How to Stop Hesitating in Games (For Good)

You train harder than most of the players that you know. But when the lights come on, you freeze. You catch the ball wide open. Your mind starts racing. Is this the right shot? What if I missed this shot? Should I drive? Should I pass? When should I pass? What if I mess up? And then by the time you decide on what to do, the moment's gone and you lose your opportunity. If that sounds like you, it's not necessarily because you're playing scared. It's because you're playing stuck. You're overthinking what everybody else is out there playing. And that hesitation is costing you. It's probably costing you minutes or maybe a bigger role or more opportunities. It's probably costing you confidence on the court and it's definitely costing you trust when it comes to your coaches and your teammates. This is a terrible place to be. I've been there as a player and I talk to players every single day who struggle with these same sorts of things, but it's actually a simple thing to solve. In this video, I'm going to give you three simple ways to break out of that and finally start to play with the confidence, the consistency, and the freedom that you've been training so hard to have. So the first thing you need to do, and this is the biggest reason why players struggle with this, they hesitate to second guess themselves is because they go out into games without a very clear purpose of what they're trying to do. Most of the time, that hesitation that you feel actually starts before you even step on the court. And if you don't know what you're looking for, you're always going to second guess your next move. Players who hesitate usually lack a clear sense of where they're supposed to be, when they should do what, what their team needs from them, and what the defense is giving them. And if you don't have a clear answer to all those questions, then this is probably why you struggle with this. The reason for this is very simple, is that there's a gap in your training and there's a good chance that if you have that gap, this probably describes you. You spend a ton of time in the gym working on your skills, you're shooting, your ball, handling, you're finishing, maybe you're in the weight room getting stronger, getting more athletic. So seemingly you're doing all the right things, and you are when it comes to those surface level skills, but what you're doing is you are adding tools to your toolbox. The problem becomes, if you don't understand how to actually apply those Tools and when to do it, then it doesn't matter how much you work on those things, you're going to struggle to apply them. Being able to go on the court and having a purpose and a focus and knowing, okay, this is when I'm going to do that, this is what I'm looking to do. This, that solves that problem for you and allows you to play without second guessing yourself. You play free and you perform at your best. Really what it boils down to is developing your level of basketball iq. Because basketball IQ is the biggest fix when it comes to hesitation on the court. Because a huge characteristic of players who struggle with hesitating and second guessing themselves and not playing free, playing restrained on the court, is that they're constantly reacting and they are very rarely ever anticipating. One of the marks of a player with a really high basketball IQ is their ability to anticipate what's going to happen. So they know they see a screen coming and they anticipate what the defense will likely do. And this allows them to stay a step ahead. So have you ever watched a player who seems like they're constantly a step ahead and they know what's going on before it even happens? It's probably because they have this ability to anticipate. You develop that by developing your basketball iq. The best part about this is that it's actually the simplest thing to fix. Just like you train the physical parts of your game, your skill, shooting, ball handling, finishing, your strength, your speed, all this sort of stuff, you need to train your basketball IQ just like that. Meaning every single day you should be putting in those mental reps in order to develop your ability to get out of being a reactionary player and, and start to be able to anticipate things. Anticipating when a cut is going to be open, anticipating when an open shot is going to happen, anticipating when the right time to make a pass is. So a really simple plan that you can follow in order to develop this is you can turn on your TV right now, we are in the NBA playoffs in the conference finals. So you can watch one of those games. That's great, but it doesn't even have to be that. You can go on YouTube and you can find so many full basketball games. You can find a ton of college games, NBA games, Euroleague games, high school games, it doesn't really matter. But what you should do is pinpoint one player and watch them pick a player who plays a similar position to you. Or maybe they are. They're really good at a skill that you're trying to develop as well. So for example, if you're a point guard, you might watch Jalen Brunson, you might watch Trey Young, you might watch someone like Peyton Pritchard. If you're a wing player, maybe you watch Derrick White or you watch Mikhail Bridges. Those are just examples. But if you want to get even more specific, you can go and ask ChatGPT and say, hey, this is the type of player that I am. What player means so much that you recognize patterns and it's going to make you feel so much more confident with your decision making on the core, which is going to eliminate your hesitation and it's going to really help you to play with more freedom, more consistency and more confidence. On top of that, if there's something that you struggle with and you want even more guidance when it comes to developing this I created a free Basketball IQ Masterclasses link down below in the description. It breaks a ton of this stuff down. It's not just theory, it's do if you want to eliminate your hesitation on the court is get familiar and build a habit of putting grace. But once you build those things, your game is going to completely transform and you're going to feel like a completely new player on the court. Hopefully this gave you some steps to take. Like I mentioned, if you want another resource that's going to help you to develop these things, check out the Basketball IQ Masterclass link down in the description below. Completely free. I appreciate you for watching Talk Soon Peace decision before that because they're good at anticipating and they know all right, well my defender closed out like that so I'm going to have a drive or my defender was late on a rotation so I know when I catch it I'm going to be open on the shot or I see, hey, it's a two on one and a defender's rotating over to me so my teammate's wide open if I make a quick pass over to them. This doesn't mean that you want to rush yourself, but it means that you should be able to make quick decisions. And it's that combination of anticipation and being able to read your defender that allows you to do this. When you don't do this, when you hold the ball and you hesitate and it takes a long time for you to make a choice, you kill the advantage that you have, which is momentum. Your defender's got to close out to you which is their most vulnerable state on defense, them having to come towards you and and also the entire defense is rotating as well. So that's the best time for you to do something with the basketball. So if you have a habit of catching and holding the basketball a lot of the times or every time you that you touch the ball this is the best way for you to be able to create more for yourself and more for your team is just by building this habit of playing in point five decisions. Now you get better at this by first identifying that problem and looking for those those opportunities. So anytime the ball gets swung to me trying to make a quick decision, shoot, drive, pass and as you do this you're going to make mistakes which actually we're going to talk about in the third point but you're going to learn so much of what works for you, what doesn't work for you, what situations are the best to do what and when you go in there with a purpose saying okay I'm going to play in 0.5 decisions you're going to be able to work through.