3 Things Every Serious Hooper Should Be Studying

The game of basketball has never been more competitive than it is right now. Over the last five years or so. The amount of skill and athleticism in the game of basketball is completely different than it was. This is because there's just so much access to skills training, to drills, workouts, teams to play on, opportunities to just be on a court. It is a completely different world that we live in now than we did five or 10 years ago. And because of that, the game has never been more competitive. And if you want to make it, whatever that might mean for you, whether it's getting a certain role, making a certain team, making it to the next level, that's never been more difficult, difficult than it is right now. So if all that you're doing is working on your physical skills, your skill level, your athleticism, that's all that you're doing. It's not enough anymore. The absolute bare minimum these days is that you're at the gym, you're at the court, working on your skills. And it wasn't always like that. It used to be that the most skill players really stood out, and now it's not the case because everybody's skilled, everybody's doing those things, everybody's playing a ton of basketball, has access to the same sort of information. But if you truly want to make an impact at a high level in today's game of basketball, then you have to be studying the game. The one area that's like a gold mine, that hasn't been exploited yet, that people aren't focusing on right now, is basketball iq, your understanding of the game, the way that you're able to make decisions and read the game. In business, everybody's always looking for gaps in the market, and this is what the gap in the market is. But we may look back five years from now and that may progress at the rate that skills and athleticism has as well. So now is the opportunity for you to take a hold of that. Now there's a lot of different areas of basketball that are important to know, but there's three crucial areas that you need to be studying in order to become a high level player. So in this video, we're going to break down those three areas, we're going to talk about it, and I'm going to tell you exactly what you need to know, what you need to be studying in these areas if you want to become a player who can play at a high level. Every time you step out on the court with these three things, we're going to go from the least crucial to most Crucial. They're all important. But that's the way that we're going to approach it. Let's get into it. The first area that you need to be studying if you want to be a high level player is ball screens. Ball screens have never been more important than they are in today's game. And pretty much at any level that you play at, or whether it be high school, college, professionally, ball screens are one of the most important actions to every single team. And if you're at the high school level, every single year, players get better and better at using these actions. So it's really important that you have a great grasp on it. Let's talk about a couple points that are really important. If you're a guard who's using these ball screens. The first thing is understanding what you do based on how your defender plays it. There's a couple different ways they can, they can do this. They could play over on the ball screen. Typically if they play you over, they're going to play what's called a drop coverage, meaning the screeners defender is going to be dropped below the screener. When this is the case, it's actually the best thing for you because you can force two players to guard you. And what that creates is what we call an advantage. And ball skins are all about creating an advantage. And that numbers advantage of getting two players to guard you means that somebody else is going to be open. So you come off of that ball screen. If that drop defender doesn't stop you, you can go to the rim, you can take a pull up. If they do come over and stop you, you might have an opportunity to hit the roll. And if the tag defender, which is usually in the same side corner, comes over to tag the roll, that you can kick the ball out to the wing. The second way that a defender can guard you in a ball screen is by playing under. And there's a couple different options. If you're a really good shooter, you can shoot that three if they play it under. But another really good option is called flipping the ball screen. So that just means when your defender plays under it, the screener is literally just going to turn and flip and go the other way. And you're just going to come right back off of the screen going the other direction. And usually that defender is now low enough that they get forced to play over the screen and chase you. And now we've created that two on one again that we just talked about with the over coverage. And now we're able to create that advantage and be Able to get a look for somebody, the next way that they can guard a ball screen is what's called a blitz, also known as a hard hedge, can just be called a double. This is when you come off of the screen and they just send both defenders at you, the screeners defender and your defender, and they're trying to trap you or they're trying to push you out towards half court. There's a few different ways that we can play this. First of all, you, your screener can slip early and you can just throw it right over the top to them. And now we've created that numbers advantage again because you got two players to guard you. Depending on how athletic that hedge defender is or the screener's defender is, you might be able to bounce around them. And again you now create a numbers advantage getting downhill. Sometimes you could even split that screen as well and get between them. But if you're good at recognizing that, you can easily create numbers advantages, which is going to create open opportunities for your teammates. And then the other coverage that's common is a switch. So you can you use a ball screen, they switch it. Now we've created an advantage in the form of a mismatch. So you have to understand, okay, who's now guarding me? Am I quicker than them? Can I drag them out and be able to maybe attack them and get past them? Or you might say, well, now my screener has a smaller defender guarding them, so I need to find a way to get the ball to them in the post so that now they can look to attack. And if you're a big, I think a couple things that are really important is first of all understanding when to flip the screen. Like we just talked about being able to flip the screen knowing, okay, he went under, so I'm going to flip and go the other way to get them. Another opportunity is important being able to short rol. So this is especially popular and important when they play an over and drop coverage. You're