Drills after the warm-up

by Josè Vicente "Pepu" Hernandez

Drills after the warm-up

Josè Vicente "Pepu" Hernandez started his coaching career in 1989 as assistant coach of Estudiantes Madrid. In 1994 he became head coach and led the team to eight playoff semifinals, one final of the championship and a King's Cup win (in 2000). In 2005 Hernadez became head coach of the Spanish men's national team. In 2006 he won the gold medal at the FIBA World Championship in Japan and in 2007 he won the silver medal at the EuroBasket.

Except for rare occasions, our daily working routine remained the same when I coached the Adecco Estudiantes team for many seasons. The following exercis-es that I will describe have different aims and satisfy different practices demands.

1. Conditioning We work with the conditioning coach and choose specific drills that focus on running and speed, as well as duration and intensity.

2. BeginningWe add the second level to our own warm-up in preparation to the technical/ tactical part of the practice.

3. Technical WorkDifferent working options on individual and collective fundamentals are used during the first phase of the practice. They include the following:W� Individual Work. Drills have the pri-

mary purpose of improving individual fundamentals and giving the players the ability to select the proper options

part 1

on offensive and defensive situations. W� Collective Work. We practice the var-

ious collective options on defense and offense.

All the drills we run until now are in prep-aration for what will be the main topic of the practice of that day (a specific of-fense, the fastbreak, defense, etc.).

In all the offensive drills, we try to em-phasize passing and continuous move-ment without the ball. In addition, I like to add rules that make it more difficult to create the execution of the drills. This forces the players to concentrate and find creative solutions as they are taking part in the drills. This is exactly what hap-

page 16 | 34 2008 | Fiba Assist Magazine

COACHES - FUNDAMENTALS AND YOUTH BASKETBALL

8-10 minutes.W� Stretching 4-6 minutes. W� First drills. DRILL 1: ELEVEN PLAYERS This drill requires 11 players to set up as shown in diagram 1. Three players are on offense versus the two defend-ers. After the shot, miss, or a score, one of the two defenders passes the ball to the player out-of-bounds (on the right side in this example), and they run the

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pens during a regular season game, so this type of drill should have great carry-over effect.

It is important to vary the drills through-out the week to keep the players inter-ested. A good way to do this is to vary the duration and intensity of a drill.

The beginning of our routine was always similar to this one:W� Warm-up with the ball (different drills)

fastbreak with the other player, who was off the court. They play three-on- two at the other basket. The player, who gets the ball drives to the center of the court, while the passer goes in the lane, where he has passed the ball, and the third player runs in the opposite lane. The other four remaining players set themselves up with two on defense and one each on the left and right side of the half court (diagr. 2).

Option Run the fastbreak without dribbling:a. The passer passes to the player on

his right side, runs in the central lane, receives the ball back and passes it to the player on the left side, who runs along the sideline (diagr. 3).

b. The passer passes the ball to the player on his right side, and runs to occupy the left lateral lane, while the other player on the left side goes in the central lane, gets a pass from the player on the right side, and then kicks back the ball to him (diagr. 4).

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Solutions on offensea. Change the side of the ball (diagr. 5).b. Pass and cut in the middle of the lane,

with the cutter replaced by the other wing (diagr. 6).

c. Pass and go away, while the opposite wing cuts in the lane (diagr. 7).

DRILL 2: 2-ON-1 / 3 ON 2The initial set is shown in diagram 8. The two players on the wing start to play a 2-on-1, and then they go to the opposite

basket, playing 3-on-2 with the two of-fensive players plus the defender (diagr. 9). The play then continues with a 2-on-1, with the player who, shot or lost the pos-session of the ball acting as a defender, going in the circle at mid-court. While going back 3-on-2, we can add rules, such as no dribbling while playing 2-on-1, or only one dribble allowed per player.

DRILL 3: WAVE 5 PLAYERS 3-ON-2 / 3-ON-1 The 5 players start to make a wave, with

almost five passes (diagr. 10). The shoot-er and the player, who made the last pass run on defense, while the other three players are on offense, and they play 3-on-2 (diagr. 11). The shooter or the player, who lost the possession of the ball, then goes on defense and they come back and play 2-on-1 (diagr. 12).

DRILL 4: 4-ON-3 CONTINUITY The set shown in diagram 13 has four players involved, and one of them is in

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COACHES - fundamentals and youth basketball

the low-post area. They play 4-on-3 in continuity. Here are the options:W� No dribble. W� No dribbles until the mid court and

only one dribble per player on the of-fensive half court.

W� Pass the ball to the low post.W� Limit the number of passes.W� Only the perimeter players can shoot

from the 3-point line.

DRILL 5: 2-ON-1 / 1-ON-1 WITHOUT DRIBBLESThe start of the drill is shown in diagram 14. Players play 2-on-1, and then again 2-on-1 at the other half court. The first defender should try to harass the pass to the offensive player as he goes to the basket. DRILL 6: WAVE 2-ON-1 Three players make a wave. Then they go back to the same basket. The shooter then becomes the defender and plays 2-on-1 (diagr. 15 and 16). Here are the rules:W� Limit the number of passes.W� If a basket is scored, the throw-in

comes from the baseline.W� If there is no basket scored, rebound

and fastbreak.W� No long pass can be made to the sec-

ond offensive player. W� Three competitive groups of players.W� Run a 2-on-1 for the second time with

the same group of players.

The second part of this article will be published in the next issue.

