How To Score More When No One Passes You The Ball

One of the most frustrating things as a player is not getting the ball. This might be because you're playing on a new team. Maybe it's because your role isn't that big on your team, or maybe it's because of the position that your coach puts you in in your offense. But you know you can score and you've been putting in the work. But when you're in games, the ball just isn't finding you enough. And this is a really depressing spot to be in as a player. Plays aren't getting run for you. You're wide open and still not getting the basketball. And you probably start to feel invisible during games. Here's the good news, though. There are so many points available for the players who recognize what to the smartest players aren't just going to sit there and wait for their touches and be at the mercy of their coach or their teammates choosing to pass on the ball or not. They're going to create their own chances by playing smart basketball. So if you want to score more without needing the ball more, there are five things that you need to do. And a lot of players completely ignore this, but it'll completely transform the way that you can score and create on the court. And if you truly apply these things, I guarantee that you're going to start scoring more points, more consistent consistently. The first thing you can do to start scoring more points is to make it your mission to win in transition. Most players think that they're playing hard and running the floor hard in transition. But if you're able to go back and watch yourself, you're going to see that you probably aren't sprinting at 100% every single time your team pulls a defensive rebound. You need to make it your mission to win the first three steps to half court. So as soon as your team pulls that defensive rebound, the first three steps you're going to take running onto offense, you. You've got to make those three steps faster than anybody else does. Now, sometimes this will create open layups for you, but a lot of times it may create open threes for you if you're a shooter. And sometimes you may get the ball advanced to you, which shifts the defense. And then you may, you may be able to get the ball to somebody else who's now open, which increases the trust that your coaches and your teammates have in you, making you more likely to get the ball more often. So it's not just about scoring, but it's about the domino effect that you being willing to sprint in transition is Going to create. The second thing you need to do in order to score more without getting more touches is cut like you mean it. In basketball there's a rule called a 95 all that. That means that 95% of the time you don't have the ball in your hands. There is a select group of players who may have the ball in their hands more than that. But on any given team, it's usually only one or two guys who are above that. And everybody else is going to be without the ball in their hands for like 95% of the time. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of players struggle because they, they spend so much time thinking about how can I have the ball in my hands more, how can I be able to dribble more and create more? And they don't need to do that. They're already being presented with a lot of great opportunities. Specifically, learning how to cut and move without the basketball is huge when it comes to being more open, being undeniably open so that you have to get the basketball. The first way you can do this is by looking for opportunities to backdoor cut. So if you're on the wing and your defender is in help defense, but they're just turned to look at the basketball, you see their back. Great opportunity to backdoor cut. If you're coming off of a pin down or an away screen, whatever you might call in your offense and your your defender is overplaying it or they're just running through the motions. Backdoor cut right there. You'd be surprised how much more often you're going to be open and how many more opportunities you're going to create for yourself just by looking to backdoor cut two or three times every game. Another huge opportunity in terms of scoring without the basketball is 45 cuts. And this is when you're on the wing and the ball is on the opposite side of the floor. This can happen on a post touch. The ball gets pushed down to the post. You cut from the left wing, the defense is turning to focus on the post touch. And a lot of times you're just going to be wide open for a layup or a little shot in the paint just by looking for that opportunity. Also, whenever your teammate drives from the other side of the floor, so your teammate drives to the right side of the floor and you're on the left side of the floor. You just making that 45 cut right to the rim is going to lead to a lot of open opportunity. So look for more opportunities to make that 45 cut as well and, and you're going to find yourself wide open and getting the ball more often. One of the biggest reasons why players feel like they're invisible and they're not getting the ball is because they don't work on offense. They see the ball. Dominant players who just get the ball every possession and then they spend all their time frustrated, that's not them. Well, why don't I get the ball? Why can't I get an opportunity to create instead of saying I'm going to work as hard as I can off of the basketball looking for any opportunity I can to cut. And if you approach things that way, you make the most of it. You're going to get the ball more, you're going to have more opportunities to score and as opposed to just kind of hanging out in the perimeter because you don't know what to do. The third thing you need to do if you want to start getting the ball more is to move after every time you pass the ball. The worst thing you can do on offense is pass the ball and stand. Pass the ball and do nothing. Steph Curry is a great example of why this is. Defenses spend so much mental focus on guarding him when he has the ball. So Steph will have the ball and he'll pass it and that that defender relaxes because they're like, oh, I did my job. And that's when Steph will hit him with a backdoor cut or he'll come off another screen. He's moving right away and because of that he's really hard to guard because he understands as soon as I make a pass, I've got to cut, I've got to set an away screen, I've got to chase the action, whatever. You can't just pass and stand. This is a huge bad habit that I see from players all the time. Just by making that mindset shift, that whenever you make a pass, you're going to go set an away screen or you're going to cut to the basket. When you pass and stand, you become a non factor, you become invisible on offense and you're, you're not doing anything to deserve getting the ball. A lot of times the problems that you have in terms of not getting the basketball can be solved by you working harder to move without the basketball. And the, the best way to simplify this is to say to yourself, okay, anytime I make a pass, I'm moving. I'm never just going to pass and stand. The fourth thing you can do to start to score more points without needing the ball more is to crash the offensive boards. And I, I just made this point in a video that I made a month ago on Tick Tock where I was talking about five things you can do in AAU games to score more points. Because I, I've coached or watched probably 40 or 50 AAU games so far this season. And one of the things that I've noticed is the guards who are willing to go in offensive rebound get more opportunities. So this isn't just for bigs. Obviously, if you're big, you should be trying to work hard on the boards, right? That. But that's kind of common sense. Like, everybody knows that a lot of times guards don't think that they're important or that they have a lot of opportunity to go get offensive rebounds because they're not the biggest or they're on the perimeter, they're not in the best position. But with the way the game basketball is, there's so many three pointers taken that it leads to a ton of long rebounds. So by you crashing, even if you're only in the mid range, a lot of times these long rebounds are going to come to you. You're going to get opportunities to get that rebound, drive to the basket, get that rebound, get fouled. You might, you know, whatever, you might have some sort of opportunity with it. This again goes back to just working and looking for these opportunities. So the way that you have to think about this is that anytime a shot goes up for your team, so you didn't shoot the ball, but your teammate does, the one thing you cannot do is stay in no man's land and just watch. If you're standing on the, on the wing, your teammate shoots the ball, and you just watch the ball go up, that you're wasting time. You're either getting back on defense because somebody is leaking out in transition, or you got to crash the boards hard. Those are the two options that you have. Get rid of the idea that standing and watching on a shot is okay, because it's not. You're. You're essentially doing nothing. A lot of players can steal a bucket or two a game just by looking to crash the boards hard again, even if you're a guard, not only this, but you become so much more valuable to your team when you can earn extra possessions for them. Even if you get the offensive rebound, you just pass it out. You might not score off of it, but your coach, your teammates, they're going to respect you and give you more opportunities because you are ultimately helping win more possessions. For your team. And the fifth thing that you can do to score more points without needing the ball more often is to be patient and be purposeful. The best scorers are not going to force it every time. They're willing to play the long game because they understand how basketball works. The hardest time to drive, drive to the basket is the first time you touch the ball because the defense hasn't had to rotate much. Your defender probably hasn't had to close out much, and there hasn't been any sort of chance for a mistake or a late rotation or a miscommunication. So if you're willing to be patient and you say, all right, first time I touch the ball, I don't have an open shot, don't have a great driving lane, so I move the ball like we talked about. After that, you immediately cut or set, in a way screen as the ball moves. The second time you get the ball, the defense is going to have to. They've already rotated. Probably they've rotated into help and then back on the basketball. That's where there's going to be opportunities for you to attack that player. Get downhill because the help is going to be late. Your defender is going to close out the wrong way, and that's where the opportunity is going to. Are going to be there for you. So being willing to not force it early and move the ball and wait for the second time you touch it, third time you touch it, every subsequent time that the ball gets to you, it becomes easier for you to score because the defense eventually is going to mess up. Now, you might hear this and say, well, coach, I don't get the ball very much. So what do you mean I'm supposed to wait for the second or third time? Part of the reason why some players don't get the ball more often is because their teammates don't trust them to make good decisions because they feel like, oh, I haven't gotten the ball for three or four possessions now, as soon as I touch it, I gotta do something. You don't want to think that way. Be someone who your teammates can trust to make the right decision. So when you catch the ball, if you don't have an open drive, if there's somebody in the gap or the help is loaded up or, you know, you don't have an open shot, be somebody who's willing to just make the quick pass. Point five decision, catch it, don't have anything, move it. Now, your teammates are more likely to pass you the ball because they know that you're not just Like a black hole, who they throw the ball to and they're never going to see it again. And that's how you start to earn that second touch, third touch. And like I said, as the defense moves more, it becomes easier and easier to score as you do that.

