Shooting Guards: This Is Why You’re Not Dominating Yet

The biggest problem that I see from shooting guards or two guards is they don't really understand how to impact the game as much as they could. A lot of times they get stuck thinking that their only job is to score or shoot the ball. But the best shooting guards do so much more than that. The most effective shooting guards are the ones who can consistently make the right reads, score efficiently and play at a high level on defense. In this video, we're going to break down exactly how to do that. So I want to break down exactly what it looks like to score the ball efficiently and at a high level as a shooting guard. And if you get really good at this, you're going to be a great offensive player again, not just because you're going to be able to score way more easily and consistently, but because you're going to be able to fit into any sort of offense and make everybody else around you better. So the first thing is being able to read your on ball defender. I think the most common and most important situation you have to be able to read is the way that they close out to you. Anytime the ball gets past you, there's going to be a closeout that's coming your way. Not every closeout is the same. So sometimes they're going to close out really hard. Maybe they had to close up from a long distance or they're just out of control. And, and these are opportunities where you have to look to attack that closeout, get by them, get downhill, get to a paint touch was either going to allow you to score or it's going to draw and help defenders for kickouts. But it's super important that you understand first thing. I see a closeout that I can get by, I see momentum that I can attack. That's an advantage. And when you see an advantage, you have to go at it. And then on the flip side of that, if your defender doesn't close out as hard or they don't close up the full way and they sag off, you have to be able to make that catch and shoot three. So if you get really good at just those two things, being able to attack a closeout and being able to hit a catch and shoot three when you're open, you're already going to be a pretty solid shooting guard just, just by being able to do those two things, then the next part of that is understanding what the best shot selection is. I could go into detail about the math of everything at points per possession and all that sort of stuff right there. But the most efficient shots that you can get are number one free throws, because you're going to shoot that at the highest percentage. Number two is going to be layups. You're going to shoot that the next highest percentage. And then number three is going to be threes because you might shoot them at a little bit lower percentage. You will layup or a mid range shot, but that extra point usually makes up for it. When we talk about efficiency, so being able to get to the free throw line, get layups and make threes consistently, those are the areas that you've got to become really good at. That's probably got to be 90% of the shots that you take. A massive part of being a great shooting guard is being able to move without the ball, because I call it the 95, 95% of the time. If you're not the point guard, you're going to be playing without the ball in your hands. So if you're not capable of scoring without the ball in your hands, you're going to be extremely limited in terms of how many points you can score and how consistent you can be creating for yourself and for your teammates. So let's talk about the three most important areas when it comes to playing without the basketball. The first area is getting open. And this is where I think a lot of players don't truly understand what, what they should do in these situations. So if you're not open right away, a lot of players move themselves up farther and farther towards half court to try and get open, even if the defender is denying them. Here's Steph Curry explaining why you shouldn't do that.

The last thing we can do out here, the last thing we can do is try to get open. And then I don't get it. Begging, begging, begging for the ball. All right? I don't care where you are on the court, that's the last thing we can do. Every other decision is the right one. You got plenty to choose from every decision. Screen away, front, cut back, cut space away from the ball. The last thing we can do is just do this. It's the most, it's the weakest move in basketball.

