Adult Basketball Tip of the Week

Tip of the Week: October 1, 2011

"Rebounding Someone Else's Practice Free Throws"

Here's a tip I've given many times to kids that I've worked with to improve their passing and court vision. (And when it comes to basketball, we're all kids, aren't we?) Okay, you've got a ball and you've got a friend, and you, ball and friend have found a hoop. You decide you are each going to shoot some free throws. (Me? I like the number 100). Your friend goes first. You stand in front of the rim with your back to the shooter. As the ball comes through the net (oh, by the way, this works best when practicing with someone who makes the vast majority of her or his free throws) and then bounces, you take it and flip it over your shoulder to the shooter, on a bounce, without looking, imagining, seeing in your mind's eye, the ball finding the shooter's hands, waist high, shooting side. Turn and see where it really went, if it went where you wanted it to go. (If you missed your target - badly - and your friend is standing there with a "what the . . . look", it is important for a whole slew of reasons I won't get into here that you run to the other end of the court and retrieve the ball.) Next shot, same thing, but you make the no-look pass with a different delivery, maybe bounced between your legs, backwards, of course. Every pass off every shot means a new and different delivery. After a while, a short while, you'll become good at it. So good that crowds will form - in rows three deep circling the court - to watch your passing magic. All you need is a friend, a ball and a hoop to get you there. Good luck. (Video Coming Soon!)

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Play of the Week: October 1, 2011

In the Coached Scrimmage session last Monday at the PFL Garden (aka the Kennedy School) in Somerville, MA, David Po listened to his coach (me) say that our team needed to get offense out of our defense because we were not getting offense out of our offense. (Hey, it's still early in the season!) DPo (there's another David on the team so we went with the convenient NBA inspired type nickname - DWade, etc.) is quick and smart, smart enough to use deception on defense. Playing a little "Mickey the Dunce" or "Cat and Mouse" he pretended to be merely playing decent position defense one pass off the ball, a step off the passing lane. But when the pass was made to his man, he extended his arm, deflected the pass, tracked it down and finished with a nifty lefty layup to extend our lead to minus 2. (We lost by 1, but not because of DPo's defensive effort.)

(Looking good is more important than passing and way more important than shooting: so, look for your new NTL gear at The Mercantile)