Basketball Drills | Learn Basketball Training Tips from OneBasketball | How To Attack A Closeout | Tammer Farid

Written by Coach Peterman

I have coached at the NCAA Division 2 (Southwestern Oklahoma State University), NAIA (USAO), and JUCO Levels (Blinn College and Carl Albert State College) as well as high school. I just felt that fellow coaches especially young coaches need to constantly work on their “game”. Just like the basketball players that we coach. We as coaches need to improve ourselves. That is my story and why I do this blog.

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Basketball Drills

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April 13, 2012

Basketball Drills: How To Attack A Closeout

A fundamental principle for good offense is taking advantage of the defense being out of place. As an individual player, you want to create as much space to operate for yourself as possible. Attacking a closeout, correctly, is one of the best ways to create room to operate off the dribble, combining an aggressive mindset with a quick attack of a displaced defender.

A prerequisite to being able to properly attack a closeout is being a good outside shooter. The defense respects that you can make an open shot on the perimeter, hence the need to take away your air space quickly and close out. So the first rule in attacking a defender closing out on you, is that if they closeout slow, or closeout short, simply shoot the open jump shot. A good measure for this is recognizing if the defender is close enough to physically touch the basketball while it is in your shot pocket and/or block the jump shot as it is released above your head. If the defender is in neither position to do either, then shoot the jumper. Likewise, consider other variables when completing this first attack move (shooting range, the flow of the game, time and score).

The next progression is what will most often happen to a deadly shooter. A defender respects your jump shot and comes running out to put a hand up and run you off your line. The defender gets close enough to prevent you from shooting the jump shot. What do you do?

Drive the closeout! The defender’s body is moving, at full speed, in your direction, making it very hard for them to control their momentum. Use this to your advantage and be aggressive. Don’t hold the ball and let them recover, take the game to the defense by making an intelligent drive. Here are some reads for where and when to drive a closeout:

If the defender is closing out from above you, towards your inside shoulder (shoulder closest to the middle of the paint) a quick drive to the most open space is optimal. In this situation, drive baseline in a straight line and get to the rim or shoot a one dribble pull up before your defender can recover. In clip 3 of the video edit below, Ray Allen shows an example of this offensive read.
If the defender is closing out from below or towards your outside shoulder (shoulder closest to the sideline) a quick drive to the most open space is optimal. In this situation, drive middle in a straight line to get to the rim or shoot a one dribble pull up before your defender can recover.
If your defender is closing out on a straight line to you, most likely from inside the paint out to you on a wing, attack his top foot/top shoulder. A quick straight line drive in the direction of the defender’s top foot/top shoulder will cause the defender to have to switch their hips and feet to cut you off , leaving them out of position. Drive all the way to the hoop or shoot a pull up before they recover. In clips 1 and 2, Richard Jefferson and Kobe Bryant do a great job of attacking the top foot and forcing their defender to be out of position to challenge their shots.

Some special options:

Use a shot fake if you feel the defender is very out of control and is closing out to fly by you and make sure you don’t get a shot off by any means. A good shot fake will possibly get the defender to leave their feet, giving you a number of scoring options after that.
Drive against their momentum. This is a special read that requires good instincts. In some instances, the defender doesn’t close out from above or below you, and does a pretty good job of containing your drive and doesn’t overplay either your inside or outside shoulder. If and only if you have some space, you can drive against their momentum, going in the direction they came from leaving them completely out of position. For instance, the defender closes out from above you but doesn’t close out towards your inside shoulder. There is room for you to rip through and drive in the direction they came from to create some space for a scoring opportunity. In clip 4, Tony Allen does a great job of making the right read to drive against the defender’s momentum and shoot a pullup.

Tammer Farid is currently an Assistant Coach at Baruch College in New York City. He is the Co-Founder of OneBasketball, a new basketball player development company based out of the New York City area. He is also the creator of the OneBasketball App, a basketball skill development program for the iPhone and iPad.