How To Play
Basketball As
Well As You
Practice
Dre ‘DreAllDay’ Baldwin
How To Play
As Well As
You Practice
How To Play As Well As You Practice?
This is the million dollar question.
"I play really good in practice or I play really good when I'm playing against my friends, people I'm comfortable and familiar with,
but in a game situation, or a tryout, or playing against people
whom I'm not familiar with or are not my friends, I don't perform
at the same level. I don't have the same amount of confidence. I
don't make shots the same rate. I don't get the ball as much. I
don't seem to have as much influence on the game. Why is that
happening? What is my problem? What can I do to fix this?"
I'm going to resolve this right now.
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I don't even need to go into the fact that there's a
difference between what you do in practice and
what you do in the game, do I? I'm sure all of you
have heard it many times before Some coaches
like to spread the idea of "how you practice is
how you play."
In a way, that's true, but in a way, it's not true.
Why? Because when you practice -- and we're
talking about practicing with your team or playing with your friends or practicing when you're by
yourself or dribbling around some trash cans or
orange cones — THAT’S not the same as a
game situation, is it?
Of course not. If you who have done a lot of practicing and
played in a lot of games, you know it damn sure
is not the same because a chair or cone are not
going to react like a person who's playing defense. When you jump for a shot, a chair is not
going to try to block it. But a person will. When
you try to dribble, a person may try to steal the
ball from you. A traffic cone ain't going to steal
the ball from you.
A game situation can only be practiced for so
much. When you're practicing — and I say this a
lot of times with all the drills I do on YouTube
when I do the voice overs -- you're developing
your skills. You're adding tools to your toolbox.
You have seen a tool box before.
You open it up there's a wrench, there's a screw
driver, there's a hammer and maybe some nails,
maybe some electrical tape, you’ve got drill bits,
you might have a power screwdriver and such.
There are a whole bunch of different tools. So no
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matter what is going on around the house, if
something needs to be fixed there's a tool in that
toolbox that can fix it, right?
Playing in games is like owning a house. You
know something eventually is going to go wrong
in that house and you're going to have to fix it.
But what you don't know is which tool you're going to need and how much you're going to need
to use that tool. That's the game situation.
The first question is, do you even have the tool in
your box? Your drills work and individual practice will handle that. I cover that in deep detail in
the programs at HoopHandbook.
So as a rough example, let's say you practice all
the time, but you never practice a right-to-left
crossover on tight defense. Then in the game,
you get a defender playing you close. The rightto-left crossover would be great to use looking
back on it, but you never practiced it, thus
you didn’t have it to use. You didn't put the tool in
the toolbox.
So, the first thing you had to do is make sure you
have a full toolbox. A full toolbox means whatever game situation happens - or whatever goes
wrong in your house - you have a tool that could
potentially fix it. If you have a house and a nail is
loose that needs to be hammered back in, you
have to make sure there's a hammer in your toolbox.
Extending the analogy to basketball: If you get
the ball and the ball needs to be dribbled from
point A to point B without turning it over, you
need to have the ball-handling skills to get from
here to there with a defender on you without turning the ball over.
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That's a tool. You can develop a tool by
practicing. Once you develop all your tools, you’ve got a full toolbox.
Let's say you went over every YouTube drill video
that I ever put out. You’ve mastered all the skills,
so you’ve got all the tools you need in your toolbox. That does not guarantee that you're going
to be able to fix any problem in the house. It just
means you have the tools to fix any problem in
the house. Here's the crux of the issue that a lot
of people come to me with: They have the tools,
or at least, they believe they do, which is the first
step to it. You do actually have to have them, but
believing can help. Somewhat. But when that player gets in the game, they can't
seem to use the right tool, at the right time, in the
right way.
What is the problem? How do we resolve this?
Let's get into that.
You want to get better at performing in the
games using all those tools in your toolbox. First
I'm assuming that you have all the tools in the
toolbox, because you can acquire them by working on your game. You don't need anybody to
help you to get the tools in the toolbox.
In order to utilize those tools at the time that's
necessary, you need practice using the tools.
This means you need to get in game situations,
the exact situations where you're finding yourself
having the inability to perform. You need to keep
putting yourself in that situation over and over
and over again, forcing yourself to get more comfortable with it, forcing yourself to perform when
it's necessary.
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That is the only way you're going to get there.
You can't think your way to being comfortable in
a situation in which you have no experience. You
can't watch your way to being comfortable in a
situation in which you have no experience. You
can't talk your way there. You can't read your
way there. You can't YouTube video your way
there. You have to get in those game situations
and prove yourself worthy in the game situations.
I had a friend once when I was in Mexico, my
friend G. Whenever I used to hear him telling
other players, "Yo, there's a opportunity, maybe,
down here in Mexico for you to come play," G
would tell them all the positives and then he'd
say, "Hold on, hold on. I got to tell you everything. Let me tell you all the things that might be
negative too, because I don't want you to come
back to me later, and be like, 'You ain't tell me
that, G."'
So, thanks to G’s example, I have to tell you what
all the negatives are, for when you put yourself in
those uncomfortable situations over and over
again.
Here's the number one thing: You are going to
get embarrassed. (Well, embarrassment is a
state of mind; the same thing can happen to two
different people and one will be embarrassed
while the other can just shake it off. So I use “embarrassed” for semantics — you can choose
to never be embarrassed. But anyway...) You might try a crossover, or some other move,
or try to guard somebody who’s better than you
and just get completely embarrassed. You might
get the ball stolen from you, get your shot
blocked, get dunked on, get crossed over, get
4
30 points scored on you, have some people in
the crowd who you don't even know laughing at
you and talking mess about you. That's going to
happen.
