Ethan Khoza shows two drills for ballhandling under pressure. First: dribble in the half-circle while a defender reaches for a steal, then go live. Second: freestyle on the wing while the defender fouls you, then play through the contact. Ugly reps against physical defense build the handling skills that actually work in games.
Chapters
If you want to get better at handling pressure, you need to play against live defense. Here's two drills you can do with a partner that will help you a ton. In this first drill, the offensive player is going to start in the half circle, and they're freestyle dribbling all throughout that circle. At some point, the defensive player is going to reach and try and steal the ball. And at that point, it's live. The offensive player is trying to score. So not only are we working against handling the ball against a reach, but now we're also working on being able to take advantage of that reach and be able to score regardless. For this next show, we're out in the win, the offensive player is freestyle dribbling again. Now that defensive player is going to jam up that offensive offensive player and foul them. And as soon as that happens, it's live. You're going to see a lot of ugly reps or the offensive player is going to lose the ball. But those are the most important reps, and we need that in order to get better. But this drill is great for not only ball handling and dealing with pressure, but also for learning how to play through physicality. And once you get good at this, it's going to help you develop a whole new confidence as a ball handler. If you want to get better against real defense, you have to play against real defense. So grab a partner and try it out.
