If the next opponent is a zone defensive team, most time will be spent on the zone offense and plays.

Progression for teaching your press offenses

Early in the season, we teach our three press offenses, "80" (vs full-court press), "60" (vs 3/4-court press), and "40" (vs 1/2-court press). We will usually teach all three in the same practice, as there as similarities in the three offenses in terms of rules and alignments.

We start with teaching the full-court "80" press offense. We demonstrate the player alignment, discuss the rules, and then run it 5-on-0. We will then drill it 5-on-5 with the defense in a 1-2-1-1 diamond full-court press.

Next, we progress to the "60" press break, and finally the half-court "40" press offense, drilling each as above with initially 5-on-0, and then 5-on-5. When drilling the "60" press offense 5-on-5, the defense sets up in a 2-2-1 press. When drilling the "40" press offense, the defense uses the 1/2 court Viking press (1-2-2).

The progression for teaching the "80", "60" and "40" press offenses would look like this:

Progression for teaching your half-court man-to-man defense

First, see "Tenets of Team Man-to-Man Defense" to understand how to play this defense. There are many break-down drills that we use.

First, we teach individual man-to-man, 1-on-1, on-ball defense containing the offensive player. Next, we teach defenders how to deny the pass (one pass away) using a 2-on-2 drill. Then, we teach defenders help and recover, and the importance of stopping the seams and preventing dribble-penetration from the top or wings (using a 2-on-2, or 3-on-3 drill). Next, we use the 4-on-4 shell drill, teaching helpside positioning and rotations as the ball moves. We use both the 4-on-4 and 5-on-5 shell drill when teaching how to defend baseline dribble-penetration, double-teaming the low post, defending cutters and screens, etc.

Our defensive drill progression may look like this:
 There are other defensive drills that we will use during the course of the season to focus on certain aspects of our defense (see M2M Breakdown Drills and the other drills listed under the Coach's Clipboard's defensive drills section).

We also use a drill progression for teaching how we defend screens. At one of our first practices, we teach and demonstrate how we want to defend each type of screen. We want all players using the same rules when defending screens. We will demonstrate how we defend the pick-and-roll screen, back-screens, down-screens (and curl-cuts), lateral perimeter screens, lateral post screens, and hand-off (weave) screens. All players (post and perimeter) are taught how to defend all types of screens, as sometimes perimeter players get caught defending inside, or a post player may be on the perimeter (after a switch).
We then breakdown and our drill progression for teaching how to defend screens is like this:

Progression for teaching the full-court match-up press system

The match-up press presented on this website is complicated and is actually a "system" of presses and variations based on a set of rules. Before you start teaching this match-up system, understand that you must be fully committed to being a pressing team, and that you have the practice time available to develop and teach the system. When teaching the match-up press, we break it down with drills.

The drill progression for teaching the match-up press looks like this:

Progression for teaching transition offense - becoming a running team with the primary and secondary breaks.

Most teams would benefit by looking to run and get easy baskets in transition, before the defense can get set. Even if you like to slow the game down with your half-court offense, a few easy baskets in transition are a bonus. If the break is not there, you can always flow into your more deliberate style. We are a team committed to the running game, and full-court, transition offense drills are always an important part of every one of our practices. As noted above, even our 5-on-5 full-court drills contain the early fast break always as our first option. Transition drills also improve conditioning, speed and quickness, athleticism, as well as basic passing, catching and dribbling fundamentals, and transition defense.

The drill progression for teaching the break (transition offense) may look like this:
Create your own drill progressions for teaching whatever team skill, offense or defense that you use. For example, if you teach zone defense or match-up zone defense, break it down and create a drill progression. You can use these same drill progressions from year to year, and for your freshmen, JV and varsity teams. If you teach these progressions all the way through your program, by the time your players reach the varsity level, they will already have a good understanding of your system... then, with your basic system in place, you can fine tune things, add more details, and things become even more fun!
Related page: Planning Practices