The drills provided here are few situations that can be used
to teach the various fundamentals of the game. I hope that a few of them can
give you some help in teaching the game or inspiration to create drills far
better than these! One important note that should not be overlooked: Great drills
are not going to make you great. At first glance, this statement seems
ridiculous. Every coach does drills in every practice. There are countless
books and clinics dedicated to “My Favorite Drills” or "Winning Drills for Championship play" by great coaches. They have
to do something right? Well, not by themselves. The two most important aspects
of doing any drill and any practice is FOCUS
AND EFFORT.
Focus is executing the drill as perfect as
possible each and every time. It is mentally working hard. It is
concentrating on every possible detail as you go through it. How is my
footwork? Where are my eyes? Am I going fast enough? Is this the right
angle? You should be mentally working
hard just as you are physically. Thousands of players go through hundreds of
practice sessions and shoot-arounds in the drive way thinking about what happened
last night, what their girlfriend said, what they going to eat for dinner or
small pain in their hip and not focusing on what they are doing. The truly
great players exert their mind on the details of executing the drill as much as
possible.
Effort is keeping your physical intensity as high possible for the duration of
the drill. This may depend on your conditioning, but if you are not in good
enough shape, I have a solution for you. Take a break! Yes, take a break, take
a 10, 15 or 30 second rest and then start
again and go hard! It is better to take a short break, physically and
mentally prepare yourself and then give it maximum effort for as long as you
can than just go through the motions at half speed. Anything less is just
wasting your time. Are you putting in all this time practicing so that you that
you can beat Ho-Hum Tech that doesn’t
really play defense on you? Or, are practicing to beat the two-time National
Champs? If the answer is the latter, then the only way you can truly prepare
yourself to is give it maximum effort.
After
reading this, there may be a few of you are saying “Yeah, I do that! I try
hard! I give it 110% every time.” I would say you are lying to yourself. No one has ever given 110%. No one has
ever even given 100%. EVER.
There is always more you can do. Even great players loaf a little, even on
their best days. However, that doesn’t mean they truly don’t try to give 100%.
They may only get to 86% or 91% or even 95% but they know that there is always
a sharper focus they could have achieved or a greater effort they could have
given. This knowledge and not any drill, program or trick is what makes them
great!
Practice does not
make perfect, Perfect practice makes perfect!
- Wooden
