Drills play
Drill: Three-Minute Left-Hand Layups
- Court
- Full court
- Length
- 6 steps
About this play
Conditioning with a ball that also fixes weak-hand finishing. Why it works: the clock and the make count turn fatigue into a game condition, and the rule that only the left hand touches the ball means the hand players hide in games gets hundreds of reps while they are tired, which is exactly when they switch back to the strong hand. Setup: one line behind the first player on the baseline, one to three balls, the coach with a clock and a counter. The player speed-dribbles the full court with the left hand along the left side, angles in for a left-handed layup off the glass, rebounds his own shot, and comes back up the other side with the left hand to lay it in at the start, then goes to the end of the line. The next player leaves when the one ahead passes half court, marked here by the cone, so the floor never stops. Count makes for three minutes; a varsity target is seventy-five, or forty in two minutes in Teach Hoops' version. Hit the goal and nobody runs. Common mistakes: switching to the right hand when tired, missing and sprinting on without the make, and the line crowding the start. Progression: a dribble move at cones along the lane, or a coach standing in the paint as a token defender; youth teams start with the right hand. Suits every level. I learned the timed version from Coach's Clipboard's full-court dribbling drills and the Championship Productions layup conditioning video; give them a look for the counts by level.
