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Ask the Coach Q & A pt. IV

July 20, 2008

This question comes from Derek Fulwiler, a friend, former player, coaching peer, and Head Varsity Girls Coach at Ballard High School in Seattle, Washington.

Q: Any Tips on Offensive Rebounding?

A: This is a broad topic, with a broad variety of possible answers. I tried to touch on different perspectives for a well-rounded response. Am I missing anything? Leave a comment at the end of this page if you would like to contribute to the answer. I tried to approach an open-ended topic like this from as many angles - Individual skill work - Individual Drills - Competitive Drills - Team (5 on 5) approaches - mindset - as possible.

  • Individual Skill work every day if only for 5 minutes with your Bigs - Mikan, Tips off the glass, Superman Drill, Pogo.
  • With individual work consider requiring a ‘Second Effort’ play after every shot. All this means is: every time a player makes a basket, she jumps to rebound the ball, lands, and immediately jumps up again and taps the ball against the backboard or foam (depending on ability).
    1. The mentality you’re trying to develop is one of relentlessness and toughness in the basket area.
    2. Second Effort develops fast-twitch muscles, which are critical in rebounding. Dennis Rodman comes to mind. He wasn’t the greatest jumper in the world, but he could jump, land, and jump again faster than anybody I’ve ever seen.
  • In every drill emphasize anticipating rebounding angles and exploding to rebound the ball from a bent-knees position with the hands above the shoulders – even in warm up drills.
  • Emphasize catching the ball high (above the shoulders) on rebounds and keeping it high – On offensive rebounds and paybacks in the basket area, the player should resemble a pogo stick

    • Team Drills

    1. 3 players in the Paint – A lot of team’s call this drill N.B.A. (No Babies Allowed). Jamell Dillon, one of my former players, called it the Animal ThugDrill – so that’s what I’ll always call it because, well, it’s the most appropriate name for a drill that I’ve ever heard. – and definitely the most memorable.

    • players for three teams, spread as evenly as possible by height.
    • Each team forms a line facing the basket on the free throw line – one team forms a line at either elbow, and the other forms a line in between.
    • The first player in each tea’s line steps into the paint. The coach and all 3 players go for the rebound. When a player rebounds she goes straight back up while the other 2 players defend. Again, we are working on exploding to the ball, catching high, and keeping it high and jumping quickly on second efforts.
    • If the ball hits the floor or is caught outside of the key, it must be passed back out to the coach for a shot before anybody can score. Forcing players to play only inside the key forces players to rebound and finish against pressure (and while being fouled). Learning to accept contact and make the play regardless (and learning that you WILL get fouled inside) is a critical skill for post players to develop.
    • Forcing players to pass out to the coach when the ball hits the ground helps eliminate a common habit – and one of my biggest pet peeves– that young players have of dribbling – or sometimes POUNDING – the ball on the floor after getting an offensive rebound – which does nothing but buy the defense time to take away the open shot that would have been there if the dribble had not been used.

    When a player scores, her team gets one point, she leaves the key and goes to the end of her team’s line, and the next player in line steps in.

    Players MUST score a basket to get out of the paint – and YES, the small guards will tell you that you’re being unfair or that you’re asking them to do the impossible – maybe you are, but when that player gets sick of being pushed around and imposes her will on the next play to get the rebound – she will have learned an enormous lesson about toughness.

    2. 5 on 5. When we’re struggling with offensive rebounding, I like to start our controlled scrimmages from a rebounding situation.

    • I simply have the offense set up in the halfcourt offense and assign a defender to each player.
    • I stand with the ball somewhere around the free throw line.
    • Action starts when I shoot the ball and both teams go for the rebound. If the offense gets an offensive rebound, they go for the put back or, if necessary, pass out and run the offense.
    • If the defense gets the rebound, they enter their fast break going the other way while the team that started on offense focuses on transition defense.
    • These are controlled, stop-and-go scrimmages, so I’m stopping the action often (usually after a team scores, but sometimes sooner and sometimes later). If I’m paying specific attention to offensive rebounding, I’m probably going to stop the action more often so that we can reset.
    • Offensive rebounding can be difficult to teach at times because players are expected to get them (offensive boards) at times when there is usually a lot happening at once, and they might be focused on other things like setting or coming off of a screen.
    • As simple as it sounds, starting a scrimmage possession at the place in the action where players need to shift focus to crashing the glass (instead of running the offense) helps players better understand how to make the shift in games.

