Why You’re Not Scoring More — And What High IQ Players Do Differently

In this video, I'm going to give you five things you can do right now to add five points per game or more to your average. Now, I'm a trainer and a varsity coach, and I've worked with thousands of players online and hundreds in person, and I've coached dozens of teams. This past weekend, I was coaching in a massive AAU tournament. And these are some things that I noticed that caused a lot of players to leave points on the board. Being a great scorer isn't just about how big or skilled or athletic you are. It's about recognizing and taking advantage of opportunities that others don't. And these five things will set you apart massively and are all stuff that you can implement right now so you start scoring more points the next time you play. The first thing that's so important when it comes to scoring more points is understanding the one to basket, one to perimeter principle. This is something that I see so many players not even understand at all. And the ones that do are going to find that they score not only more points, but way more easy points as well. Now, this principle is super simple. Chances are that within any offense that you play in, whether it's your school team, your AAU team, whether you're just playing pickup, usually the number one action that's going to occur is going to be an away screen or an off ball screen. I've talked a ton about reading these screens, so I won't go super in depth into it now, but basically you have an option to curl off a screen, flare out to the perimeter, or backdoor cut towards the basket as well. Now, this isn't as much focused on the person coming off of the screen or using it. This is focused on you if you're setting that screen. Anytime that we set an off ball screen, we need to have one of those players going to the basket and one of them goes to the perimeter. So to make it super simple, if you're the one who's setting that screen, you, you're just going to do the opposite of the player who comes off the screen. So you go and set a screen for your teammate on the wing and they curl to the basket, you're going to pop out to the perimeter, or you go and set that screen and they go back door to the basket, you're going to go out to the perimeter. Or if you set that screen and they stay out in the perimeter, you're going to dive to the basket. The reason why this is so powerful and why it's going to allow you to score Way more easy points is because the defense gets so caught up on stopping the person who's actually using the screen. So immediately your defender's mindset is going to switch into making sure that the person who's coming off the screen doesn't score four. And if that person coming off the screen makes a good read on a back door cut or on a tight curl, a lot of times they're gonna draw two defenders, including yours, because they're gonna be open. And in those moments when you just pop out, you're usually wide open for a three or you get a close out to attack. The more common outcome though is that when you set in the way screen, your teammate's gonna stay out in the perimeter. When this happens, you want to dive the basket right away because again, a lot of times they're focused on that player who's coming off the screen and, and so they almost will forget about you momentarily, which gives you a great opportunity to slip to the basket. The whole point of this principle is that we want to force the defense to have to guard two areas of the floor. They have to guard the perimeter and they have to guard the paint. And when you do that, the chances of the defense messing up and not getting one guarded is very high. And you're going to find that you're going to get easy looks and easy opportunities. When you just abide by the one to basket, one to perimeter principle. Anytime you set an away screen for somebody else, the second thing you can implement right now to start scoring more points is to weak side cut. Anytime the ball gets entered into the post or somebody stops driving, the ball gets entered into, let's say the right side post, low post or mid post and you're on the opposite wing. You would just want to cut to the basket right away. In a lot of cases, the defense turns and shifts their entire attention to that post up. Your defender is probably in help and they probably are going to turn to look at the basketball and a lot of times they will just leave the middle of the paint wide open. So if you cut there, you're probably going to get a layup. This concept is also true when we talk about cutting off of a drive on the other side. So let's say your teammate drives on the right wing or the right baseline and you're on the left wing. You want to cut to the basket when they do that because again, your defenders in help, they're focused on stopping the ball and all that attention gets shifted onto the person who's driving, meaning the Middle of the paint, a lot of times is wide open. If you look for that opportunity to cut there. Now this is referred to as a 45 cut. But a lot of times this can also happen on a baseline cut as well. But anytime that you're on the opposite side of the ball, you want to look for opportunities. When that ball gets to about the mid post or the low post area, or when the teammate drives to cut to the basket, you're going to easily be able to steal a bucket, maybe two buckets all the time just by doing this. The third thing that you can do right now in order to score more points per game is to understand the retouch rule. This is an area that so many players struggle with. A lot of times players hear their coaches talk about, oh, move the ball more, we need more ball movement. And, and they think that that's a bad thing. They think that by them saying that, it means that I'm not going to score as much, I'm not going to have the ball as much. And especially players who are good players get so caught up in having the ball in their hands, they think that they need the ball as much as possible. But what you have to understand if you want to start to score more and create more plays for your team in general is what I call the retouch rule. This just means that the first time that you touch the basketball in a possession is going to be the hardest time for you to score. The second time you touch the ball, it's going to be a little bit easier because the defense would have had to have moved and rotated back to you. A lot of times there might be a close up coming towards you. And then each subsequent time that you touch the ball, it's going to get easier and easier for you to score. So the third time is a little bit easier. The fourth time it's even easier. Chances are if you get the ball a fifth time, you probably have a really easy drive or an open shot. Now this is because whenever the ball moves, the defense then also has to move. Meaning they've got to go from on the ball to help. They've got to go from weak side help to on the ball. They're rotating, maybe they're switching different actions. And. And so the likelihood of them messing up or taking a bad angle on a closeout or missing a rotation becomes so much higher when you force the defense to move a little bit. So stop being so short sighted when you have the ball and thinking that the first time you touch it, you have to look to make something happen. Obviously, if you have an opportunity, do it. But be willing to say, okay, if I don't have an open shot or a drive that I love, I'm going to move the ball. And I know that I move the ball, go set in a way, screen or cut or whatever. The, the next time I touch the ball is a very good chance that I'm going to have a better opportunity to score, an easier opportunity to score. And by being able to be patient in playing the long game on offense, it's going to give you not only more scoring opportunities, but you're going to become a much more efficient scorer, which is going to lead to you scoring more points. The fourth thing that you can do to score more points right now is to back cut whenever possible. I'm not just telling you to like, oh, look to back cut more. I'm saying whenever you see an opportunity where you could backdoor cut, do it. The easiest example of this is anytime you're being heavily denied. So if you're in the slot or on the wing and your teammate can't make a pass to you because your defender is in the lane, the one thing you can't do is move up towards half court. As Steph Curry talks about, right here.

