Basketball Rebounding Drills: Shell drill

Once you’ve gotten to the point where you are able to integrate rebounding into your shell drill is a good chance that your team is developing a good overall understanding of defensive concepts. Adding rebounding signifies that you developed a grasp on individual concepts within a man-to-man defense-on the line, up the line, ball-you-man, shallow triangle, “point your pistols” -and you’ve moved towards completion. Rebounding is one of the most critical and often overlooked fundamentals, particularly at the younger ages. Good rebounding teams give themselves a significant advantage by limiting the opponent to one or fewer shots on most possessions.

In the context of the shell drill, the most important concept is that the on-ball defender must make every effort to (cover up” the ball by forcing the offense to shoot over his or her outstretched hands. After covering up the shot, the on-ball defender should spin an his man on his back to establish contact, and chase down the rebound.

One more often overlooked, and significantly more difficult, rebounding skill that is developed in this drill is the rebounding responsibilities of the weakside defender. It is important for any weakside defender playing off of his man and in the paint to “meet his man outside of the Lane”. Stepping out of the Lane to initiate contact for the box out. This is particularly important because about 70% of missed shots come off on the weakside. For weakside defender who is not active and has not leave the key to establish contact, will probably find himself stuck under the basket out of position to get the rebound. Even worse, that players defensive assignment, who was also on the weakside, is probably in the best position on the floor for most rebounds

When we run this rebounding option from within the shell drill, initially we do nothing ostensibly except for swung the ball and shoot uninstructed. As players develop an understanding of the nuances and expectations of the defense we will begin to introduce different offense of movements before the shot, such as passing and screening away, passing and running a basket cut, flashing a player from the weakside through the key to the strongside, etc. we are putting all the pieces of the shell drill together and asking our defense to complete the play with a successful rebound. This short animation shows the defense adjusting to ball movement and briefly shows weakside defender’s stepping out of the key to meet their assignment for the box out.

Filed Under: Basketball Defense Drills

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