    The trait that most great offensive rebounding teams share in common is that they tend to be aggressive and mentally tough. As such, Coaches that value offensive rebounding tend to look for ways to structure their practices in a way that develops those qualities (examples: placing an emphasis on conditioning, creating competitive situations as often as possible, running drills like Animal Thug, etc.).

    I also try to keep in mind how easy it can be to forget the role awareness plays in aggressiveness. As coaches, it is important to remember that it is our job to develop that awareness.

    It’s very easy to get into negative thinking patterns along the lines of, “…offensive rebounding is all about desire…they just don’t want it bad enough”.

    There may be a lot of truth to that statement, but coaches should be very careful about letting this type of thinking interfere with good teaching, i.e., “You just don’t want it bad enough, and I can’t make you care”.

    Sometimes I will make statements like this to my teams; but I always stop to make sure that I’m teaching and not griping.

    If I’m teaching my focus is helping the team grow and improve.

    Griping tends to be selfish and derisive.

    Players can tell the difference. And I don’t want them to start thinking that I don’t care enough to continue to teach them the game

    Written by Coach Stinson · Filed Under Ask The Coach, Coaching Philosophy, Offense Articles, Offense drills, Post Play, Tactics | 2 Comments 

    Ask the Coach - Q and A part III

    July 17, 2008

    This is a response to 3 great questions asked by Coach Jim on 7/11/2008:

    1.  What drills can I do in practice to encourage players to move without the ball when we don’t call a set play?, and

    2.  what can I do to help my point guard get the ball to the wings to get our offense started when the wings are well covered?


    1. Drilling Ball movement:

    One great way to get better ball movement is to run scrimmages where dribbling is not allowed.   This is one of my favorite scrimmage/drills to run with any continuity offense.  We simply allow each team three possessions…instead of counting baskets; we award one point for each pass that we complete.  The basic rules are:  Each completed pass counts for 1 point.  Possession is lost whenever the ball hits the ground.   Possession is lost if the ball is caught outside of a designated spot in the offense.  For example, if a player has to come out 35 feet from the basket against pressure to catch the ball, possession is lost even if the ball does not hit the ground.  By taking away the dribble, the offense is forced to use screens and cuts to get open.  This is a great tool for facilitating movement away from the ball.  I discuss the topic some more later in this page.


    2.  Helping the point guard get the ball to the wings against pressure:

    There are several answers to this question, each of which can be divided into one of two categories:  Team tactics or Individual Fundamentals.   I’ll briefly cover one of several  team tactics to help get the ball to the wing. and address one ‘fundamentals’ area for the point guard to focus on (with a link to some other ideas)

    1. (Team tactic) If you’re really having a tough time passing the ball to the wing, you can run a shallow cut.  A shallow cut is a very simple play:  The point guard dribbles the ball to the wing.  The wing replaces the point guard at the top of the key with a ‘shallow cut’ by cutting below the ballside elbow and popping out.

    2.   (Fundamentals) The point guard can significantly decrease the odds of committing a turnover by consistently picking a side to start the offense.  Stated another way, the point guard should never make the entry pass from the middle of the floor.  By taking a dribble or two in the direction of the wing she intends to pass to, the point guard creates a much better passing angle for the entry pass.

    Get the Flash Player to see this player.

