How To Play The Game SUBCONSCIOUSLY (How To Read The Defense In Basketball) - Part 2

So there's step number one, understanding what our reads are and when we're supposed to make them. But obviously, you know, we can sit around and watch videos and understand what the reeds are and we can get the knowledge for it. But if we don't actually go and apply them, then it really doesn't matter. In the game of basketball, it isn't just about knowing and understanding the reads. It's also about having the physical abilities to go out and actually execute those reads. And that's where your practice comes in. So you got to make sure that you're working on your ability to attack closeouts, your ability to pull up in the mid range, your ability to finish around the help defender with different evasion finishes, Euro steps, floaters, those different reads that you might need to make when you talk about that help guy coming across the lane. But aside from that, it isn't just about being able to physically execute each read. It's also about being able to make the split second decision of, of when to go to each read. That's as important as understanding it and having the ability to do it. If you aren't able to take those two things and then be able to make that decision very, very quickly in the heat of the moment, you're going to struggle to be able to do it in game. The window of time that you get to make a decision is very, very, very short. Basketball, like I said before, it's a game of solving problems. There's a ton of problems you're going to face every single game. And each problem is going to be a little bit different than the one that you faced right before it. And that might mean that you know you're playing and you're in a one on one situation. Your defender takes away your right hand. Okay, so how do you solve that problem? What's your read to make in that situation? You have to know instinctively. Okay, he does this now I'm going to do this. All right? You have to know if that, if that hedge defender, if he plays a real soft hedge, you have to know, okay, I have the opportunity to beat him to the outside right here, or drag him out and he's going to play back. Okay, well, now I can hit the shot. You have to be able to make those reads very, very quickly. Right? If you attack, you beat your guy one on one and that help defender comes across the lane, you have to know that you're not gonna get a shot off. So you gotta kick it out to your open teammate or you gotta hit that Pull up before the big gets there. Or you might have to hit him with the Euro step, something like that. But that's something that you get from practicing it in a live situation. And that's really what I'm getting to. These problems are always gonna be different. When you're in your training, you're training by yourself, right? You, you can control what's happening, are you control the reads you're gonna make you control each finish. There's no exterior factors that affect what you're doing. But if you're going against a live person, a live defender, all of a sudden what they do might have to change the way that you are able to actually execute that read. The floater that you shoot might have to be a little bit different. Might be a little bit earlier, a little bit later than it would be if you were just practicing by yourself. And you can do it the same way every time. Okay. If now you have teammates on the floor, you have to recognize that help defender steps up, well, now you might have a little dump off to his guy who he just left to go and help for you. Okay. Or you have to know now, right? I can work on coming off ball screen if it's just a chair right there. But now I have to understand that if we're in a live situation and I'm getting a ball screen. Oh, okay. Now they hard hedge it. Well, oh, now I can split this or they hard hedge it. I can't split it, but now I can. I can hit a passover to my pop guy. He's got a wide open three. Okay, that stuff you get from playing, then those, that ability to make those quick decisions, you can't develop when you're just practicing by yourself. This is why I always stress the importance to players of making sure that you're playing the game you're playing in live situations as often as you can. You need those drills, those drills by yourself to actually develop the physical skills to be able to execute in games. But then ultimately you need to go to those games, those game situations in practice, actually executing there, making the right decisions, knowing that, okay, you know, I've got to put a little bit more on this pass. Now there's a defender here, right? If I just throw, if I throw this pass nice and light, he's gonna be able to steal it. Okay, that's things, those little nuances you get from playing the game. So obviously you should be playing five on five, ideally at least a couple times a week. But really as much as you can, just being Able to play in those, those ultimate game situations. When you play in a game, it's five on five, alright? So you want to put yourself in that five on five situation. But also we can break this down and go even smaller than that where we can take these individual situations and if you can get two or three of your teammates to join you, you guys can really drill in those different game situations. So for example, here's a live drill that we did that works on the ball handler's ability to read the help defender and score when coming off of a wing ball screen where his defender goes over the screen. For this workout we went over this exact situation earlier in, in the workout. We worked on different reads coming off this ball screen, worked on how to attack this help defender, how to make different reads to beat this help defender who's stepping up and knowing, okay, do I need to