Coaching the Read & React

06 Jul Bounce Off Drill Series, Part 3: 5 Man Drills

Here is the final installment of Rich Czeslawski's Bounce Off Drill Series. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 - together these three create a progression. You know how much we at Better Basketball love progressions! Rich doesn't just write for the Tribe either, he has his own blog, which is worth spending some time on. After running the 3-Player Drills, we move to our 5-on-0 Bounce Drill, which really reinforces the habit of Circle Movement and allows the player with the ball to work on the Bounce Off technique. We teach our “Bouncers” to reverse dribble (like a defensive slide) with their front shoulder pointed to the rim to protect the ball. Once they get to the new perimeter spot they square their shoulders so they are a threat to pass, shoot, or drive again.

5 on 0 Bounce Off Drill


Player 1 bounces from right corner to left corner, and then finishes with a Baseline Drive.
 Each player is the “Bouncer” once, and then we do the drill starting from the left corner, moving to the right. We finish each set with a Baseline Drive for good measure and Circle Move to the Shooting Windows.
Everyone circle moves left on the baseline drive with the exception of the 2 who must stay home to be the Natural Pitch. This way, all of the Shooting Windows are covered: Safety Valve, 90 degree, 45 degree, and Natural pitch.

30 Jun Bounce Off Drill Series, Part 2: 3-on-3

This is the second installment of a drill series by Rich Czeslawski designed to accelerate Circle Movement training by using the Bounce Off Dribble. You can find the first part of the series here.

Wing Bounce - Safety Valve Back Cut

The next 3-player drill we use in the series (which was very aptly foreshadowed in the Forum Comments by Rick after Part 1) is to run the Wing Bounce drill the other direction so that the player bouncing off is pulling a teammate into the Safety Valve spot.  We have the defender step over the Read Line for the Safety Valve Back Cut.  Do this on both sides of the floor as well as with the ball starting at the top of the key.

27 Jun Bounce Off Drill Series, Part 1: 3 Man Drills

The Tribe is all about collaboration - that's why we have this site, to share ideas. As active coaches, you are constantly in the lab with the Read & React and because of that, you have the unique ability to come up with great options, drills, and thoughts. Today, we start a three part Bounce Drill Series from Rich Czeslawski that he used to solidify Circle Movement habits - something a lot of Tribers struggle with (you can see another of his posts here). And, if you're uncertain as to what the Bounce Off is, it is explained in more detail here and here.

Bounce Drill Series: 3 Man Drills

Since our basketball epiphany and subsequent installation of Read and React two years ago, we have been able to very quickly and easily create the habits necessary to run the Read and React as a free flowing offense. The elusive “Great White Buffalo” for us has been Layer 4 – Circle Movement. For whatever reason, our players’ natural response to a teammate driving to the basket is to turn to stone, anchor their feet and hope the ball will be kicked out to them so they can take what is likely to be a contested jumper. They fully understand the benefit Circle Movement provides in increasing the amount of time they have to shoot as their defender must find them and recover to a new spot after helping, but the habit hasn’t quite taken root as quickly as others. After watching the movie Inception, and toying with the idea of using dream extraction to plant the habit in their subconscious minds, we decided we just didn’t have it in the budget to go that route and went searching for other answers. Our far less expensive solution was born out of a topic introduced by Rick Torbett at a Read and React clinic we hosted in May. Rick showed our players the merits of “bouncing off” when you drive and can’t get all the way to the rim. The idea is to keep your dribble and “bounce off” to the perimeter spot left open by the teammate circle moving on your initial drive. This concept has evolved into a series of drills we work on every day and has improved our Circle Movement more in two weeks than anything else we have tried in the previous two years! We start with two 3 Player Drills and although they are both shown on the right side of the court, we always drill on both sides in practice.