7 Drills to Make a Better Point Guard
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By Jeff Haefner
BreakthroughBasketball.com
Point guard is perhaps the most demanding position in basketball. A good point guard is expected to have exceptional ball-handling skills, be a scoring threat, orchestrate the offense, make assists, and play good defense against the opposing point guard. Since your point guard will touch the ball far more often than other team members, it is essential that he makes good decisions about what to do with it. Without strong point guard play, your team is going nowhere.
In fact, the point guard is often described as your representative on the court. The point guard has to have a great understanding of your wishes and has to be able to translate those wishes into realities on the court. Controlling the pace of the game, having the presence of mind to wait until players are in proper position before initiating plays, recognizing who has the hot hand, and effectively communicating your strategic directions to the team in the heat of the game all fall to the point guard.
Since your point guard has so many critical responsibilities, he constantly faces strong defensive efforts to reduce his effectiveness. If the opposition can disrupt your point guard and shake his confidence, they can drastically reduce your team's offensive productivity and get easy baskets off of turnovers. Since you know for sure that your point guards will be facing constant pressure, it is your responsibility to prepare them for it.
Here are seven great basketball drills for developing point guards who can withstand and overcome this kind of defensive pressure to effectively lead the team in the direction that you want it to go.
Two-pass, Three-second Limit Three-on-two
This basketball drill is good for your entire team, but you can certainly use it specifically to hone the decision-making and reading-the-court skills of your point guards. The offense has to generate a good shot within two passes and three seconds. Have three offensive players (all point guards if you wish) at the half-court line and two defenders stacked in the key.
Initially, the middle offensive player will have the ball and will dribble toward the key. The defender on top will cover him. The wing players should run wide and cut to the hoop at 45 degrees once they near the top of the key extended. The bottom defender will cover the first pass. The defender who stops the middle point should rotate down to stop the pass to the opposite wing cutter. If the defense has played the odds to prevent a lay-in, then the middle point man should be open at the free throw area for a jumper. That would be the second pass. If no open shot has been generated by then, the offense has failed and the "fast break" is over.
You can use this drill to develop reading-the-court abilities, too. For instance, if your middle player cuts to the hoop after passing instead of remaining at the free-throw area, then the offside wing should cut to the free-throw area. Otherwise, the spacing is distorted and one defender could shut down two players, destroying the three-on-two advantage.
Another way to instill reading-the-court abilities is to start the ball on one of the wings. The wing is free to dribble to the hoop from the wing or to dribble to the middle position, and the other offensive players need to establish logical positions accordingly. For instance, if the wing player does dribble to the middle, then the middle player should "banana cut" behind him into the vacated wing lane. The idea is to quickly establish three good options that will always result in a good shot within two passes and three seconds.

Two-on-three

This basketball drill will challenge your point guards to operate under intense defensive pressure. The idea is to keep from getting trapped, and, if trapped, to pass out of the trap effectively.
Have three defenders on the baseline under the basket and two offensive players at the wings outside of the three-point line. A coach above the top of the key throws a ball to one or the other of the offensive players, who must immediately dribble inside the three-point line, which then becomes the out-of-bounds line. The defense attempts to trap him (he can dribble indefinitely; they have to make him pick up his dribble) and to prevent an escape pass. The other offensive player cuts and moves in an attempt to provide an escape target.
Play continues until the defense gets a five-second call on a stationary passer, steals the ball, intercepts a pass, or causes an out-of-bounds violation. This drill teaches your guards to dribble effectively against pressure, to move to get open, and to maintain poise when trapped. They will have to pivot and protect the ball. You can make this competitive by keeping track of which pair can maintain possession the longest. If you want to up the ante on defensive pressure, just make it two-on-four.

