LOW POST PLAY

STANCE & POSITIONING Stance and positioning are very critical to effective low post play. The proper stance in the low post is very unnatural for post players, especially if they happen to be big. However, the bigger the post player, the more important it is to teach her to maintain her stance. And the key word is “maintain.” There are very few players that cannot begin a possession in a good posting stance, but the great ones maintain that stance. What we try to get across to our post players (and our entire team) is that you might be able to come down and post up early and score against a poor team. What we want to do is to prepare you to play against the top teams and to do that, you are going to have to post up the entire possession. First and foremost, we want our stance to present a “wide base” in order to take up as much room as we can while posting. The feet should be as wide as possible without giving up balance. The knees should be bent to make us more mobile and able to move more quickly. The butt should be out, again so that we can take up as much space as possible. We want the hands in front of the face with the elbows parallel to the floor. Our basic posting position should be to straddle the first hash mark on the lane. Dur-ing practice sessions, we use floor tape to outline a “posting box” as a guide for our post players. The tape is a little higher than where we generally want our players to post, but we find that during game slippage they will drop a little. Taping the posting box a little higher is part of our “overload” teaching philosophy. Overloading is placing the player(s) in a more difficult circumstance than they would encounter during a game.

FOUR THINGS TO MASTER Each day we try to work in some capacity with our post players to master the four fol-lowing phases of offensive post play: 1. GET OPEN IN YOUR SCORING AREA It does no good to get open in an area where you are not effective. Know your range and your most effective shots and get open in an area where you can score. 2. SEAL—MAKE AND KEEP CONTACT Effective sealing means that you are open in the post from some vantage point on the court. It also means that you are controlling your defender instead of her controlling you. Sealing also means that you always know where your defender is (through con-tact), and that is extremely important. 3. CATCH THE BASKETBALL This sounds very simple, but there are a lot of post players on all levels of play that have everything necessary to be an effective post player but they simply can’t catch the ball. There are a lot of drills to work on hands. Don’t accept bad hands. All play-ers can improve their hands and their ability to catch the basketball. 4. SCORE SIMPLY Too many players take an easy shot and turn it into a difficult shot. Some players don’t understand the concept of getting a simple shot and don’t work accordingly. The best move is to not to have to use a move...to work so effectively that all you have to do is catch and score.

THE SEAL Sealing is absolutely critical to be an effective post player. We believe it is something that should be worked on in practice every day in some shape or form. Some im-portant teaching points on the seal include: 1. Initiate contact with your hips. Don’t seal with your upper body. Believe it or not, the feet are far more important on the seal than the upper body. If you are using your upper body for sealing you are going to have some major problems in regard to bal-ance and movement. It is also a very poor habit to seal using your arms, as this is an easy offensive foul call for officials. 2. Two methods of working to get open on the seal are to hook the defender (take your leg and hook it around the defender to blind her to the ball), and to drive and spin (face your defender, step into her, and then spin into your seal). 3. Once we have established the seal, we always want to “sit down” on the defend-er’s front leg. This creates contact for the seal, allows us to know where the defender is through that contact, and establishes us in a low, wide base.

4. We want to really drive home the philosophy of “getting a piece of the paint.” This means that we want the seal to come with at least one foot in the paint. In fact, we of-ten tell our perimeter players not to feed the post unless she has a foot in the paint. The ultimate seal is to have both feet in the paint. 5. We want to hold our seal for at least 3 seconds. In a drill, as a form of overload teaching, we ask them to hold it for 5 seconds. 6. A major problem early for most players is that they release from the seal too soon. We like to hold the seal until the ball is “in the air,” and then go get the ball. 7. We want our post players to meet the pass. This is a major reason why getting a piece of the paint is so important. If we start with a good seal, and both feet in the paint, then stepping to meet the pass will still have us in good position around the lane.

