1 on 1

Best way to improve your game.

When you deconstruct a practice, if you don't do a one on one drill, how many times in a practice will your players have to guard someone as if the game depended on it? 15 times? 10 times? You can sometimes get through an entire practice without ever having to really get down and defend.

Playing one on one is so good for so many reasons. My favorite thing about it is that you have to learn how to read an opposing player, which is really learning how to create an advantage and then use it. Girls do not play enough 1 on 1 basketball at any level to get the amount of reps that it takes to impact your game.

The biggest thing I hear in the Canadian Basketball scene (on the women's side) is that we can't score. I think we are doing a tremendous job here at NEDA of teaching the girls how to play conceptual 5 on 5 basketball. The work we have done on motion offense so far is incredible, at times we run it as well as anyone. But at the risk of sounding old-school, (I know I'm not that old) a lot of the time, the game comes down to who can create that little advantage and use it.

The simplest way I can describe offensive basketball is creating advantages, then attacking them. Very flexible terms that can be applied to almost any philosophy. If you think you have an advantage because your post player is 4 inches taller than the other post, you dump it in. If your defender is in a situation where they have to close out on you, you have that advantage. If you have the skills to "break down" the player guarding you, your team will play off the advantage that you will create. Using screening is a great way to create an advantage.

The Suns are a great team to watch for a few reasons. First of all, they try to create an advantage every second that they have the ball by fast breaking all the time. Part of the reason it works so well because the pendulum that is the NBA has been firmly swung to the side of slow-it down half court offense. 10 years of NBA players played in a league where you might only score a fast-break lay-up off a defensive rebound once a year. The other reason that the Suns are so darn good is that Steve Nash is the best in the game at playing with ball picks. Every time you set a pick on the ball, a little advantage is created. The Suns understand that they have an advantage in those situations and so they run them a ton.

It all goes back to that understanding of how to use an advantage. But as we all know, you can have the best offense in the world and create advantages all day, but if you don't have the individual skills to put the ball in the hoop, it doesn't matter.

You want the skills? Play one on one.