Category: Dribble Drive Motion

  • Kentucky and the Dribble Drive

    I’m sure a lot of you guys around the world are following the NCAA tournament. If not may I just remind you that all the games are available right here:

    March Madness On Demand

    With my interest in the Dribble Drive I’ve been following coach Calipari’s teams for years, but mostly in the post season, as very few NCAA games are shown in Europe during the regular season.

    One thing which surprised me watching this season’s Kentucky matches is that they have pretty much gone away from the Dribble Drive as an offense, and I think they look stagnant because of it. There is a lot of pass, stand around. Pass, stand around waiting for a pick-n-roll. Pick-n-roll, hesitate.

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  • On making changes to drills

    I think one of the most important things we can do as coaches is to review our drills quite often. Not just find new drills, but to actually look at the drills we run and ask; Is this drill capable of giving more to the players than it already is?

    A few months ago I asked that of the Walberg DDM Attack Layup drill of the Daily 45. The drill is great for teaching attacking layups and different moves, it focuses the act of training layups, and it only takes a few minutes each training session.

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  • Staying true to your style

    I think one of the most important things you must do when running any offense is to stay true to it with everything you do. By that I mean that you can’t teach two different styles of play and expect the players to understand both and especially be able to play both.

    If you’re running the Dribble Drive, I think it becomes very hard to run a slow-down offense as a secondary offense – and don’t even think about running the DDM as a secondary offense.

    You have to get your players into the right mindset. If you’re running a screening motion, you have to instill patience and if you’re running the DDM they have to be in attack mode.

    When I started running the DDM we would walk it up, make sure everybody were in the right position, and then start running it. In other words, we were relying on the X’s and O’s to provide the baskets, and ran it like you run sets. The problem was that the players never got into the right attack mindset.

    That’s where I think both Calipari and Walberg have revolutionized the game in a way. There is no fast or secondary break. In it’s purest form both use the DDM where they are just attacking off a basket or a rebound. The ball must be pushed, and it can go anywhere going up the court, and no matter where the ball goes you just follow the basic Dribble Drive principles

    While with the Dribble Drive you have to be in attack mode 100% of the time, you might also be forced to run sets and quick hitters. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn’t use sets which change the mind-set of the players. Quick hitters or sets may be useful to open up the defense for the Dribble Drive, but don’t ask the players to run complicated sets that require patience and a different mind set.

  • Swim Move

    In The Dribble Drive Motion – An Instruction Manual I talk at length about the fundamentals of attacking 1-on-1, inspired by coach Dave Smart of Carleton University, Canada. I players are much more effective when they use the swim move, and at the 1:55 mark in the video below you will see how it works against the number 1 NBA draft pick John Wall:

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whVEiYap1F4&w=640&h=385&rel=0&hd=1]

    Notice how Jeremy Lin reaches out with his left arm and keeps Wall on his side for the entire drive. The commentators say that Wall has to work on his “D”, but once the swim move is established it’s almost impossible to recover.

    Also look at the 5:06 mark where Lin blows by his man. Again he uses the felt arm to create leverage effectively, and that’s why I teach the swim move.

  • The 3-on-3 Transition Drill

    Transition is a continuous 3 on 3 drill that’s fun and challenging, with two teams competing against each other, while focusing on the Dribble Drive Break/Sideline Break and defensive transition.

    The drill continues the work started in the Scramble 11 man break drill, using the same tactics, but now requiring the wings to beat their man to force the outnumbered situation.

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  • Out-of-Season Player Development

    I think there are two kinds of player development: In-practice and out-of-practice development. In-practice the Dribble Drive is really good – out-of-practice it’s excellent! (more…)