Instead of pushing yourself back towards half court, if you're being denied, that's when you need to get in the habit of going away from the ball. So if you're in the slot, you're getting denied. Go set a pin down to the guy on the wing or in the corner. When you do this, it does a couple of things. First of all, it opens up a double gap. So the person handling the ball they might be able to drive now because there's no gap hill because you went away from the ball. The other thing that's going to do is that you're going to go and you're going to create what's called an action, a pin down or a down screen. It's just an action and an action forces the defense to do something. So in this case they have to figure out how are we going to guard this screen. When they do that, they're going to give something up. They're going to go under the screen and they're going to, you know, maybe potentially give up a three or a close up to attack or they're going to chase the guy over and he can curl. And now maybe you get a layup or a paint touch to a kick out. But when you don't have anything, when you're not open, go away from the ball. Build a habit of doing that and you're going to create way more for your team. You're just going to be a better player overall. Now on the flip side of that, a big part of playing without the basketball is using off ball screens, using pin downs. If you are not a ball dominant player, this is probably the majority of the actions that you're going to be in every game is pin downs. So you have to know how to read them effectively in order to create an advantage and create opportunities for you to score and make plays for your team. So the first way that a defender can play it is you're coming off a pin down, they chase you over top. In that case you're just tight curling towards the basket. And a lot of times you might be open for a layup or for a paint dash to a kick out, or you're going to take the help defender with you who you know was guarding the screener and now the screener can pop out and they might have an open 3 or they might have a close out to attack now. So that's the first read. The second read is if they play under, you're going to just flare out towards the perimeter. And this is going to lead to you having an open shot or it could lead to you having a close out to attack. And then the third thing is if they start to overplay and try and go early to guard that screen, you can go with a backdoor cut. And a lot of times that's either going to create an open layup or paint touch for you, or again you're going to bring another defender with you. The screen is defender and now the screener is going to be wide open. So whenever we get in the habit of really taking advantage of actions that you have, you're going to force the defense to do something and they're going to, when they do, they're going to have to give something up. That's how you create an opportunity for yourself or for your teammate. And then the third part that's really important to know as a shooting guard when you're playing off the ball is knowing how to relocate when your teammates drive. Anytime your teammate drives, your defender is somewhere in help. And usually they try and play in the passing lane to deter a kick out to you. So what you want to do is move out of that direct line between them and the basketball and you. And we do that by relocating. So the general rule of thumb is that if your teammate drives towards the baseline and you're on the other side, you want to relocate down towards the baseline. And that's how they create an angle for a kick out to you for an open shot or for a close out to attack. And if they're driving towards the middle, you want to lift up towards the middle. And that is a lot of times going to create that angle for you. Same thing we talk about a ball screen. So if you're in the corner and your teammate is in the slot or on the wing and they get a ball screen, you want to start to lift up towards the wing because a lot of times your defender is going to tag in on the roll, just meaning they're going to help. And so when you lift up, you create an easier angle for potential pass and you force the defender to have to cover more space between the tag and getting back to guard you. So open shots close us to go out right there. Really important that we understand how to relocate off the basketball. And then another massive part of moving without the basketball is off ball cutting. This is an area that a lot of players struggle with to recognize when to do it. But there's so many opportunities for you to score, you're probably leaving on the table the two big cuts that you need to know and you need to get used to to getting to. Is number one, a 45 cut. This is when you're on the wing and you cut to the basket. The best times to look for this are when the ball gets into the opposite low post. So if the ball gets into the low post on the right side, you're on the left wing. Just a 45 cut down the lane. A lot of times going to leave you with an open layup. You also can look at a 45 cut when your teammate drives on the opposite side. Your teammate drives from the right side of the floor, you're on the left wing. Just a cut to the basket a lot of times is going to get you two free points. Then the other type of cut that's important to know and use is the back door cut. So whenever your teammates have the ball and you see that your defender is turning to look at them, or at least their head turns to look, that's when you want to start to recognize opportunities to cut backdoor because they don't see you. And you're a lot of times going to be wide open if you just cut. Being a great decision maker is also crucial if you want to be a great shooting guard, you want to be a great basketball player in general, but especially when a lot of times you're playing without the ball in your hands and you have to understand when the right time is to drive, when the right time is to shoot, when to pass, all that stuff right there. So the first part that goes into being a great decision maker is understanding 0.5 decisions. All of that means that within half a second of catching the ball, you, you have to do something with it. So you can't be a ball stopper. You can't catch it. It can't take you 1, 2, 3, 4 seconds to figure out what you're going to do. You should already know before you catch it. Okay, do I have the shot? Okay, do I have a shot fake into attacking a closeout? Okay, do I have nothing and I got to move the ball? Try and get to the next action. I move the ball to the corner and I go set another screen away. There's an action that I'm going to set right there. You got to be able to make that decision within half a second. Because the defense is rotated. They're at