Blood Series Drills

The “Blood” drills are the essence of teaching the offense. This is a simple breakdown of the principles of the offense. It’s fast paced drills to also help in conditioning.

The drills can be anything from

• Blood 11: Pure player development
• Blood 22: 2-on-2, guards and post players
• Blood 32/33: 3-on-3, with guards, posts and the 2/3-man
• Blood 44: 4-on-4 (guards, posts and both O2 and O3)

Blood drills are named to emphasize toughness and going hard to the basket and decision-making. Blood drills are break-down drills for the dribble drive motion, emphasizing the guard’s ability to break down his man and the reads of all players.

Blood 11

Blood 11 is a player development drill more than a Dribble Drive tactics drill. It basically teaches players to attack at speed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, as most players have been taught to use moves instead of just running by the offense. We call foul if players slow down to make a move.

Instructions

Team O starts on offense, attacks team X, and drill then becomes a continuous.

• Coach has a ball and will hit O who will attack from other side of half court as shown in examples.
• The manager will have another ball and be ready to give this to the coach each time.
• Each team will now run what happens whenever the guard hits the Rack Zone, Drag Zone, or Drop Zone.
• The players at the end (5’s in Blood 22) stay there the entire drill. Only the guards go end-to-end.
• Run drill twice – so everyone plays both offense and defense

Scoring

• All games are played to 8; 2-pointer worth 2; 3-pointer worth 3.
• Blood 11 and 22 only allows one shot and a tip and only the use of the Drop or Rack Zone.
• On Blood 32, 33 and 44 you can get the rebound and continue play until you score or the defense gets the stop.

Players Involved

• Everyone is involved in these drills.
• Players will play more to their position in the Blood Drills.

Tips

• Need 2 managers and 2 balls to run this drill efficiently.
• Guards get a great amount of ball handling and learning on how to “clip the hip.” Guards have to get back on defense as soon as possible.
• You can run Blood 22 one end and Blood 33/44 in the other end to make up numbers

Blood 22, 33 and 44

The Blood 22, Blood 32/33 and Blood 44 drills trains team work and individual skills in the offense.

Blood 22

It’s only possible to run Blood 22 with 1- and 5-spots.

• No stopping in Drag Zone. For a drag zonestop the only possible passes are to O3 and O4 dragging up or behind. There are no passes from O1 to O5, so O1 must make an early read to go rack or drop. This helps the guards learn to read if they can get to the rack zone or not – an advantage as the drag zone stop is the least desirable in the offense. If they stop in the drag zone it’s an automatic turnover.
• Only one shot and a tip.

Blood 33/32 Set-up

Coach throws the ball to O1, who then blows by X1 “clip the hip”/swim. X1 has to stay in the center circle until O1 gets there and cannot retreat until O1 hits half-court. We now play following all principles from the offense. Offense can rebound to get more shots. Blood 32 involves all parts of the offense.

Note: Make sure wings stay high until ball handler hits mid court. Then they stay low until stop in drop zone.

After 3-on-3 attack, the coach throws the ball to X1, who is now going the other way.

O4 has come in at half court and is now waiting as a defender; O1 gets back in line. Now it’s X1, X4 and X7 on offense attacking. You run the offense at a continuous pace until one team scores 8.

Blood 44

Blood 44 is run just like Blood 33, just add another player in either corner.