FOUR TYPES OF SEALS We have four different types of seals that we use. Each seal is predicated on the posi-tioning of the defender in regards to the offensive low post. 1. SEAL IN (Defender Is Playing Behind) If the defender is playing behind the low post, we want to “seal in,” trying to get a piece of the paint by driving the defender back into the lane. 2. SEAL DOWN (Defender Is Playing On The Low Side) If the defender is playing on the low side of the low post, we want to “seal down,” trying to get a piece of the paint with our inside foot while driving the defender toward the baseline. 3. SEAL UP (Defender Is Playing On The High Side) If the defender is playing on the high side of the low post, we want to “seal up,” trying to get a piece of the paint while driving the defender toward the free throw line. 4.SEAL OUT (Defender Is Fronting) If the defender is playing in front of the low post, we want to “seal out,” trying to create space by driving the defender out of the lane. A key teaching point when a defender is fronting is that we want the poster to have both hands up in the air to call for the lob. We do this to stay away from the push off foul. THE LOB There are several important factors in making the lob pass. First, we believe that you need either a height or jumping advantage for proper execution. You must obviously have the proper spacing or movement to clear out the helpside, or at least to keep them occupied long enough to make the pass. We believe all players can seal out for the lob, but you can’t necessarily throw it to all players. Keys for the lob seal are the following:

#1 Use the sealing principles: seal with the hip not the upper body #2 Initiate and maintain contact #3 On the lob, we want the post to be squared and facing the baseline #4 We want BOTH hands up. This way there can be no push off, and we believe it aids our ability to catch the lob. #5 Don’t release your seal until the ball is directly above your head. If you release too soon, the defender will be able to adjust and deflect or steal the pass. We tell the passer to throw the ball to the corner of the backboard.

RECEIVING THE BALL The ability to catch the basketball, we believe, is one of the most underrated portions of low post play. It is something that must be constantly drilled, with players that have good hands as well as those with poor hands. Receiving teaching points include: #1 Proper mental attitude, you must desire the basketball — call for the ball with your mouth and your hands. #2 Catching is done with the entire body, not just your hands. You must have soft hands but you must also “watch” the ball into your hands, never taking your eyes off of it (not even to find the defense), and you must use your feet to maintain good balance. #3 Catch the ball with two hands. This is a big one for us and one that we must constantly stress to our players. In the day and age of the NBA, players think it looks better to make the one-handed catch. Stress that possession is everything! It doesn’t have to be pretty — there are no style points. Go catch the ball. #4 We want to catch the ball in the air, slightly coming back for it and landing in a jump stop position. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of catching in a jump stop for maneuverability. #5 Finally, once receiving the basketball, we want to “chin” the ball and look in the direction in which the pass leads us. We tell our players that the “passer must be the eyes for the post player.” If the ball is thrown directly into the post player, we want the first look to be towards the baseline. We also want the pass to be fed low (below her waist) or high (above her shoulders). We especially like bounce passes into the post for a small post player. This is a very difficult pass for a low post defender to deflect. Part of the reception is to have our post players take a half turn in the direction of the pass to locate the defense.

MOVES IN THE LOW POST Again repeating Don Nelson, “less is more.” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the leading scor-er in the history of professional basketball and he did it with basically two moves — the sky hook and drop & go. We teach three moves that both go to the baseline and to the middle. The moves we teach are: DROP STEP POWER MOVE (to the baseline) In this move, we want the feed square with the baseline to give us a wide base. We teach our players to shoot with their strong hand (as opposed to the left hand on the left side and right hand on the right side). DROP STEP POWER MOVE (to the middle) This move is identical except we are turning towards the middle. This is a move we would use after “sealing down.” TURN AROUND JUMPER (to the baseline) If the defense is playing behind, we can pivot on the foot closest to the baseline and shoot a jump shot. If the angle is there, we want to use the glass on this shot. TURN AROUND JUMPER (to the middle) Again, this shot is the same as above except we are pivoting towards the middle ex-cept we are pivoting with the foot furthest from the baseline. UP AND UNDER (to the baseline) This is a complimentary shot to the turn around jumper. Here we are turning towards the baseline for a jumper but instead use a shot fake. Upon getting the defender up in the air, we use a short power dribble to finish with a power lay-up. UP AND UNDER (to the middle) Same shot but towards the middle. Turn towards the middle, fake the jumper and then use a shot fake followed by a power dribble to get the ball to the basket for a shot. For certain players, we will also work and develop a JUMP HOOK. Some additional rules that we have concerning post moves and inside shooting in gen-eral include: —On shot fakes, we like an approximate 6 inch fake; we don’t like to show a lot of the ball to the defense, but enough to get results. To big of a shot fake allows more recov-ery time for the defender and allows more time for post collapse from the perimeter. —We tell our post players that their goal in regards to shooting the ball is to shoot it closer to the basket than where they caught it. So many post players want to fade away when they shoot or settle for holding their ground as opposed to gaining it. —In regards to dribble usage, we tell our post players that if they catch the ball with one or two feet in the paint, we don’t want them to use a dribble. If they catch with both feet outside the paint, we allow one power dribble. It must be a power dribble which means it is a low, hard dribble that stays below the knees, between the legs, and is done with both hands.

