How to Run an Effective Basketball Practice: Plan, Pace, Score

How to run an effective basketball practice: write the plan, start on time, cap drills on a clock, score every rep, pick your pace and use film.

An effective basketball practice is one where the plan, the clock, the score and the pace all point at the next game, and this page covers how coaches write the plan, order the segments, cap drills, score and validate reps, choose a teaching or game pace, keep every player working and use film, with each version side by side.

How to run an effective basketball practice comes down to a few choices a coach makes before the gym opens and holds once it does: a written plan, a clock on every drill, a score on every rep, a pace picked on purpose, nobody standing, and film that feeds the next day. The coaches on record agree on the plan and the clock.

They split on how practice should open, how fast it should run, how long drills last and whether to stop play to teach. This page lays out each choice with the options side by side. The order of the segments themselves is on basketball practice structure, and printable session templates are on basketball practice plan. It sits in the practice plans section.

Write it down, start on time, put a clock and a score on every drill, and decide on purpose whether today is for teaching or for game speed.

Write the Plan Before You Walk In

Write the plan first. The methods differ.

Approach	How the plan gets written
John Wooden	Two hours each morning with his staff, then the session written on cards down to the minute
Stan Van Gundy	List every drill with its minutes at double or more the time available, then cut by priority
Mike Krzyzewski	Plan the week two weeks ahead and finish each day's plan the night before
Goals first, rewrite it	Set goals, then pick drills, write the emphasis for each drill on the paper, plan the teams, rotations, transitions and water, then rewrite it like an essay
Sherri Coale	Calls practice planning the most important thing a coach does to get the team better

Most plans carry one emphasis. Bob Knight picks the key thing for each practice and, in season, a point of emphasis for the next game. Sean Miller prints one emphasis and a quote at the top of his Xavier plan. Don Meyer allows two emphases at most. Pick the next focus from a single number, such as opponent offensive rebounds when the box out is the habit being built.

Two lines frame planning: Pete Carril's that coaching is preparation, and John Wooden's that failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Whatever method you pick, write it before you walk in.

Start on Time and Start Fast

Start on time and end on time. Phil Martelli says the most important part of practice is being ready from minute one. Jeff Van Gundy's rule is that once practice starts it never stops. Bob Knight wants energy from the first drill and players in the next drill before the coach finishes explaining it.

What opens practice is a real split.

Teach first. Jeff Van Gundy puts teaching, film and situations before the stretch, and Stan Van Gundy also taught before stretching.
Warm up first. Jay Wright opens with a warm-up. Use a fixed, named warm-up sequence every day.
Individual work first. John Wooden's UCLA schedule opened with half an hour of individual attention and free throws, with the stretch inside the fundamentals block.
A game situation first. Open with a game situation.

Warm-up options are on basketball warm up drills. Pick the opening and run it the same way every day.

Short Drills on a Visible Clock

The coaches who put a number on it keep drills short, though the numbers differ.

Approach	Drill length
Bob Knight	5 minutes for individual drills, 10 for team drills, because players go through the motions when a drill runs long
5 and 10 split	5 minutes per drill and 10 per offense segment, split across two parts of practice if it needs more
Vance Walberg	No drill over 6 minutes
5 to 10	Most drills 5 to 10 minutes
Roy Williams, 2003	Blocks of 3 to 12 minutes, none over
John Beilein	10 to 12 minutes

Run two visible clocks, one for the whole practice and one for the current drill. Leave a drill that is not working after about 10 minutes and come back to it at the next practice. Cap every drill and watch the clock.

How to Run an Effective Basketball Practice: Score Every Rep

Many coaches score their drills. Nate Oats scores every rep at Alabama: plus 3 for a made three, plus 2 for a two, plus 1 for a putback and minus 2 for a turnover. Turnovers are charted, and the losers run.

Basketball practice diagram of a scored live rep with a drive, a kick-out three from the corner and two players crashing for the putback

Score every rep: plus 3 for a made three, plus 2 for a two, plus 1 for a putback and minus 2 for a turnover. Here 1 drives and kicks to 3 in the corner, and 4 and 5 crash for the putback.

Other ways to score:

A winner and a loser. Give every drill a purpose and a winner and a loser, score the whole practice as two squads, and give the winner a free throw that costs 10 push-ups if it misses. The reason is that competition builds toughness and chemistry and is the best way to fix problems.
Points and innings. Give every drill a point rule and a number of timed rounds, never more than three scoring rules in one drill, and post a win sheet.
Validate with a free throw. Walberg makes the winner hit a free throw to lock in the win.
Defense earns its turn. Make the scrimmage defense get several stops before it gets the ball. Shell drills can require three stops to get out, and a cutthroat can require three in a row.

Effective basketball practice diagram of a 4 on 4 shell drill with two guards in the slots and two players on the wings

4-on-4 shell, a daily block. The defense stays on the floor until it gets three stops.

Basketball practice diagram of a 3 on 3 cutthroat drill with a third team waiting at half court

3-on-3 cutthroat. A third team (A, B and C) waits at half court. The defense needs three stops in a row to rotate to offense.

Consequences split coaches.

Time every losing sprint. Time it so it cannot be jogged. A timed suicide works and a down-and-back does not.
Set it before the drill. Set the consequence before the drill starts.
Never run for losing. Jay Wright runs players only for failed team concepts, never for losing.
Keep fundamentals clean. Don Meyer never uses fundamentals as punishment.

Scoring systems in full are on competitive basketball drills. Choose the cost before the drill so the score means something.

Teaching Pace or Game Pace

Nate Oats reads a quote to his team before a half-court day: you cannot build the attitude of enduring practice. He wants the same energy in the half court as in the full court, injury or not, and tells players that sitting out does not make them better. That is an energy rule. Speed is a separate choice, and coaches split on it.

