How To Make Scoring Easy (What Great Scorers Do)

Does scoring sometimes feel difficult for you? Whether it's being consistent as a score or just finding ways to score in general, this is a problem you've probably encountered in some sort of way. You can be the most skilled player on the world, you can put in all the work that you want to put in. But if you don't understand how to score and how to make scoring easy, you're always going to be super inconsistent and you're never going to be the type of scorer that you really want to be. The number one reason why players struggle to score is because they don't understand when to score. And knowing when to score is just as, if not more important than when knowing how to score. And when you understand these things and you truly start to implement them and make them a part of what you do, you can create what's called a scoring baseline, which essentially means you're going to be able to bank on 6, 8, 10 plus points per game just on these things and then add to that whatever else you do on top of it. And this is how you become a consistent high level scorer. So if your goal is to become an elite scorer, let's get into it. So like I just said, the number one reason why players struggle to score consistently or to score at a high level is because they don't understand when to score. We spend so much time worried about, okay, how do I get my shot better, how do I get my handles better, how do I get my finishing better? All those things which are important, like you have to have the physical ability to do those things. That matters a ton. But what matters, again, at least as much, if not more than that, is the context behind why you do what you do and when you do it. So just meaning, like, when do I decide to use these abilities that I have, right? Like you might have, you know, a big. Let's, let's take like a, let's a take, say you're a construction worker, right? If you have a bag and all you have in your bag is a hammer, you're not going to be prepared to do very many jobs. You're very limited in what you can actually get done. But let's say that you have a bag with 20 different tools in it. Well now all of a sudden you have the capability to do a bunch of different things. But if you don't know when to use a hammer, you don't know when to use a screwdriver, you don't know when to use a saw, you don't know when to use a Wrench. If you don't know when to use those things, then having those 20 tools is pretty much useless, right? So what we need to get to a point of is, okay, we have the physical tools, right? You've worked on your abilities to do these things, but they need to also have the understanding of when to use these tools, right? And that's what becomes super important. The first area that you need to understand if you want to score consistently is you want to score when the defense is at a disadvantage, right? So think about it this way. When you catch the ball and the defense is in perfect position on you, right? Let's say you catch on the wing, the defender is playing you, however their team defense dictates. So maybe they're forcing you to the baseline or to the middle or playing you straight up, whatever, but they're standing there in good defensive position. That's not a disadvantage for them. Like, they're actually at an advantage because they're between you and the basket and they're not moving towards you. Their momentum is still, so they're prepared to react to whatever sort of moves that you do. Now, it's not impossible to score in these situations, but it's obviously more difficult than if they're at a disadvantage, which would be, for example, if their momentum is coming towards you, then they're not already set. It's going to be much easier for you to be able to get by them or to shift them either way, or get them to raise up because they're coming from a disadvantage to try and guard you. Okay? So the most common example of this is a closeout. Anytime the momentum is coming towards you, you are in control. And this is the best time to be able to look to attack right here. Closing out is the most difficult thing that a defender is going to have to do on defense because they. They have to be able to get to you soon enough that they can take away the shot but not overdo it to the point where they can get beat on a drive. So you have to be able to stop both those things, and it's really, really hard to be able to do. So this is a great situation for you to hunt as the offensive player and look to attack in those situations. Obviously, if that ball gets kicked to you and they don't do a good job closing out and they have a. You have an open shot, this is one of the best times to shoot the basketball is off a driving kick where the closer doesn't get there in time. So that's the first thing but then also understanding like, hey, if they do a pretty good job closing out to me, if I can take advantage of that momentum, this is the best time to be able to drive. So it can be as simple as like a rip through to get by a closeout or it could be off a jab or a shot for to get them to raise up to just additionally exploit that momentum. This is one of the biggest things to, to be able to master offensively if you want to score points more easily and therefore score more consistently is how do I hunt closeouts to attack? And that might mean attacking like driving, but it also could just mean shooting. Like those are the situations you want to put yourself in and you want to take advantage of is a defender coming