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If you can't grab the board, tip it

Over the course of a season, you can probably add a rebound or two to your offensive rebounding average by simply tipping the ball.

How so?

Think of how many times you are close to an offensive rebound, but just can't quite grab it?  In cases where you're close to the ball, but can't grab it, your best option if often to tip the ball.

Either tip it up to the basket, tip it out to a teammate, or tip it back up into the air to yourself.  Whatever the outcome, tipping the ball can keep it out of the hands of your opponent and give you or a teammate the opportunity to score or gain possession.

One thing to keep in mind is that the only way the scorer will give you credit for an offensive rebound is if they consider your tip a "controlled tip" which means that you actually tried to tip it into the basket (for a shot), or to a teammate (in essence it was a pass), or up to yourself (in a controlled manner).

Now, keep in mind that you should always try to gain possession of an offensive rebound by grabbing the ball with two hands.  Period.  Tipping the ball should only be used if you can't secure the rebound, or if you're skilled enough to tip the ball in on missed shots.  So don't read this article and go out onto the court and start tipping every offensive rebound that comes your way.

Tipping the ball should be used when you can't gain possession in the usual way.  But think about how many times you might use this in the course of a game.  Let's say you're trailing a fast break and the player in front of you misses the layup.  You may tip in the rebound.  That's one offensive board.

Then let say later in the game you can't quite grab a rebound, so you tip it out to a teammate. There's your second offensive rebound just by tipping the ball.

Then, later in the game, you're going up for a board against the defender and again, can't quite secure it with both hands, so you tip it int the air to yourself.  The official scorer should give you a rebound for the tip (if they considered it a controled tip), and if you finally got the rebound, that'll be another offensive board.

So, just based on the four scenarios listed above, which could easily happen in a game, you'd have four offensive rebounds.  And that's a pretty good total if you ask me.  So remember that grabbing offensive boards with two hands if your first choice, but it you can't do that, try tipping the ball to yourself or a teammate (or back up to the rim) and you'll help your team and increase your rebounds per game average.

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