Transcription
I would argue that the ability to see the court is one of the most important skills in basketball. Not only will it help you become a much better passer and facilitator, but it'll help you to score more points and be a much better decision maker as well. The best players are generally the ones who have the best court vision. LeBron James, Luka Dončić, Tyrese Haliburton, and LaMelo Ball, and anyone else who we would consider to be a great passer, has a lot to owe to their ability to see the floor.
In this video, we're going to dive into exactly how you can take your court vision to the next level so that you can become a better passer, create more for your team, and overall become a much more valuable player at the offensive end.
The first thing that we want to do in order to develop a high level of court vision is build the habit of constantly scanning the floor, even when you don't have the ball yet. The worst thing you can do as a player is always wait to evaluate your decisions until after you get the ball. This is going to prevent you from taking advantage of a lot of different opportunities. And when you watch the best passers in the world, many times they already have an idea of where they're going to go with the ball, even before they pass it. Your goal should be to mentally be three steps ahead of everyone else.
To be want to be a great facilitator, and that leads me to my next point. One of the best things to do in order to know what to look for is to increase your basketball IQ and understanding even more. To study the best passers in the game: Tyrese Haliburton, Luka Dončić, LeBron James, Nikola Jokić, Chris Paul, etc., are great players to watch and learn from. Being a great passer and seeing the floor well isn't just about checking off a bunch of boxes and always making the right play. It's about being able to be adaptable, creative, and finding solutions to new problems. So when you face a defense, a defender that's really long, or the defense throws a different type of coverage at you, or even if you're just trying to get better in this area, watching and learning from other players is going to accelerate that process so much for you.
We as humans have what's called mirror neurons, meaning we're able to see someone else do something and put ourselves in their shoes as if we are the ones who are doing it. This means that spending time learning the game and watching is so crucial in order to get those mental reps, because it'll directly translate to you making more plays when you go out and find yourself in those same situations.
So let's talk about three things you can do to immediately increase your court vision, passing ability, and your ability to make plays.
First, we want to play in what's called 0.5 decisions. This means that when we catch the ball, we have half a second to do something: shoot, drive, or pass. This is because the defense is most vulnerable when you first catch the ball, because the whole defense is rotating on the pass, meaning help is likely not set yet, and because your defender will be moving towards you as they close out. And this is the most vulnerable spot for a defender to be in, because we can take advantage of their momentum.
Now, specifically referring to creating for your teammates, when we make a decision to pass or drive within half a second, it creates a couple different things. When we make that decision to quickly pass or swing the ball, we can often put the defense in an even worse spot when it comes to their rotations. Think about it: if they're already in a bad position because they have to close out to you, how much worse is it going to be if you quickly move the ball again? You have a chance to really set up your teammate with an open shot or a closer to attack if you decide to make that quick pass. One of the best times to do this is when you're in a two-on-one situation. So maybe you're on the wing and your teammate is in the corner, and there's only one defender between the two of you. Making that quick pass, or even a pass after a shot fake to get the defender to commit to you, can cause your teammate to be wide open.
Going along with that, you want to get two defenders to guard you as often as possible. So let's say you make that 0.5 decision to drive and attack the closeout. If you're able to get a step on your defender, it's going to force a help defender to step over and stop you. If you're playing against a good defensive team, but your defender is still trailing you, meaning that two players are guarding you, this concept in basketball is called getting two to guard one. And when you get two to guard one, all of a sudden the defense is at a number disadvantage because now three players are responsible for guarding four players. So this is a great time for you to look to facilitate. Sometimes it might lead to a dump down or a 45 cut for a layup, and sometimes it might lead to a kick-out to an open shot or the closeout for your teammate to attack. But when you consistently can get two to guard you, you'll make sure that someone on your team is open, and then your only job is to recognize who that is and get them the ball.
This concept of getting two to defend one also applies if you're a player that uses ball screens. So whenever you're in this situation, trying your best to draw in a second defender, whether it be the hedge man, or it be a tag defender, or even a gap defender, if you can get two defenders to guard you, it's going to open up an opportunity for somebody else on your team.
The number one most important trait of high-level passers is the ability to take advantage of the defense when they're vulnerable, which we'll really get into in a second. But the first situation where this happens is in transition. As a coach, one of the most frustrating things to watch is when players walk the ball up the floor or don't look to to advance the ball with the pass whenever possible. The defense is in a vulnerable state when they're transitioning back to defense, so this is one of the best opportunities to pass the ball. This can be a normal advanced pass where you just look to push the ball up the floor, but if you don't have that option, another great option is to cross the ball to the other side of the floor to make the defense shift. And this will help you develop the proper approach that great passers have, that it isn't all about hitting a home run. If you consistently make the right, simple play, good things are going to happen to you, which in this case means you're going to create more for your team.
Another thing that goes with that that you might have never even thought about before is the value in creating an assist for somebody else. This is called a hockey assist, and it's when you make a pass, and the person that you pass to ultimately gets the assist. Here's Draymond Green breaking down this exact idea: "I was actually telling the guys yesterday, the power of a swing pass. Not I catch it, I survey, I need to do this. The power of simply catching the ball, swinging it the other way, or catching it in a simple dribble handoff the other way. It may look like nothing's coming out of that. You didn't score right off that immediate action, but what it did was it made the defense change size of the floor. Every defense in the NBA is good if you play one side of the floor. It's once you start switching sides of the floor, and now all of a sudden the low man is now the strong side corner man, he gets lost, and the low man who was over there, strong side corner, forgets to pull in, and he's lost. That's when you can really dissect a defense and pick them apart. There's equally as much value in creating hockey assists as there are in regular assists. If you truly want to be a great passer, be willing to make that simple pass, even if it doesn't result in a shot right away. Just by forcing the defense to move and rotate, you potentially open up scoring opportunities for your team. Even if it doesn't show up on the stat sheet, your teammates, coaches, and people who know the game will see the value of what you're doing."
You also want to learn how to identify mismatches quickly. If you see that a smaller player switched onto one of your teammates and they can win the matchup, then you want to get them the ball. And on the flip side, when you see situations where a slower player switches on to one of your teammates and they can win that matchup, you got to find a way to get them the ball. A big part of being a great passer is understanding how to take advantage of the matchups on the floor.
And the last thing we'll talk about applies to whenever you're in a ball screen situation. You need to learn to read the tag defender, which is the defender who's usually in the same side corner who's responsible for tagging the roll man. This just means that they're responsible for taking away the roll until his actual defender can recover after they've hedged. But sometimes they don't tag, or they're late, which means that the roll is going to be open. And then when they do tag, it means that the player that they helped off of, which is usually your teammate in the strong side corner, is going to be open, and you should get them the ball because it's going to lead to a shot or a closeout to attack. Another 0.5 situation, which as we talked about, are very, very difficult for the defense to defend against. And so being able to make a read in terms of where that tag defender is is so important if you want to be a great passer, especially if you're someone who's ever in ball screen situations.
Now, if you want to dive even deeper into basketball IQ and learning the game, I have a free basketball IQ masterclass for you to check out. This masterclass is an hour long and will give you even more understanding of how to become a high-level playmaker for your team, score more, create more consistently, and develop the mindset needed to reach your full potential. Like I said, it's completely free. You can get it by clicking the top link in the description down below. I appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.