Coaching for special situations

Basketball is not like football where the action stops after every play. It is not like baseball with pauses in the action between every pitch. Basketball players must think and react on the fly. It's important for coaches to prepare their athletes for special situations so that confusion and indecision doesn't become a factor in the outcome of the game.

Here are a few general practice guidelines to follow:

1. Always try to expose your players to everything that can possibly happen in a game.
2. Devote practice time to enable different players the opportunity to inbound the basketball.
3. Players need to be able to react instinctively to any situation on the court. Use repetition.
4. To be successful, you need to run offenses and options that your players are confident will work against many different defenses.
5. Take the ball out of bounds from the corners, end line, etc.
6. Practice your inbounds plays with varying amounts of time on the clock.
7. Instill and insist on learning how to win in all of your practice drills and situations.