By Tom Reiter
Courtesy of www.WinningHoops.com

Every day in practice we separate our big players from our perimeter people so we can work on breakdown drills. We call this our "pre-practice routine," and it's usually 12 to 15 minutes long. In the beginning of the season, in order to teach the proper techniques, we may spend the entire time teaching one or two things, but after the first four weeks of practice we've taught the basics for the pre-practice sessions. From this point on we'll add drills or concentrate on anything we feel needs to be improved.

We begin pre-practice by having our big players post up on each block down low (without a defense) and go through our four basic moves:

-          Drop Step

-          Turnaround Jump Shot

-          Swing Hook

-          Draw-Through

After about three minutes, we add a defense, so we have an offensive player with a defender simultaneously on both sides of the lane. We move quickly from these basic offensive moves to adding a manager as an extra passer. Then we begin our second phase, which is 1-on-1 post
defense. The coach is positioned at the lane line extended up on top, while the other passer is on the wing. The post defender is in a denial position, with his or her front foot out on the high side ready to step across the front of the offensive player when the ball is thrown to the wing. The passer's rule is that the ball is never lobbed. At the same time, we're working with our offensive players to hold their positions and seal off for a post feed.

The third phase builds on the 1-on-1 work just completed, and we progress to 2-on-2 in the lane. We have three passers in this drill-one on the point and one on each wing. We allow the offense to flash into a high/low position for a post feed or ball reversal. We also allow them to screen across for each other. We instruct each defender to either stay with the opponent or switch on all screens.

Offensively, we work on positioning, passing, flashing and reading the defense. Defensively, we concentrate on technique, positioning and denial. We want to block cutters, we want to be on the baseline side when the ball is below the free-throw line extended and, above all, we want communication on defense.

Forming habits on offense in low-post play is the primary concern. Reading the defense, knowing the correct move to use when the defense is playing is a certain manner and seeing the court once our post player has caught the ball in the low post are also extremely important.

THE FINAL FOUR MINUTES

We like to add other aspects of post play to our pre-practice routine. We relate them to both skills and conditioning for our big players. For the last four minutes, we'll do a combination of things that last from 45 seconds to one minute in duration:

-          20 SECOND LANE SLIDES. All the post players step-slide across the lane as quickly as possible in a low defensive stance without crossing their feet.

-          RIM TOUCHES. Our big players touch the rim ten times with both hands-two reps, two players at a time.

-          THREE-BALL DUNK DRILL. We place one ball in the middle of the lane in front of the hoop and one on each block. Each player must dunk a total of ten times, going from one ball to another. We look for quickness and explosiveness to the basket.

-          OFF-THE BACKBOARD, REBOUND YOUR OWN SHOT. Again, we're looking for an explosive jump and an aggressive two-hand rebound. The player must keep the ball high, with his eyes on the target. Add a freeze fake and a defender with his hands up in token resistance.

We do these drills or a combination of them in a short span of time --- usually under four minutes. After the players have learned the fundamentals of each drill, the drills go quickly, and we can do these last four drills in 3:45. The staff varies these short drills according to what we feel our post men need to improve.

This drill segment, done early in the practice session, helps to develop individual skills and good habits for our big players. It also creates a competitive atmosphere as they work hard against each other.