How You Should Play Basketball

A “real” basketball game has 5 players on each team (there are only 2 teams). If you have an adjustable rim, it should be set to 10 feet off the ground for middle school and up. Basically, both teams play offense and defense. When one team is on offense, that means they are trying to score points. The other team is then trying to play defense, which means their job is to stop the offense from scoring. Now keep in mind that while it usually seems more fun to score, defense is very fun part of basketball and I actually like it more than offense.

About Scoring And Defense

To score, a player needs to get the ball through the hoop (from the top) any way they can. Usually you’ll need to throw the ball to get it through the basket, but if possible, you can push (dunk) it in with your hand. If you throw the ball at the basket and both your feet are behind the 3-point line completely, (or at least your last foot to touch the ground was if you jumped to shoot) then your team gets 3 points, but if you shot the ball inside the 3-point line, your team only gets 2 points. If a player pushed himself against you in any way that makes you miss a shot, you get 2 free throws, unless you took a 3-pointer, in which case you get 3 free throws. A free throw is when you take a shot from a line 15 feet from the backboard, and players line up on the sides to grab the ball if you miss your last one.

The offenses job is to get points by taking shots they think they can make, or by trying to get fouled on a shot. The defenses job is to stop the offense from scoring for 24 seconds–you’ll need a referree for this any way they can. For more information on all the rules used by the National Basketball Association, you can go to their website as there are too many to list here, and i should have a guide to “Is That A Foul?” before january of 2009 and it’s a great reference for what exactly you can consider to be a foul.

What Position Are You?

A “Positon” is a role or job you fulfill on a team (normally of 5 players). The criteria for what position you play is based on your skills (if you don’t have any yet don’t worry) and your body type.

Does Height Really Matter?

Nope. Many of you reading this will believe that while some short players can be very good, this most likely can’t happen to you and those individuals are just VERY talented by nature. In reality, being short brings with it just as many advantages as it does disadvantages. To list a few of them: running speed, ball handling, passing, outside shooting, agility, stealing, stamina, attacks to the basket, and jumping are all attributes that a shorter player will almost always be better at than a bigger one.

The Point Guard

This is where you short guys/girls out there kill. If you’re short compared to the people who you play with, and think you have the patience and leadership, and you are a true team player, the point guard position is just right for you. The real fun in being a point guard is not in scoring, as you might not do a whole lot of that, but in helping your teammates score. And yes, you can be a star just by doing this. A “Guard” is a smaller player who usually stays around the 3-point line. What makes a Guard a “Point” Guard as far as their play goes is their passing, ball handling, and decision making. The reason it’s called that is because the Point Guard usually starts a play at the “Point” of the 3-point line, which is right in front of the basket, not at the corners, so that he/she will have more options on where to pass.

How To Be A Point Guard

Dribbling

First of all, you need to know how to dribble the ball well, as the point guard is in charge of protecting the basketball so the defense doesn’t get it, and they probably will be holding the ball more than any other player.

For those of you new to the game, dribbling might seem tough at first. Just keep in mind to only use one hand at a time. You’ll want to start with by straightening your arm toward the ground right in front of you, and keep in mind, you need to bend your wrist toward the ground as you straighten that arm (that should be the actual motion that releases the ball from your hand) do those two motions hard enough to make the ball hit the ground and bounce back up to your hand. Practice this for a bit and you should be able to do it no problem. Dribbling is like riding a bike–you’ll never forget how to do it in a million years once you learn, though you might rust just a little (it stays with you even better than riding a bike, in fact)

Everybody needs to learn to dribble the ball with both hands, no matter how uncomfortable or wierd it may feel at first, you’ll get more comfortable at it with practice. After you can do that, practice it while jogging, and then while running. It’s not easy at first! You’ll be surprised how tough it is to keep the ball in front of you but try to keep dribbling the ball in a way that you don’t need to slow down or speed up to keep up with it.

Even for advanced dribbling, the best way to get better is to dribble harder and harder as you get better. Ultimately, you want to have perfect control of the ball while running as fast as you can, but that should take you quite a while to accomplish.

The whole point of getting good at dribbling is to never let the person guarding you to take the ball from you or knock it away from you with their hand. The 2 keys to this are 1) dribble the ball low by bending over as you dribble to get your hands low to the ground–this makes it tougher for the opponent to reach and makes it so much easier for you to control. 2) keep the ball away from that defender! dribble it on the opposite side of your body as the defender if you can, and when you’re in heavy traffic just cover the ball up with both hands/arms and squeeze it hard.

Passing

You need to have a full arsenal of passes to be a true point guard. Remember, your passes define you as a point guard when they are backed up by smart decisions, and they determine whether you’re doing your job as the team’s playmaker.

