How to Throw a Touch Pass in Basketball

Video Transcript

"TRAVIS WAACK: Okay, let's talk about the touch pass. The touch pass, it's a pretty pass. A lot of people can't do this for whatever reason. It is probably lack of practice or imagination. But very effective pass, because it keeps your defenders reacting and running around and keeps them on their toes and off balance almost at the same time. But what a touch pass is it's basically you'll see a lot of it when people are running down the floor and maybe they've got a three-man weave going and they're just passing in between each other. But a touch pass would be where the ball is coming to me and instead of me grabbing it and then passing it. I'm just basically directing it. I'm tipping it. I'm touching it. I'm going to direct it. When the ball is actually coming at me, I can just direct it without actually catching it and that speeds everything up. So a lot of times, you'll see that most effective when you are on a fast-break situation or when you're driving the lane and somebody throws it to you and you've got a teammate that happens to be open a little bit closer to the basket. You can just direct that touch pass over. MAN: And the defense is breaking at you. TRAVIS WAACK: Yeah, okay. And it's also effective--a touch pass is also effective when you've got the defensive person coming at you at the same time that you're cutting in or making progress towards the basket and somebody is passing you the ball and you don't have time to catch it or and dribble it or catch it and shoot where the proximity between you and your defender--he's encroaching upon you--and you can just direct that pass off to your teammate who's running down the lane. And we'll show you right now."