Basketball Dribbling and Ball Handling Video Clips, Fundamentals, Drills, and Tips
Most coaches use dribbling and ball handling interchangeably. Though they are linked, the 2 skills are definitely separate.
Dribbling and controlling the ball is a skill that can be practiced alone and is separate from the other ball skills on the court. Ball handling, however, involves knowledge of the game and integrates dribbling, passing and decision-making.
Practicing and improving your dribbling is a simple task. There are innumerable dribbling drills that are in use today that are challenging and effective. The set of drills that have come to be known as "Maravich Drills," (after the late ball-handling wizard Pete Maravich) are widely known. They include drills such as passing the ball around your body, dribble figure 8s, spider dribbling, drop and catch.
Practicing and improving your ball handling requires imagination, as you have to put yourself in game situations.
One of our favorite series of ballhandling drills that helps develop better ballhandlers is the Maravich series! Watch it below.
9 Tips To Improve Your Dribbling & Ball Handling
Here are 9 tips from pro coach Don Kelbick.
Dribble the ball hard. The more time the ball spends in your hand, the more control you have of the ball. The harder you dribble, the quicker it gets back in your hand.
Head up at all times. Look at the rim or a spot on the wall during all practice.
Use your finger tips to control the ball, not your palm.
Use your imagination. Picture when and how you would use each of the dribbles.
Teach mentality. There is too much dribbling for no reason in our game today. I like to teach that the primary purpose for putting the ball on the floor is to get a lay-up. If you don't have an opportunity, don't put it on the floor.
Basketball is a game of length. Work on lengthening the dribble. Work to get your opportunities with 1 dribble. You don't beat defenses with your dribble. You beat people with your feet; you SEPARATE from your defense with the dribble.
Basketball is also a game of angles. Try to move in straight lines. Whenever you make an "East-West" move (something that takes you toward the sideline), re-capture a "North-South" path (direct line to the basket) as quickly as possible.
Don't do things in 2 dribbles that you can do in 1.
Practice outside your comfort zone. Experiment; go faster than you are used to, use your imagination. When working on new skills, don't be concerned with losing the ball. Just pick it up and do it again. If you practice only things that are comfortable, then you will never improve.
More Ball Handling Tips and Articles
Executing The Basketball Pick and Roll
The Importance of the Back Up Dribble and How It Reduces Turnovers Against Pressure
A Secret to Chris Paul's Success - Change of Pace
Handling Ball Screens Like Steve Nash
Chris Paul Hesitation Move & The Importance of Counter Moves [VIDEO]
Other Blog Posts About Ball Handling
Dribbling Practice
"Maravich Drills" are very good at getting players comfortable with the ball. Below are some examples.
Dribble Figure 8's - Spread legs about shoulder width. Dribble the ball through and around legs in a figure 8. Can be done multiple ways - front to back, back to front, low dribbles (as many dribbles as possible with dribble about shoe height), as few dribbles as possible (high dribble about waist high), can even be done walking. For even more of a challenge, try the drill with one hand instead of two.
Spider Dribble - Feet spread about shoulder width. Dribble the ball between your legs in the following manner - left hand, right hand in front of your legs; left hand, right hand behind your legs. Work to as fast a possible.
Drop and Catch - Hold ball between your legs with right hand in front of your body, left hand behind. Drop the ball and exchange you hand position and re-catch the ball before it hits the ground.
These are just examples. There are too many of these drills to list here. Pete Maravich devised these drills out of his imagination, his need for challenge and his drive to improve. You do not need to be bound by other people's drills; challenge yourself to come up with your own drills.
Dribbling Warm Ups
I prefer to practice skills in combinations that are relevant to multiple aspects of the game. It saves time and instills a great sense of urgency.. It
saves time and has a great sense of urgency. One of the ways I do this is to add dribbling into my stretching exercises.
Hamstring Stretch - While dribbling with your right hand, cross right leg over left. Bend at the waist, touch the floor with your left
hand and bring your dribble down to shoe top level. Hold for an 8 count. Reverse position and switch hands.
