Ethan Khoza breaks down how guards like Isaiah Thomas, Trae Young, CJ McCollum, and Chris Paul use speed changes to beat defenders. Hesitations, load dribbles, and explosive crossovers force defenders to react late, creating scoring chances in transition and off ball screens.
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One of the most undervalued aspects of scoring and being an effective player for your team is the ability to change speeds. Becoming quick on the basketball court isn't necessarily just about being the best athlete. A lot of it has to do with your ability to put pressure on your defender, with your ability to change speeds. There are a lot of opportunities where your pace or lack thereof is going to determine the opportunities you do or don't get. In this video, we're going to break down how some of the best guards in the NBA use speed changes to score the basketball. And and we're going to look at some situations where you can use this as well to become more effective as a scorer. Let's get into it. Being able to change speeds effectively is important for every position, but especially for undersized guards, this ability is crucial. And if you watch Isaiah Thomas, he's fantastic at this. And it's part of the reason that he was so tough to guard Isaiah Thomas go to was to approach his defender at about 60 or 70% speed, go into a hesitation and then go into 100% blow by. And this is so difficult for the defender to guard because as the offensive player, you know what you're going to do. The defense doesn't. They're reacting to you. So if you're able to speed up before they do, you're going to have a half second advantage over them. And Isaiah Thomas was great at using this to get downhill, to get to the basket, to get into a pull up or to get into a kick out. One of the moves you've probably seen Isaiah Thomas do is this closed hesitation move right here. Because when your defender sees you do this, they're expecting that you're gonna stop. You're gonna wait for a screen to come, maybe for somebody to develop. So when you quickly explode out of it, it's gonna catch them off guard. And as down Isaiah Thomas is going to push off that back foot and explode past his defender. One of the best times to change speeds is when you're the ball handler in transition.
This is such a tough position for.
The defender to be in. So if you're able to change speeds and quickly accelerate or go to that hesitation and blow by them, they're going to be moving backwards and it can be very difficult for them to stop you from scoring.
Watching Trae Young right here with him.
Slowing down in transition, that causes Twin.
Prince to think shot and shift his weight just a little bit, which is enough for Triyoung to blow by and get to the Rim. Another time where the ability to change speeds becomes super important is using ball screens. And this can be for every single read. As you'll see right here we can see Isaiah Thomas use a brief load dribble to shift Morris. Then he's going to use an explosive crossover to reject the screen and get downhill. CJ McCollum is going to explosively change speeds. As he splits this screen. He's going to catch the defense off guard and it's impossible to stop because he's going from 50% to 100%. And you can see Isaiah Thomas uses hesitation and speed change to bump around this soft hedge and get to the basket.
And as a guard, this is going to be extremely effective when you have a big that steps up as a hedger or in health. And here we have a dribble handoff which is essentially functioning as a ball screen. As eight Thompson go into that hesitation drive downhill kick out to wide Open Terror where 0 for 3 speed changes can also be very, very effective in beating the second line of defense. A lot of times if you beat your man and now you're up against a big or somebody who sets up and help, slowing down or speeding up a lot of times is the key to you being able to get your shot off. When Chris Paul comes off of his ball screen, he slows down, which causes the big who rotated over to slow down as well, which gives Chris Paul an angle to get this floater off. And here we see it again. Chris Paul slows down. That causes that big guy to relax, keep his hands down, and Chris Paul can go right up with that floater. And when you go from slow to fast against a defender who's standing still or isn't very mobile, you're gonna be able to get by them very, very easily as you see Isaiah Thomas do right here. Let's take a look at CJ McCollum right here and how he uses change of pace to get by his defender and get a layup right here. So you're gonna see him use this little spin move and then he's gonna come to a complete stop and that's going to freeze Gary Harris, allowing CJ.
McCollum to speed up and blow by him.
And again, like we talked about, he's going to gain that half second advantage over him because C.J. moved first, his defender was frozen, and now all of a sudden he's got a wide open lane in the basket. Make sure you guys click the top link in my description to get my free elite perimeter scorer workout very Very soon, I'm going to be dropping my elite ball handling program, which is going to help you guys not only get better at controlling the basketball so, but hitting all aspects of ball handling. You need to be able to have being able to change speeds, being able to change heights, being able to change the width that you dribble with, being able to create good angles and other things as well. It's really going to hit every aspect of your ball handling and it's going to help you to transform the way you can handle basketball. Be on the lookout for that. That will be coming very, very soon. If you guys like this video, make sure you drop a like and subscribe. If you're new, let me know in the comments what you want to see next. That's it, guys. Peace.
