Drills play
Drill: Mirror Slides
- Court
- Half court
- Length
- 5 steps
About this play
Reaction and lateral footwork before there is a ball to worry about, which is why Jr. NBA uses the mirror as a first defensive drill and why I warm up with it at every level. Setup: pairs of similar speed facing each other four or five feet apart on a line, the sideline or a lane line, with cones marking a lane about ten feet wide for each pair. No balls in the base version; the leader is drawn holding one here only because the dribbling version is the progression. The leader moves laterally, plants and reverses, fakes, stutters, and changes speed; the defender slides to stay nose to nose without crossing his feet. Thirty seconds, switch roles, three or four rounds starting slow and speeding up. Common mistakes: hopping instead of sliding, popping up out of the stance, and watching the leader's feet instead of his hips. Progressions: the leader adds forward and back so the defender closes and backpedals, then the leader dribbles, then cones squeeze the width. Youth especially, six to twelve. I picked it up from Basketball Manitoba's defend-the-mirror page and the Jr. NBA defensive mirror drill video; give them a look for the thirty-second round structure.
