This video is an excerpt from our newest DVD series, Read & React Clinics: Planning the R&R Practice.
We’ve mentioned before that in the Read & React Offense the ball handler is the orchestrator – any decision she makes with the ball moves the other four offensive players on the court (and in doing so, the five defenders as well).
By restricting the ball handler to only the dribbling layers, though, you can create a diagnostic test, a reaction building drill, or even a basic warm-up where one player without ever giving up the ball moves the other four over and over again.
In the video below, Rick Torbett sets up that drill: the girls must focus on reading the ball handler, react properly, and do so consistently. This also gets in some game specific conditioning.
Yes, there will be mistakes made, but they are valuable for a few reasons.
First, as the basketball coach, you can see which layers your team (or a specific player) is struggling with and adjust your practices accordingly.
Second, some of the mistakes will be the ball handler’s fault. Those will emphasize that her actions must be clearly readable by the rest of her team.
Thirdly, given that mistakes are inevitable in games, figuring out how to work their way out of errors in practice (when the consequences are fewer) will translate into better problem solving during the games where the stakes are higher.
I feel like I have a little dilemma regarding my practices. Our practices are 90 minutes. The first 45 minutes we do warm ups and different drills, the last 45 minutes our players scrimmage and might do a shooting contest at the very end. I think our practices are good. However I would like to do more drills in practice than we do today, unfortunately that conflicts with the boys desire to play/scrimmage 5 on 5 full court. I do want my players to have fun and enjoy thenselves, if I don’t let them play some kids are going to moan and complain..and I might get comments from the parents.
We also practice on a small court, so it seems that some of my players can get bored with the 3-player reaction drills, maybe because the small courts hinder high intensity movement and things get slow and stale
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Don’t do more drills. Use small-sided games (2v2, 3v3) with restrictions that reinforce your offense and defense. This provides the repetitions you want as a coach, but better because the reps come with randomness that requires decision making by the players. It also give the players the competition they want. So it’s a win-win.
Outstanding point coach.