I was actually telling the guys yesterday the power of a swing pass, not I catch it, I survey. I need to do this. The power of simply catching the ball, swinging it the other way, or catching it in a simple dribble handoff the other way. It may look like nothing's coming out of that. You didn't score right off that immediate action, but what it did was it made the defense change size of the floor. Every defense in the NBA is good if you play one side of the floor. It's once you start switching sides of the floor and now all of a sudden, the low man is now the strong side corner man. He gets lost and the low man who was over there, strong side corner, forgets to pull in and he's lost. That's when you can really dissect it a defense and pick them apart.

Like I said, you may not be getting the touches that you want, you may not be scoring as much as you want because you don't have the opportunities right now. But a lot of times this can be solved by you working harder and being more purposeful when it comes to moving without the basketball and understanding what to do when you actually catch it. And when you start to understand these things and when they become a part of you, the game becomes so much easier and people are going to look at you and say, oh, wow, I didn't realize you scored that many points. It was really, really easy for you. And that's where you want to be. Because if you can score easy points, that's how you score consistently. And to be a great scorer, it means that you're a consistent scorer. So it really all starts with the stuff that we talked about in this video. I created a free basketball IQ masterclass that is going to help you to learn more about these things and implement them into your game so that you can literally apply them the next time that you play. We talk about some of the things that I've mentioned here, but we talk about way more as well. And like I said, you can take that stuff, apply it to your next game and start scoring more points. So make sure you check that out. It's completely free. The top link in the description down below. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.