Ball handling and footwork are two very important aspects of basketball. You need to know how to dribble the ball and how to evade defenders. If you don’t, you’ll have a hard time getting open looks or making an impact on the game. So in the following article, I share games and drills that can help you.
TL;DR: The best basketball games for improving ball handling and footwork are Skills Challenge, American 21, Layup Challenge, and Sharks and Minnows.
When I was younger, I couldn’t ball handle to save my life.
I was able to dribble with my dominant arm and that was pretty much it. I couldn’t dribble with my other arm and definitely couldn’t do a crossover.
But in junior high, one of my gym teachers forced me to work on my weak arm.
He made me dribble up and down the court with my left hand and even made me shoot with it too.
It sucked so much (I also sucked so much).
I kept losing the ball and my shot was awkward.
But after a couple of months, I was able to dribble pretty well with my weak arm. I was also able to shoot close-range shots.
However, now that I was able to dribble, he started to put me through different games and drills to work my overall ball handling and footwork.
These were way more fun than just dribbling up and down the court with your weak hand. They were also much more effective too because they were challenging.
After a month of these games, I noticed that my dribbling did improve. I was able to do a bunch of moves cleanly now.
So, here are some of the games I did to improve my ball-handling and footwork:
Skills Challenge
One of the most fun ways to improve your footwork and ball-handling for basketball is to set up a skills challenge.
Now you may be thinking that you’ll need more than one person for this game, but you don’t.
You can do it by yourself. However, it will be more fun to do it with others.
So, what you need for this drill are cones, a timer, a basketball dummy, and a pass rebounder (you could use a brick wall too).
Now, you can do this drill in many ways. The obstacle course can be set up however you like.
So, I’m just going to show you how it’s set up at NBA All-Star Games so you can have an idea (P.S. This is how I would set up my course too. I would, however, change the passing portion to passing into a rebounder or a brick wall).
Now all you have to do is go through the course and finish it as quickly as you can. You should strive to always beat your previous time.
American 21
You may or may not have heard about this game, but American 21 is a variation of the timely classic basketball game 21.
In the original 21, you pretty much just shoot the ball from wherever you catch it on the court.
But in American 21, there’s an added component of a 2 (or more)-on-1 game.
To start, you would shoot to see who gets the ball first.
Once that is established, you check-up and start by playing a free-for-all game of basketball.
Whoever scores first gets to take free throws, like in a regular game of 21.
You can switch up some of the rules and add house rules as well.
When I play, I like to add an alley-oop rule.
Pretty much, if the shooter misses his or her shot and I am able to alley-oop it in, then the shooter would lose half of their points.
So if they had 10 points, they would have 5 points after the successful oop.
Just be creative and make rules that will challenge your skills.
This game will help you improve your footwork and ball-handling because you have to play a game against multiple defenders.
The added pressure will force you to tighten up your ball handling and be more creative with your footwork to evade defenders and score a basket.
You’ll have to play on both sides of the court, which will also improve your off-hand dribbling.
Full-Court Layup against Defender or Dummies
Okay, so this drill will be much more challenging if you have cones.
All you have to do is dribble from one end of the court to the other, and go in for a layup while evading the defender (dummy or person).
You can evade the defender by doing a Eurostep, spin move or whatever you want to work on.
If you add cones to the mix, they will force you to tighten up your dribbling as you try to get to the basket as fast as you can.
Additionally, you don’t have to always go for the layup -you can also pull up for a jumper or do a step-back.
There are many ways you can finish. Just pick a couple that you want to work on.
Sharks and Minnows
The objective of this game is for the minnows to get across the gym without being caught by the sharks.
But since we want to use this game to improve ball handling and footwork, I’m going to change it up a bit.
In the original game, you’re supposed to start off with one shark and have all the other players be minnows.
For the basketball version, there will be two or three sharks who will start in the middle. The rest will be minnows and they will all start at one end of the gym.
Also, the minnows will be dribbling basketballs during the game.
So here’s how you play my version of the game:
Have one of the sharks (whose eyes will be closed) loudly scream “fishy, fishy, come out and play.”
The minnows will now slowly walk towards the sharks. Don’t dribble the ball yet.
At any time during this period, the sharks can scream “Shark Attack!” and chase the minnows, trying to steal the ball from them.
The minnows will be dribbling the ball and evading the sharks, trying to get to the opposite side of the gym.
If a minnow is tagged, he/she becomes a shark and has to start chasing the remaining minnows.
This game is really good for working on ball handling, footwork and defence.
As a shark, you have to put pressure on the minnows and try to get steals without fouling. And as a minnow, you have to use all of your ball-handling skills to lose your defender.
Additionally, this game is best played with fewer than eight players. If there are too many, it will be too difficult for the sharks to defend.
Final Thoughts
Ball handling and footwork are really important for basketball.
But that doesn’t mean that you have to do hard drills to work on them all the time -you can also play fun games.
So, give these 4 games a try and see how it improves your skills.
