Top Five Basketball Ball Handling Moves

In this youth basketball drill, Play Sports TV reviews five significant ball handling moves that are key to master for a successful basketball offense:

1. Hesitation Dribble
2. Cross-Over Dribble
3. Inside/Out Dribble
4. Trap Dribble
5. Trap Dribble/Cross-Over

Transcription:

In this segment we're gonna work on ball handling moves. I've chosen five moves that we're gonna work on. The hesitation move, the cross-over move, the inside/out move, a trap dribble, and then a trap dribble with a cross-over. There's a lot of moves you can work on. I think these are five of the staples that you need to work on as ball handlers. Let's see the guys do it right now.

All right, let's start with righty hesitation. Ready? Go. Eyes Up. Go ahead. Go ahead. Eyes Up. Pound the ball. Make the defender think you're stopping and then explode by him. Your first step, make it long and explosive. All right, let's go lefty hesitation. Ian, explosive, that's not explosive. Hesitate, and blow by him. Low when you hesitate. You're making the defender think you are stopping. Go ahead. Chop your feet into it. Good. All right, righty cross-over. Righty cross-over. Don't go so much side-to-side, Ian, step with your right foot and seal. Lefty cross-over. Righty inside/out. Come on, keep the energy up. Lefty inside/out. Good. Eyes up. Really lean like you're gonna cross over. You want the defender to lean, and then you're gonna go by him. All right, stop.

Next drill we're gonna do is we're gonna come together. In a game, imagine two players are trying to trap you. They're pressing or they're double teaming you. You wanna get away from those two by dribbling it backwards. So you're gonna go to what we call a trap dribble. You're going to retreat. Retreat hard. As you retreat, two eyes, your eyes will be up. Both eyes looking for a teammate. Two men are trying to trap you so that leaves you with an advantage down the floor of four of your offensive players against three. So you really wanna try to trap dribble back. Your first option would be to pass over the trap. If people weren't open, then you'd work on exploding forward and dribbling past the trap. So let's try that. 
Righty trap dribble, go ahead. Push back hard! Push all the way back to where you started from. Two dribbles back hard and then attack forward. Eyes up! Eyes up! Look at your partner. Eyes are up! Push back hard. Imagine two players are trying to trap you. You wanna create space from you and the defenders. Hold up. Now let's go lefty trap dribble. Ready? Go. Push back. Push back. Eyes up. Look at your partner the whole time. Eyes on your partner. Good. Explode by the trap. Good. Lefty trap dribble. Go ahead. Keep going. One more group and then we'll switch. Good Shawn and Wes. Good.

Now we're gonna go to a righty trap dribble after your two retreat dribbles. We're gonna turn our body, cross-over, and explode with our left hand. So it's gonna be righty trap to a cross-over. Ready? Go. Push back, cross the ball over, and go. Turn your body, Shawn. Protect the ball. Push back, turn your body, and explode forward. Again, imagine you're getting double teamed, they're trying to take the ball away from you. Turn your body. Position your body in a manner that you protect the ball. Turn and go. Turn your body, protect the ball, and explode forward. Good. Hold up right there.

So you've seen a sample of what I think are the staples of ball handling. I use that at all levels with my younger teams in rec leagues, all the way up to when I'm coaching some college players during the summer. It's important that you keep that drill moving. Use a time limit or maybe a number of times they do it. Maybe four times each. Maybe each drill 30 seconds. And you'll get a lot of ball handling in in a short period of time.