Coach Ethan Khoza teaches starts-and-stops ball-handling drills designed to pair hand control with footwork: moving from tall/relaxed dribbling into quick single or double moves, adding an explosive dribble-out, then stopping and changing direction. He reviews three start options (drop, counter, quick push/between-legs), several stop techniques (snatch, inverted drag, punch), and prescribes practice progressions (freestyle tall→low, walking dribble starts, then half-court shots mixing starts/stops). Emphasis is on acceleration, deceleration, and controlling feet to create better separation.
Chapters
If you want to be great with the ball in your hands, it's super important that you're able to start and stop efficiently. You're able to control your feet. And as simple as this sounds, this is an area that I think players don't work on enough. Being a great ball handler is not just about your ability to control the ball with your hands, but it's also your ability to be able to control your feet and where you go, being able to control your movement, acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, and. And we do that by understanding what stops and starts to use and when and how we can most efficiently use them. Right here, we're going to work on our ability to go from relaxed and tall to being low and explosive. So for this verse variation, all you're going to do is freestyle dribble. But you're going to imagine like you're at the doctor's office and they're measuring you. You're trying to be as tall as possible as you're moving forward, and you're going to decide to drop down into a quick single move or a quick delve move before you raise yourself up. So I'm just moving forward as I'm dribbling the ball, I can move side to side, doesn't really matter. But intermittently I'm getting myself down and just relaxing again after that. And again I can use a single or I can use a double. For this next variation after that single or double move, we're going to take an explosive dribble out before we stop ourselves, raise up again. So again I'm just relaxing, freestyling nice and tall with it, getting myself into that explosive single or double, and then taking one dribble out after that. For this last variation, we're going to add to that. Right there, nice and relaxed. Getting into any single or double, explosively taking a dribble out. But then we're going to get to some sort of stop and then we're going to change directions out of that stop. So I might get myself nice and high, stop there, change directions. Okay, now I'm going to stop myself right here. I'm just going to briefly intro three different start options. Simplest one is just a drop where I'm going from having my feet shoulder width. Can't really go anywhere. Really don't have any leverage to go to a back foot that I can push off of and be able to get myself to accelerate. So all that I'm going to do for that is. So I'm here, drop. And then I can move myself forward coming out of that. We have an option as a counter. If I drop and they play it and they cut me off that way, I can counter that by either crossing right back over or going with between the legs out of that as well. So I'm here with it. Can I get myself there or there with it? We can also make it really, really simple and just go with some sort of quick move. So I might be here, get myself with just a push cross, or I'm here maybe and I just go with a quick between. Now, when it comes to our stops, super simple as well. We can go as a snatch where I'm going from being here. Say I go out of my drop and I'm just stopping myself. Maybe with a crossover, I might stop myself with that through, or maybe I'll stop myself with that behind. I can go with an inverted drag where I'm just stopping on that initial step. So I drop and I stop on that inside step right there. I can also go with a punch which throws off the timing of the defender a little bit because I'm going to end up dribbling on my outside step here. So I have my drop first, dribble, stop myself on that next one. Okay, I can counter out of that punch where I can go stop and get myself to a between. These are a few good options when it comes to how to stop. So right here we're going to work on starts and we're just going to go with a freestyle, but we're going to be walking. It's kind of dribble the ball. You can choose to use moves or just normal dribbles, but you're going to move forward with it. And at some point you're going to get to either drop a drop option or you can just go with a quick move right here. So I say I take it to half court. Might be here. That's my first one. Might slow myself down. I'm moving. Maybe I drop on the next one, slow myself down, change hands with it. Maybe I get myself just some sort of drop option right there. But just mixing up those different starts that we've gone through, we're gonna kind of tie everything together and we're gonna go with just shots and a half court, but we're gonna mix up the starts that we use and stops that we get to as well. So simple enough, I might come here, start with just a drop, get to a punch, and then get up into my shot. I can also be creative and mix in different counters. So maybe I'll do that same start. Maybe I'm dropped and I get to punch that I'm getting to in between into my shot, and I've got any sort of option that I want to start it. So maybe I get myself to a drop Cross can go with any of those quick singles as well. The goal here, so you get as comfortable as you can mixing up those different starts, different stops, changing speeds, and just being creative. Like I said, if you want to be great with the ball in your hands, it's not just about being able to control it and being able to pound the ball and do all this stuff. It's also about being able to control your feet. So getting really good at just the foundations of starts, stops, acceleration, deceleration, changing directions is really, really important if you want to make more of an impact with the ball in your hand.
