Sports

Basketball

Pretty sure you’ve heard of this sport before. If you somehow haven’t, basketball is a game where you’re up against a team of five with your own team of five. The game starts when the ref throws the ball in the air, and you and the opponents have to tip it to a teammate. If your team gets the ball, you have to get it into the other team’s basket and same with the other team. You have to use strategies and teamwork in order to get the ball into the basket, and if the opponents have the ball, you have to block them from getting the basket. The team with the most points by the end of the game wins.

In this series of articles, I will teach you the basics and rules of basketball, as well as some strategies for your team to use.

Volume 1: Basics

So first, let’s go over the most basic form of basketball, and that’s dribbling. Dribbling is an important part of basketball because it is one of the only ways to get around without passing the ball. So, you may be asking yourself, “Why do I need to dribble in order to move?” and that leads us into our first rule of basketball. You cannot take more than 2 steps without dribbling, otherwise the ref calls a travel and the other team gets the ball. This rule is placed here so that you can’t just run past the defense with ease and make the basket, that wouldn’t be fair.

There is also another rule for basketball, and that is that once you pick up the ball after dribbling it, you can’t dribble it again and you're forced to either pass the ball or shoot the ball. If you do this, the ref calls double dribble and the other team gets the ball. So, how do you prevent this? You prevent this by using your dribbling wisely and only picking it up if you see an open teammate.

So, now for the best part, and that’s shooting and layups. So you probably know what shooting is, but not what a layup is. So let’s go over the layup first. A layup is when you take two steps toward the basket at full speed, jumping, then using one hand to put it up to the basket. This is a very good move that is looked over because of dunking, which only very few people can do. 

Now shooting, shooting is a layup but instead of taking two steps, you just jump and stop, and it’s far away. Shooting uses two hands, your shooting hand, and your guide hand. The shooting hand is the hand you shoot the ball with. This can be either hand, but I recommend sticking to the hand you're most comfortable with. Unlike layups where you have to use the hand that corresponds to the side of the basket you are on, shooting can be done with either hand. The guide hand helps guide the ball towards the basket, meaning it keeps it straight. You don’t really need this hand, but it’s comfortable with it being there.

So now let’s go over, in my opinion, the most important thing in basketball, and that’s passing. Passing is when you throw the ball to your teammate for many plays. This is by far the most common thing to do in basketball because it’s so useful. After passing the ball, you could screen the ball, screen a teammate without the ball, or cut towards the basket. You can do many things after a pass, so I highly recommend passing the ball instead of being a ball hog.

Conclusion

So let’s go over what we learned today. We learned dribbling, the only way to move yourself in basketball. Passing, which gets the ball into other peoples hands for you to run something. Layups, which get the ball into the basket easily. And shooting, which gets the ball into the hoop fast. Hope you enjoyed the first part of my article, and I hope you will enjoy the next one!