POST PLAYER DEVELOPMENT Dick Motta once said, “Championships are won with post play.” We think that the pe-rimeter play is also important but without question, you must have a solid inside game to be successful on a consistent basis. You must constantly drill your post players. You must work with them in part method breaking down the phases of post play in order to develop the necessary habits they need to be successful. The following is a list of drills that we use at Texas A&M to de-velop our offensive post game. FEEDING & RECEIVING DRILLS Ball Handling Series: Even as post players, we rely heavily on ball handling drills to develop the touch needed in good hands. We like to use Ball Slaps to develop our strength and to develop a toughness in the hands. In this drill, we simply take the ball in one hand and slap into the other hand. We want the full strength of the arm to slam the ball into the other hand. If done properly, there will be a slight sting until the hand toughens. We will follow this drill up with Popcorn which is opposite of the Slaps. This drill is de-signed to develop finger touch in regard to the ball. With your arms straightened in front of you, tip the ball back and forth to each hand (your hands should be approxi-mately 12-16 inches apart). You should only touch the ball with your finger tips. You then want to move the ball above your head with continuous tipping, moving it to your knees and then back. This should be done with constant tipping while keeping your elbows locked. Ball Circles is something that is also usually considered a guard drill but again it is important to develop the hands of a post player. We tell our players to use their im-agination in this drill by quickly combining circle drills around the head, waist and legs. We want the drill done at such a pace that there is an occasional drop. We tell them that if they don’t ever have a drop, they are not pushing themselves in the drill. Slams is another great drill to develop touch in post players. In this drill, the post player has a ball and throws the ball above her head. She then squats down and tries to catch the ball as close to the floor as possible after it has hit the floor. This drill sounds simple but is more difficult than it seems. As a player becomes efficient at the drill, she can begin throwing the ball higher to increase the degree of difficulty. A couple of quick lay-up drills we utilize are the Mikan Drill and the Reverse Mikan Drill. The Mikan Drill is one of the oldest drills known to basketball and is still one of the best. A player starts on one side of the basket and lays the ball in. She then rebounds the ball out of the net and with one step crosses over to the other side and lays the ball again. In this drill we want to use the left hand on the left side and right hand on the right side. We will either time them or give them a target total. Often we will tell them

