That Basketball Life

Shells are a great way to drill your team on defensive principles in a controlled yet game like situation.  Many coaches use them to help reinforce certain topics that the coach feels are important.  They are particularly effective when trying to teach your team how to play defense together.  It brings all of those defensive drills that you put your team through all year long together.  It promotes cohesiveness and shows how to rotate.  It is effective because you can control how you attack the defense thus allowing the defense to focus on the specific actions you want to cover with your team.  The question is are shells worth adding to your plans as a coach?  I think they are. My belief is that the teaching process is broken into 2 different categories.  The first one is skill acquisition and the second is skill application.  The difference between teaching offensive skills and defensive skills is that regardless whether you are teaching on ...

The key to being successful on defense is to make yourself such a nuisance to the offensive player that they can't extend their focus beyond you.  This may sound easy in principle but is very difficult to do in practice.  On ball defense is equal parts skill, heart, and smarts.  If you are missing any one of these then you will not be a good on ball defender. Lets cover all three below: Skill - Good on the ball defenders need to know how to use their hands and their feet.  They need to be as distracting as possible.  They need to be comfortable playing at a lower level than the player they are covering and they need to be ready to abruptly change directions.  A good on ball defender needs to also know how to use his hands.  The most important thing to understand about using your hands is to never jab at the ball.  This will force you off balance and good offensive players will use that to their advantage.  Get in the habit of tracing the p...

We have included an expansive list of posts focusing on the finer elements of man to man defense in the past.  Those blog entries are always good to refer to as a reminder of what good basic fundamentals of man to man defense are and how you should coach them.  The one issue that you run into as a coach however is how do you teach this concept in a way that is effective yet not overwhelming. Over the next few weeks we will be going over practice plans which will show you our way of coaching man to man principles in a way that is not overwhelming. As a preview, our approach is one of showing them the whole thing via 5v5 and then begin to break things down and then build them up again.  We will do this by using various combinations including: 5 man shells 1v1 2v2 3v3 3v2 4v3 5v4 5v5 As one might guess by looking at the above list, we do believe in having the kids go at each other.  The best way to have them learn how to play defense is to play defense against a p...

Many times I get asked what the most important part of playing defense is. Without hesitation I aways say on ball pressure is the most important element of being successful defensively. Think about it from an offensive point of view. When you have the ball on offense you like to be able to scope out your options. Can I drive or shoot? Do I have an open teammate can pass to? On defense you want to think the opposite. You want to consume the mind of the player you're covering. You want him to be so worried about you that he can't properly focus on making the right play. This is one of the reasons coaches like to press. It helps speed up the thinking process. It forces players to make quicker decisions than they are accustomed to, thus increasing the odds of making mistakes. Think about how much better your team defense can be if you are able to speed up the thought process without double teaming. This is why "on the ball" defense is so important. A good "on the bal...

In our latest segment covering man to man principles we are covering a topic that does not apply to the defensive side of the ball exclusively but is so vital to a solid defense that we want to include it in our discussion of defense.  The topic is loose balls.  During a game there will be many opportunities for you team to grab a loose ball bouncing or rolling across the floor.  How many of these balls your team will track down can be the difference in a tough ball game.  The question is how do you as a coach teach your kids to get to loose balls.

After your team spends a difficult possession playing great defense against a tough opponent, the other team forces up a difficult shot.  As a coach you have to be excited about that until you see the other team get the offensive rebound and get an easy two points.  One of the most vital steps to coaching defense is boxing out.  It is an area of defense that will always be covered by coaches but many times it is not covered enough. Rebounding is about desire and focus.  In order to keep an offensive player who wants to get to the boards away from the ball you need to be prepared to work hard and be aggressive.

Over the last year we have written many posts related to man to man defensive principles and all of them are important.  One of the most important defensive principles is also one of the most overlooked.  The specific principle I'm talking about is defensive transition. Before we get into details, let's make sure that we understand what defensive transition means.  To start with let's go to the offensive end of the floor and talk about the fast break.  Every basketball fan loves the fast break because of it's speed and flair.  Every coach loves the fast break because of it's ability to create scoring chances for your team when the defense is in a vulnerable position.  It is this vulnerable position and how to defend against teams that want to take advantage of it that we want to discuss in this post. When your team plays a zone it is a lot easier to play transition defense that when you are playing man to man.  When in a zone the coach simply has t...

In this next installment of our discussion of important points when running a man to man defense we will discuss how to defend dribble penetration.  Dribble penetration is one of the most prevalent parts of many offenses in today's game.  To defend it by playing a tough man to man requires a lot of hard work and teamwork. Before determining how to defend against the dribble drive you need to know your opposition and their tendencies.  You need to ask yourself the following:

Off ball screens are a huge part of the game.  There are many offenses that make screening an integral part of their flow and movement.  This is why it is so important that a good defense knows how to fight thru screens in an attempt to disrupt offensive flow. 

