One on one, and how a junior beats someone

Two moves beat ten

Ask most juniors to show you what they've been working on and you'll get a sequence of crossovers, spins and hesitations stitched together, usually learned from a phone. Then watch them in a game and none of it appears, or it appears at a moment when it couldn't possibly work. That's not a criticism of the kid, it's what happens when moves are learned as performances rather than as answers to a question.

The players who actually beat people at junior level generally have two moves. One that goes to their strong hand and one that punishes the defender for over committing to stop the first. That's it. The second move only exists because the first one is real, and the first one only stays real if it's used often enough to be respected.

So pick two. A straight line drive to the strong hand, and a crossover back the other way. Make both of them excellent and boring. A child with two moves they trust plays with their head up, because they're not thinking about what to perform next.

The first step is the whole thing

Almost every successful drive in junior basketball is decided in the first step. Long, low and past the defender's front foot. If the first step goes sideways or upright, the defender simply slides across and the move is finished before the second dribble.

Two details make the difference. The ball goes out ahead of them rather than staying beside them, so the body is travelling somewhere. And the shoulder gets past the defender's shoulder as early as possible, because once a player is level they've the right of way and the defender has to give ground.

You can practise this without a defender. Cone on the floor, catch, jump stop, then one explosive step past the cone with the ball pushed out in front. Ten each way. It looks like nothing and it's the difference between a drive that gets somewhere and one that ends in a jump stop three metres from where it started.

Read the feet before you move

This is the part juniors skip and it's why their moves fail. A defender with their weight on the left foot can't go left quickly. A defender standing square and upright is beatable straight past either side. A defender playing off is giving away the shot, not the drive.

So the instruction is to look at the feet on the catch, before doing anything. One glance. Then attack the direction their weight isn't. A simple straight drive at the right moment beats a beautiful crossover at the wrong one every time, and juniors find that genuinely surprising when they see it work.

Change of pace beats change of direction

The most under used weapon in junior basketball is slowing down. Kids play at one speed, which is fast, and a defender can match one speed all day. The moment a player slows, the defender relaxes slightly, and that's the gap.

Practise it as two steps slow, then go. Walk the ball toward the defender, let them settle, then attack. It's harder than a crossover to teach because it feels like doing nothing, and it works on far more defenders because nobody at this age expects it.

Where they should be attacking from

A lot of junior one on one attempts fail before the move because of where they start. Too far out and there's no time to beat anyone before help arrives. Too close to the sideline and the defender only has to guard one direction, because the line does the rest of their job for them.

Teach them to catch inside the arc, in the middle third of the floor, facing the ring. From there both directions are live, the defender has to guess, and the first step has somewhere to go. Attacking from the corner against a decent defender is close to impossible, and no move fixes a bad starting point.

Practising it properly

Start with no defender and get the footwork clean. Then add a defender who is only allowed to shuffle, not to steal, so the attacker learns to beat position rather than to avoid hands. Then let them play live, first to three baskets, starting from a catch rather than from a standing dribble.

One rule makes the live version much more useful. Two dribbles maximum. It forces the decision into the first step where it belongs, and it stops the whole thing turning into a dribbling exhibition, which is what unsupervised one on one always becomes.