Ethan Khoza breaks down dribble handoffs on offense, covering both the screener's role and the ball-handler's options. The recipient should punish defenders going under with threes, use hesitation to attack, and mix in mid-range pull-ups to stay unpredictable.
Chapters
Dribble handoffs are such a massive part of today's game of basketball, but the majority of players aren't taught how to use them and therefore aren't as effective with them as they could be. When utilized correctly, dribble handouts can provide a lot of advantages for you as an offensive player. And in this video, I want to show you exactly how you can recognize these options and take advantage of them. Let's get into it before we get into actually receiving the handoff, let's talk about giving the handoff. This is a pretty universal role in offenses, meaning guards and big can both be the ones giving the handoff. When you give a handoff, you can essentially turn into a screener. And if you do a good job of creating contact on your teammate's defender, you're a lot of times going to get them open either for a shot or for a drive. And typically, as long as you're subtle about this, you could essentially get away with a moving screen right here because you have the ball. So the first concept to understand about handoffs is that you want to try and create contact as often as you can when you give a handoff to one of your teammates, because that's typically going to open them up to be able to have opportunities to score or make a play offensive. Now let's talk about being the recipient of that handoff. Probably the most common coverage you'll see is your defender going under the handoff. And step number one to being an elite dribble handoff player is being able to hit that three. If your defender goes under and gives you space. Shooting is the most important skill in basketball. And as is the case with just about everything else in the game, if you can shoot the ball, everything else opens up and becomes easier. If the defense doesn't respect your ability to hit that three, they'll continue to play under and sag off, and your ability to get downhill and attack is going to become more difficult. So step number one to being an elite dribble handoff player is being able to make the defense pay for playing under you on a handoff. A super important thing for you to do is set up your defender for that handoff so that it's more likely that they get either hit by it or that they go under so that you're freed up for the Open 3. Myron Jones is one of the best players in the country at doing this last season, and Penn State ran a ton of dribble handoff actions for and despite the scouting report telling the defense that they needed to get over the screen. Because he sets up his defender so well. A lot of times he gets wide open shots for himself or he creates long close outs to attack. And if that defender doesn't respect that setup, that's where the backdoor cut happens and they get scored on for an easy layup. Not only is a setup important, but especially if you have a defender who's playing over, a lot of times they become over aggressive trying to jump over that handoff, and that's where you can deny the first handoff and be able to beat them going the other direction. This is partly a feel thing and also a chemistry thing with whoever's giving you that handoff. But this is another example of an advantage or an option that's created with that dribble handoff, depending on how the defense plays it. It's also important for you to think about what your defender's thinking about when they see a hando coming at them. Typically they're worried about how they're supposed to be defending it, whether or not they're going to get hit by it by the time that they get through and recovered. This is where their focus is typically not on what you're doing, but more so on what your teammate who's setting the handoff is doing. And this is where you can exploit and attack them. And this combined with the fact that if you're running to grab that ball in the handoff, typically you have the momentum advantage over your defender as well. So it's actually a lot easier to beat them to the basket than you may think. Even though Peyton Pritchard's man doesn't get hit by the handoff, he still has to shift his focus from Pritchard to getting through the handoff and then back to guarding Pritchard. And this shifting of focus is the perfect time to attack that defender and leaves them vulnerable to getting beat much more easily than they normally would be. So that's why typically the ideal time to attack is right when you get the ball off that handoff, as your defender is likely going to be occupied with shifting their focus from getting through that handoff back to you. And this is yet another advantage created for you by that handoff. Another super effective thing, when you get the ball in a handoff is just a little brief hesitation that you see from prison right here that gets your defender to relax for a split second until their job is done before you, then quickly attack. And many times you're going to find that this is going to be all it takes for you to beat them. A point that you want to keep in mind is that you want to be aggressive yet unpredictable. And again, this is more a feel thing that you get through just playing. And now when that defender starts to play over those handoffs, whether they actually get hit or screened by your teammate, or if they're just trailing you over the top, that's where you're either gonna have to determine whether or not you can get to the basket or pull up in the mid range. Again, going back to shooting after you've proven you can make that three point shot and that defender has to start playing over, the next step of that is being able to hit that mid range pull up, which is going to force the help defense to have to play up higher, which is going to start to free up looks for your teammates. At that point, there becomes a scoring option for either you or your teammates almost every single time that you're involved in a handoff. But it all starts with those little details. Setting up your defender, taking advantage of your defender, shifting focus when you catch the ball, and then being aggressive, but also unpredictable. Another pattern. You'll recognize that a lot of these guys aren't taking straight north south angles when they drive the basket coming off of the handoff. A lot of times you're taking curved angles instead. So being able to drive, and not just straight angles, but in these curved linear angles as well, can be a super valuable skill with many actions in basketball. But definitely when it comes to handoffs, this is definitely something you can work on as well. Make sure you follow me on Instagram at Vision Driven Basketball for more on this. All these different shots and scoring options are things that we work on inside the primitive score system. So if you're not a part of that, I'm going to link that in the description below if you want to check that out. There's certainly more when it comes to dribble handoffs, and a lot of that can vary from team to team and offense to offense. But at the end of the day, if you can master all the stuff that we talked about, you can be a very, very good offensive player using these dribble handoffs. If you guys enjoyed this video, make sure you drop a like and subscribe and grab my free elite perimeter score workout down in the description below. Drop a comment, let me know what else you want to see. Talk to you guys soon. Peace. Yeah.
