Basketball is a sport and game that is played by two teams with five players on each. The object of the game is to shoot a ball through a basket that is elevated 10 feet off of the ground. There are two baskets and each team has their own basket; the baskets are on the opposite ends of the court length-wise. Players may move the ball toward the opponent’s basket by passing and dribbling. Shooting the basketball into the basket is important in order to build up points to win a game.
1. Dribbling
Being able to dribble the basketball correctly is important because it is one of the main ways to bring the ball up court and to your opponent’s basket. There are different dribbling methods:
-One-hand dribbling
One-hand dribbling is pretty self explanatory and is just dribbling with one hand, trying not to double dribble.
- Switch hand dribbling
Switch hand dribble is, while dribbling with one hand; pass the ball to your other hand with a dribble and vise-versa. So let’s just say you are dribbling the ball with your right hand, you bounce the ball to your left hand and then pass it back to your right hand the same way.
-Trick Dribbling
After mastering one-hand and switch hand dribbling, you can now move on to trick dribbling. This consists of dribbling the ball between and under your legs and behind your back. This helps in confusing your opponent and being able to penetrate to the basket.
2. Passing
Passing a basketball to your teammates is a very important concept in the transporting of the basketball. There are many ways to pass a basketball:
-Bounce Pass
This type of passing is bouncing the basketball to your one of your teammates.
-Over Hand Pass
This type of passing is: you have the ball in one hand and while that hand is raised up above your shoulders with the ball, throw the ball to your teammate.
-Under Hand Pass
This type of pass is: you have the ball in one hand and, like if you were bowling, lower your hand to your thigh and toss the ball to your teammate.
-Over head pass
This type of pass is: You hold the basketball with two hands and bring it over your head, then throwing it to your teammate.
-Bullet pass
This type of pass is: Think of throwing a baseball. Yep, just like that. You hold the basketball in one hand and throw the ball across the court to your teammate as hard as you can without throwing it out of bounds.
-Behind-the-back Pass
After you have generally mastered the basic passing techniques, then you are ready for more advanced ones. This type of pass is: While dribbling the ball, make sure your teammate is open and in the path of where you want the ball to go as you throw it behind your back. You hold the ball with one hand and move your hand behind your back quickly for a quick, fast release of the ball. The faster and more precise you get at this, the more effective it will work.
-Lob Pass
This type of pass is: Basically throwing the ball up in the air so that your teammate may catch it in the air. This is also use for alley-oops. This is also mainly used to get the ball to a taller teammate.
3. Shooting
-Jump Shot
A jump-shot is when you make the basketball into the basket at whatever place on the court except for behind the 3-point line.
-Lay-up
A lay-up is a shot made really close to the basket in which you hit the backboard with the basketball to allow the basketball to fall into the basket.
-3-Pointer
A 3-pointer is the shot made that can generate the most points. A 3-pointer is made when the ball is shot behind the 3-point line and made into the basket.
-Free Throw
Free throws are basically called “free shots”. These are allowed only when a player is fouled while trying to shoot at the basket.
As we all know practice makes perfect so don’t expect to master all these in a day or a week! This takes time and hopefully you will become really good at basketball and I hope this helped you! =)