Teaching pace

Want a practice where teaching and learning go on constantly, and too slow beats too fast. Don Meyer goes slow, finds a rhythm, then goes fast enough to make a mistake. Del Harris limits half-court stoppage teaching so transition instincts survive.

Game pace

Frame practice as a rehearsal at game speed, with fewer reps at full accountability over more reps without it. Practice at a rate equal to or faster than the game, with all drills at game speed.

Don Meyer does both in one session, slow first and then fast enough to make a mistake. Decide the pace for the day and tell the team.

Teach It, Then Make It Live

Order the teaching inside a segment.

Explain, show, correct. Explain why, demonstrate slowly, ask for feedback, run it at half speed, correct it, then go to game speed.
Present, repeat, compete. Presentation, repetition, reinforcement, competition and evaluation.
Whole, parts, whole. John Wooden taught whole, then parts, then whole again.

Teach across days too. Never introduce and refine a skill on the same day. The rule of two: two minutes to show it, two weeks to be comfortable, two months before it is automatic in a game. Zeljko Obradovic installs only two or three new concepts per side in preseason.

Whether to stop a live segment to teach is the sharpest split.

Approach	Rule
Del Harris	Do not teach during the segment. Correct between segments.
Teach through rule changes	You cannot teach during a scrimmage, so do not over-scrimmage. Teach through rule changes and mini-games.
Don Meyer	Instant replay: re-run the failed possession at once against a dummy defense, then play on.
Stop and repeat	Stop and correct on the spot when a possession falls below standard, and repeat until it is right.
Stop only to praise	Stop only to praise. When a possession makes the gym react, call everyone to the center circle and explain why it was good.

Making practice harder than the game is one more tool. Run overload drills, an extra ball or a 5 on 4, almost daily, so the team plays at a disadvantage every night. Decide when you stop before the segment starts.

Basketball practice diagram of a 5 on 4 overload with the defense playing a man down

5 on 4 overload. The defense plays a man down, so the drill is harder than the game.

Nobody Stands

Count your resources first. Mike Krzyzewski counts coaches, baskets, managers and toss-backs before he plans, so one player is never taught while eleven stand.
Assistants fix, they do not stop. Bob Knight's assistants cannot stop practice. They pull one player, fix him on the sideline and put him back. His managers log missed layups and poor passes.
No sitting. Players off the floor remind the players on it of the teaching points.
Stations. Mike Brey runs post and perimeter work at two baskets at once, with cutters calling out their cuts so the drill teaches talking too. Film a practice on a phone to find long lines and wasted minutes.
Name the drills. A nameless drill is an unvalidated drill. Give every drill a name, a purpose, a goal, a progression, a time and a way to compete.

Give every player a job in every drill.

Rest, Water and Length

1 hour 45 minutes is enough when practice is hard and continuous, with 3 to 4 minutes of free throws every 30 to 40 minutes as the only rest. Phil Martelli runs a halftime in practice: time on the clock, water, sit, and two or three points. Dean Smith timed water breaks at exactly 2 minutes. Free-throw formats that double as rest are on free throw drills.

Length shrinks as the season goes.

Approach	Length and budget
Kelvin Sampson	2.5 hours in October, 1.5 hours in January and February, a time element on every drill
Mike Krzyzewski	Never past 2 hours, split 30 percent offense, 30 defense, 30 transition, 10 situations and conditioning, 45 minutes in February
A 2.5-hour full day	About 2.5 hours: 30 minutes shooting, 30 defense, 20 offensive skill work, 15 dummy offense, 15 special situations, 30 scrimmage
Youth skill first	Half or more of practice on skill development and no more than 8 percent on team offense
Fundamentals share by level	80 to 90 percent fundamentals for youth, about 50 percent at high school

Special situations get minutes too. Phil Martelli writes one situation a day on an index card and has different teams try it, and Mike Krzyzewski runs end of half and end of game with his top seven or eight players. Formats are on drills to teach late game situations. Conditioning inside the plan is on basketball conditioning drills. Plan the rest the way you plan the work.

Film and the Next Practice

Keep film short and run it before practice.

Open with an edit. Kelvin Sampson opens with a five-minute edit of what went well or badly the day before.
Show the clips. Nate Oats had just reviewed 40 defensive clips before one half-court day and told the team it was not good in many of them.
Watch before practice. Watch about 30 minutes just before practice on three days a week.
Skip it. Jim Boeheim is the dissenter: no shootaround, no game-day walk-through, little film.

More on running the session is on how to run basketball film sessions.

Then check the plan against what happened. Wrap up every day. Leave 8 to 10 minutes of slack in the plan so a coach can stay with a drill or leave it early as a reward.

Mike Krzyzewski holds a staff meeting before and after practice. Eric Musselman keeps a balance card of offense and defense time each day and each week. Situation scrimmages for the end of practice are on basketball scrimmages. Check the plan against what happened, then write tomorrow's.

Questions Coaches Ask

How long should a basketball practice be?

Practices run from about 1 hour 45 minutes of hard, continuous work up to 2.5 hours early in the season. Coaches shorten practice as the season goes, Mike Krzyzewski to 45 minutes in February.

How long should each drill last?

Most coaches who give a number cap drills between 5 and 12 minutes. Bob Knight caps individual drills at 5 and team drills at 10.

Should every drill be competitive?

Coaches score every drill they can, with a winner, a loser and a consequence, and they vary the consequence: Jay Wright runs players only for failed team concepts, never for losing.

Should practice be at game speed?

Coaches split. Some want game speed in every drill and others prefer a teaching pace.

What should start a basketball practice?

Coaches open with teaching and film, a warm-up, individual work and free throws, or a game situation.

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