Two Minute Drills: Establishing Practice Tempo with Skill Development

All of us look for ways to make our practices intense. We want the players to bring energy in drills and energy moving from one thing to another. We want practice to be “crisp.” 

To have intense practices with high energy, we need to have our coaches in that same mindset- not just the players. 

A way to try to get both players and coaches in this high energy mindset, is doing “Two Minute Drills,” early in our practice.

For us, we had three coaches. Each coach is going to be assigned a specific skill. We had a defense station, a finishing station, and a first step station. You could pick out whatever you wanted to use. 

I picked out very basic, but important skills to build. I picked 3-4 variations for each station- so we didn’t do the same thing daily, but they quickly developed familiarity with what was going to happen. 

Our stations…

Defense- Denying a cutter, getting over a screen, hedging on screen

Finishing- Euro step, wrong leg layups, floater

First Step- catch/rip, pivot/face/rip, drop step/power layup

As a coach- just pick out some simple things that you want to be “daily vitamins” for your players. 

Each coach was assigned the simple drill of the day. If we had 3 stations, each station lasted only 2-3 minutes, players had to sprint to the next station. The coaches were expected to quickly organize and get the drill going.

With only 4-5 in each group, players would get 6-8 reps of each skill. We wanted repetition, repetition. 

There was not time for the coach to stop, correct, and explain. The coach needed to do like we do in a game- correct on the fly. 

If I only had two coaches, I would have each of us take one station. After 2-3 minutes, we would rotate the players. Then each coach would have a second skill, and we rotate again two more times. My thinking would be with just two of us- I still want them to experience this idea of having to scramble from drill to drill, and having to quickly assimilate what we are doing. 

My goals doing this…

1- We were repeating basic skills that are important for player development. 

2- We were establishing how we wanted to practice- coaches and players with energy. With only 4-5 in a group- players would be active. And only going 2-3 minutes, they could with high energy. 

3- We established how players were to go from one drill to the next- quick.

4- We established how we wanted to coach- emphasize player repetition, avoid players standing listening, coach in short and exacting terminology.