Basketball Passing - Overhead Pass

Arthur Jackson: Hi, I am Arthur Jackson from One on One Basketball. We have just been talking about the bounce pass, now we want to talk about the overhead pass in basketball. It's a very effective pass in the games, especially when you are getting pressured; whether full court or you get a rebound underneath the basket and you get a lot of defensive pressure on you and want to outlet the ball and get it out quick, the overhead pass is the most effective one to use. Again, with the overhead pass we want our hands on the sides of the ball, using our fingertips, our thumbs are behind the ball, whereas before we hadn't pointed a target, now we are going to raise it up, above our heads. We have our fingertips pointing almost to the sky. Our thumbs are still behind it, and now what we are going to do, the motion is a wrist motion. We don't want to bring the ball back behind our head. This is not a soccer throw in. A lot of times when kids bring the ball back behind, there is a defensive behind that will steal and knock that ball away. We want to keep it above our head, and now as we step to our target; in all our passes we are stepping to our target, we are going to snap our wrists and follow through. So the motion should look something like this. As I step, I am going to snap, keep my elbows in, and I follow through to my target, making sure again, I am stepping to receive the pass as well. So fingertips, thumbs behind, elbows. The more I step, the more power I can get into my throw. Notice that the follow through is always to the target, with our fingertips, and thumbs down. Again, I keep my hands up, I bend my knees a little bit, I step, and I really snap my wrists to get more power onto the ball. So we want to make sure we keep balance equal, so that as I step, I can come up on my toe and the ball of my foot, but I do not lift my leg, I don't want to lift my leg, or it's going to cause my shoulders to go down, and that's going to be a very tough pass to receive. The target right now should be the person's chest or hands, wherever they are showing a good target. Again, try not to put the target right in front of your face. You want to show the target where you want to receive the ball. That's the motion of the overhead pass. Now what we are going to do is give you a couple of drills that you can work on to help you become a better passer when playing basketball.