use a turn dribble and get around him? Do I need to pull up right here? Should I go with the Euro trade? Beat him to the inside. All different things and all different reasons you're going to see right here that we took from drilling, you know, against no defense to, against me being the defender and giving them kind of soft defense to. Now we're playing live and they're all competing, trying to win and they have to see, okay, oh, so this is where this comes into play, this drill that we were doing, working on this specific move. Now I see how it actually applies in the games. Now I see how to actually use it in games. Okay, it goes from understanding what something is to now know, okay, I know when to do it, I know how to do it and I know ultimately why I'm doing it. That's what you get from being able to simulate these, these different situations. There's also drills where, you know, you can have a ball screen, you can have that ball handle to come off of the screen and then you can got you guys can trap him off that and then you play a little two on one right there where he's got to be able to score even though he's getting trapped. Where in a game, if you're getting trapped there, you're probably going to look to pass the ball. But just to be able to work on your ability to still attack the basket and finish even when you have an extra guy on you, that's something you can do right there. So just being able to go into those little situations and they don't even need to be as detailed as that, you might just say, hey, you know, I'm get three of my teammates, and we're going to play two on two, where we're going to start with a ball screen every single time, okay? So now all of a sudden you guys get to play working on ball screen, right? Maybe you even get an extra teammate, right? So now you have you and you have four of your teammates and you say, okay, you know, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go two on two. We're going to start with the ball screen, but then we're going to put the extra guy as the help defender. So now we're gonna play off our ball screen. But now we have to also account for the fact that if we start to drive downhill, there's gonna be a help that is gonna step up. So it's a little two on three situation right there. So those are just things you can start to think about saying, okay, you know what, I'm gonna call up a couple of my teammates, couple my friends, and we're just gonna work on this situation. We're gonna compete. We'll play first team to five, or first person of five. We'll make it fun. But at the same time, we're gonna get to get better in these situations and I'm gonna get better at ultimately making these different rules reads. And you can, you can put that into any different. You can have this coming off of an off ball screen where you guys have to play off of that, off of a pin down, whatever it might be. You can just do it straight up, one on one where, you know, you maybe you bounce out, you have a V cut out to the wing. And then as soon as you catch the ball, do you. Going one on one against somebody where you're working on, okay, now I have to, you know, what am I going to do after I jab and he doesn't go, or I jab and he does go. Do I space or shoot? Am I going to attack the opposite direction? And maybe you add a help defender into that. So now it's one on one. You have a help defender coming across the lane. If you start to drive now, you have to be able to account for that. There's a lot of different situations you could put yourself in and you can really start to isolate. So those situations where you might think to yourself, hey, you know, when I was in my game last week, I did a. I wasn't very good at doing this, right? This situation where I drove to the basket from the baseline and I got caught in the air. I didn't know where to go to. Maybe that situation, you can drill with some of your friends or some of your teammates and you can get better at it doing that. Okay? So something you can really tailor to yourself as long as you're able to think critically and think, okay, you know, what situations do I struggle in? What situation do you get better at making reads in? Let's work on that. Okay? But if you aren't able to do that, maybe you don't have guys available to drone with you to do that. Try and put yourself in those situations in pickup games. So if you're able to go and find some five on five to play, maybe it's with your team, maybe it's at your park, whatever it might be, Try and put yourself in those same situations. Try and call for a ball screen. Say, hey, come send me a screen. And then come off the screen and play off of that. Okay? Don't be afraid to mess up in those situations. Get better. We need to get better at. Because ultimately those game reps are super, super important, okay? So don't make an excuse if you can't find guys to make it perfect. Say, you know, I'm gonna go play with the guys that I can find and I'm gonna still try and get better, okay? Ultimately, it's not enough to watch, right? You can't. You can't just go on YouTube and watch videos. Those can be important. That's step one. But then we have to get to the next step, which is actually learning how to apply it if you want to actually see it and get results in your games. If you guys enjoyed this video, make sure you drop a like and subscribe. Make sure you guys click the top link in my description below to get my free elite perimeter score workout where we're going to work on a budget. Skills you need. If you want to be a great score in the perimeter completely free, I'll send it right to you. Like I always say, you have questions for me, drop a comment below. Also send me a DM on Instagram @ Vision Driven Basketball if you have any questions for me. That's it, guys. Peace.