Dribble Drive play
Dribble Drive: Kick-Back Pitch to the Trailer
- Court
- Half court
- Length
- 9 steps
About this play
The trailer's play. Why the second guard trails six to eight feet behind a middle drive, in line with the rim and the ball: when the driver is stopped at the nail, the pitch back is positive and the trailer catches going downhill into the lane the driver just emptied, which Walberg calls the kick-back and Calipari the pitch. This is not a weave; the gap between the two guards is what makes it work. The driver circles under to the other side so he never clogs the trailer's lane. Counter shown: the scouted defense has X4 recover into the gap so the pitch is negative, with nothing downhill; 4 swings the ball back to 1 at the wing and basket cuts through to the far corner, 3 lifts to the slot, and 1 attacks a triple gap on the right because the cut emptied the whole side. Walberg's rule: when the ball moves on the perimeter we are driving it, not shooting it, and the guard cuts after he passes eighty-five percent of the time. I picked this up from Coach's Clipboard's Running the Dribble-Drive Motion and Breakthrough Basketball's kick-up and kick-back drills, with the eighty-five percent rule from Vance Walberg's NABC webinar notes; read them if you want more of his rules.