to make 10 in a row. On certain days, a coach will use a football blocking dummy to give the offensive player some light contact during the drill. The Reverse Mikan Drill is the same drill except now their back is towards the baseline. This helps to develop the reverse lay-up that post players can often use in traffic. 1/1 with 2 Balls is a great passing drill to again develop touch. In this drill, we have the players about 8-10 feet apart with 2 balls. We want them down in posting po-sition making a push pass to each other with two balls at the same time. We push them to make the passes as quickly as possible. On a coach’s verbal call, they change hands. To make the drill even more difficult, we will change objects to pass. For instance we might use a tennis ball and a heavy trainer ball at the same time. This is excellent for players to develop touch in regard to what they are receiving. 2/1 Receiving Drill has a low post player down in her post stance and two de-fenders (one on each side). We want the defenders to give her some token pressure and contact while the ball is being passed to her. We want her to come meet the pass, catch it, chin it and finish with a half turn towards the baseline before passing the ball back out to the coach and repeating the drill. Post Feeding Series is something that incorporates our entire team. It is worth-less to have a team of great posters if you don’t work on properly feeding the ball into the post. The first phase of this series is to have the wing drive the ball toward the baseline to improve her passing angle and then feed the low post player on the base-line side. We will have a manager with a blocking dummy working the post player. We want the post player to call out her seal. She will catch it, chin it, give a half turn and then pass it back out and the next two will step in for the drill. The second phase of this series is to drive the ball off the baseline and feed the low post player on the high side. Again, we want the post player to catch it, chin it, give us a half turn towards the middle and find the basket. We also will add a point guard to our wing and post player and work on our “loop” maneuver. In this drill, the point drives to the wing and loops the wing back out top. The low post “seals out” (a manager is fronting) while the point guard hits the wing up top who then feeds the low post player stepping across. SEALING DRILLS Butt-to-Butt Sealing has us placing two players, butt to butt with them sealing each oth-er. We want their hands up, in front of their faces with their feet constantly moving. To work on foot movement, we utilize the Box Slide Drill. In this drill we place a post player in the post box and have her slide to the positions of seal up, seal in, and seal down for 30 seconds. We are stressing quick foot movement, hands up, and a low posture. A very basic drill that we use almost daily is V-Cut to Seal. We have a manager or coach with a dummy on the ballside block waiting for a player to flash across. We dic-tate early where we want the manager to defend the post to work on the habits of seal-ing. Later we will allow the manager to change up the defense so that the poster must

then learn to read as well. We call it the V-Cut to Seal because we want to emphasize to our post players that all movement in the post starts with a v-cut. Upon flashing, we want to utilize the proper seal (Diagram #1). If the manager is high, we seal up. If the manager is low, we seal down. If the manager is playing behind the post, we seal in. If the manager is fronting, we want to seal out. To make sure our post players aren’t guessing, we have them verbally call out the seal they must use. Early on in the drill, we don’t allow them to shoot. We want them to concentrate only on the as-pects of the seal. Later we will add the shot but there will still be times late in the season where we will take the shot away to brush up on our sealing. Post Moves are something we add to the V-Cut to Seal Drill. Now upon flashing and sealing, we want to finish with one of our moves. Again, we will do this with de-fense and without defense.

POSTING DRILLS 1/1 In The Post w/3 Release This is a basic drill with a player in the post area with a defender and three passers on the perimeter serving as feeders (Diagram #2). We are working on everything in this drill: flashing, sealing, receiving, reading, low post moves, pitching the ball back out, etc. This is a great conditioning drill. We tell the offense to make three shots and they are out of the drill. The defender then goes to offense while a fresh player takes over on de-fense. We like the offensive player being a little bit more winded than the defensive player in this due to our overload philosophy. 2/1 In The Post w/3 Release This is a great overload drill for working on low post play. This is the same drill as above except now we have two defensive players on one low post player. The rule is they can only score from the low post. High post or short corner jumpers are not al-lowed. Two baskets and you are out — but it is a challenging drill. Offensive Restrictions Within your offensive system of play, set up restrictions that make you concentrate on your post play. At LSU, we run motion offense and post play is critical to our success. Some examples of restrictions that we would use include the following: 1. Two Low Post Touches - This means that we cannot attempt a perimeter shot until the low post touches the ball at least twice. It doesn’t have to be the same low post

DIAGRAM #1

DIAGRAM #2

player but we are going to the block twice with a pass. This makes your perimeter players look in the post as well as putting a great emphasis on your post players toget open. 2. Two High Post Touches - Especially in our Post Exchange alignment, we want to utilize the high post so we will demand the offense passes the ball to the high post twice before attempting a jumper. 3. Nothing But A Paint Shot - Here we take all perimeter shots away by designating that we want nothing but shots inside the paint. This does not always mean a low post move. It can be a bucket off of dribble penetration or a pass to a perimeter player cut-ting to the basket. 4. Only “Jane” Shoots - Designate a certain player to get a shot off. This means your perimeter players must look for her; it means your players must screen to get her open; it means she must work hard to get open and to get herself a quality shot.