FreeStyle Street Basketball Pointguard Guide

FreeStyle Street Basketball Pointguard Guide by Davie

This is davie’s guide to the point guard position. I’m not a great point guard, however I’ve learned a lot about it through playing SF and I think I shall take another swirl at it. With me playing a new position with only one guide on(And a bad one) I decided I shall make one. It’s a simple position, but I think I can help some players, at least a little.

Table Of Content.

1 Introduction
i) Misconception
ii) Why be a pointguard ?
iii) Your role.(three jobs)

2. Skills, Skills, Skills.

3. Clothing

3. Passing
i) Kinds of passes(Underhand, around the back, running away)
ii) overlook upon when to pass.
iii) Tips, and techniques.

4. Scoring
i) Weight distribution.
ii) Kukgi and mind games.

5. Loose balls.

6.Defense
i) Guards
ii) Forwards
iii) Help D.

Introduction

i) Misconceptions

People seem to mistake “Point guard” for “Passing guard” often. The offense runs through your pointguard, regardless of what team set up you have. With this gift, and responsibility you’re expected to create plays. Regardless of what kind of plays, if your team is struggling on offense you’re doing your job wrong. If you have to generate points with a spamming, or kukgi so be it. If you have a consistent scoring forward, or guard you should continue to generate points off assists. Overall, your role is to run an offense.

ii) Why be a point guard ?

Pointguard is a position of strengths. It has a few weak spots however with these few weak spots come many advantages. A Pg is capable of scoring almost at will when you understand some of the techniques in this guide. A PG is the most important position in this game, and in my opinion most valuable.

Pointguards are important and needed. If you wish to be someone whom runs an offense, and generates wins instead of points, this is the position for you.

iii) Your role

Your job as a point guard consists of three basic things;

Defense: Your role on defense, is more important than that on offense. This is personally where I have to learn. Point guards, with block pants have quite a block range, coupled with their excessive speed allow them to help D amazingly well. They can duck into the paint and get a swipe, while being able to get out to their man before they receive the ball. You have to learn to read at least, basic males pumps.(I look at the feet on both male and female, however some people would like to argue otherwise. This guide is aimed at offense, and I won’t be including much about defense).

Offense: I’ve spoken about the pgs role on offense many times now. You don’t HAVE to do anything on this side of the ball, other than generate plays. You should work to your teams weakness, if they struggle to score- you’re stepping up. If they’re consistent, you work on…

Loose balls: No, I’m not talking about penis’s. If the ball comes off a low bounce, that’s your kal. Period. Chips are a necessity and your ability to recover can make your team almost unstoppable. You should work on boxing out centers, and things like that. These are things you work on later.

Skills,Skills,Skills.

First of all, as a point guard, whom is striving for greatness(Why else would you be looking to get better ?) you NEED skill slots. I’ll go over the top 5 that you need, and briefly go over 5 more I’d chose.

Throughpass
Faceup
Directpass
Dive
Double fake breakthrough

Your options :

Alley
Pass in air
Drive in layup(For clutch situations)
Back down fade(For clutch situations)

and the last is optional, Hook up.

Freestyles:I play female PG so I have more freestyle than you would(I also know how to use all the freestyles)

Quick steal
Quick point
BRTD2
Shoulderfake(Optional, IMHO)
I use two hand under(Granny)
Middle Jumper
Soft touch(the layup freestyle)

I also use some other 3 point freestyles, depending on how I’m playing. It’s really play style dependent. I like to be capable of riding out on ANY shot and force a defender to read me 100%. They cannot slack defensively on me, and this ties into my whole “You run an offense” I can kukgi, and “Double kukgi” pump, shoot, or dribble off it to a pass shot or whatever. This makes me just a little more unpredictable and helps greatly.

Clothing

This will be brief. I’m PERSONALLY buying a mid shirt, however you need a 3 shirt, block, pass or dribble pants. And run shoes. Regardless you need gkash for this position.

Passing

There’s three kinds of passes, Underhand, Around the back, and running away.

Underhand: This is YOUR JOB AS A POINT GUARD. Underhand gives bonus more consistently, allows your scorer to see your passes better. Helps you read lanes, and gives a better bonus than anything. You achieve underhand by pressing the arrow key towards your scorer and direct pass.

Around the back: This is a pressing any arrow key aside from towards your scorer when not facing away. It’s bad, useless unless they need a fast pass.

Running away: This is underhand, but worse. It gives the same bonus as underhand, but gets intercepted more, and makes watching lanes difficult. If you KNOW the lanes wide, this works amazingly well on pass backs or when you’re faced up hard. You do this by running the opposite direction of whom you are passing to and direct pass.

Overlook on timing/Positioning

If you’re reading this,it’s because I decided I’m a decent PG and would toss a guide out there. If this is posted, it means I’ll be making a video section here at some point. Essentially if your scorer’s on the left side let’s say..And they cut with the down key,you should be passing right on that cut and under hand without moving. You’ll get the dive if needed. If you know they’ll cut w/ left arrow key, take a step to the 45, and pass right on the change of direction and that SHOULDN’T get intercepted. I’ll go into detail and show more angles in a video later on.

