The Skill You NEED To Master: Two Foot Finishing

Being able to finish at the basket is one of the most foundational pieces to being a successful offensive player. But yet it's still an area where many players struggle. And many times it's because players have the wrong approach to it. Specifically, a large amount of players don't understand the power of two foot finishes. If you want to become a significantly better and more versatile finisher around the rim, then you have to get good at finishing off of two feet. Let's get into it. Whether it's during layup lines or even just in practice or workouts in general, it seems that the majority of players work on one foot finishes with no defense on them. The issue is that the majority of times when you finish around the basket, there's going to be other defenders there that are trying to stop you from scoring. And in those situations, that's where two foot finishing becomes super important. The first reason that two foot finishing is such an important skill to have is because it allows you to be on balance and therefore powerful. The first step to being powerful around the rim is being on balance and under control. As you can see in these clips, when players try to go up against defense off of one foot, many times that leads to them being off balance, which means that any little contacts is going to cause a miss. Let's compare these two clips right here. In this first clip, this player is attacking downhill and the finish is going to be very, very contested. There's going to be contact. So he finishes on two feet right here, which allows him to be under control, powerful and finish with that contact. And in this clip here, we have a pretty similar situation driving downhill again. But this time the player decides to go off of one foot, which doesn't allow him to be under control or powerful going up. So once there's a little bit of contact, it's enough for him to miss this layup. And you can see right here that both of these takes look very, very similar, except the one that goes off of two feet. The player is in much more control on the finish and the player who goes off of one foot is out of control and off balance, which leads to the mission. You'll notice in these two clips right here how both of these guys are able to beat the aggressors on the finish as Gillespie is able to adjust and go into his defender in the air. And because of the two foot finish in this clip right here, the defender missed times the jump for the block. So it's a wide open finish. Finishing off of two feet allows you to be the aggressor on the finish. It helps you to use contact as an advantage for you instead of allowing the defender to use contact to their advantage and cause you to miss. As you get good at this, you'll also be able to draw significantly more fouls and and ones. Finishing off of two feet also gives you way more options when it comes to pump fakes and pivots. A simple jump stop and pump fake is one of the most powerful moves in basketball because especially against big athletic players, they're going to be jumping for that pump fake, which is going to leave you with a wide open finish most of the time. Villanova is consistently one of the best teams in the country at finishing around the basket, and it's no coincidence that they preach two foot finishing. All of their players are phenomenal at getting the two feet and and then either going up if the finish is there or get into a jump stop, into a pump fake or into a pivot step through into their finish. A big part of being a great finisher is your ability to be patient and create a good look for yourself. If you guys saw my video last week talking about hunting the paint, these really go hand in hand. I talked about the importance of coming to a jump stop and surveying your options. And when it comes to finishing, it's the same exact thing. You may not have a great finish right away, but with that jump stop, into a shot fake or into a step through, then that might create the great finish for you. When you go up off of one foot, you don't give yourself the ability to be patient to see if there's a better look that's available. And so if you go up with one foot in the wrong situation, this can lead to bad things happening. And here we can see another benefit of two foot finishing, which is that it allows you to extend out away from defenders and finish. This allows you to be significantly more versatile and unpredictable with how you finish. And again, this all stems from the control that you have going off of two feet. It's important that you guys work in two foot finishing to the workouts that you're doing, specifically working out of a jump stop, working of a pump fake, or a step through and working that 12 stride stop finish as well. If you guys want to check out how I implement these into a workout, I'll link a video above where I have something you guys can check out. And as always, it's best to work these into some sort of live setting whenever you can, even if that's just your pickup games. Look for opportunities where that twoot finishing is going to be helpful for you and eventually it'll become something that you go to naturally. If you guys enjoyed this video, make sure you drop a like and subscribe and subscribe and let me know below in the comments what you think. If you have any video suggestions, drop those as well. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.