Keith Dambrot: 20 Drills to Prepare Your Team for the Season

Learn how to keep the pace of your practices up while still being able to accomplish your goals!

Keith Dambrot passes on a ton of drills and ideas in this high-paced video. He believes practices should match the way you play, and it's clear in this video that Coach Dambrot plays in an up-tempo, hard working way. You'll see 20 different drills that can help your team prepare for the season.

Using on court demonstrators, Dambrot provides you with numerous drills that will help you improve your team. From defensive fundamental drills, to combination drills, to offensive fundamental drills, Dambrot covers all aspects of the game. These drills are useful to coaches of all levels and keep the momentum of a practice going.

Defense Drills

Building from the ground up, Dambrot demonstrates individual defensive drills that will improve your players' footwork and defensive stance. From closeouts, to post defense, to help and recover, you'll learn a variety of drills that work on:

• Closing Out -
A good drill to get reps and work on sprinting to the mid-line.
• Denying the Wing -
Simple denial drill.
• Help and Recovery -
Defending the gap and recovering to your man.
• Post Defense -
Full fronting the defender and recovering on the line and up the line.
• Dig Downs -
Helping the post when the ball gets entered.
• Ball Screen Defense -
Three different screen situations and how to defend them

Coach Dambrot built a successful program at Akron that was based on a high pressure and high intensity mindset. His "fix it" mentality has helped generate some of the top defensive teams in Division I basketball. One of the best defensive drills covered is 5vs4, in which he consistently stresses the idea of "fixing it." In other words, the players must scramble because they are outnumbered to get in the right position to defend the ball and protect the basket. The constant action of fixing the defense is a must when you are outnumbered. Communication is also a key component to this drill.

Dambrot also covers a few more defensive areas, including inbound defense, 1 vs 1, big man defense, as well as trapping and reading the pass out of the trap.

Defending Screens

Using the saying "absolute vision on the ball," Dambrot demonstrates two drills to defend screens. Each drill helps you learn how to rotate as you trap screens or hedge screens. These drills will give your players multiple reps so they learn how to guard every screening action possible. In this section, Dambrot works on down screens, flare screens and stagger screens.

Offensive Drills

Two drills used for defensive purposes also cross over well to work on the offensive side of the ball. Peter's Drill and Shaka's Drill allow the team to focus on important offensive concepts. In Peter's Drill, an odd numbered build up transition drill gets athletes running up and down the court while quickly trying to take advantage of numbers. For Shaka's Drill, players learn to pass out of double teams, finding the open player while dealing with pressure.

The ball screen is one of basketball's most popular offensive concepts. In the Beilein Drill, Dambrot shows three uses of the ball screen while sticking true to his up-tempo practice style. The players sprint up and down the court, quickly executing all three ball screen actions. He then adds a "twist" to the offense that will keep your opponents guessing.

Coach Dambrot adds a few shooting drills that can easily be installed into your practices. These drills put pressure on the shooter and force them to make meaningful shots.

This video is packed with drills. You'll be sure to pick up a new drill, new technique, or new idea that you can apply to your practices right away!

Produced at the Spring 2017 Las Vegas (NV) Nike Championship Basketball Clinic.

75 minutes. 2017.