As far as technique goes, there are tons of ways to make perfect passes. You can make passes with 2 hands or just one. Coaches always seem to want their players to use “2-handed chest passes” but you can’t use that for every pass. You should learn to pass with both of your hands.

I used to wonder what the best way is to practice passing. The thing is, you can’t really practice it yourself. The best way to practice it is to get a few friends and just play a practice game. Don’t take any shots yourself in this game, every time you get the ball, just try to pass it to a friend so he/she can score. Pretty soon you’ll pick up on how to make passes work. Some key tips are 1) don’t pass to where your teammate is when they are running, pass to where they will be–that is to say, pass ahead of them so that they don’t have to slow down any or stop to grab the ball. Perfection is when your teammate keeps their hand/s stuck out, and while they are running, you should be able to hit their hand/s with the ball without them changing speed. 2) pass good and hard. It’s true that they might drop it, but unless they want the nickname “butterfingers” they’ll learn to catch your passes–but don’t pass it so hard they break their wrists trying to catch it! You do this so you don’t waste time and so your teammate can get the ball before an opponent. The only time you pass it softer is on lob passes or when the teammate is very close to you. 3) don’t forget lobs. A lob is when you pass the ball up high and make it land in your teammates hands. This is used in the post sometimes or on a fast break.

Make Smart, Productive Decisions

You need to know a thing or two about basketball plays to play the point. You don’t want to pass the ball just to get rid of it–that doesn’t help you out very much on the scoreboard, does it? A good pass is one that helps your team score. It’s kind of hard for some new players to understand how a pass can do that. Look at this situation:

A point guard has the ball at the 3-point line right? Their teammate is also at the 3-point line, but suddenly runs toward the basket. Because the player without the ball took off so suddenly, their defender is now trailing behind them. The point guard has the ball, and if he/she notices this quickly enough, they would quickly throw the ball toward the basket, in front of their teammate. That way, the teammate could catch the ball on his/her way to the basket and quickly shoot it right next to the basket with nobody in front of them, which would be a very easy shot to make, and it was the pass that made it happen.

When you make a pass that leads right to a shot that scores, it’s called an “assist” because you just assisted, ore helped, your teammate make his or her shot. As a point guard, you want as many assists as you can get, but without getting the ball stolen by the other team. Every now and then, the other team will probably steal one of your passes, and it’s not always your fault. Just never throw the ball to a teammate that isn’t looking and you should be good. Also, if you can’t make a pass that really sets up a teammate with an easy shot, a good pass may just be as easy as giving the ball to a star player. If I have Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan on my team, I would just pass it to them and my team would get 2 points. It’s as simple as that.

Bounce passes work well. To do one, just bounce the ball off the ground between you and your teammate. They work because they’re usually hard for an opponent to grab since they are so low during half the trip to a teammate. As for how to pass so that your defender doesn’t hit the ball when you pass it, try passing it right under his armpits or next to his head (those are hard spots for them to reach) if the teammate is going in that direction.

My last piece of advice for passing is to NEVER force a pass. By that I mean don’t try to make a pass that probably won’t be caught by your teammate, no matter how much it looks like it would lead to an easy shot. It’s much better just to play it safe and only make passes you think you can make.

Defense and Scoring

Defense and scoring typically come second for point guards, but don’t forget about them! Your defense doesn’t need to be great, but you should be able to stay in front of your man. For some in-depth defensive techniques, check out my guide to basketball defense “Basketball Defense That Actually Works”. As for scoring, you need to be able to make layups and free throws and an outside shot will be useful. If you can make 3-pointers pretty well, that’s good, but try to only shoot them when you are wide open and your team is having trouble scoring otherwise. Keep in mind, shooting a lot of 3-pointers will usually hurt you, even if you are good.

Shooting Guard

Shooting Guards are often their team’s biggest scorers and should usually be taller than point guards because 1) they should be scoring more and the height will make you tougher to block 2) you’ll want to be a little taller to stop your man (who is usually a good scorer too) from making his/her shots.

Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant (most people argue these two are the best basketball players to have ever lived) were both shooting guards at the professional level. Also known as a “2 guard”, a shooting guard is still considered a bit of a smaller player, and although Kobe and MJ were both 6′7”, that’s relatively pretty average for an NBA player. I’m sure you’ve all watched those highlight films of players jumping what looks like 10 feet off the ground to do an amazing looking dunk. Those guys are usually shooting guards.

If you are around average height for the people you play with maybe a bit smaller, and are half-way slim, the shooting guard position may be for you. Your main job as a shooting guard will be to score points for your team, and also to be good enough at defense to stop a star scorer from making shots. Yeah, it sure sounds difficult, but if you make around half the shots you take, and stopping your man from making half his/her shots, you’re probably already doing your job well.