Lower Body and Achilles Stretch - Dribble waist high while standing up. Step as far forward with your right leg as you can, keeping
your back straight and your left heel on the ground. At the same time bring your dribble forward of your right foot, keeping the ball at
shoe-top height. Hold for an 8 count and then stand up. Switch legs and dribble hand.
Crossover - Same as above except, step forward with left leg. As foot goes to the floor, switch hands, right to left, keeping
dribble shoe top height. Cross back when standing up.
Through Legs - Same as above except instead of crossing over, put ball through legs at shoe top height.
Multiple Through Legs - Same as above except put ball through legs 3 times (left, right, left) on quick, successive dribbles
shoe top height.
Torso Twist - Spread legs outside of shoulder width, dribble with right hand. Keeping legs straight, bring ball across body to
left side, outside left foot and dribble at shoe top height behind left foot.
These are just samples. You can develop a dribble stretch for any part of the body.
Two Ball Dribbling Drills & Videos:
I think the most effective way to improve your dribble, however, is by using 2 balls. Any dribble or drill you can do with 1 ball, you can do with 2.
Stationary practice at first will build confidence. Stand on the baseline and try to control both balls. Then start to move. Go half court, then full court. Follow
the lines around the court or in any route you can come up with.
To see more DRILLS & VIDEOS Click Here.
The difference between dribbling and ball handling is intent. Dribbling is the skill of controlling the ball as you bounce it to the floor. Ball handling (at least 1 aspect of ball handling) is what you do with that dribble.
Whether you use it to go to the basket, make a passing angle, escape from pressure or anything else, those situations have to be imagined and practiced.
Here are some situational drills:
Full Court Lay-ups - Start on the baseline. Dribble full court with right hand in 5 dribbles and make a lay-up, come back with left hand. Then reduce the number of dribbles to 4 and then to 3.
Chair Changes - Place a chair about 21 feet from the basket. It can be on top, on the wing, or in the corner. Start about 8-10 feet beyond the chair. Dribble straight at the chair. At the chair, use a change of direction dribble (crossover, inside out, behind back, etc) to go beyond the chair and make a lay-up. Try to get to the point where you only need one dribble to get to the lay-up. Practice all the changes.
Two up - Two back - Set a chair such as in the drill above. Take 2 hard dribbles at the chair. When reaching the chair, take 2 backup dribbles. After the second dribble, push ahead into 1 dribble lay-up or pull-up jumpshot.
Dropstep Dribble - (works on footwork and ballhanding)
Chair Curl - This is another great multi use drill. It combines shooting, ball handling and speed and high intensity change in direction.
Chair Curl Phase 2 (With 2 Chairs)
Two Ball Dribbling Drills & Moves - Excellent way to improve one on one moves.
Basketball Pick and Roll Drills
Shooting drills can also be adapted to work on ball handling aspects by adding changes of direction and pivoting to create 1 and 2 dribble opportunities for either jumpers or lay-ups.
Once you have developed a feel for the ball, it's very important that you practice your ball handling in competitive, game-like situations with defenders present. In the DVD 30 Competitive Skill Development Drills, you will find 12 drills that are specific to improving your ball handling skills in game-like situations.
More Dribbling and Ball Handling Drills
Coaches, go here for more Dribbling & Ball Handling Drills
Players, go here for more Dribbling & Ball Handling Drills
Recommended Training Resources:
Youth Ball Handling & Workout App - Over 200 ball handling and footwork drills. 24 Different Levels.
SKLZ Court Vision dribble goggles will help you develop better ball control and improved awareness of the whole court. They force players to handle the ball with their head up to survey the court...(more info)
5 Things You Need To Know To Be a Great Ball Handler
By Jeff Haefner
You can be an extremely effective ball handler by knowing and practicing 5 things. Most players and coaches make
things too complicated. But dribbling effectively is simple. You don't need lots of moves. You just need EFFECTIVE moves.
