The Step By Step Guide To Watching Your Own Film (Why It’s SUPER Important!)

I truly believe that watching film is one of the most important aspects of becoming a better basketball player and overall becoming the best player you can possibly be. The powerful thing about watching your own film is that allows you to see the opportunities that you may have missed or not capitalized on, and it allows you to recognize how to change those things and then immediately step on the court the next time and be a better player without having to put in more work, without having to go and do anything sort of physical. You're able to take what you see and you're able to just take advantage of those opportunities that you missed, and immediately your productivity as a player is going to go up. Basketball isn't just about knowing how to do something like how to shoot, how to drive, how to pass, all those sort of things. It's also as important, and honestly more important, to know when to do things and why to do things. And that's what watching your own film does for you. Like I said, it allows you to recognize those opportunities when you should attack, when you should shoot, when you should make an extra pass, and then you're able to go out and be a more effective player just because you know those things. The other thing that watching your own film does is it gives you a true sense of how you played. A lot of times going throughout a game, so much stuff happens that you may forget the little details that go on from play to play. So when you think back to it after a game, you might have put a positive spin on it or a negative spin on it. But regardless, it might not be the correct lens you should be viewing it through. It's very easy to fool yourself and not actually remember what happened throughout a game. Again, whether it's positive or negative. Ultimately we want to know the truth of what happens so that you can take what you did in that game and become better from it. Additionally, it's very easy to miss opportunities in the game. You may have had a teammate who was open and you may have missed them, or you may have had an opportunity to drive and you didn't take it, or you may have had a shot opportunity that you didn't take advantage of. And sometimes you don't even realize that in the game. And if you don't realize that in the game and that you don't watch the film on it, then you're never going to know that there was an opportunity that you could have taken advantage of that would have gotten you better results. But again, there's the power of watching watching your own film back after you're able to see some of these situations that you may have completely missed and say, hey, you know what? I should have done that in this situation. And that might have gotten me a better result. That's the power of watching film. I was watching some of my old high school film and it got me thinking about all the opportunities that I missed that I didn't take up that could have made me a better player. All just by understanding when to do what, why to do what. So in this video, I'm gonna break down a few clips. I'm gonna show you guys exactly what I look for. So in this video, we're gonna go through a few clips. Clips. I'm going to show you guys exactly what I look for when I'm watching film so you guys can take it and apply it to your own film and become as good as you can possibly be. Let's get into it. First, let's talk about a couple reasons to watch your own film. Number one is that you can recognize.

Missed opportunities that you likely could have capitalized on and gotten better results in your game. This clip is an example of that. As I catch the ball, I have a wide open lane to the middle, which I just simply didn't take advantage of. And that's something I'm able to take note of for the next time that I play. And this is proven by the fact that the very next possession, I got the basketball, drove middle and immediately got the finish in the and one. But regardless, because I passed up that first opportunity, I probably cost my team two or three points on that first possession. And this also goes to prove a point of showing when you should look to attack. The best time to attack is when you look and see that there's no weak side help or or weak side help that's really far outside the paint. Or if you see that the defender one pass away isn't going to be able to step in and potentially stop you from driving. In this situation, it's the same thing. Those help defenders are too far away and their late help leads to the foul right here. And if the defense does have that defender who's one pass away, step in and help on the drive. Typically that's going to create an open drive and kick situation. As you see right here. He didn't make it, but it's a great look that will take every time. Here's another bad one right here. I catch the ball off this swing and my defender is closing out again. The help is outside of the paint. I have been Beating my guy the entire game. And I had the opportunity to catch and rip through going to my left, and I have to get downhill and finish. The help doesn't come over or have a kick to the corner. If the help does come. And then in this clip, we see the proof of that concept working. I catch the ball and I attack to the left towards the baseline. That help eventually drop, so I kick it out. Then we get an extra pass to our shooter. He hits the three. One of the biggest things to understand with basketball is that whenever you drive or you come off a screen or you make a cut, it's not always going to result in you scoring. And you shouldn't expect you're always going to score coming off of it. But what it's going to do is that it's going to force the defense to adjust, which raises the chances of them leaving something open for somebody else. So when I drive right here, that hell has to collapse. I can kick out to my teammate. They have to close out to him, and then it's one extra pass, and then it's an open shooter.

