A short coaching video by Coach Ethan Khoza explaining how players can learn to drive aggressively to the basket. Main points: don’t fear contact or getting blocked (use contact to draw fouls and neutralize shot blockers with a veer finish), practice seeking contact in workouts, and use simple perimeter moves (jab step + 1–2 dribbles) to get north–south to the rim. Encourages consistent practice and a fearless mentality.
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Just drive me, baby. What's up, guys? Coach Ethan here today. I want to talk to you guys about how you can drive aggressively to the basket. This is a question that I get from some players, you know, and this can be for a few different reasons. Sometimes they're great shooters and they want to know how to add a second piece to their game. Other times they just don't feel confident driving to the basket and they want to know what they can do to change that. So let's talk about it a little bit. The first thing you got to do is you need to change the way that you approach it. You can't be afraid of contact, and you definitely cannot be afraid to get blocked. This is maybe the number one issue that players have when they drive to the basket. And a lot of times the reason that they finish weak and don't finish as much as they should inside is because they're either scared of contact or they're scared to get blocked. You can be scared of neither of those things. When we talk about contact, you actually should enjoy contact. You should welcome it because contact usually means you're going to the free throw line, and those are free points right there that can really help you get going as a scorer. On top of that, that's going to get their team into foul trouble. And once the ref sees that you're willing to take it hard to the basket, he's going to give you more calls, believe it or not, during the game, because now he expects that from you. So being able to get to the basket and getting fouled is extremely valuable to your team, and it's going to really help you score more points. So don't be afraid of contact. Instead, you want to look for it. By that I mean you want to initiate. If you look at a lot of my workouts, we, we work on a move called the veer finish. And all that is is when you're driving down the lane, you step into your defender before you extend and finish. All this does is one, it neutralizes the shot blocker. So instead of him being able to jump into you and potentially block that shot, if he's a really long and tall guy, you're neutralizing his ability to jump forward. Now all he can do is jump up or potentially even jump backwards if you hit him hard enough. So we hit that veer a lot of times too. If he still comes forward because you initiated it and that contact is there and it obviously can be seen by everybody, refs are going to make that call and you're going to get to the free throw line more often. And on top of that, if you're good at the veer finish, you'll get a lot of and ones. So again, contact is never something to be afraid of. The other thing is players are afraid of getting blocked a lot of the times, and this again kind of goes back to the first point. Don't ever be afraid to get blocked. First of all, even if you do get blocked and the ball gets sent out of bounds, if you it's going to be your team's ball for a short inbounds. As a coach, I'd much rather have my guy get blocked out of bounds than us have a shot to get an easy layup or wide open three off an inbounds play rather than him miss a layup. Their defender gets it and boom, they're out in transition. That's way better for us. Getting blocked is infinitely better than missing the layup. So understand that if you go strong in the basket and you still get blocked, that's okay. It happens sometimes, but usually that's going to end up with a better result for your team as opposed to just straight up missing the layup. So don't be afraid of contact and don't be afraid to get blocked. The second thing to focus on to get better at driving to the basket is practice aggressively driving to the basket. While you're in your practices and your workouts, don't just wait until the game and then try and drive aggressively to the basket. Work on doing it in practice. Work on seeking out contact in practice, work on expecting the contact. Work on getting really good at driving aggressive to the basket. So that way when you get into games, it's going to translate. Another part of being aggressive to the basket is being able to beat your defender on the perimeter. Now, if you watch the NBA or even college, the majority of times when guys get beat is not with all these fancy dribble crossover moves. It's usually not that. It's usually a jab or maybe a shot fake into two dribbles into one or two dribbles to the basket. Sometimes there'll be a crossover and then one or two dribbles. But you almost never see the Kyrie Irving, Steph Curry cross a guy up and go to the basket. Especially in lower levels, the best players can get north to south with maybe one move and maybe two dribbles max. You need to be able to do that as well. What I recommend is that you get good at using a jab step to shift your defender and then being able to hit the lane hard and get to the basket in one or two dribbles max, that's incredibly difficult to guard when you have a good jab step. And if you want to see more about the jab step, I'll link a workout up here somewhere that's going to give you guys some drills to improve the jab step. Driving aggressively to the basket is a must have skill in the game of basketball if you want to be a great scorer. And it definitely is something you can develop if you consistently work on using these tips. And above all, you're never afraid to get blocked or get hit. If you approach the game with that fearless mentality mentality, you're gonna be able to drive this basket much easier and your rate of success is going to be this much higher because of the confidence that you play with. That's it guys. If you enjoyed this video, go ahead and leave a like and subscribe. I want all of you guys right now to click the link in my description and join our private basketball training group where I'm giving you guys free workouts, personal coaching for me, and a lot of exclusive content that you're not going to get anywhere else. So like I said, link is in my description. Go ahead and click it 100% free and I'll see you guys in there. Like I said, if you enjoyed the video, go ahead and subscribe. Hit this little black button right here to make it easy. I really appreciate it guys. And drop a comment, let me know what you guys want to see next. This is for me guys. Peace.