This position mostly demands that you be athletic–that is, pretty quick on your feet and able to jump a good bit off the ground, but the most important thing about being a 2 guard is attack the basket. It’s kind of hard to get yourself to run at the basket hard when you know somebody will bump you good and maybe knock you to the ground to stop you from scoring (usually on accident) but it’s what will make you go from good to great, believe me. Because when you get fouled on a layup, you get 2 free throws, which should be easy if you practice. That’s how aggressive players get half their points.

A big skill to work on is dribbling. This isn’t the same as what I asked of point guards if you read that paragraph above. Shooting guards don’t just need to protect the ball. They need to get around their defender and get to the basket to score. You do this with what’s called a “crossover”. A crossover is simply to pretend to go to side (like your right) and then quickly change direction and go the other way. If you do it quickly and convincingly enough, the defender won’t react quickly enough and you can go right around him.

A solid jumpshot is good to have as well for when your defender backs up so much you just can’t go around him. If he gives you a good 2 feet of space, just pull up and shoot. For an in-depth guide on a jumpshot, see my article “How To Square Up And Drop The J” that should be out very soon. If you really want to dominate a lesser defender, when you have the ball at a range that you can make shots at, pretend to go to the basket with a crossover, then quickly step back and fire. They should still be backing up to stop your drive, so you will have plenty of space to shoot comfortably.

As for defense, just stay in front of your man and whenever he/she shoots, put your hand right in front of their face to block their vision and distract them. This will usually stop a deadly jumpshooter cold.

Small Foward

This is the most versatile position and it’s for those of you who are pretty average sized compared to the people you play with. While the name sounds like it’s for small players, you are only considered small for a “Forward” not a guard. A forward is a different type of player than a guard, as they are usually bigger and play more around the basket, not the 3-point line. It’s hard to give a real job description of a small forward, as they pretty much do whatever their team needs most out of them, whatever that may be.

You probably want to be decent at everything to play small forward, and it’s okay if you’re not great at anything. If you play on a team that isn’t good at rebounding, you probably want to step in and learn a thing or two about that. If they need 3-point shooting, that’s another popular area for small forwards to step up at. One main job i’ve always associated with a small forward is great defense. The reason for that is they are small enough to keep up with the guards, and not so small they can’t play by the basket. If you are a great defender at an average height, you might find youself guarding the other teams best scorer, at any position from point-guard to power forward.

Power Forward

This position is usually filled by heavier, and somewhat taller players. Their main job is score by the basket. They use their strength to muscle their way in close and get shots in the post. Often, these players score the most, if not the second most points of anybody on their team.

So how exactly do you get points close to the basket without a running start? It’s called “posting up”. What this means is you put your back or forearm into the defender and just push him with your body (this is not a foul so long as you don’t make an actual hit) so you can get closer to the basket. This is much easier if you are heavier than the defender, but if you are tall you can get points down low as well. Once you get close enough you can jump away from your opponent and shoot. This is called a fade-away, because you are fading away from the basket, and although you are moving further away and giving yourself a tougher shot, you won’t get blocked easily. Another great way to score is the hook shot. It’s simply when you turn sideways (from the basket with your shooting hand further from the basket) and shoot with one hand in a way that you raise your shooting hand in a hook motion usually to shoot. It takes practice, but it’s near impossible to block this shot.

Your next job is to push back with your body/forearm whenever somebody post up on you and hopefully you get them further from the basket. Whenever somebody shoots, it’s also your job to try and grab the ball if they miss. Read the Rebounding section below to see how to do that.

Center

This position is for you athletes out there who are much taller than your average peer. I know, I know… I did say earlier that being tall isn’t important for being a good basketball player, and it’s not. It’s just that for this particular position being tall will do you a big favor. If you’re not so tall, simply move down a position.

You should only be the center for your team if you are the tallest player (although every now and then the power forward is a little taller) and you are the best at rebounding. Rebounding is when either team shoots and misses, and somebody grabs the missed shot. The more rebounds you can get for your team, the better.

People don’t understand how incredibly important rebounding is. It’s just as important as any one thing in basketball because if you don’t get rebounds, your opponents will get them, which means not only less chances for your team to score points, but more chances for the other team to score them.

The key to good rebounding is boxing out. What this means is find the nearest player (whenever you see a player shoot) and get between him and the basket, unless he/she is right under it. You need to keep them behind you so you can grab the ball when it comes back down, and keep your knees bent the whole time so you can be ready to jump. When you grab it, just try to pass it to your point guard, they’ll know what to do with it (unless you have a good chance to score, in which case you would just shoot it).

Conclusion

Just follow this guide to be the position that suites you best. Practice regularly and practice hard. And remember, the whole point of basketball is to have fun, so don’t get too upset when you lose, even the best have lost many times and taken it well. Even games that you lose still provide plenty of fun and to get better, think about why you lost that game and what you could’ve done better and work to fix that problem.