About a month ago I was working with a group of players on separating without the basketball to get open on the wing. They were really getting denied the basketball during their high school games and needed ways to get open. I think the most under taught cut to separate is the L-Cut. I never learned it until college. In my opinion V-cuts are for coming off pindowns—L-Cuts, for the most part, are for separating against pressure.
I took them through the teaching points
1) changing your speed
2) establishing your top foot above the defensive player
3) Making a crossover step and sprinting to the wing
Two sound bytes we also use are “Initiate to Separate” and “Change your Pace to Create Space”. Anyway you can teach in short phrases or sentences the more likely your players will remember.
We went through a 1 on 0 L – Cut series and then turned the workout into a 1 on 1 game. I think it is absolutely crucial your players compete out of the situations that you work on 1 on 0. I was working a camp last year, which I will not name, in where the director had players go from working on a ball screen series to playing Pitino 1 on 1 (start under the rim, roll the ball out and you have a max number of 3 dribbles to score from the wing ). Absolutely ZERO carryover. If we would have at least played a ball screen 2 on 2 game the players would be able to work on, in a game situation, the skills they just drilled for the past 30 minutes. Anyways…Back to the L-Cut 1 on 1 game.
We got about 5-6 possessions in the L-Cut 1 on 1 game when an extremely shy and soft spoken, 7th grader, was up on offense playing against bigger, stronger high school players. He walked his defender up the lane line, made a reverse pivot, sealed his defender with his top leg, and extended his right arm to receive the ball. Kobe, Melo, Paul Pierce anyone?
I immediately stopped the game and asked him, “Have you ever worked on that before?”
“Yeah” he responded.
“Who did you work on that with?” I asked, “Did you work on that with Luke?” knowing Luke Meier, our lead trainer in Milwaukee, hadn’t worked with him in a few months.
“Yeah”, he responded again which I followed up quickly with “Or did you see that on tv?”
“I saw it on tv,” he said in his small, 7th grade boy voice, almost embarrassed that he “naturally” could do it.
“Have you worked on that on your own before?” I asked
“No I just saw it and tried it here.”
Boom. That’s all I needed to hear. I had read in several books over the past couple years about neurological studies that show the subconscious mind sees no difference between vividly imagining something or watching it and actually performing it. This could mean watching a game live, an NBA game on tv or your own game film. Of course he didn’t “naturally” reverse pivot, seal and post up his defender at the elbow. It was a product of him watching and DVRing (I know that’s not a real word) high school, college, and NBA games.
I should note that this kid is an unbelievable passer. How does he know that the player is behind him when he drives to the lane and flips the ball over his shoulder? Some people call it “feel”, which I do agree, that this is partially developed from playing a lot of games, but it goes hand in hand with seeing plays before they happen. Where do you see them before they happen, can pause, rewind and slow down what you are watching? I think you know the answer. It’s no mistake that the most skilled, crafty players in the NBA also are known to be basketball “nerds”. Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul.
This is why great players will sometimes make plays that they maybe have never worked on before. It’s reaction and instinct. I loved watching Allen Iverson growing up and watched him any chance he was on tv. One of his patented moves was a little 10-15 foot fade away off the jump stop going to the left. I was far from unstoppable in college, but my one move I could get off any time I wanted and was pretty successful with was a lefty drive into my defender and fading away slightly to the left. I never practiced it until it just happened one day in practice. Why could I do it? Because I’d seen Iverson do it so many times before.
If I see a new move that we want to teach and I’ve never done it before, most of the time it doesn’t take me thousands of reps to be able to demonstrate the move full speed, especially moves that involve foot work. An example of this is Kobe’s Pump Fake Pivot. Some of the elite level players or pros we work with we can simply show them a move and they can do it immediately. Have they perfected it? No, but they might be able to make a high percentage of shots using the specific move. Why? Again, the subconscious mind sees no difference between vividly imagining something or watching it and actually performing it.
On the fence whether or not your team will watch game film this year? Think hard – it IS just as valuable as court time.
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Mike Lee
@mikeleehoops
mike@mikeleebasketball.com
www.mikeleebasketball.com