towards me, bring the momentum towards me. That means this is my opportunity to do something right. The thing you have to remember with this is that time is of the essence. So we have to take advantage of a defender as they're moving towards us. So you got to think about the fact that when you're on offense and you catch the ball that first half a second that you have the ball is when you need to do whatever you're going to do. So if you're going to shoot it, it's got to be when you first catch it because that's when you're be the most open, if you are, of course, unless you're using a shot fake and putting it back down. So obviously there's, there's nuance to it, but I'm speaking in generalities here. If you're going to attack, the best time to do it is within that first 0.5 seconds of catching the ball because again, that defender is still going to be rotating out towards you on that closeout. Likewise, if you're going to make a pass, best time to do it a lot of times is going to be immediately you catch the ball because maybe that last rotation hasn't happened yet. Your teammate's open. So the important thing to understand with this is that you have to make these decisions quickly. 0.5 decisions. You catch the basketball. When you do that, that's when you're going to be in the best position to take advantage of a defender who is at a disadvantage. Right? And when you do that consistently, you score points more consistently. So I'm going to link a full breakdown of this situation of these like reading attacking closeouts. I'll link that above. Make sure you check that out because again, this is probably the most important concept to understand if you want to consistently Score more points, especially when you within half court offense. The second thing that is important, it kind of goes along the same lines as this, but we want to be able to take advantage of your defender when your defender is in help. So when you're on weak side, meaning the ball is on the opposite side of the floor, your defender is supposed to be in help, right? If they're a good defender, they're going to be in help. Worried about the ball on the strong side, right? Let's say the ball is in the. On the opposite wing and you're in the corner. Your defender is probably going to be either one foot in the paint, one foot outside of the paint, or maybe both feet in the paint. But they're going to be helping to, you know, stop that ball on the drive. And if it gets kicked out to you, they're going to be closing out. So, right, that leads to the closed output we just talked about. But let's talk about just initially how to take advantage of that defender being in help. When that defender slides into help, generally they're going to do so in a way that can kind of play the passing lane still. So they know where you are. But when they move into help, they're going to try and stay in a way where they're. They're in help. But if your teammate were to try and throw you a pass, they might be able to get a hand on it or just be in a good position to close out there. So we want to do. Or when our teammate drives and that help starts to rotate over is we want to relocate. And what that's going to do is it's going to take your defender who's in help out of the passing lane. So it gives your teammate an angle to kick the ball to you. So again, this leads to more open shots for you, a lot of times more difficult closeouts for your defender because they have to turn, see where you are now and then get themselves there and try and stop you. So a lot of times that that helps you as well. Just gives you another little bit of a time advantage on that closeout. And again, it's important that we don't just become bystanders as our teammates drive. Generally, how this is going to work is if your teammate drives middle, you're going to relocate and lift up middle a little bit. If your teammate drives baseline, you're going to relocate down towards the baseline a little bit as well. Again, we want to be able to put ourselves in a position where we create that passing angle for your Teammate. And the thing to remember is that you just don't want to stand still when your teammates drive. Because when you stand still, sometimes you put your defender in a position where they can guard two people. They can help on the drive and also prevent a pass from coming out to you. Right? We want to make it to where they can only pick one. Either they're going to stop you from getting the ball or they're going to stop your teammate. Either way, they're going to give up something. We want to put them in that tough position there. And this applies as well. If you are like, if your teammates in a ball screen and you're on that same side corner, you want to make sure you just stand still there. You want to be able to lift up and again give your teammate that angle to give you a pass that, that help. Defender can't sit there and play the passing lane and. And the help right there. The third way to score more easy points is to run in transition. And I think that this is one of the best ways to score more easy points. It really comes down to you hunting your opportunities to get out and run and being able to anticipate when you're going to have these transition opportunities. So obviously the first part of defense is you have to secure rebounds. You got to finish possessions, right? So you can't do this at the expense of your team pulling rebounds. Mean you can't be leaking out early and then all of a sudden you give up an offensive