When a player shoots the basketball, and it comes off the rim or backboard, either team is allowed to go after the ball and try to rebound it. The person with the best position is usually going to come up with the rebound. Learning how to rebound is about technique and desire. The best rebounders in the game have the right technique, but they also want to get the rebound more than anyone else. Players over the years, like Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Ben Wallace, and so on, dominated the boards because they wanted it more than anyone else.
There are two different types of rebounds in basketball – defensive rebounds and offensive rebounds. If you are on defense, you want to box your man out and then go release to get the ball. If you are on offense, you will try and get around your man that is boxing you out and try to get the rebound. Here are some tips for rebounding that you can use to become a better rebounder in basketball.
Defensive Rebounds in Basketball
As soon as the shot goes up, you want to turn and find your man. You will put your forearm on him/her about chest level, and then you will turn and put your butt/hip on them to box out. If you don’t first put your forearm on them, they will sidestep your box out. When you box out, you want to keep your hands up. This will make you wider and harder to get around. It will also keep you from wrapping your arms around the offensive player, which is a foul.
After you box out, you need to be ready to release and get the rebound. Don’t wait for the basketball to fall into your lap, but jump up and get it. If you wait for the basketball to come to you, then someone else on the other team might get to it before you do for an offensive rebound. Locate the basketball off of the rim and then react to the rebound as quickly as you can.
Offensive Rebounds in Basketball
Most of the time, as the offensive rebounder in basketball, you aren’t going to have the best position because the defender is naturally going to be between you and the basket already. That means that you need to use different moves to get by them when they go to box you out. Here are three different offensive rebounding basketball moves that you can use to get the offensive board.
- Swim Move: The reason it is called the swim move is because you are making a downward swimming motion with your arm to get past the person boxing out. You will fake one way and then go the opposite, and as you do, you will bring your inside arm down and help propel yourself past the box out man.
- Spin Move: This is similar to the swim move, but instead of bringing your inside arm down, you will fake one way and then spin off the box out and go the other way to get the rebound.
- Drive Under: Sometimes, the person boxing out won’t do a good enough job coming to you to box out, and that puts them right next to the basket. When this happens, you want to use your body to help drive them under the basket so that they don’t have a good rebounding angle, and the ball will come out over their head to you. Make sure that you use your body and not your hands to drive them under because that is a foul.
Becoming good at rebounding in basketball takes work, but it starts with first learning how to do it. Now that you have learned the basketball basics of rebounding, you need to start practicing. Make sure that you check out all of our rebounding basketball drills to find the right tools to work on all of the different types of rebounding.