able to set that screen and roll just a couple feet so that they could just give you a quick bounce pass. And now you may have an advantage going downhill. And then understanding the fact that when you get that ball, sometimes it's not about you scoring, somebody's going to help over. So you become more of a facilitator and recognizing, okay, someone rotated over to me, now that guy's open, I got to make that pass out to them. But it's so crucial that you understand how to use ball screens to determine days of basketball. If you Want to be a high level player. The second area that's so important for you to study into be an expert in is off ball screens. This action is the most common action in basketball. Every team you've probably ever played on uses off ball screens, specifically pin downs, also known as away screens, down screens, whatever. But a lot of players waste these opportunities because you can create easy scoring opportunities if you know how to read them and how to use them effectively. So in terms of the reads you might make, what do you do when your offender plays under one of these screens? When you see that, that's when you want to flare out towards the perimeter because of two things. First of all, if they get caught, you may have an open shot. But what it also is going to create if they don't get caught the full way is it's going to create a closeout to go at. That's another advantage. We call it a momentum advantage because your defender is closing out to you and that closeout bringing that momentum to you. Taking away the shot, slowing down and not getting beat is the hardest thing a defender will ever do. And we can create that when we flare out to the perimeter. And when they play under on an off ball screen. Now when they play over, that's when you want to curl to the basket because they're going to be trailing you. And a lot of times it can lead to a layup opportunity potentially. But it also sometimes is going to draw two defenders with you because now the screeners defender is worried about taking away that layup. So your guy's chasing you. The screeners defender is helping to take away the layup. You just now created a situation where two defenders are guarding one and now usually your screener is wide open on a pop for either a three or maybe another closeout to attack. The third way that they can guard it is with an overplay or with a top lock. So they may not let you use a screen or they're going to try and get over the screen early. And that's when we want to go back door again. Really easy way to get a couple points every single game. Because defenders get lazy, they go through the motions and sometimes you can really catch them off guard just by cutting back door. And then switching the screen is another way that they can guard it. When they switch a screen, the screener we want them to slip to the basket immediately because usually there's going to be a little bit of a mesh point where you, if you slip, no one's going to be guarding you and you can get a layup out of it. Understanding how to use pin downs, how to use off ball screens is the easiest way to start scoring more points right now. Because like I said, whatever team you're playing on uses these. So if you get good and you're intentional about how you use them, you're going to start scoring easy points consistently. The third area that's so important for you to study, for you to learn to become an expert in, is off ball cutting. If your goal is to score 15, 20 plus points per game, the most important thing you can do to reach that is creating what's called a scoring baseline. This just means a certain amount of points that you can pretty much bank on scoring every single game. Usually this is around 6 or 8 points. And the reason you can bank on always scoring them is because they're easy points, they're repeatable points. You don't need to be shooting really well. You don't need to be getting a ton of opportunity to shoot the basketball. This is stuff that pretty much just based on your effort, you're going to be able to get opportunities to do. And the biggest part of creating that scoring baseline is understanding how to move without the ball in your hand. The first type of cut is what's called a 45 cut. And this is when you're on the opposite side of the ball, maybe you're on the left wing and your teammate drives from the right side and you just cut directly to the basket from the wing there. And a lot of times the defense is so focused on helping and stopping the drive that they just completely forget about you and you're wide open. The other opportunity for a 45 cut is if the ball gets into the low post. So the ball gets into the low post on the right side, you cut from the left side. And again, a lot of times they're so focused on the post and where the ball is that they just forget about you. You can steal two or four easy points every game by doing this. The next type of off ball cut is a backdoor cut. This is super important for you to look at. Whenever you see your defender turn away from you. If you can see the numbers in the back of their jersey or if you can see the back of their head, that should be an immediate trigger to you that you need to backdoor cut because they're not going to know that you're doing it. Again, really easy way to steal a couple points every game. And if you get really good at cutting without the basketball, you can create that scoring baseline of 6 or 8 points every game just with that. And that's not even talking about running in transition or offensive rebounding or anything else that you can also also do. The difference between the players who are the best and everybody else is their understanding of the game. And that's something that you can 100 control. And like I mentioned, this is an area that is not nearly as good as it should be. Do you get really good at knowing these things? You're going to separate yourself and the game is going to slow down and feel much easier for you. Now if you really want to learn how to learn and apply all these things that you start scoring more points right now, check out my free Basketball IQ Masterclass link down in the description below. We break a bunch of the stuff down step by step with even more examples. It's over an hour long so you're going to get even more stuff that's going to help you to become a better player right now. You're going to start to score at a high level. You're going to be able to create for yourself and your teammates more consistently and you're going to play with so much more confidence and consistency than you ever have. Like I said, that's completely free. Link down below. Go check that out. Hopefully this gave you a nice roadmap to follow in order to become that high level player that you want to be. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.