Here's all you need to know to be effective at any level.
1 - You need to develop a feel for the basketball.
Developing a feel for the ball consists of drills that are stationary and slow moving. You will improve your hand-eye coordination, hand quickness, ambidexterity, throwing, catching and other important aspects of ball handling.
These drills consists of the Maravich series, one-ball dribbling, one-ball dribbling through cones, two-ball dribbling, two-ball dribbling through cones, tennis ball dribbling, and the Steve Nash passing series.
These drills are also great to put at the beginning of your warm up as a stepping stone to more intense drills.
A huge mistake that many players and coaches make is that they spend too much time on this. While it is important, especially for beginners, limit yourself to 5 to 6 minutes of each practice. The reasoning is that you can get very good at these drills, but you neglect the components below, you won't have the ability to handle game situations. If you can dribble 3 basketballs while juggling 5 tennis balls at the same time, it looks cool and it is a neat circus trick that is great for marketing, but it is a circus trick. It is not going to make you a better basketball player. The majority of your ball handling should be functional which means that they simulate game-like situations. Can you get down the court in 3 to 4 dribbles with either hand? Can you stop on a dime? Can you change speed and change directions like Chris Paul?
If you are able to dribble 3 balls and juggle 5 tennis balls at the same time, I would say that your hand-eye coordination, dexterity, and hand quickness are extremely good and you probably don't need to focus on them any more. You probably should spend more time on shooting, footwork, athleticism, and functional ball handling.
2 - You must be able to dribble the ball down the court at any speed (all the way from walking up to sprinting) with both hands with your head up.
Pretty simple but important, right? You can simply dribble up and down the court at different speeds.
3 - You must be able to change your pace.
It's good to incorporate change of pace in your dribbling drills.
Chris Paul is the
expert at changing speeds (pace). That allows him to get the defender off balance.
Practice changing the pace from walking, slow, medium, fast, and full speed. You can change the pace from slow to fast, medium to full speed, and any
other combinations you can imagine.
4 - You must be able to dribble while moving backwards.
So now instead of going forward, you need to be able to back out of traffic and so on. That's where the
back up dribble comes into play.
Simply, get in a position where you are protecting the ball and shuffle forwards and backwards up and down the court.
Next, you can practice running forward at a faster speed, come to hockey stop, and shuffle a couple of steps backwards.
Mix it up so you can handle any situation.
5 - You must have a primary dribble move and a counter dribble move.
If you perfect a go-to move that's very difficult to stop, good defenders will adjust to stop it. That's when you add your counter move to completely
keep the defender guessing.
I prefer the cross over as the primary move and the inside out as the counter move. You might use the hesitation move and the crossover.
That's it! Perfect those five things and when it comes to dribbling, you'll have the dribbling ability to handle almost any situation. Should you also
practice other things for ball handling? Sure. Now do you need apply the technical skills to competitive drills to handle game situations like transition, ball screens, handling traps, etc.? Yes. Do you need to improve your athleticism to make you a better player in every aspect of your game? Yes. But I'm telling you, that these are five extremely effective methods to give you the technical skill to handle any situation.
You can use the back up dribble all the time -- you use it when approaching a trap, when approaching defensive traffic, when getting cut off in the lane, when breaking the press, when breaking a player down one on one, etc.
You can then incorporate the cross over in lots of situations. If you advance the ball and get cut off you can back up dribble and then cross over to break down your man and blow by him. You can cross over to change directions and bring the ball to the other side of the court. You can cross over to the passing angle to your teammate. You can cross over to split a ball screen. You can cross over on the fast break to get by the defender. You can cross over to eventually set up your counter move (the inside out). So next time instead of crossing over, fake out the defender by giving the inside out move and then blow by the defender.
You still need to practice a lot, but I think this will simplify your life greatly by focusing on a few really effective dribbling techniques instead of
trying to practice all kinds of moves and techniques that don't really help. The techniques above are the the most effective dribbling moves that I know.