rebound. That's not going to go well for you and it's going to ruin the entire point of what we're trying to do. So this has to be in situations where your team is securing possession of that board, right? What this comes down to a lot of times is being able to get good at anticipating when. When that board is being pulled, right? So that shot goes up and you can kind of almost tell off the hand of the shooter or, or based on the trajectory, okay, where that ball is going to go and do you have a teammate or multiple teammates in the vicinity that are likely going to pull it? Do you see multiple people going up for that rebound? And you can see, okay, my teammate looks like they're going to win that one. And can you get out and run and be able to anticipate a little bit early? Because again, what that can do is allow you just get that little bit of an advantage of that time advantage on any sort of defender is going to be rotating back defensively and when you can get good at anticipating when your Team is pulling boards and getting out and running a little bit early. It's going to get. It's going to put you in a really good position to be able to take advantage of the defense in a very vulnerable state, which is in transition. So a couple of things to think about with this is you want to run wide lanes as often as you possibly can. So the reason for this is because if you run wide in transition and that ball gets kicked ahead to you, even if there's a defender who gets back to take away the paint, which is the first place they should go if they're the first person back. If you're running, let's say you're running wide on the right side, like outside the volleyball line, and then you have a teammate who's also running wide on the left side. Well, all of a sudden that defender, the paint's gonna have to. Gonna have. They're gonna be in a bad spot because they're gonna have two guys coming from different directions, and they're gonna have to make a choice based on who am I, like, who am I worried about here? If they move over to you, you have your teammate who's running to the left side open. If they still try and play both, like, you might be able to take it yourself right there. So you have to think about these. These things. When it comes to running in transition, the first thing is making sure you run wide lanes. If you run narrow lanes or you're to court, it becomes much easier for that one defender to guard two to guard two players. So that's the first thing. Second thing to think about is you really want to focus on winning those first three steps. So when, let's say, you know, you're. You're on defense, shot goes up, you see teammate about to pull a board, you need to make sure that you book it. Those first three steps, you take down the floor. Like, can you win those three steps? Can those three steps be as explosive as possible? Can you cover as much ground as possible in those first three steps? And when you do that again, you're going to put yourself in a really good position to be ahead of people and to be able to be someone that your team can kick the ball ahead to and then be able to go score more easy points, make more plays for your team. So that third thing that's important when it comes to being able to score more easy points is running in transition. The fourth area that's going to help you to score more easy points is cuts. And I think that this is an area that a lot of players don't understand and they don't utilize to nearly enough. And we're going to talk about two specific types of cuts you can implement right now, and it's going to help you just get more looks and be open more often. So first type of cut we'll talk about is a 45 cut. And this is, this is basically when that ball is on the strong side, right? Let's say the ball is on the right side of the floor and this could be your teammate driving on the right wing and you're on the left wing and you just cut right to the basket. And a lot of times you're going to be open because again, the defense is so focused on that ball side, that strong side, that they kind of forget about you on the weak side there. So like I said, this could happen off of like a drive on the opposite wing or this could even happen on like a post touch where ball gets sent, you know, down to the low block and you're on the opposite side and you cut down or that 45 cuts of the basket. A lot of times you're going to find yourself open on this. What it's also going to do is it's going to open up space where if you have a teammate in that corner, they can relocate up towards the wing and again, give that teammate an opportunity for a kick out. Because we're, we're clearing a passing lane for them as well. So it's kind of a twofold thing right there. Not only is it something that can help you get open, but it can also create easy points for your teammates as well, or great opportunities, great looks for your teammates as well. So that first cut that's important is a 45 cut. And then the next cut that's important is just a backdoor cut, right? Whenever you have the defenses overplaying, being willing to go back to or keeping the defense honest, a lot of times you'll catch defenders off guard. So this can be like if you know your teammate has the ball and you see that your defender's back is turned towards you because they're ball watching, just cutting back door. A lot of times you're going to be kind of unnoticed, right, by anybody who's not watching you, which the only person who would really see you is your teammate