The Anatomy of a Drill

As a coach sits down to plan and map out their system and style of play for the next season, understanding how to best use drills to impact development and performance is so important.

Respected former Australian Boomers coach and current San Antonio Spurs assistant Brett Brown recently met with coaches at the Basketball Australia COE and spoke about “the anatomy of a drill”.

Coach Brown spoke about his approach to drilling and his “core tenants” of a drill –

• What is the purpose?
• How does it flow?
• How do we score it?

These three simple points and the communication of these components to the players provide clarity and consistency in the drill and practice as a whole.

Purpose –

Providing clarity of the “why” of each drill is so important in ensuring efficiency of practice and driving development.

In the age of “games approach” and small-sided games, ensuring simplicity and clear purpose of function can at times be lost. The concept of a game’s approach or “game sense” is indeed to link drills and practice to what actually happens in the game. At times, the quest for creative and multi-facets drills clouds the purpose and players start to simply “play the drill”.

As you add layers or elements to the drill or SSG, take a minute to ensure it is not distorting the clear purpose of the setting.

How Does it Flow?

This speaks to function and progression. The quicker and more efficiently the drill can get moving and flow will make for better efficiency of practice.

Some elements to consider in the flow of the drill –

• How many players, balls, baskets
• Basic movement and functional pattern
• Progression of repetition – eg O to D, D out
• Where do players enter and leave the drill rep
• Positioning of coaches
• Layering
• Time, score or target component

How do we score it?

Having a clear and consistent system to score each drill or SSG is valuable in creating competition and driving improvement.The scoring system will often be driven by your priorities and should remain consistent throughout the season.

For example, if offensive rebounding is an area of focus, weight the scoring system accordingly and keep that focus throughout the season.

• Some elements to consider with your scoring system –
• Score everything – time, score or target
• Coaches be aware of score and stay on top of it
• Record individuals and teams wins
• Engage players in what they value and structure scoring system accordingly

These simple steps in ensuring your drills and practices have maximum value and efficiency will be a good brief review and play an important role  leading into a new season or program year.