The higher up the basketball ladder one climbs the more exposure they will get to the ball screen.  We already covered the basics of the ball screen offensively in a prior post .  Today we cover the very important topic of how to defend the ball screen. The reason the ball screen is used so often especially as you get to the upper levels is because it forces the defense to make decisions.  The defense has to figure out how to defend the ball handler, the screener, and the rest of the team as the ball screen is being used.  Specifically, a good ball screen will force the defense into help rotations which should provide the offense with good opportunities for shots. There are different ways to defend against the ball screen and in this post we will discuss all of them and identify their strengths and weaknesses. The 5 ways to defend the ball screen are: Jump Switch Hedge Jam Blitz Ice

Here's a drill that helps with defensive footwork and also adds some intense conditioning into the mix.  This drill is another one of those multi purpose drills that allow coaches with limited practice time to tackle multiple elements with one drill.

Below are 2 nice drills that Bob Higgins uses to train his teams in the different phases of a man to man. These drills cover everything from on ball defense, to how to defend one pass away, to how to defend 2 passes away, to how the defense collapses on a dribble drive.

Continuing on our recent posts about various pieces of footwork, today we will discuss the topic of defensive slides.  Defensive slides are a bit of a misnomer because you don't really want to slide your feet when you are doing this piece of footwork.  As a matter of fact, if you slide your feet while doing this it will make you slower not faster.  The main goal when sliding is to try to stay in front of the man you are covering.

The key to playing hard-nosed, in your face man to man defense is team work.   A man to man defense will only be as good as the rotations the team makes in order to cover the ball.   Whether you are double teaming the opposition’s best player or you are helping a teammate who has been beat, the strength of your defense will depend on the chain reaction of events that will take place behind the double team or the help that occurs at the front end of the play.   Specifically there are some general rules that should always be followed when double teams or help side defense takes place. One man should commit to helping on the ball or on a double team.  Any more than that and you leave way too many options open for the offense. On a drive to the paint the defense needs to collapse into the paint and protect the basket.  Again we want to make sure that only one additional person helps on the ball but the rest of the team needs to collapse into the paint but b...

Nice video of coach K teaching his defensive philosophy along with some of the drills he incorporates into his practices to teach defense.

Offense is always hit or miss.  Sometimes your team has a good game and sometimes they don't.  A bad shooting night will cost most teams a win but not those teams that can fall back on a solid in your face man to man defense.  A good man to man is a great equalizer in basketball.  It can make inferior teams more competitive, it can help push a team past an equally talented opponent, and it can help reduce the risk of upsets when your team is the favorite.  In order to teach a good man to man defense a coach tries to reinforce a couple of things. Force the offense into spots on the floor where they do not feel comfortable playing in and  Everyone on your team is on the same page.

Another important position which needs to be defended accordingly is the post.  Neutralizing the opposing teams post game is so important to being successful in the game of basketball.  That being said how you play post defense will vary depending on the type of team that you play.  The one thing that always remains the same is that successful post defense will depend on the whole team and not just the people who are supposed to cover the blocks. Remember the name of the game is scoring more baskets than the other team and by taking away the other teams strengths you will increase your odds of winning ball games.  The phases to successful post defense are as follows: 4 ways to guard the post. Low post defense. High post defense. Post help. Weak side post positioning. Moving from one position to another as the ball moves around the perimeter.  Teamwork

Another important point of emphasis when playing defense is weak side positioning.  Before we begin explaining how to play good weak side defense we should explain what we mean by it.  Weak side defense takes place when the player you are covering is more than one pass away from the ball.  It is imperative that you are able to quickly determine when you are weak side as your responsibilities involve helping the strong side whenever possible whether it be by double teaming, helping a teammate that has been beat off the dribble or a screen, or simply communicating to the rest of the players what you see going on in front of you.  Good weak side defense can make a man to man defense great.

On ball pressure is always important when playing defense but many times the best way to neutralize a star player is to deny him the ball.  If you’re able to limit his touches then you can minimize the amount of damage that he can do.  So how do you deny the passing lane.

In our last post we spoke about how to play good on the ball defense.  Today we talk about something that could be lumped in with our prior discussion but we view as so important that it merits it's own post.  The topic today is pressuring the ball. Here at TBL we always like to think defense in terms of what makes us uncomfortable offensively on the basketball floor.  The one thing that always seems to cause our offense problems is good pressure defense.