their most vulnerable in that first half second that you have the ball in your hands. So you got to get really good at making those quick decisions. And then the next thing is being able to recognize help defense. So the first part is gap help. When you catch the ball, is there a defender right in the gap one pass away from you that's going to prevent a drive. If that's the case, the best decision might be move the basketball, get to another action until you catch the ball and there's less gap help. Also being able to read the help defense from the weak side. So when you drive and is there a defender who Rotates over, across the paint to try and defend you. If I see that there's nobody in the paint, that's a really good time for me to try and drive because there's no help. It's essentially all I got to do is beat one guy and I'm going to be in the paint. Now. The other side of being a great shooting guard is being able to defend at a high level. The most valuable players, the players that coaches can't get enough of, are wing players who can shoot and defend at a high level. You got to work on becoming a great defender. So get more athletic, get in the weight room, lift explosively, heavy lifts, compound lifts, you know, your bench press, shoulder press, pull ups, squats, deadlifts, all that sort of stuff. Get really strong at those things, get explosive. So work on sprinting, work on jumping as high as you can. And then the next part of it is play as much basketball as you can. And you need to defend really good players as often as you possibly can. Anytime you get a chance to guard the best player on the floor, go do that, because those reps are going to help you. So much of defense isn't just physical. It's not just, am I fast enough, am I strong enough? A lot of it is, how well can you anticipate what they're going to do? How well can you pick up on subtle cues? And you can tell you can put someone who's a great athlete super quick, super athletic, super strong, and if they never played basketball before and you put them on the court, they're not going to be able to guard the better players on the court because they're not going to be able to pick, pick up on those subtle things. So put yourself in a position to go play against the best players you can possibly play against as much as possible, even if you get destroyed. Because you're going to start to pick up on things and maybe something that you couldn't guard the first day, the next time you see it again, you do a little better. And then maybe the third time you actually are able to get a stop in that possession right there. And that's how you get better at playing defense. So subject yourself to that. Try and find the best players possible to go guard. That's how you're going to become a great defender. Then the next piece of it, talking about something you can implement right now, is you have to know the game plan, you have to know the personnel. So obviously, you know, if you're an older player, you might have a team where there is like a set game plan where the code is say, okay, we scouted this team. This is what this guy does. This is what we're trying to not let him do. So we want him to do. So know that front and back. Like you should be able to know very quickly what you want this guy to do. Even if it's like an AAU game or pickup game or whatever and there's no scouting report. Figure out what does this guy like to do, what does this girl like to do, what are they good at? And then find a way to take that away and force them to get to whatever their second best thing is or their third best thing if they're a great shooter, force them to have to put the ball on the floor and say, you know what, they might beat me, but they're going to have to beat me doing their second best thing. That's how you become a defender who, when you play the game of odds, that's how you win more often is just by taking away whatever their first thing is and making them do the second thing. And if they beat you doing that, then you know, props to them. But that's high iq, intelligent defense and you'll be somebody who's really, really hard to take off the floor if you can defend at a high level and, and you're good at the stuff we talked about offensively. So what is your mindset need to be in order to be an elite shooting guard? The first thing is you have to be ultra focused on playing the game the right way. You have to consistently make the right decisions. You have to get in the habit of playing in point five decisions, being able to shoot, drive, pass quickly, being able to read closeouts. And then you've got to focus on being really good at playing without the ball in your hand. So getting good at being purposeful with your actions, so reading your pin downs, getting good at recognizing opportunities for off ball cutting, 45 cuts, backdoor cuts, and you can score 4, 6, 8 points every game just by being really good at doing those things. I think the best way to describe the mindset of great shooting guards is patiently aggressive. You're patient because when you don't have an advantage or an opportunity, you're very good at making that point decision to move the ball. You don't have anything move it, go set another action. If you're being denied and can't get the ball, you go away and set another action for somebody else right there. And you're very okay with not forcing things and not feeling like you have to make something happen every single time you touch the ball. But you're aggressive because as you're patient, as soon as you get that opportunity where closeouts coming, you have an opportunity to cut away from the ball. You know, you relocate and ball gets kicked to you. You have an open shot, you hunt those opportunities. And when you have the advantage, when you have a great opportunity, you always go after it and you're ready to execute and make a play in those moments right there. Now, all this stuff becomes easier when you become a better, more skilled player. And chances are there's a lot of things that you're doing or not doing that could be maximizing your development and you could be getting better at a rate two times faster than everybody el around you. I made a free guide taking you through step by step how to do that with a full breakdown and a full schedule in terms of what you can do on your off days, when days when you have school and practice and all that other stuff right there. So if you follow it, you're going to start to get better way faster and then all this stuff is going to work even better. You're going to become an even better shooting guard. So that's completely free. That's the top link in the description down below. Make sure you check that out. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.