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The Tribe

20 Dec

Posted at 18:41h in Coaching the Read & React by
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This our third of five Read & React Quick Hitter posts in tribute to our new DVD: Quick Hitters! You can check it out here. Here’s a Quick Hitter from the 3 OUT formation with a couple of nice scoring options as well as a post isolation opportunity. And, as always, nothing in this Quick Hitter violates Read & React principles. Remember, these Quick Hitters should serve as a spring board for ideas. You can easily take the actions that your team is best at, order them in a specific pattern, and call it a play. And if the initial attacks don’t work, you can flow naturally into the Read & React. 3 OUT Quick Hitter Frame 1 4 flashes inside the FT line elbow. 1 feeds 4 and "X-cuts" with 3.

08 Dec

Posted at 23:44h in Archive, Drills and Practice by
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A couple of days ago I posted a two line drill for training the Read Line. As I was diagramming it, I couldn't help but think of all the possibilities that drill had to offer - you could change its formation from 4 OUT to 5 OUT, you could use all of the spots instead of just 3, you could... well, I stopped with just those two, but you could tweak it even more if you want. So, here's an expanded version of that original 2 Line Read Line Drill. Let me know your thoughts in the Comments. Expanded Read Line Drill Frame 1
Start with all spots filled except the point. Put the ball on a wing, and a defender on the opposite wing. 5 must fill the empty spot.

06 Dec

Posted at 17:39h in Archive, Drills and Practice by
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This drill was posted by bshutter in the forum and it was so good that it needed to see the light of day on the Tribe. So, I pulled it out of the forum, shined it up a bit, added some diagrams and now here it is. Thanks bshutter and if you want to see the original forum thread, check it out here. This is a great drill to train the Read Line. Even though the Read Line can be simple to teach and simple to learn, players could begin to cheat by cutting to the basket whether or not the defender is over the Read Line. Emphasizing a drill like this will help clean up that slippage. You can use this drill as it sits or you can use it as an idea generator and tweak it to your own needs. For example, in this version, a player is the defender and the rotation acknowledges that, but you could easily make the defender a coach and have players only focus on offense. Just a thought. And, by the way, the blue shading simply represents the 4 OUT spots. If you like this drill, check out the Expanded version here. Read Line Drill Frame 1
Start with two lines - one on the right guard spot, the other on the left wing spot. Put the ball(s) in the right guard line. 5 must fill the empty spot.

24 Nov

Posted at 03:18h in Coaching the Read & React by
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How should I teach the Read & React? That question finds its way to me a lot. And, my frustrated answer is this: You have to run the Read & React in order to improve at the Read & React. Period. You can’t get good at something that you’re not willing to commit to. You can’t get good at something unless you’re willing to plow through the bad times and growing pains of learning something new. That applies to everything, and it applies here as well. There, I feel better! And, now to the steps.

Step 1: Teach the 3-player reaction drills for the layers you want to cover.


Commit to running each drill for a few minutes at the beginning of every practice. The 3-player drills maximize the number of reps that each player gets and carve the habits into their muscle memory. Without the Reaction Habits, there is no Read & React Offense and understanding it is not good enough, each player has to internalize the habits - the drills are the quickest way to do that. If you chose 10 drills covering the layers you were working on and spent 90 seconds on each, that would be the first 15 minutes of practice. I would integrate my warm-up, skill development, and shooting practice into that 15 minutes. And, if I only had 15 minutes to practice, those 10 drills would be the agenda.