Acie Law Gets the Contact and Finishes Strong

As a player, I was always a guy that sought contact. I was a small guy, but I played football as well so I was used to banging bodies. I played physical and I went hard to the basket because I knew many of my opponents didn't. I especially went after tall thin guys, I knew they disliked the physical contact.

Here is a clip from one of the Rocky Mountain Revue summer league games in Utah last night between the Atlanta Hawks and the D-League all-stars. Hawks guard Acie Law IV beats his man and goes right at the help defender attacking the rim,



I also like how Acie Law IV gets the contact, then uses his right-hand here, the hand away from the defender to score the basket, that's what I would call, finishing strong. This way, he gets the foul, and finishes the AND1,


Some kids I see, lots of talent, but no toughness, hence the label, that player's soft. They see a help defender coming and instead of seeking the contact, they'll try to contort their body and try and loop their arms around, or they'll just dribble back. You must be aggressive, seek the contact and attack the rim.

I'll admit, that as a coach, it's one of harder things to teach. How do you teach a kid to be tough and physical if that's not their nature?? I liked having basketball players play football for that one reason. In football, you don't have a choice, you will get hit and you must hit, or you won't play. Once players get over that fear of hitting, and they come back to basketball, they're like another person altogether.

For girls basketball, I think physicality is even more important. You can beat better teams simply by playing tougher. I'm not a girl, so I don't know the psychology of it, but tough aggressiveness plays such an intimidating role in girls basketball, much more so than in boys basketball.

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