    Side note: I rarely see what I’m about to say written in coaching books, but I think it’s an important teaching point for your team if you are struggling with turnovers on the entry pass.  As coaches we tend to blame the point guard (or more generally, the passer) when a steal occurs on the entry pass, but we rarely consider what the player receiving the pass could have done differently.   To me, a critical component to beating great pressure defense is toughness. How does toughness relate to this situation?  Just because the defender gets into the passing lane, that doesn’t mean that the receiver has to accept the outcome.    If you’re defender steps into the passing lane for the steal, GO THROUGH THE DENIAL if you have to and GET THE BALL.   I’m not saying to cause a collision…just react aggressively, close the gap and go get the ball.   Don’t get me wrong…in a situation like this, this passer still shares most of the blame…the point I’m trying to make is that the bad pass is not the only teaching opportunity at hand.

    The original question is really part of a broader question of how to handle tough defensive pressure.  As such, I’ve added a  post I made on handling half court pressure in a great yahoo group for basketball coaches a couple of years ago.  The post is sort of a ‘brain  dump’ on the topic: it covers several components on dealing with halfcourt pressure that you might find useful:

    The REAL answer to handling pressure consistently, I think, is to work hard in practice to develop good habits for beating pressure in practice.  Work every day on ballhandling, if only for 5 intense minutes.  Especially for the PG - also, I don’t let them reverse dribble when bringing the ball up 5 on 5 because they turn their back on their teammates who are getting open, and they often make themselves easy pickings for run and jump schemes.  They have to be able to run the offense without their back turned.

    Work hard on V-cuts.  Make sure a player that is trying to get open closes the gap and pushes off HARD from his man…change of speed and direction are important…walk to the defender, then EXPLODE back to the open spot.  If they still can’t get open on v cuts, have them plant their inside foot between the defender’s legs, reverse-pivot to put the defender on their back, then explode back to the open spot…just like a v-cut with a reverse pivot added.  When they pop out have them show their outside hand and make the passers throw it to that hand EVERY time.

    Focus on facing up when they catch passes.  Give out ten pushups or call a turnover every time a receiver: A.  Catches and puts the ball above his head, B.  Catches and dribbles with no purpose, or C:  Turns away and hunches over the ball.  Also, have your defense BELLY UP every time a player puts the ball over their head…make them pay…when they put it up like that, they can’t dribble, so why play them like they can?  If they bring the ball down then the defender can give a cushion.

    Work on aggressive pivots when a player catches on the perimeter followed by a jab-step. It has to be aggressive and quick.  They should pivot hard on their inside foot after the catch.  If they get too crowded on a front pivot, work with them on using a reverse pivot off their outside foot instead.  It takes them a step further from the hoop, but it provides a little breathing room.

    Work on every kid developing a simple jab step series.  If the defender backs off on the jab step, shoot.  If they still crowd you, go by them.  If you do, any scoring move from the perimeter should be done in one dribble (2 in some cases, but never 3).  Work on driving hard off the defender’s shoulder, because if you leave a gap, the defender has more space to recover.  All of this can be done playing one on one from the wing with the coach as a passer.  The coach passes to a player after the V-cut on the wing and the player has 2 dribbles to score.  If he has a bad look or uses the dribble he can pass back to the coach and get open again.  It ends on a made shot, a rebound, or a steal.

    In scrimmages I also focus on QUICK, aggressive cutting. I try to work every day on “change of speed, change of direction“.  A good way to develop quick cutting is through scrimmaging with no dribbling allowed.  Since the O turns the ball over if it hits the ground  (with the exception of bounce passes), the D should be more aggressive.  The offense has to Work and execute better since they cant be bailed out with the dribble.  Its also valuable to call a turnover whenever you find your guards running the offense from too far out on the floor.  The wing player should be 19 feet from the basket on the catch, not 25 feet.

    The team tactics are valuable in beating pressure, but they should never replace this type of fundamental development.  If the correct fundamentals aren’t developed, nothing will bail a team out in the end anyway.  There are  no easy bail-outs in my experience.




    Written by Coach Stinson · Filed Under Ask The Coach, Coaching Philosophy, Continuity Offense, Defensive drills, Offense Articles, Offense drills, Pressure Offense, Scrimmage Drills, Tactics | Leave a Comment