Breakdown Drills for Immediate Game Carryover

It wasn’t until my after my junior year in high school that I was playing in an AAU tournament (yes AAU, there are great coaches there as well) that I ever learned anything about spacing the floor. I was on the wing in secondary transition with the dribbler coming towards me, when my coach yelled out, “get to the corner!”. I knew immediately why, but also dumbfounded at the fact that no one had told me anything like that before. So simple, but not easy.
To this day, I still don’t know why, but it seems like most high school players and below have it in their heads that they should be constantly moving towards the basketball. When in fact, the best place you can be is as far away from the basketball as possible. Why? It creates more space in the gap. The more space in the gap the longer the closeout. Closing out is one of the most difficult things to do defensively. As an offensive player I want to do things that make the defense uncomfortable - rotations and closeouts.
In this episode of The Inside Out we breakdown several penetration scenarios, the off ball movements to create space and drills for game repetitions. Since these skills are 99% about basketball IQ, they can be implemented immediately during the season for game carryover and results. We hope you enjoy.