Basketball is very popular. Basketball is universally enjoyable by people who want to play for fun and those who wish to play semi professionally or professionally. Learn how you can up your game and make a positive difference to your team. These tips will help you become a better player.
Practice your defense more than your offense. Defense can make or break a basketball game. Without good defense, a basketball team will lose the match.
Look forward and hold your head up while you dribble the ball. If you’ve got your eye on the ball while you’re dribbling, you haven’t mastered it yet. One of the best ways to improve your dribbling is to bring your ball along anytime you need to walk somewhere. Keep dribbling the ball even while you’re doing your errands. Don’t look while dribbling, because you won’t be able to see what’s going on.
You should often work on your layups. A huge percentage of successful shots are layups. Don’t just walk through a layup drill. It is key to go at game tempo to practice the timing needed to maintain accuracy. Practicing the running and jumping method will help you shoot better this way in a game.
Watch the pro’s play if you want to improve your game. Go to games, watch them on TV and you can also watch videos. You’ll be able to learn from the moves they make.
Don’t pump a lot of iron if you wish to become a jump shooter. Muscle is good, but you can have too much. Certain pro guards ended up increasing their arm size so much that their shooting started to suffer.
Play games against yourself in and out of season. Many times you are unable to find people to play with. For concentration purposes, it can be good to practice on your own. Solo games can help you immensely. Practice pivoting or doing free throws. There are always things that can be done.
Use hand signals to avoid errant passes. Oftentimes frustration occurs when trying you aren’t on the same page with a teammate who cuts to the basketball when you try to pass him the ball. A simple hand gesture can let your teammate know you’re ready for the pass. If you don’t see a signal, try to find someone else to pass to.
If you’re shooting isn’t what you’d like it to be, make sure that your shoulders are in the correct position. Regardless of your skill level, if you don’t have your shoulders positioned correctly, you will miss. Your shoulders should always be square towards the basket. You should also make sure that your dominant shoulder is lined up with the rim.
If the opposition is hot on your tail, pass between your legs. Take a step back or forward and bounce the ball hard through your legs. This is a tricky move, but it will provide you a good advantage when you play.
Practice dribbling with your weak hand as much as possible. If you’re using both hands to dribble the ball well then you can get by an opponent easily. Make an effort to dribble with your weak hand by keeping your dominant hand away from the front. Soon enough you will develop those weak hand dribbling skills.
You need to constantly disrupt your opponents in order to be a great defensive player. Force them into an uncomfortable zone. Make assertive moves, keeping your opponent unsure of your next move. Keep them from deciding what moves to make. If they do, they’ll dominate you. Rather, move first; attack their rhythm.
If you are in a defensive position, keep yourself low. Doing so improves your reaction time with regards to your opponents’ actions. Maintain this low stance with arms raised until a shot or high pass is made. When you block a shot, go back to a defensive form quickly.
Keep all motion below the knees if possible. Defenders will have a more difficult time stealing the ball. You need to bend your body somewhat to accomplish this. It will, however, increase your overall effectiveness, as you are making the ball much harder to steal.
Keep a rhythm while dribbling to throw your opponents off. You can surprise the opponent by changing up your dribbling. In addition to the tempo change, the louder sound of your dribbling can catch them off guard as well.
Double Dribbling
Make sure you don’t double dribble. Double dribbling happens when you’ve stopped dribbling once, and then start again a few seconds later. Once you stop dribbling, you choices are to either shoot or pass the ball. You aren’t able to start dribbling again. Double dribbling means your team turns the ball over to the other team.
As you can see, there are many things you can do to improve your skills. Most of them are just basically learning a particular technique, then practicing that technique until you can do it in your sleep. Practice is important to anything worth doing – just do it! You can practice in lots of ways. Play with kids for fun, play with your friends, practice with your teammates; no matter what, it will help.