Practice is the most crucial key to improving your game. What is the use in practicing if you are practicing incorrectly. This text helps you get the shot in every time.

Dribbling the ball the right way needs to be done. When you dribble, only use your fingertips instead of your palms. Using your fingertips will allow you to have better control when dribbling the ball. Always dribble to your side, not your front. Don’t look at the ground, always keep your eyes focused forward.

TIP! Know how to dribble the ball in the correct way. Don’t use your palm to dribble.

Perfect your free throw. This seems like an easy shot, but it is quite hard. Use this technique to better your game. Place the ball right in line with your face. Look at the basket and imagine the ball going in it. Then, shoot the ball using the trajectory you pictured.

To get better in your basketball game, focus on your strengths. Even though your best abilities might not make you stand out each game, it is sure to help you contribute to the overall success of the team. Know your strengths and practice them until you have perfected them.

Hitting free throws is a mental challenge as well as a physical one. You must train both your body and your mind. Relax yourself and concentrate on your shot.

Perfect Passes

Work on being able to receive a pass. You need to be able to retrieve perfect passes and not so perfect passes. When the game is being played, passes may not be as perfect as we’d like. By learning to catch errant passes, you will do your team a great favor.

Don’t bulk up if you want to be good as a jump shooter. Even though having strong muscles is great for the inside game, being on the outside it can harm you when shooting the ball. Some guards increase their upper body to the point of harming their field goals.

TIP! Always dribble with your head up and looking forward. If you start staring at the ball while you dribble, you know you need to practice more.

If you slump when you shoot, look at what your shoulders are doing. If your shoulders aren’t properly positioned, your shot is not going to go in. To help improve your shot, focus on squaring up on each of your shots. Try to line your dominant shoulder up with the rim.

It’s great to be quick in basketball. You’ll have an advantage if you’re faster than an opponent. If you want to play the game fast, you need to drill continuously. But don’t try to go even faster than you actually are. If you push too hard, your performance may be haphazard, and the game may get out of control.

You should always be aware of the position of your feet and their actions. If you step on the baseline, you will be out of bounds. You could also be the reason for a turnover if you get called for walking when you take more steps than allowed without dribbling. You can’t move a foot when you take a charge, pick or screen either, or it’s a foul.

TIP! Keep practicing your layups. Up to eighty percent of the baskets attempted in a game are layups.

Be slick with your feet so you can get a rebound from a teammate. The person defending the position down-court from you will be coming at you, so you need to find any way you can to slide around him that gets you to the ball. This allows you to secure the rebound without finding yourself penalized.

Practice moving the ball from one courtside to the other in just 5 dribbles of the ball. While this is a challenging goal, working toward it will make you a much better player. This will help you accomplish great layups on those fast breaks.

Changing up your pace is something you have to do to make sure the offense is paying attention. Plant a foot and start to straighten your body. The guard is going to think you’re starting to slow and will straighten up too. All the while, push ahead hard then run past them.

TIP! Practice your passes and catches frequently. When you practice, be sure to do drills that improve catching wild throws and making great passes.

For your weaker hand, to build skills, use it off-court for as much as you can, from brushing teeth to opening jars. Being able to dribble and shoot the ball with both hands will make it much more difficult for opponents to defend you. This is bound to carry over to the court.

AS you dribble the basketball down the court, keep your knees bent. Opposing players can steal the ball more easily if you stand up straight because you can’t control the ball as well. Just a slight bend in your knees can have a huge impact on ball control.

Practice dribbling while switching the momentum of your body from side to side. In the middle of a game, lots of dribbling situations will arise. You’ll have people guarding you on all sides. You must learn dribbling from all kinds of directions. This allows you to extricate yourself from high-pressure situations.

TIP! If you have a child that is strength training for basketball, their core muscles should be properly developed. These core muscles for basketball include your lower back, hips and abs.

Keep all motion below the knees if possible. This will make it harder for opponents to get the ball away from you. It will take flexibility, balance and bending but just keep moving toward the goal.

It need not matter how much you play the game of basketball, the tips here will help improve your game all the time. Start out with a single tip and expand upon each idea as you progress. You will notice an improvement along the way. Better offense and defense is yours when you practice using these ideas.