Tips and Techniques.

Passing off breaks: First of all, this should never be an option unless the other team is playing heavy help D, or it was a short half break. Overall, after that break, if you pass the lane WILL be open 9/10 times and it will give bonus more often than without the break. If no one help D’s you should shoot, and if someone does, pass to the open man. If it’s a short break, pass to your scorer fairly quick off that break, and get ready to recover.

Gapping distances: In the above section that I did not complete I mentioned positioning. Let’s say there’s a large gap between you and your scorer, there’s a few ways you can bridge the gap.

Naturally you’d want to pass to the C, however I personally(I like this one) dribble towards my shooter with double fake and pass if they’re in a good spot. You can also look to score in this situation, because you have a whole side of the court to yourself.

Double Kukgi: This is something that isn’t for beginners, and something I’ve just started to learn myself. If you know what kukgi is, it’s changing direction in a pass. Now, when you do this you can dribble off it, shoot or pump. Typical responses. Now..What if you were to pass ? Your scorer gets a speed bonus, and it’s almost impossible to block if done right.

Now this concept is ez as pie.. Until you think about what direction you’ll kukgi, how you need to input the pass and if your scorer is even in the right situation to do it.

Do not try to do this, until you’ve learned basic positioning and recovery first.

Scoring.

Pointguards can be offensive powerhouses if played correctly, I’ll go over, two main ideas. A spamming, and kukgi/mind games.

Weight Distribution

This is, essentially my weakest point as a scorer. If anyone can argue my statements or word them better, I’d be more than happy to put it in this section however for now, put up with this..

Weight distribution is essentially..Where your defender is standing and the direction they’re moving. If they’re slightly to the left of you, and you have default naturally you’d half dribble right. You could also full break, left right.  Now this is where your ability to kukgi comes in handy. If you cut on a diagonal  with the down right arrow keys to the right wing, your defender can be in a few positions. Chances are, they’re to the left of you, this is where you think about distancing. If you know they’re close, but not close enough to block the shot, but aura it you should use this handy A key. I personally break left right here, however Left Left works well if they seem to be reading it. This ends up breaking down into kukgi and mind games eventually against good defenders so lets get it..

Kukgi and Mind games
This section is more aimed towards those whom already understand the basics. I cannot teach kukgi, but I can help you develop off what you know about it.

Kukgi is changing direction in a pass, and mind games are..Well mind games ?

Kukgi is very under-rated on a pointguard. First of all, at 45 you can make mids very consistently, especially with a mid shirt. You can do the same with 3, and as a male PG 3’s will become verry easy to get up, due to your amazing basket shooting ability. It’s quite self explanatory, and I shouldn’t need to tell you about these things, however I’ll go into the three inputting techniques, and BRIEFLY go over what they do. The possibilities are endless, and I’m speaking from a female perspective.

Basketshooting: inputting the direction TOWARDS the basket behind the 3 point line. As a male, this is your bread and butter, as a female.. Well, it’s still a quick release but I find it an easy block, unless you use freestyles. This is a quick release, and is good if you rode the pass well, and got distance.

Step shooting: This is, essentially how Sfs become “Unblockable”(Not rly.. Just really hard to). There’s a guide in niko’s SF thing if you need to see the inputs, and this is what you SHOULD input on all mids if you receive pass bonus. It makes you a lot harder to block, and overall takes you through the default shot motion. You should use this to input into your defender, or off pass bonus.

Reverse stepping: This is inputting hte opposite buttons as step shooting, and should be used when a C/PF are help D’ing. It gives you a little more bonus, and with pass bonus/full ride a  C cannot blk catch it.(I think this is dependent on the freestyle also, I’ve seen it blocked with middle J, and that’s it). It’s very useful for male, when you get just a tad bit of room on the 3, and don’t want to shoot “in someone’s face”. Your defender would have to recognize the input and block differently instead of basketshooting. It can be useful in different situations.

Mind games involve both kukgi, the paint and a spamming. I’ll start with A spamming.

If your defender seems to understand your dribble pattern (like ride down right then dribble left right) they’ll predict it and faceup2 to the projected spot, this means you need to switch your dribble pattern up. Why not go left left ?

Mind games in the paint, isn’t needed but mixing things up with pass in air, dunks finger-rolls and hook up can be VERY effective at end game situations.

Your use of freestyles is also very important.

Loose balls.

Rebounding is an under-rated skill of point guards. There’s 6-8 common low bounces that you can kal no matter what as a point guard. These will be your break and butter. If your C boxs his opponent out, you should be rebounding so well, that he can wait for the chip and rely on you to get the ball if he misses it. YOU ALWAYS..ALWAYS RUSH REBOUND. Take a step or two towards the bounce before you jump for it, and you get a short priority.

Chips: Lets say your not in position for a rebound, but your center is. The apposing center decides to chip, your job is to first predict where the chip will go. Secondly.. Jump for it. Your range is dependent, but I use the top of the backboard as a key on any position. Once it drops to there, that balls mine.