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by Jose Vicente "Pepu" Hernandez

Drills after the warm-upPART II

Jose Vicente "Pepu" Hernandez start-ed his coaching career in 1989 as as-sistant coach of Estudiantes Madrid. In 1994 he became head coach and led the team to eight playoff semifinals, one final of the championship and a King's Cup win (in 2000). In 2005 Her-nadez became head coach of the Spanish men's national team. In 2006 he won the Gold medal at the FIBA World Championship in Japan and in 2007 he won the silver medal at the EuroBasket.

In the second part of this article I will continue to talk about my training "rou-tine." I used this series of exercises for many seasons during my coaching ex-perience with Adecco Estudiantes and it remained always the same.

DRILL 7: OPPOSITE SIDE The drill starts with three, or better fourth group of three players (diagr. 1). Player 1 pass to 2, player 2 to player 3. After the pass 1 runs in the middle of the court, receives a pass from 4 and goes to the basket. Then he runs for receiving the pass from 4 and to go to the basket. Then the players, who passed the ball moves to different spots on the other side of the court, as shown on diagr. 2. 1 gets his own rebound and make the same routine toward the other basket (diagr. 3). This is a very intense drill.

DRILL 8: REACTION AND SPEEDWith the help of the conditioning coach we use some speed and reaction drills using the ball and adding the competi-tion as motivational elements. Natural-ly, we need to make a very good warm-up, increasing progressively the intensity.The two players, one on offense, one on defense, are set at the mid court line. 1 passes the ball to 2 and 2 makes a fake



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and go to the basket and drives hard to one of the two baskets. The defender reacts and run on defense (diagr. 4). Options:W� Same drill with back and forth passes

between the two players. At the whis-tle the player with the ball is on of-fense ande the other is the defender.

W� Same basic drill, but starting from the baseline (diagr. 5).

Another drill is shown on diagram 6 were the coach pass the ball to one of the two

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offensive players on the baseline. The de-fender on the same side of the pass, touch-es the baseline and recover on defense for helping his teammate who is playing 2-on-1.

DRILL 9: 5-ON 5/6 ON-6 We play 5-on-5 or 6-on-6, until one team scores a certain number of baskets.We give the following rules:W� The player cannot giving the ball back

to the same player from whom he re-ceived it.

W� They cannot remain in the same spot after the pass.

W� All the offensive players must stay on the offensive half court when the shot is taken if not the basket is not valid.

W� On the personal fouls, baseline or side-line out of bounds, we apply all the nor-mal rules, 24-second, traveling, etc.

DRILL 10: 5-ON-0We play half court or full court for review-




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ing the offensive sets and the transition. We run this drill with two teams of five players on both half court.

DRILL 11: WAVEFour players on the court as shown in dia-gram 7. 1 passes to 3, who popped out to the 3-point line. 1 then cuts in the lane, re-ceived the ball back from 3, throws it on


the board, gets the rebound and passes back to 3 who has moved to the corner. At the same time 2 fakes to go to to the right and then goes to the wing, receives the ball from 3 and passes to 4 who has popped out to the 3-point line. After the pass, 3 replaced 2 in the middle of the court (diagr. 8). Right after he has passed the ball to 4, 2 fakes to go to the right and then cuts in the lane, receives the ball back from 4, throws it to the board, gets the rebound and passes back to 4 who has moved to the corner (diagr. 9). 3 fakes the cut in the middle and then goes out

the 3-point line and receives the pass from 4. In the same time 2 goes from the painted area to the corner, while 1 fakes to inside the painted area and then move to the wing for receiving the pass from 3 (diagr. 10). Now 1 has the ball on the wing and has two options: he can pass to 4 who uses the screen high of 3 to go out the 3-point line, or he can serve 3, who after the block up, cuts to the basket. In the first case, after receiving the ball, 4 pass to 2 on the weakside wing, in the second case, 1 after the pass, moves to the corner ready to get a possible pass

from 3 (diagr. 11). Full court fastbreak op-tion: four players on the court. At the coach whistle, 4 throws the ball to the board, gets the rebound and pass to 1 near the corner. After this pass, 4 runs in the mid lane to the other basket. At the same time 3 fakes to go in the painted area and run out the 3-point line while 2 starts to run along the sideline to the oth-er basket. 3 receives the ball from 1 and makes a long pass to 2, arrived in the other mid court wing. 2 receives and dishes to 4 in the painted area for a shot (diagr. 12).



We play games:W� with screens;W� with no screens;W� with direct screens;W� with undirected screen;W� with or without dribbles.About the defense: differet kinds of de-fense on the direct screen, undirect screen and blind screen; internal players defense on low post.I hope that this selection of exercises will help your training and can be the basis on which to create others that probably bet-ter satisfy your necessity.

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DRILL 12: 3-ON-3 We play 3-on-3 in a half court. If the de-fense gets the rebound or steal the ball, we will do the fastbreak. If the basket makes two consecutives baskets, the de-fense becomes offense and viceverse (di-agr. 13).

DRILL 13: 2-ON-2 INTERNAL, 3-ON-3 EXTERNALAs you see in diagram 14, we play 2-on-2 in a half court with two assistants. After the basket, one of the defensive player take the rebound and pass to the nearer assistant who serve the playmaker of the

three offensive players ready to on the mid court line. They will play 3-on-3 to the oth-er basket but with rules that help the fast-break: the external offensive players cannot cross the mid court line until the playmaker receives the ball; the defenders can intervene only after the playmaker re-ceives the ball (diagr. 15).

DRILL 14: 4-ON-4-ON-4We play 4-on-4 games in continuity. There are three group of four players who play 4-on-4 games in continuity (diagr. 16). In this way we work on the counterattack.

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Drills after the warm-up