because they're facing your direction, right? So this takes advantage of a lot of defenders laziness, or I should say a lot of their tendencies to ball watch, right? This is a huge tendency for a lot of Defenders that they, they aren't disciplined off the ball. So they turn, they just start ball watching. And when you see that, that's when you need to take advantage of that and hit those backdoor cuts again. It's going to be a really simple way for you to get a couple easy looks from time to time. Just because defenders get lazy, they start watching the ball and that leaves you essentially unguarded. Right? Again, if you play, if you play things the right way. So the fifth area I want to talk about in terms of creating easy points is off of reading screens. So this is something that a lot of players don't do. A lot of times when players use pin downs or down screens, they just kind of run somewhere. They might run out to the wing, they might, you know, fill a certain spot, they might tight curl it, but they don't actually know why they're doing any of that sort of stuff. When in reality we should be making decisions in terms of what kind of cut we're going to use depending on how our defender plays that screen. So here's how to read screens. Depending on how the defender plays it. If they chase you over the screen, they're fighting over top of that screen. That's when you want to tight curl it because you're gonna have someone trailing you. And what that's going to do is either give you an open like lane of the basket where your teammate can kind of lead you with a pass. And a lot of times what it's going to do is it's also going to take not only your defender but the screeners defender with you as well. So they can pop out and now they're open for a drive or a close out to attack right there. So they're, that tight curl is going to happen whenever that defender is chasing you over top of that screen. If they play under, that's where we get to more of a flare or even more of like a fill look. Okay. And again what that's going to do is potentially create a close. Either a shot or it's going to create a close up for us as well. And it's also going to allow us to, you know, your defender or your screener can then dive and look to seal and you can even look to enter it into them in the, in like a post up situation. But that defender plays under the screen. We want to flare or get out away from that basket. And then kind of heading back to our last point here, if your defender overplays it, right, they start to anticipate what you're doing, that's where we want to hit that backdoor look. They try and jump that screen early, whatever the case may be, they try and shoot under that screen early. That's where we can look to go back door and potentially catch them off guard again. What that will a lot of times do is take that defender or that that screen is defender with you as well. Because they're like, oh, he just got beaten a back door. Now I've got to make sure we don't give up. A layup that can do is bring two defenders with you and again leave your teammate who set that screen for you wide open as well. This is what happens when you're purposeful with how you read screens, depending on how that defender plays it. So again, they're chasing you over top of it. We're tight, curling it. They go under that screen, we're flaring or getting out. And if they overplay that screen, backdooring it. And when you start to really think about, okay, how is this guy playing and how should I use this screen? It creates a lot more opportunities not just for you to score more easy points, but for your teammates to score more easy points as well. So that's really a big thing when it comes to utilizing screens properly. And a lot of players leave a lot of points on the board because they never think about this sort of stuff. And when you start to again, you're going to find way more easy scoring opportunities are presented to you right there. So hopefully those things help you out. You can apply these into your games moving forward, you can score more easy points. And again, the better you are at scoring easy points, the more consistent you're going to be at scoring. And in order to be a great score, you have to be a consistent scorer. Anybody can go out and have a great scoring night, but can you do it over and over and over again? That's what great scorers can do. And again, building that baseline of easy points, of being able to score easy buckets is how you become that consistent scorer who can be a great scorer right there. So again, hopefully it helps you guys out. If you guys want a program that's going to help you to develop that again, the tools we talked about the tools for your toolbox, go ahead and click the top link in my description down below. Get my free elite primitive score program and that's going to help you can develop those tools so that we get to these games. And all you got to worry about is using the right tool at the right moment. Like we talked about, knowing the when and when you get your whens, right? And you, you know, know when to apply each tool to the situation that you're in. That's how you become a great scorer right there. So like I said, completely free, top link in the description down below. Make sure you check that out. I appreciate you guys for watching. Drop a, like, drop a comment. If you got something out of this, or if you've seen any of these work for you personally in games, drop a comment, let me know about it. I'll talk to you soon. Peace.