How To Become A Great Ball Handler
If you'd like to become a great ball handler, check out the Progressive Ball Handling & Footwork Workouts App.
It provides a step-by-step process with professionally designed videos and workouts. It has over 200 drills and 24 levels of workouts.
What do you think? Please leave your thoughts and comments below.
Heavy balls - Medicine ball, Slamball, Medicine ball.
Publication date: 01/11/2017 19:12
Weights are used to ensure that additional load provides stress for the muscles, motivating them to greater performance. Medicine ball , Slamball and Medicine ball – weights in the shape of a ball will help you strengthen your core (shoulders, arms, abs), develop explosive strength, power, increase flexibility. And at the same time, make training more diverse. When training is interesting, then the results are obtained both faster and more efficiently.
But first, about the characteristic features of heavy balls.
Medicine ball.
Most similar to a regular basketball in both size and hardness. It also springs from the floor and can be pumped up if necessary. But it weighs heavier than usual - from 0.9 to 6.7 kg. Medicine ball can be thrown against the wall, on the floor, or can be used for a wide variety of exercises.
How to choose the right medicine ball weight.
Of course, everything depends on the goals. If in order to make the exercise more difficult, then start with the easiest and increase as you progress. If a medicine ball is needed to build strength and power, and the exercises will be in the form of throws, then a weight corresponding to 10% of your own body is usually recommended.
Slamball.
Slamball is also a heavy ball, heavier than medicine balls, its weight can reach up to 18 kg. A feature and advantage of the slamball is that it does not bounce when it hits the floor. It is used when it is necessary that the ball stays where it was thrown: it does not bounce or roll back. The most common exercise is throwing the ball from behind the head with force to the floor. All energy, all power is extinguished on the surface. If you do the same with a medicine ball, then when it bounces, it can hit you in the face. Combat athletes will appreciate the simulator, because it allows you to imitate the throw of an imaginary opponent through the body.
Medicine ball.
This ball is larger than the Medball and Slamball and is softer to hold. Despite the softness, the ball is slightly springy, it can be thrown against the wall. Lace-up surface inserts further enhance hand/foot grip. With Medicine ball , for example, you can complicate the sit-ups. Holding the ball with your feet - raise and lower the body, pumping the rectus abdominis. In addition, during such sit-ups, the inner side of the thigh is also pumped. This exercise can be done with other balls, but it is much more convenient with a soft Medicine Ball, because it does not slip out.
All heavy balls can be thrown to the floor or tossed with a partner. With them you can squat, do lunges. It can also be used as an unstable exercise platform. With the Medicine Ball, push-ups are often performed: with one hand on the floor, the other on the ball, rolling the ball and changing hands.
Heavy balls are good to use with other balls. For example, use them as weights: standing on the balancing discs, perform various exercises with them. Additional load + unstable support include muscles - stabilizers to maintain balance.
We guarantee you will feel the result…
Blog - Increase racket handle size
From time to time, many players find it necessary to increase the size of the racket handle. If you are one of these players, we will show you several different ways to do this, all of which are reversible. First, let's see what sizes exist and how they are classified in the US and Europe. Most racquets manufactured have handle sizes ranging from 4 1/8 to 4 5/8 inches in circumference (US classification). Rackets for juniors have a handle size of 4 inches. European sizes are different from US sizes.
US and European size match:
US
Europe
4 1/8
1
4 1/4
2
4 3/8
3
4 1/2
4
4 5/8
5
4 3/4
6
As you can see, each European size corresponds to 1/8 inch (1 = 4 1/8, 2 = 4 2/8 or 1/4, etc. ) So increasing the racket handle by 1 European size classification, you increase the handle by 1/8 inch according to the US classification. This is the most common range of increase in handle size, although many players sometimes need to increase the size of the handle by 1/2 size or 1/16 inch respectively.
