fake a pass to make a pass
Use V-cuts to get open and ball fakes to avoid telegraphing the pass. Have your cutters move in straight lines, either toward the ball or toward your basket. Wide arcs and side-to-side cuts favor the defense.
Inbound the basketball in quickly
Get the basketball in quickly! Drill your kids to pull the ball out of the net and fire it inbounds before the defense can set up. Don?t run any other drills that result in scores where they are not required to inbound the ball. On your 3on2/2on1 drills have them inbound the ball after made baskets. On every shell drill, have the defense inbound the ball after every score. The dividends are huge.
Keep your dribble alive!
If you use your dribble, don?t lose your dribble! Once your players start to dribble, make sure they keep it alive if at all possible. Do not stop the dribble until you are ready to pass or shoot.
Make the defense pay
Once you cross half-court, don?t make careless mistakes. The press is broken. If you?ve got an advantage, make the defense pay by scoring a lay-up. If not, slow things down.
Advance the basketball up the floor
Too many teams spend time passing the ball back and forth horizontally, instead of vertically. You should advance the ball up the floor UNTIL you feel pressured(this may be different for every player!), then REVERSE the ball to a teammate, and CUT according to your teams designed pressbreak. Repeat until the press is broken.
Be calm
The coach, can do a lot to help the team break a difficult press. If the coach panics, the team panics. In the first half, the team will be breaking the press right in front of their bench. Call out instructions to them. Remind them to go to the ball, cut, to post up, to spread the floor, etc.
Clear out!
When facing a man-to-man press, you should clear the backcourt and let your point guard bring the ball up one on one. That?s obviously sound advice. But we sometimes like to invite the trap by having our 2 or 3 man linger in the backcourt with the point, staying 10 or 15 feet ahead of him. As soon as the forward defender jumps to trap, the point kicks the ball to his teammate, who pushes it up the floor 4 on 3 against
the remaining defenders.
Ten seconds
Don?t panic. 10 seconds is a long time to get the ball across half
court.
Post up in the open floor
Players should "post up" in the open floor, then cut to the ball to get open. Most kids have a tendency to avoid the defenders, thinking that this is the solution to getting open. However, bodying up to the defender and then cutting toward the ball, will obviously preclude the defender from beating the receiver to the pass.
Stretch the defense
Stretch the defense. It doesn?t matter whether you start out of a stack, run four across, send guys to the midcourt corners -- just get that floor spread.
Come to the ball
Make sure your receivers come to the ball! They should attack each reception with the same intensity that the defense does. This cannot be overemphasized. Have them come and meet the ball before they stop. Then catch with two hands, hop stop, and establish a pivot foot. This gives them much more latitude to attack the defense.
Middle of the floor
Keep the ball in the middle of the floor as much as possible -- and away from the trapping zones.
Discourage the dribble
Discourage the dribble -- particularly the speed dribble -- against a zone press. Do as much as you can off the pass. Any dribbling should be controlled dribbling, head up, reading the floor.