Recoveries: There’s three types of blocks in the game.(well.. Three areas the ball can go.) An airball is the one you worry least about, off a block, or what have you. Wait for the chip, and if the ball hits the ground its your job to dive it.

The second is the block that sends the ball flying backwards.(there’s a few animations, but they all have the same premiss) if you’re in position, you can even kal dive the volleyball spike one. You just dive a fraction of a second before it gets blocked.

The third block, can only be done on dunks. The ball either falls the direction the dunk was going, or straight up. YOU CAN REBOUND THIS… i don’t recommend you trying it, but I do say you should practise it. If you cannot rebound this, the dives a tad slow, but you wait a moment then dive.

Defense

Offense wins games, defense wins tournaments.

Guards.

First of all, guards A spam. that’s it. playing scoring guard, and all the scoring Gs now, are awful and rely on the “Close your eyes and pray you get a break” tactic. For default dribble, just faceup IN THE MIDDLE of their stance HARD. and if you think you got pushed a certain direction HAVE FACEUP2 READY. Back dribble 2, is the same idea. You sit in the CENTER of their stance at a slight distance. You do not back up, or move forward. You have to move side to side, so you’re predicting(Or if you’re smart, you know that SGs cant double fake, so you read the animation and use faceup2 to get to the spot they’re going).

This is a lot easier said than done. Overall, if you get broken you’re LOOKING for help D and if it’s not there you’re playing with the wrong team-mates.

Forwards

Ill break this section into two, PF, SF

Power Forward: Essentially, your looking to face the PF up. Stay in the center of his stance and when he goes to press that F button, he’ll frog. If he does, you did your job right. Now, let’s say you did this wrong, you should see one of three things: Your C’s pillared.

You’re pillared.

Neither of you are.

Now, if your C is pillared, you’re looking to jump for this block. The common dunks are default, and kiss the rim. Default is blocked a second after it starts. When their feet kick back, you jump. Kiss the rim is a fast block, and you jump almost immediately. For 3 steps, you jump early, or hope your C catches it through pillar.

If you are pillared, your C should not be. This means he SHOULD get the block more times than not, if this is incorrect, you’re playing with the wrong team. You’re waiting for a recover here, and getting in position for the two step toss block, or double clutch.

If neither of you are pillared, you’re jumping for LATE blocks. Like the guardian, double clutch, dunk cancel, or even try to late block a 3 step. Recovering on this play is a priority, so make sure you try to stay on your feet.

If the PF shoots mids consistently, I’d let him shoot a few first, and if he seems to miss the first 1/2 of them leave them.(Stay on them, but don’t jump unless you hear “Nicepass”).

Small Forward.

There’s three ways to read a pump fake, and I’ll teach you them quickly.

Feet: There’s one freestyle in the game, where you cannot read their feet at all. And that’s  setshot.

The 3 common ones to read with this technique on MALE OR FEMALE.

Middle Jumper: Obvious, the block timing is after they leave their feet. Jump when you see their feet leave the ground, or hit their peak.

Knee trick: The foot actually extends 10 degrees higher after the release. This is a hard read, and requires A LOT of focus.

Default: Easy block on male, and semi-difficult on female. You have to watch the heel of the foot, not toe.

Elbows: A female shot, is always read via elbows effectively. Male is more..Harder(For me) to read this way. So I’ll go over the three shots read this way.

Set shot: Easy, jump once the elbow rises above the head.

Middle jumper: Jump when the arm extends all the way.

Default: Jump when the elbow passes 45 degrees.

Announcement: This is a dumb way to read, however I use it as a back up. If the announcer goes “2 POINTER” or “3 pointer” I know they’re shooting and wait for block timing. This is ineffective with pas in air jump shot.

Help defense.

Me and mikecool argue, and disagree a lot. However I believe we both finally have come to a respected consensus with each other. I like to call the kind of help D you should play as a PG, the “Mikecool” defense.

First of all, you’re playing on the side of your man, closest to the other player. If you’re on the SF, you’re playing in between the passing lane, and on the PG, you’re playing back a little. Same idea with SG PG and PG PF. If your teammate gets broke, your rotating to the broke defender, C to weak side and the broken man to middle. This works really well, because you can grab that steal via interception half the time, and the other half it’s a forced two, and one that can still be blocked.

Your playing back on the PG, so that you can slip in for a steal or block off anything in the paint.

Closing statements

I’m not the best PG in the game. I don’t claim to be. I just have some knowledge of the position and passing ideas via: my SF career. I’m not claiming to be any more than mediocre on PG, and I can’t “Teach” the position. I just wrote some ideas down, and hoped they helped. I’m writing this from a perspective of a SF, what I want to see in a PG and what I want to become some day as a PG. If there’s any significant errors in this guide, and someone whom holds massive amounts of knowledge about the game can spot them, or can give me some idea or something of more to write, I might someday. Hell, you might teach me something, and in turn I’ll teach other people it.