BOOMSHAKALAKA! It’s time to play Endzones! Teams work together to outscore their opponents by completing a pass to a teammate in their endzone. NBA Jam rules lets teams score more points by getting more teammates involved in the play!
Players should avoid making contact with their opponents.
When moving in general space, students should always move at speeds they can control with their eyes up.
Builds allow you to increase the game's complexity, one layer at a time.
The teacher divides the class into two smaller groups. Each group is assigned their own half of the playing area and asked to form a circle. Each group is given a ball.
The group's first task is to create a pattern by passing the ball around so that every member receives a pass before anyone receives it twice. Depending on group size, the teacher may add the stipulation that players cannot pass to their immediate neighbours.
Once a group has created their pattern, they call the teacher over. After watching the pattern, the teacher invites the group to repeat it continuously, so that when the ball returns to the first passer the pattern simply keeps going.
As groups maintain their pattern, the teacher adds more balls. The task becomes seeing how many balls a group can keep moving without dropping any.
Pause between builds to talk about what makes a high quality pass and how a receiver signals they are ready. Those two ideas carry all the way to Build Four.
Both groups return to a single ball, passing in the pattern they created in the previous build.
However, once a player passes the ball, they must move to an open space on their half of the playing area. Groups will therefore no longer hold the circle formation from Build One. A player in possession of the ball may still only pivot and cannot run with it.
As players pass and move, they count their completed passes out loud. If the ball is dropped, the group restarts from where they left off in the pattern but resets their count to zero.
Once each group has found its rhythm, the teacher can remove the restriction that groups stay on their own half. Both groups now share the space, though neither may interfere with the other's passing.
Only one ball is now in the game. One group starts on offence in possession of the ball, the other starts on defence.
The offensive team scores a point by completing five passes between a minimum of three players. If they succeed, they earn a point and hand the ball to the other team, who begin their attack from where they gained possession. If the offensive team drops the ball or catches it outside the boundaries, possession changes hands.
The defensive team's goal is to prevent scoring by blocking or intercepting a pass. Defenders may guard using Warm Defence, meaning they play an arm's distance away, may not rip the ball away, and may not make physical contact.
Play continues for a set amount of time, or until a group reaches a predetermined score.
The minimum of three players is what stops two strong passers from carrying the whole team. Hold that line, since it is the same idea the NBA Jam scale formalises in Build Four.
The teacher creates two endzones at either end of the playing area. The goal is now to score by completing a pass to a teammate standing in the endzone your team is attacking.
This build adds NBA Jam rules, which reward teams for getting more players involved. As a team completes passes they call out their progress: one pass is "COUNT IT!", two is "HEATING UP!", three is "ON FIRE!", and four is "BOOMSHAKALAKA!"
When the offensive team completes a pass into the endzone they are attacking, they score based on where they sit on the scale: COUNT IT is worth 1 point, HEATING UP is worth 2, ON FIRE is worth 3, and BOOMSHAKALAKA is worth 4.
Here is the catch. A team only moves up the scale when they pass to a player who has not yet received the ball during that possession. A player may receive the ball again, it simply does not advance the team's level.
After a score, the ball goes back to the opponents. Play restarts at centre court with a backward pass, which does not count toward the NBA Jam scale. If the ball is dropped or caught out of bounds, possession changes and play restarts with a pass from the sideline at the point where the ball left play.
As in the previous build, players may only use Warm Defence.
The NBA Jam scale is the engine of this build. It makes involving a quiet teammate the mathematically correct choice rather than a thing you have to nag students about.
Print the game sheet, leave it on your desk, and your sub has everything they need: the diagrams, the builds in order, what to say, and what to watch for. This one is $4. #PhysEdU Plus members get all 39, free forever, for $49 a year.
Games that build on the same tactics.
