One of the things that makes basketball such a great game is that play is continuous. There is no pause between offense and defense. To get the most out of your team’s performance your practices should simulate this continuous action as much as possible.

There are three stages of offense:

1. The transition stage – The fast break.
2. The stabilizing stage the time from which no fast break opportunity exists until the defense completely stops an early scoring opportunity. Usually a 2-3 second time period.
3. The set stage – the five on five stage

Some of the best scoring opportunities exist during the transition and stabilizing stage. Many coaches make the mistake of devoting the majority of their practice time to working on offense in a half-court situation. While this is certainly important, a wise coach spends as much time working on the other stages of offense as well.

I have heard coaches many times say that their team forgets everything once they start to run up and down the court. The best way to prevent this from happening is to practice more transition situations. Here are a few tips to include all phases of offense in your practices:

1. Do transition drills daily.
2. Transition on a certain number of possessions when working in half court. For example tell your team every third possession you are going to transition to the other end.
3. Include 1 or 2 minute nonstop scrimmages. Evaluate after the scrimmage.
4. Follow every half court drill with a full court one.
5. End every drill with a full court version. For example, you have been working on screening in the half court. End the drill by having them sprint down and back and then complete the drill. This allows your players to learn the skill while running the floor hopefully reducing the problem of forgetting everything when they start to play the game.

Next time you work on offense be sure to maximize all of your scoring opportunities by practicing all of the stages.

Till next time,

Dan

Dan Spainhour has more than 20 years of high school and college coaching experience. His teams have collected more than 400 victories and three state championships. He has received numerous awards during his accomplished career, including 14 coach of the year honors, and was named an ambassador for athletics in the state of North Carolina.

Dan is the founder of Educational Coaching & Business Communications and East Coast Basketball Camps. He is the author of two books A Season In Words a motivational guide for coaches and How To Get Your Child An Athletic Scholarship, a leading instructional guide on recruiting.

Dan is the founder of Educational Coaching & Business Communicationsand East Coast Basketball Camps. He is the author of two books: A Season In Words – a motivational guide for coaches and How To Get Your Child An Athletic Scholarship,a leading instructional guide on recruiting.