LAY UP TRAINING FOR COACHES

Every player on your team should be able to make a lay-up 95% of the time. Shooting 50% from the field (from the field = anything other than a lay-up or a slam dunk) is what pro's shoot; I would not expect your players to be much better than that. Given this information it makes sense for your team to shoot lay-ups as often as possible. Yes, eventually your opponents will realize this is your offensive strategy; dare them to stop you. Here's how; your first basketball shooting drills are lay-ups: standing, jumping, running full speed, running half speed, contested and uncontested; once your team is hitting uncontested lay-ups 70% of the time, set up a token defense to hinder them. Once your team is hitting lay-ups as a team 70% of the time against a token defense then lightly ramp up the pressure. If you take it s l o w l y results will come faster than if you push on the defensive side too hard and too fast. Since you're ratcheting up the defensive pressure s l o w l y you are giving yourself all the time necessary to teach proper defensive moves, stances, and postures. Soon your players will be shooting difficult lay-ups over serious defensive pressure at a 70% clip, in practice. OK, so how do you get your players open to receive a pass under the basket during a game? Mismatches. Exploiting mismatches. Creating mismatches and exploiting mismatches. But first one must understand what a mismatch is. Scoring opportunities in basketball are developed around mismatches. Mismatches present themselves in many different ways during the course of a basketball game. Some obvious examples are: A fast break opportunity after a defense gathers up a rebound, becoming the offense, and a player is down court under the basket all alone. An accurate full court pass to that open player turns into an uncontested lay up; Because of a broken play a 5'2" point guard is down in the paint guarding a 6'9" power forward. A good inlet pass to the post results in what is essentially an uncontested lay up; Because of a switch in man-to-man coverage a 6'11" center is out on the perimeter guarding a 6' point guard. Using a beautiful cross over dribble and a blow by move the point guard drives in for an uncontested lay up. These are just three examples of mismatches created during the flow of a game. An offense's responsibility is creating, recognizing, then taking advantage of mismatches. This is what ALL offensive plays are designed to do. If a designed play fails, then a team looks to create a mismatch and exploit that mismatch with a one-on-one move, a pick and roll move, or a give and go move, whichever one will exploit the most obvious mismatch presently on the court. An open player under the basket is without a doubt the best mismatch on the court. Three plays that create an open man under the basket are a pick and roll, a give and go, and a back door (which is generally created as option #2 from a one on one, a pick and roll, or a give and go) play. If your players really understand the theories and branch theories behind these simple basketball offenses, that same understanding will afford you the knowledge to properly defend any basketball offense with a simple, elegant, and effective basketball defense. You cannot really understand these underlying theories and branch theories from reading about them. This understanding can be nurtured through experience. Testimonial: "Shooting Coach Dave Jones' program is awesome, phenomenal, unlike any other shooting coaching instruction. Many shooting instructions teach mechanics, the Shooting Coach attacks teaching from a subconscious level so players learn to shoot unconsciously. His studies in physiology incorporated with his basketball knowledge has proven to be very successful." Coach Lambert