How To Get Better At Driving To The Basket (The ONE Thing That Will Transform Your Game)

Right now we're going to talk about one major thing that if you understand you're going to be so much better at driving and get into the basket. I know a ton of players who struggle in this area and I hear from players all the time, maybe they're good at shooting, but they can't drive well and it makes them one dimensional and very limited. Or maybe your main skill is driving and you want to find a way to become even better at it. Regardless, if you become great at this one thing, not only are you going to become better at driving through the basket, but you're going to be able to do it much more often on a much more consistent basis. And I really think that depending on who you are, you can easily add 4, 6, 8 or more points per game to your average just by understanding this and being able to do it at a high level. And this concept is understanding closeouts. I say understanding because there's a couple aspects of it that matter. Make sure you stay through the whole video because like I said, if you understand this, you can easily add points per game to your average. Let's get into it. So real quick, what are closeouts and why do they matter? When your defender goes from help to guarding you, that's what's considered a closeout. Basically, it's when a defender's momentum is coming towards you with the intention of stopping you from scoring. These are the most important situations for you to recognize as an offensive player because it's when the defense is at their most vulnerable. Closing out effectively is the most difficult thing that a defender can do. They have to move fast enough to not only stop you from shooting or be able to contest your shot, but also be under control enough to not get blown by on a drive as well. If you want to give yourself the best chance of being successful on a drive, then you want to look for times to exploit your defender's momentum, which is much easier to do when they're closing out. So let's talk about how to create these closeout situations. Creating closeouts is first of all about putting yourself in a position to get a pass from your teammate, either when they're driving or on a skip pass cross court. So if your teammate drives and your defender is rotating in to help to stop the drive, you being able to create a passing angle for your teammate to kick you the ball, what's going to create a closeout for you? And this is going to require you to relocate, right? You might not be able to stand still when your teammates drive because they might not have a good angle to actually give you the ball and then create that closeout for you. As a general rule, you're going to want to relocate in the same direction that your teammate is driving towards. If your teammate is driving towards the baseline, you're going to relocate towards the baseline. If your teammate is driving towards the middle, you're going to relocate towards the middle. And in general, when you do it this way, that's how you create a good angle for your teammate to get you the ball and therefore creating that closeout where now your defender has to rotate back and try and stop you from scoring on the catch. Now that we've created the closeout, though, it's important that we're able to actually read it. And being able to do this is what's going to get you more open shots. If you have teammates that can drive and get paid, touches especially, this is very effective. It's going to create long closeouts, and then at that point, it's about reading it. So understanding. If you're wide open and you can shoot the ball, I think that's important to state there. If you can shoot the ball, then your first thought should be, shoot. If you're open and you can shoot the ball, shoot it. Right. Because what this is going to do also is that it's going to make defenders realize, oh, I have to close out really fast to take away the shot, which is going to open up everything else that we're about to talk about for you. So if you can shoot the ball in your open on the catch, then you shoot it. If you can't shoot, or if your defender does a good job getting there and taking away the shot, that's where attacking the closeout becomes the read. And there's a few different ways you can attack a closeout. First can just be going with a rip through. This is the most simple way to do it. And it's best when that defender is either very out of control or if you know that your defender is not athletic enough to stop you from going. So that's the first thing. Going along with that are things that I like to call closeout killers. And you can use these as well. And that's going to help you to create even more of an advantage and even exploit that defender's momentum even more. The first closeout killer that you can use is a jab. And what a jab does is it throws another movement in there that that defender has to react to. Again, they're already doing the most difficult thing on Defense, which is closing out towards you by you throwing in a jab, that might add an additional right movement towards them. Let's say you jab right, that might force them to have to shade a little bit to their right now. And they're already moving super fast now they have to react to that. So by you just jabbing towards your right, that's probably going to open up the left lane for you to drive even more and vice versa. Jabbing left, going towards your right. As long as it's a good job, that really sells it. That's just going to add another thing that's going to make a closeout very, very difficult for that defender there. So that's the first closeout killer that you can use to create an even better driving opportunity for yourself. The second closeout killer is a shot fake. So by utilizing a shot fake on a closeout, you can get that defender to raise up or even start to contest a potential shot, and therefore making it even easier for you to drive by them. So here's an example of just how.

Powerful these closeout killers can be. Right here on that extra pass, the offensive player goes up into a shot fake and it gets the defender to raise up. So much so that when that offensive player decides to attack that closeout, the defender tries to slow themselves down, but they end up falling because that's so much momentum to have to control. The other thing you notice is that.

This isn't even a full shot fake. The offensive player is really just giving.

A look at the rim and starting.

To raise into his shot. That's enough to get a reaction out.

Of the defensive player who's closing out.

And then right here we see the.

Power of a jab against that closeout. That defensive player is in help. As that ball is at the top of the key, the ball gets skipped, which creates a long closeout. That offensive player then jabs towards the baseline, which gets that closing out defender.

To react and shift their weight towards.

That baseline side, which opens up a much easier drive to the right for that player to get all the way to the basket. As you can see, when done right, these two things are very difficult for closing out defenders to stop.

Being able to recognize, read and attack closes is by far the best way to become better at driving, getting to the rim. But here's maybe the most important thing that you need to know. There's only one way that you can mess this up and it's by doing nothing. You can't catch the ball and hold it. You have to do Something, because this is all predicated on your ability to exploit the defender's momentum. If you let them close out the whole way and get to you and stop, there's no momentum left to exploit. And it becomes so much easier on them. So the rule is, if a closeout is coming to you, you have to do something with the ball. This is called a point five decision, and it's the foundation of effective offense. You have 0.5 seconds to make a decision. So I can shoot the ball, I can swing the ball to my teammate is open, I can drive either direction, whatever. You have 0.5 seconds to make that choice. And if you wait longer than that, it's too late, right? It's too late. Your defender is going to be there. There's not going to be enough momentum to exploit. You've got to do something within 0.5 seconds of catching the basketball. So I'll link a video above with Steph Curry talking about this exact thing. But that's the important thing to understand that you have to do something with the ball. Time is of the essence, and you need to use time to your advantage. And there you have it. If you want to become a better driver, you have to know when to attack. Creating, recognizing, reading, and then attacking closeouts are the key to doing this at a high level. And the best thing is, no matter what team you play for, what system you're a part of, what level you're at, there's always going to be closeouts to hunt and attack. And another added benefit to this is that if you understand these things and you understand the value of creating closeouts and, and hunting them, you can create them for your teammates. By driving, drawing in, help, kicking out to them, and therefore, by creating those opportunities for your teammates, you become so much more valuable to your team. Even if it doesn't necessarily mean that your value is coming by, you score, you might help other people score, and that's going to be a huge value to any team that you play on as well. Hopefully you got something from this. Make sure you click the top link in my description down below to get my free free elite perimeter score program. And that's going to help you take your game to the next level and help take your skills to the next level to the point where it's going to help you become even better. The stuff that we've, we've talked about, if your goal is to be a better driver, become a better shooter, whatever the case may be, it's going to help you out a ton. So Like I said top link in the description down below. Make sure you guys check that out completely free. I appreciate you for watching. Make sure you drop a like subscribe if you're new. I'll talk to you soon. Peace.