So to end this right here, guys, I want to give you kind of an overview of what I mean when I talk about watching film. Exactly what you should be looking for, how you can go about your process, why you go about the process, ultimately the benefits that you're going to gain from that. So we'll go through right here. Ultimately, you have to know what the overall goal of it is. When you watch yourself on film, you want to take what you see on that film and use that to be better in your games. You might not get more opportunities, meaning an increase. You might not get, you know, five more chances. The next game, maybe you get the same amount of chances, but you'll be able to capitalize better on those opportunities that you do get. So you become a smarter player, you understand the game better, but also you can be more efficient player, okay? And efficient players are players that positively impact winning and are very, very valuable on the court. So increase your value on the court. You do that by watching your film, understanding where your spots are, where to attack, what opportunities you're going to have, and how to capitalize on those. So what you should be looking for when you're watching film, number one, is missed and successful offensive opportunities. That was what this video was really focused on, was taking a look at me. Hey, I missed that opportunity to drive. You know, when should I have done this? When should I have done that? And that those are situations that happen pretty often. And for me, that's one thing that I wish I would have done more of, is recognize, hey, what opportunities did I miss last game? You know, you're always watching highlights or you're watching your film to get highlights. Oh, man, I hit that shot and I made that play. But what plays did you not make? And a lot of times they're really subtle. Okay, off the bat, I might not have recognized that, hey, I passed up that opportunity to drive. But then when I go back and I watch it on film and say, hey, you know what, I may have finished that game with 15 points, but if I would have taken advantage of those three or four other opportunities I had to drive, I might have added four or six more points to that. Or I may have added four, four or six more points for my team in general because I might have had a driving kick, might have, you know, dumped the ball off to somebody. They got fouled. So that's something to consider as well. What opportunities did you miss? Not just the ones you were successful on. How can you be better the next time? That goes for driving, for shooting, for pass opportunities. You know, you missed a teammate on a pass, maybe in transition or even just an extra pass in the half court. And then your opportunities to cut to the basket or flash the basketball, that can be in the half court or it could be in like a press break. And then your post up opportunities, if that's part of your game. Number two is missed and successful defensive opportunity. So your help rotation, do you do a good job being in the right spot and help okay, or were you late to get to help? Good or bad? Closes you close out and take away the shot. Do you force that, that player to go, you know, whether it's baseline or keeping them sideline, if that's what your defensive, what your defensive philosophy is with your team, do you. Did you force that player to do what you want them to do on that closeout or did you not do that? Did you give them the opportunity to drive to the middle or did you not close out hard enough and they were able to still shoot the shot? Then you have to look at the angles that you've taken defensively. So, you know, when my guy got a step on me and I went to try and cut him off again, did I take a bad angle and end up fouling him because I basically just rode his hip the whole time, or did I turn and beat him to the spot so that I could cut him off and I wasn't going to foul him? Something to consider as well? Okay. And then your opportunities, boxing out, you finish possessions, did you get a body on somebody? You go up and grab the ball, and were you physical and strong enough to bring that ball down and play through the contact? Number three is team concepts and how you can better contribute to winning. So what looks, does your team want to create offensively? What are your team's defensive principles or philosophy? And how well did you execute those things that goes back to like your help defense or your closeouts or all those sort of things. And then how did you best maximize the position that you play? So you're one part. You're one fifth of the team on the floor. How did you maximize the position you were put in? Did you. Did you do the best for you and for your teammates as well? Or was there stuff that you may have missed out on doing? And then ultimately what it comes down to is, did you positively impact winning? Did you help your team to be in a position to win the game? If you didn't win the game, you're not going to win every single game. But is overall what you did, the plays that you made, the time you had the ball in your hands, or you had opportunities to do stuff offensively, was it in the best interest of the team? Did you make the play that was going to help team? And then ultimately, what more can you do? How can you be better? And the thing to understand is that, you know, there's. There's a process to this. So what I would challenge you to do is, is to commit to watching and learning from every game of yours that you can. So for a lot of you guys, you probably have a team that. That films your games, whether whether that be huddle or even just on YouTube. So if you have that, then already you have the opportunity to do that. If you don't have that, then maybe you're even able to ask somebody to do that for you, right? Even if it's just like, you know, an AAU game or something like, just get an opportunity to see what happens, to be able to dissect yourself on film and say, hey, you know what, I keep on doing this and I should be doing this instead, or, hey, I'd have to do this, and then I could have done this instead. So that's why it becomes so powerful. But when you do this, take it slow and truly dissect what happens in those plays that you're involved in and ask yourself what you did well, what you didn't do so well, and then what you can do better. The Next time you're in that situation, this is going to lead to you being a more prepared basketball player. And I want to talk a little bit about before we close, why preparation matters. And, you know, there's a couple quotes right here that I want to look at. First is by Thomas Jefferson says, I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. And then Louis Pasteur says, chance favors the prepared mind. So why does preparation matter? Because when you're prepared, things are just going to start to go your way more often. And it's kind of hard to explain off the bat, me saying that, but really there is an explanation for it. It's that the more prepared you are, the more room for error you're going to have because you're going to be able to overcome that. Okay, so it may seem like, oh, luck, luck, luck, but really you have to look at the preparation that leads into that. And by watching your film, by understanding what opportunities you missed, what opportunities you're going to have the next time you're able to you play a game, you watch that film back and you're able to take some things, hey, you know what? Next game, I know that I'm going to have this opportunity. I can do this better. Well, you're immediately going to be able to step in and be again a better, more efficient player. And now you're going to capitalize on those opportunities more. Like we said, you become a more efficient player. So while some people say, hey, you know, how is he always in the right spot right there? How is he always doing that correctly? How is she always doing that the right way? Well, you have to look at what was their preparation like? And typically chance or luck, whatever you want to call it, is going to favor the people who are more prepared. So put yourself in that category. Being prepared is something that you can control. Do not let that be a question mark for you. If you guys found this video helpful, make sure you drop a like and subscribe as well. If you guys want me to break down film with you, click the top link in my description below. You guys can pick a time that works for you. I'll be happy to break it down step by step with you. Also, be sure you grab my free elite permanent score workout, which is linked in the description as well. Talk to you guys soon. Peace.