Change of Speed/Change of Direction

It is important to learn how to play at different speeds as a basketball player.  Even if you are one of the fastest players on the court, players and teams can adjust to you if you just play ‘fast’ the entire game.  They can figure out how much space that they need to give you and adjust on how they anticipate and beat you to a spot.

When you can play at different speeds, you are much less predictable and you can get by your defenders more effectively.  Below is a really good change of speed and change of direction drill by current Indiana coach and former Marquette coach Tom Crean.  Here he is working on changing speeds and different finishes, including pull-ups and layups.

This is a great ball-handling drill, as it works on different dribble moves, a great shooting drill, and a great drill to teach finishing moves.  Instead of just doing full-court crossovers, this is a good alternative through which you can get game-like dribble moves and reps.

At 8:20, Coach Crean talks about the importance of player development and individual workouts.  He says that they put all of their player through many of the same workouts because they don’t want any player leaving the program without being able to handle the ball with their head up and without being able to make a play getting too the basket.

Ball-Handling
Like Coach Crean did, we will use different dribble moves on our change of directions.  One great point coach made about their crossovers is to ‘keep the ball low and quick, below the knee and around the ankle.’  He also moved the cones around so you are working on your dribble moves at different lengths.

Finishing Moves
Around the 6:10 mark, Coach Crean mentioned the need to score, and it is important to work on finishers.  We work on 1 leg layups, 2 foot layups, bully jump stops, up-and unders, and different pivot moves around the basket.  All of those can be implemented in this drill.