When you think of what makes a great floor general, it’s their ability not only to put their passes right on the money, but more importantly, to read the defense correctly and hit the right man.

While some say that the death of the ‘true’ point guard is at hand, there are still plenty of primo setup men in the game, whether you favor Steve Nash, Chris Paul, or Rajon Rondo, who put their incredible passing skills on display on a night to night basis.

And while there is some debate as to whether you can ‘teach’ court vision, with the right drills you can improve any players’ ability to read and react to the D’.

Read and React

A personal favorite of mine, we call this drill just that – ‘Read and React’. To set it up, have three offensive players: your point guard just over half court, your wing player about five feet off the three point line on the right side, and a post player down low on the left block.

Your defender is going to start in the middle of the court, just underneath the three point line. I usually put myself or an assistant coach in at the defender’s spot, as it makes it easier to make sure the players all get a chance to practice their whole repertoire of passes.

The idea here is to simulate a 3-1 on fast break, focusing on making quick decisions and taking the first high percentage shot. So the point guard and wing player will sprint up to the three point line, where they will be faced with a number of different scenarios based on what the wing player does and where the defender goes.

As he approaches the three point line, the wing player will either spot up, or, if the defender cheats over to deny the pass, make a backdoor cut. If the point guard keeps the ball and penetrates right, the wingman will slide along with him until he passes the elbow, at which point he’ll fill in the open area at the top of the key, or as we like to call it, make a vacuum cut.

If the defender goes with the wingman on the backdoor cut, the point guard will hit the big man for the layup. If the wingman stays out on the three point line, the point guard will dribble right, and either feed the wing player a scoop pass, or keep dribbling until they fill up the top of the key, and make the pass then.

Once your players have the hang of this, try adding in a second defender and letting them play live, with the first defender stopping the ball, and the second defender try to disrupt the passing lanes.

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