I'm going to try to hammer the point home. 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.

A lot of times when you just backdoor cut in these opportunities instead of trying really hard to back up and V cut and all the, all these different things when you just backdoor cut. First of all, a lot of times you might be open for a pass, but what you're also going to do is you're going to manipulate the help defense. So you might backdoor cut and not be open, but you just occupy the help defender and now your teammate is wide open and they have an opportunity to score. So by you looking for that opportunity to backdoor cut, you become so much more valuable to your team. Not just because of the points that you score, but because you create scoring opportunities for your teammates. As well. And the players who can do this are the ones who play the most, who get the most opportunities, who get recruited because they not only are able to create scoring opportunities for themselves, but they make the entire team better and everyone on the court better because they understand how to manipulate other defenders. The other opportunity that you should look to, backdoor cut whenever possible, is when you notice that your defender is really focused on the ball. So if you're away from the basketball, your defender's in help and they turn their head to look at the ball, that should be a signal in your mind that I've got a backdoor cut to the basket. Now, you'd be surprised how often you will be wide open just by looking at that opportunity. Defender turns to watch the ball, I backdoor cut and you're wide open. Or again, you beat that defender and they don't know where you're at. So another defender has to stop, has to step in and take you away. Now all of a sudden we're playing at a, at a disadvantage because there's two defenders who are focused on you, who are, who are responsible for you. That means that you just created a numbers advantage for your team. Again, going into you being a way more valuable piece for your team. And the fifth thing that you can do right now to start scoring points is to utilize ball fakes and pass fakes. This sounds really boring and really elementary, but I'm so shocked at the amount of players who don't do this. You can probably cut your turnovers in half, maybe even cut them by like 80 or 90% just by building the habit of throwing pass fakes more often, especially when players get pressured or they get trapped, the immediate thing is to stare down where they're going to try and throw the basketball to, or they look around looking for someone who's open, they see it and they just stare them down and throw it. And typically it's going to get turned over or they're at least going to get a hand on the ball. By utilizing pass fakes, you create open passing lanes for yourself because you shift defenders. Defenders who are aggressive especially are going to look for steals and they're going to be susceptible to. You throw a pass fake to your left, they're going to jump that way. And now that opens up a pass for you to the right. This is also a really good way to score more because especially if you're going against an aggressive defense or an aggressive defender, when you catch the ball and they're closing out to you and you throw A pass fake, they're going to jump for that and then that might create an open driving lane for you to get to the basket. This is probably the number one tip that I can give you to help handle a press more often as well, is that whenever you catch the ball, throw a pass fake, get in the habit of doing that. Chances are if you're the player on the court who uses the most pass fakes during a game, you probably are going to finish with less turnovers than a lot of other people. And you're probably going to create more scoring opportunities for you and your team because of it. And then getting into ball fakes, we can use this again in like a close out situation so your defender closes out to you. You just give a brief shot fake. You might even just give an eye fake where you look up at the rim as if you're, as, as if you're going to shoot. And that's what I call a closeout killer because it pretty much is going to guarantee that that defender is at least going to raise up to start to contest, if not completely jump. And then that drive becomes easy for you just because of that little nuance of throwing in a ball fake or a shot fake. Doing this around the rim is super smart as well, especially if you're going as a defender who loves to get blocks where it's really athletic just by using that shot fate to get them up in the air. It doesn't matter how athletic or big you are, if you are in the air, you can't impact the play. You're out of the play because you have no opportunity to move when you're already in the air. So by getting into the paint, getting to two feet and using shot fakes more often, you're going to take layups that are usually heavy, heavily contested, and you're going to create wide open layups because defenders will just fly out of your way. If you adopt these five things, I promise you scoring is going to become easier for you. You're going to be able to score more easy points. That's going to lead to more consistent scoring for you. And like I said, not just that, but it's also going to allow you to create way more for your teammates as well, making you a super valuable player that coaches have to play. Coaches have to give bigger roles to more opportunities to, and ultimately it's going to make you so much more successful. Now, if you're interested in taking your basketball iq, your confidence and your overall success on the court to a completely different level, I have a free Basketball IQ masterclass linked down below in the description check. An hour long and we go through how you can score more points, create more for your team, play with way more confidence, and be more successful. A lot of the stuff that we talked about in this video we dive into even deeper. And like I said, it's an hour long, so there's a lot of stuff in that that we didn't even talk about at all. And all that stuff in there is going to help you to become a way better player. So I highly recommend you check it out. It's completely free like I said. Top link in the description down below. Make sure you implement stuff the next time you play. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.