Offensive Basketball Moves - Exploding to the Basket
How are you doing? My name is Monty Gray for One on One Basketball and we are talking about offensive moves on the perimeter. Once you have received the basketball and you have gotten by your defender, the next thing is actually being able to explode and finishing the play to the basket. There are two ways basically you can do that. The first way is going off a one leg. If you go off one leg, nine times out of ten you need to get as high as you can to get over the defender and try to finish the play. The next way is off a two feet. Again a lot of times when you go off a two feet that's a little stronger move, you can go go up, you could take a bump if contact is made and then make your layup. So what I am going to do is basically take you through making a Jab Step away from your defender and actually going in either with one leg or two. So if I throw the ball out to myself I am establishing my left foot as my pivot foot, jab to the inside, a step by my defender and I am going in to make a layup. Now what depends or determines on you going off a one leg or two feet? Well pretty easy, once you go by your defender if there is a clean cut lane to the basket then you want to try to get one foot inside the lane and you want to be able to go up and get as high as you can and make the layup. If you are on the left side of the floor you need to kick your left leg as high as you can, it takes momentum and you are able to look inside the square to make a left hand layup. Again let's walk to that one more time. I would like for you to throw the ball out to yourself, get down low, take a quick little jab, go across, go all the way in, take a few dribbles and go up as hard as you can, try to get as high as you can and make that layup, if you have a clean cut lane to the basket. Now that was the first way of one leg. The second way is of a two feet. So if I throw the ball out to myself again, I am going to catch, turn my face, I am going to establish my left leg or left foot as my pivot foot, I will jab right and go in. I would take two or three good hard dribbles, now you are going to be able to go up with both feet in the lane maybe a pretty good distance away from the block, you will go up strong anticipating that defense might make some contact on your layup, you have to be sure that you don't go too far up under the basket, you don't want to get right up under the rim, you want to have a very good angle to make a good balance, and you want to go up, take the bump, go up strong, be able to have balance and finish the layup. Again, let's step through this one more time. When we throw the ball to ourselves, we are going to catch it, we are going to jab to the inside, we are going to take two good dribbles, we are going to lean on two feet, your shoulders will be facing the wall or they will be parallel with the backboard, you are going to go up strong, generate power and be able to finish. You are going to anticipate the bump because a lot of times if you blow by a defender there will be help coming, so you anticipate the bump and you will be able to go alone up and finish the lay up. Now we have talked about a number of different things today, about offensive moves on the perimeter. If you concentrate on making layups and finishing and exploding to the basket then this will help you basically on the left side of the floor and the right side of the floor but you got to get out there and practice. If you continue to practice and you continue to concentrate on offensive basketball moves, getting in open and exploding and finishing on layups then this will make you a better basketball player and you will help your team improve.