If you keep putting yourself in uncomfortable
situations, you're going to look bad a few (or a
lot of) times. So be ready for that.
One huge benefit: a large percentage of players
facing these same situations will rather quit than
put themselves in that space repeatedly and
work through it. So understand that each successive one of these embarrassments you're able to
endure, and keep going, you're eliminating a
whole lot of competition in the process.
So, number one, you're going to look bad. You're
going to get your ass kicked. You're going to get
embarrassed. Got it? Good. situation is all perfect, it's still not going to go the
way you hoped. Understand and accept this. So, you're going to get your ass kicked, you're
going to get embarrassed, and you're going to
feel uncomfortable. Still with me? Third thing is you're going to have to keep doing
it over and over and over again for an extended
period of time in order to get comfortable with it.
Which means for example, the first time you think
about doing a left to right crossover and try it, it
might work, it might not.
Even if it does work, the next time you try it, your
defender is going to steal it from you.
The next time, the crowd is going to laugh at you.
The next time, somebody's going to make fun of
your crossover.
Number two, it's going to be uncomfortable.
You're going to try something that you have to
think about doing. The only way to be able to do
the moves you see other players doing in your
games is to do them instinctively, without thinking
about it. The only way you get there — not thinking about it — is by first thinking about it.
And the next time your coach is going to pull you
out of the game.
You'll never do a left to right crossover in a game
until you remember to try it. And to do it the first
time is not going to be instinctive, because you
haven't done it before. So you'll have to think
about it.
Every time you're getting better. You're gaining
that experience.
It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be
kind of clunky. You're going to be feeling like
you're moving at two miles per hour, while everybody else is going ten miles per hour. You're going to be uncomfortable. It's not going to feel normal. You're going to have to think about it, and
even when you think about it and it seems the
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And the next time you're going to dribble the
ball off your foot out of bounds and people are
going to be like, "What the hell are you doing?"
And laugh at you.
So internalize these three things: It's not going to
work every time, it's going to be uncomfortable,
and you're going to get embarrassed.
You're going to get laughed at. You're going to
look bad. If you're okay with all three of these
things and you're able to endure through all
three, by the time you get through all three, not
only will you be performing in games the same
way you perform in practice with the same level
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of confidence and comfort, you'll be able to do
things seamlessly and without thinking about
them.
In the end you won't have much competition (at
least amongst those who are where you are right
now), because most people don't want to go
through those uncomfortable stages. Discomfort
causes more people to quit than fail.
Very few people have ever died of discomfort.
People don't die of being uncomfortable. People
die from being comfortable. Comfortable means
staying in your comfort zone. You are familiar
with the "comfort zone," right? That means only
doing the things you're already good and competent at.
If you want to get better, improve your position in
life — whether it be playing basketball, business,
your social standing, your money, whatever it
is — you're going to have to do something that's
a little bit uncomfortable.
Most people will die from comfort - which means
staying where they are, becoming stagnant, not
growing, not moving. Anything that's not growing
or moving is dead. As I said, nobody ever died
from discomfort. Discomfort makes people grow.
So when you're in an uncomfortable situation,
you have two choices:
Choice A: Run back with your tail between your
legs, back to the comfort zone and eventually
die a slow death. You die every a small bit single
day and eventually, you're going to die one final
time.
Choice B: You're going to grow to meet that challenge, and now it becomes part of your comfort
zone. Once you've made a habit out of destroy-
Dre Baldwin | DreAllDay.com
ing that discomfort and making it part of your
comfort zone, expanding by demand, guess
what? You're going to automatically want to go
somewhere else and be this uncomfortable
again. You’ll be seeking discomfort so you can
deal with it again and grow even more. It becomes a habit. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
So, THAT'S how you go from not performing in
games like you do in practice, to performing in
your games the same way you do in practice.
You're not going to memorize every single thing I
wrote here. What you must do: bookmark and
highlight this handout, keep it on your phone,
whatever is handy. Read this over and over and
over again. Do that, and eventually you're going
to be finishing the sentences without looking. You
will be thinking of lines form this without even having it in front of you. Lines will pop into your mind
for seemingly no reason. That's the way to internalize things. You don't need to memorize what
I’ve said. Memorizing something doesn't make
you start living it. Memorizing things just means
you know the words, the same way you listen to
a song over and over again, and then you could
sing along to the song, and you could even sing
the song without the song playing. Congratulations, you memorized it. It wont help you. To internalize something means it becomes part
of you where you don't even have to think about
it. That's what you will do with this content. This
information needs internalizing. Read it over and
over and over again until it seeps into you, until
you understand it, and then when you go live it,
you'll know it — to the point where you could
teach this to someone else. You won't even have
to hear it from me.
Work On Your Game #WOYG
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Read more form Dre:
•Buy A Game [Free]
•The Mental Handbook
•The Mirror Of Motivation
•The Super You
•The Overseas Basketball Blueprint
Dre Baldwin brought basketball training & motivational video
to the Internet, leveraging that foresight into brand names and a growing business em
pire.
During his 9 years as a professional basketball player, Dre began publishing workout and motivational messages to YouTube in 2006. Now with over 4,500 videos online
covering discipline, confidence, sports and business, Dre
has been viewed over 35,000,000 times by 100,000+ subscribers.
Dre, or "DreAllDay" as his fans know him, brings his "Work On Your Game" brand and
philosophy to his marketing, branding, and professional speaking businesses.
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