Ethan Khoza breaks down how Devin Booker reads defenses in real game situations. Watch clips paused before Booker's move, then guess what he does. The key tells: defender hip alignment, foot positioning, and tempo changes that signal when to pull up, attack, or kick out.
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Devin Booker has established himself as one of the best scorers in the NBA. Not only does he have the ability to knock down shots from the outside, but he's extremely good on the ball, using ball screens, playing in transition, and ultimately being able to put the ball in the bucket from basically anywhere on the court. In this video we're going to go through a few clips of Devin Booker making plays. I'm going to pause it right before the decision has to be made and I'm going to give you a chance to make that decision. See if you can make those same reads. Let's get into it. First let's take a look at Devin Booker and some isolation situations. What's his read right here? Book is reading his defender's hips in this situation. As soon as he attacks to the left, Middleton has to flip his hips and cross his leg over, meaning that he if Book can get into a pull up off of that, Chris Middleton's going to have to take at least one more step before he can slow himself down and Book will be able to easily create separation right here. Because Chris Middleton has size though, he has to go with this little step back to create a shot. What's Devon Bookers read in this situation here? So we see a similar situation right here. Book recognizes that Kemba's about to cross that leg over, so if he can quickly get into a pull up, Kemba's not going to have time to stop and get a good contest. Great scorers are always subconsciously recognizing where their defender's hips are pointing, seeing if they can make that defender cross that leg over. And then the best scorers are able to create separation in the mid range and they have a smaller defender on them like Kemba. They can go straight up into that pull up in the mid range. Now we'll take a look at Book in transition. What should his read be here? Devin Booker is a great athlete and he's very smart with how he uses his athleticism as well. He understands when to slow down, when to go fast. He's especially great at his transition. He sees his defender standing flat footed waiting for him. So he goes from slow to fast to catch the defender off guard and get downhill the rim as he sees that there's no help in the paint. One quality that the majority of great players share is unpredictability. It's very hard for defenders to know how to play them because they're constantly doing things to keep their defenders off balance. Now we'll take a look at Book and a ball screen situation. What does read here? This is just an example of Book using that athleticism to his advantage. When he's given a favorable matchup, the defense brings that hard hedge, so Book immediately bounces that around the hard hedger and then gets downhill beating that guy to the basket. Now let's take a look at Book in some off ball situations. What's his read right here? After Book sets this screen off the ball, he recognizes that he has great positioning to seal the smaller ol depot and get a pass towards the middle which leads to an easy layup. Despite how good he is on the ball. In order to truly be considered a great scorer, you have to be able to score without the basketball in your hands by working off the ball and looking for opportunities to seal after setting screen. Something that a lot of players don't do enough but will lead to easy opportunities when you do it in the right situations. Keeping with this off ball theme, what read should Book make coming off of this pin down? If you guys haven't watched my video about how to become elite at using off ball screens, I'll link it above. Make sure you check that out. There's a test net video as well. It's going to help you guys out and challenge you. Book sets his defender up well and so when that screen comes the defender is trailing, meaning that Book's gonna tight curl this and that gives him all the space he needs to immediately get into a jump shot. What's Books re coming off of this dribble Hando foreign usually means the defenses are going to make it harder for you to score, but typically it's going to mean that your teammates are going to have an easier time scoring. As we see in this clip right here. Book comes off of this handoff and sees that Ayton's man is starting to creep up a little bit. Aiden dives down to the rim and it's an easy lob for the N1. What's books read in this post up situation? Not every dribble is necessarily used to go north and south. A lot of times the dribble can be used just to get yourself to the open space and allow yourself to rise up for the shot. Book has a smaller defender on him right here and he recognizes that he has some space open to his right. So by taking that dribble out there he's able to get into some space and rise up over the smaller defender for the easy shot. Let me know in the comments how many you guys got right. Also, make sure you guys go to the top link in my description below to grab my free Elite Perimeter score workout. We work on skills that you're going to want to develop if you want to be a better player on the perimeter. If you guys enjoyed this video, drop a like and subscribe and let me know who you want to see next. Talk to you guys soon. Peace.
