Defense vs live ball

Defense vs live ball

• 1.
  DEFENSE VS LIVEBALL Pressure the ball as much as you can without getting beat. 1. Playing a Live Ball A. When in shooting range, force the offense to react to the defense. 1. Force the offense to put it on the floor and direct the ball to the outside and baseline without getting beat. 2. Maintain constant ball pressure. 3. Adjust body position and cushion according to quickness advantage/disadvantage. 4. Every time the ball moves, you must adjust your hands, feet and body. B. Influence: direct the ball to help/team defense. When we influence the ball, we must contain the ball and not allow any direct line drives. Catch the 1st move, contain the 2nd move. C. Know individual range of shooters. If they are out of their range, play them to put the ball on the floor. 2. Stance A. Head below shoulder/nose to chest. Get lower than the offensive player. Do not allow the offensive player to swing the ball under you. B. Wide Base = feet positioned outside offensive players inside shoulder and wide stance to discourage moves to middle. C. Back straight = weight out of shoulders, sit down, boxer’s stance, good balance. D. Toe-Heel concept = Toe of the back foot matched up with the heel of the front (lead) foot. A closed stance will prevent direct line drives (i.e. defense beat on first dribble/move). If the back foot is dropped too far back, it will “open the gate” and allow the offensive player a direct line drive. Stay square on your stance. 3. Tracing the Ball A. Ball above the head. 1. Both hands up, stay in stance with knees bent. Stay on floor. Cross face and “nut up”. B. As ball drops. 1. Hands come down and the defender drops back 6 inches while maintaining constant ball pressure and proper balance. Inside/lead hand and inside/lead foot are used to influence ball to proper area for team defense.
• 2.
  C. Ball pressureon shooter in range. 1. When guarding the ball on the perimeter, pressure the ball in one of two ways: A. Dig at the ball from underneath, palm up. Use lead hand to dig. B. Vs. a shooter in range: hand over the ball to prevent jump shot. Do not allow shooter to open “shot window” to get his shot off. 2. The hand closest to the ball is the hand that pressures the ball. D. Hands 1. Defense is played with the feet. Hands can make a defender disruptive and longer. 2. Hands are level with the ball. 4. Closeout on the shooter Sprint 99% of the distance from a help position to the ball. Close out in an inside out no middle stance. Utilize high hands to take away the quick post pass and to be ready to contest the shot. As you approach the shooter, transfer weight back and slide in the last 1% with high hands but down in a proper stance. On a known shooter and early in the game, we may want to may contact to help “set the tone” on defense. A. Corner closeout: sprint directly at the shooter’s numbers to make him put the ball down and drive. Hands down and crowd into a normal cushion once shooter’s rhythm is broken. SCORING AREA BALL PRESSURE 1. No Middle No Paint A. When contesting the ball on the perimeter outside the pro lane line extended, our initial stance is no middle. The inside hand and foot are up. Stay square and contain. Pressure as much as possible without getting beat off the dribble. 2. Weak into No Paint A. When guarding the ball on the perimeter within the pro lane line extended, influence the ball to the weak hand or to the outside and down to the baseline. B. Adjust feet, hands and stance to offensive players moves to keep ball out of paint. 3. Square A. Keep stance square to prevent direct line drives. B. Terminology used in our defense: i. Red: to alert our weak side defenders that we are fronting post and they need to provide backside help ii. Gray: to alert teammates the we are in half man on post iii. Black: playing square behind post iv. Square: low post weak side defender yells square when he is under basket with butt to baseline so that strong side defender knows how he can adjust his stance. 4. Step slide concept
• 3.
  A. Short quicksteps with knees apart = quick feet. Stay on balls of feet. Keep feet almost always in contact with floor, sliding instead of hopping or stepping and so that you can make quick directional changes. 5. Slide and chest A. A technique to defend the ball and against the dribble. Quickly slide feet and use chest rather than hands to discourage dribble penetration. Show hands with arms extended out. 6. Run glide run A. When behind or even against the ball, sprint to get ahead of the ball and resume step slide. When opening to sprint, turn head, shoulders and hips. Stay low and explode on first step. Spring to the next spot and resume step/slide.