Increase 1/2 size (1/16 inch) with winding
If you use winding, use it to increase the racket handle size by 1/2 size. Most wraps are 1/16" thick and are ideal for many players to properly increase racket handle size as well as additional moisture absorption and cushioning. In addition to windings, polyurethane handles are also sometimes used, with the help of which additional thickness and cushioning are added. The increase in racket weight is 4-8 grams. Balance change is minor.
Increase 1/2 size (1/8 inch) with heat shrink sleeve
You can also increase the racket handle 1 or 1/2 size with a special heat shrink sleeve. These sleeves are easy to use. To install them, you will need a hair dryer or hot air dryer and some tools: scissors and a knife.
Remove the wrapping
Remove the old grip and staples so that they don't get in the way and create bumps.
Clean the handle of the racquet from the remnants of the removed old grip.
Place the shrink sleeve over the handle of the racket so that the sleeve protrudes from the top of the handle by about 1 cm.
You can cut off this protruding part of the sleeve with a knife after heating the sleeve or not cut it. Then, during heat shrinkage, the sleeve will also wrap around the head of the handle, forming a ring, in the central part of which the logo of the manufacturer of this racket will be visible. If you still decide to cut off the protruding part of the sleeve, follow the instructions below. Although we do not recommend doing this, as you can easily scratch the head of the racket handle, which will be an additional inconvenience during the game.
Hold the sleeve firmly at the top of the racket handle and heat it from bottom to top, holding the hair dryer 5-10 cm from the sleeve. Rotate the racket around the axis while you move the heat flow from the bottom up along the handle of the racket. To prevent the sleeve from melting, do not point the hair dryer at one place for a long time and do not bring the hair dryer too close to the sleeve. Continue heating the shrink sleeve until wrinkles disappear and the sleeve is completely smooth. Allow the sleeve to cool before cutting off the protruding part of the sleeve.
To cut off the protruding part of the sleeve, rest the racket on a hard surface. Set the knife blade on the sleeve at a distance of 2-3 mm from the edge of the racket handle, gently press the knife and turn the racket along the axis, holding the knife firmly on the surface of the sleeve, until you cut off the protruding part of the sleeve completely. The increase in racket weight is 7-8 grams. The change in balance is 0.
If you don't have an opportunity, don't put it on the floor.
Below are some examples.
You do not need to be bound by other people's drills; challenge yourself to come up with your own drills.
Hold for an 8 count and then stand up. Switch legs and dribble hand.
Any dribble or drill you can do with 1 ball, you can do with 2.
Stationary practice at first will build confidence. Stand on the baseline and try to control both balls. Then start to move. Go half court, then full court. Follow
the lines around the court or in any route you can come up with.
24 Different Levels.
If you can dribble 3 basketballs while juggling 5 tennis balls at the same time, it looks cool and it is a neat circus trick that is great for marketing, but it is a circus trick. It is not going to make you a better basketball player. The majority of your ball handling should be functional which means that they simulate game-like situations. Can you get down the court in 3 to 4 dribbles with either hand? Can you stop on a dime? Can you change speed and change directions like Chris Paul?
The techniques above are the the most effective dribbling moves that I know.
And at the same time, make training more diverse. When training is interesting, then the results are obtained both faster and more efficiently. 
Despite the softness, the ball is slightly springy, it can be thrown against the wall. Lace-up surface inserts further enhance hand/foot grip. With Medicine ball , for example, you can complicate the sit-ups. Holding the ball with your feet - raise and lower the body, pumping the rectus abdominis. In addition, during such sit-ups, the inner side of the thigh is also pumped. This exercise can be done with other balls, but it is much more convenient with a soft Medicine Ball, because it does not slip out. 
) So increasing the racket handle by 1 European size classification, you increase the handle by 1/8 inch according to the US classification. This is the most common range of increase in handle size, although many players sometimes need to increase the size of the handle by 1/2 size or 1/16 inch respectively. 
To install them, you will need a hair dryer or hot air dryer and some tools: scissors and a knife. 