Three Dribble One-on-one

This simple basketball drill provides your point guards practice in their one-on-one skills. They will need these skills when the shot clock is winding down, plus, you want your point guards to be good offensive threats. If they are, then they can penetrate, draw the defense, and distribute the ball more effectively. You certainly want a dribbling limit. The last thing you want is point guards who dribble around endlessly looking for a shot.
Position an offensive player at the free throw line and a defender under the basket with a ball. The defender throws a crisp pass to the offensive player and closes on him. He has up to three dribbles to get a shot off. If you like, you can have play remain live until the defender gets the rebound or the shot goes in, but the new dribble limit is "one."
You should vary the position of the offensive player to provide practice in attacking the hoop effectively from different angles. Two-man Game
This basketball drill provides practice in establishing effective angles, cutting, exchanging the ball, and moving off of another player in an "open court" setting. Many offenses feature such settings on the "weak" side, and two skillful players can wreak havoc on a defense if they are highly skilled in attacking the hoop strategically.
This is a four-player drill, two offense and two defense. Position your point guard three feet above the top of the key and a wing player free-throw line extended outside of the three-point line. Each should be guarded. The wing player should have his feet pointing right at the hoop.
The point guard dribbles toward the wing and attempts to penetrate into the gap. As he nears the wing, the wing reads his own defender. If his defender is sloughing off, the wing will cut high and behind the point guard as he penetrates, and the point guard will leave him the ball right off of his dribble.
However, if the wing defender is playing the passing lane aggressively or closing on the point for help defense, then the wing should back-door cut to the hoop, and the point guard should hit him for a lay-in. The key thing is for the wing to do one or the other move explosively and decisively.
If the point defender is cheating over to prevent the penetration, then the point guard simply beats him to the hoop with a crossover dribble.
After passing to the wing, the point guard should cut for a possible return pass. If he passed back door, then he should cut to the corner. If he dribbled the ball to the wing cutting behind him into the key area, he should roll to the hoop, maintaining good spacing. It's also a good option for the point guard to simply keep the ball and continue driving to the hoop off of the decoy action provided by the wing cutter.
This drill will help the point guards develop a feel for what will work in each specific case. Give-and-go's and sudden pick-and-rolls also fit in with this drill if nothing good results from the initial attack at the wing. The drill continues until the offense scores or the defense gets a stop.

Pass and Screen Away

This basketball drill provides your point guards with practice in hitting a wing, setting an effective off-ball screen, and opening up after the cutter comes off of the screen. Many offenses feature this kind of motion from the point guard position.
This drill works best with six players, three offense and three defense. Two wings start out a foot or two above free-throw line extended and outside the three-point line, and your point guard, with a ball, starts out a few feet above the top of the key. The wings do a 'V' cut to free up, and the point guard hits one of them. Then the point sprints into position to screen for the off wing's cut. The off wing cuts off of the screen, and the point guard opens up (using a drop step to seal his defender) to the wing passer in case the wing cutter was covered. Quite often, the point guard will have a wide open path to the hoop.
Though lots of moving screens go un-penalized, you should teach your players to set correct ones and your cutters to use them properly. Spacing and angles are critical. That's why doing this kind of drill is valuable; it features correct spacing and allows you to direct players to effective screening positions
We recommend that you start the drill as a "form" drill to establish the fundamental structure. Then, go "live" and allow the defense to do whatever they want to try to stop the play. Similarly, allow the offense to take advantage of any "cheating" by the defense. For instance, if the defender guarding the wing passer stands in the passing lane instead of in correct defensive position, the wing should simply drive straight to the hoop. If the wing defenders don't give on the V cut, then the wing should keep right on and the point guard should hit him for a lay-in.

Comprehensive Lay-in Drill

At the very least, you want your point guards to be able to shoot a basic lay-in with either hand. Really effective point guards can do much more. Being able to hit reverse lay-ins (with either hand from either side) and short hook/scoop shots makes such point guards almost impossible to stop on the drive and drastically reduces the chances that they will have their shot attempts blocked. Having lots of options makes up for the substantial height disadvantage that most point guards face when driving to the hoop. We recommend that you include plenty of reps in these advanced lay-in techniques for your point guards. Be sure to include attack angles from the baseline and straight-on as well as from the standard 45-degree angle. Any lay-in drill format that gets you lots of reps is fine; the key thing is for you to teach and focus on these advanced techniques so that your point guards end up with skills that they can rely on in a real game situation.

Perimeter Jumpers

All things equal, a point guard who shoots well from outside is about twice as hard to guard as one who doesn't. Therefore, you should have your point guards working daily on their perimeter shooting. There are all kinds of basketball drills that you can use for this purpose, but here's one that works on conditioning and inside-out principles, too.
Start with your point guard at an elbow with a ball. Have him pass to a player in the low block and then sprint out to the three-point line. The low-block player will hit him for a jumper. After the shot, the point guard will sprint to an elbow and back out to the next perimeter spot. Meanwhile, the low-block player gets the rebound and hits the point guard for the next jumper. You can designate five spots per round, and then you can add an upfake-before-the-shot round, an upfake-and-power-dribble-before-the-shot round, and so on.
Be sure to include rounds moving in both directions. Charting results helps with focus and motivation.

What Else Can You Do to Develop Great Point Guards?

As we mentioned at the very beginning, there is a huge amount of ground to cover when you're working with point guard play. If you're interested in learning more on this critical topic and to get free basketball drills, be sure to look over the many great resources available at WinningDrills.com.