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Limit Your Dribbling in the Lane

If there's one general rule about playing inside the paint, it's this:  limit your dribbling.  Or even better, get in the habit of hardly dribbling at all in the lane.

There are a few reasons you should limit the amount of dribbling you do as a post player.  The main reason is that the lane is usually a pretty crowded spot on the floor, and so there are lots of hands just waiting for you to put the ball on the floor so they can knock the ball away for a steal.

Also, inside players tend to be tall, so to put it simply, there's a lot of distance for the ball to travel from a player's hand to the floor, which gives defenders more of a chance to knock the ball away.

So as an inside player, you really need to get into the habit of dribbling very little.  If you make a post move from the block, you may take one power dribble to back the defender down, or to complete a drop step.  This is OK, as long as you stay low to the ground and make a hard dribble (so the ball travels a very short distance from your hands to the ground and back).  This kind of dribble is referred to as a "crab dribble".

There may also be times when you make 2 hard dribbles while making a move.  But this should be your limit. If you dribble more than twice, you're just asking for the ball to be stolen.

Also keep in mind that if you grab an offensive rebound, you never want to put the ball on the floor.  If you grab an offensive rebound, you should go back up to the basket with power, or possibly make a head and shoulder fake to get the defender in the air and then go back up strong with the ball.  But you never want to grab an offensive board, then put the ball on the floor.  Again, this is just asking for the defense to steal the ball.

There may be a time when you grab an offensive rebound and can't go back up with the shot, so you'll look to pass the ball back out to a teammate.  Sometimes you may need to take a couple dribbles out of the lane with a "clearing dribble" (meaning that you're clearing yourself and the ball out of the lane so you can kick the ball back out to a teammate).  This won't happen very often, and should be used on a limited basis.

So as a post player, remember one of the golden rules about playing in the paint:  keep your dribbling to an absolute minimum...2 dribbles or less.  Any more than that and you're probably going to get the ball stolen from you.  And if you do put the ball on the floor, do so with a power (crab) dribble.

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