Basketball Defense
Coaching basketball defending is essential for all teams and organizations. It does no good to teach the team game before a child has been introduced to and hopefully mastered well enough the individual aspects of defense. Any of you coaches reading this article, having other concepts on how to train for getting back quickly, while transitioning to defense, please feel free to write in with your training tips. I describe how I have four rebounders getting into place while always having one player back for quick defensive help. Now it’s just a matter of teaching how to play and be effective as a faction.
Hey – if you want to rest, rest on offense! More advanced zone defensive teaching will incorporate many techniques and stunts to raise effectiveness and efficacy of the zone, but right now I’m appealing to the coach who uses zone defense. * They really like zone defense and don’t want to play man; The shooter (unless the farthest player back toward the defensive end–safety), when possible, will follow his/her shot. The team is big, therefore zone really serves to pack the middle, or other reasons of strategy; At all levels of instruction, we must teach the individual before we teach the team, and this just can’t happen by starting right from with teaching zone defense.
Make deflection moves away from the dribblers body. We should also have taught how to play in help defense when playing from-the-ball, playing from our own man while at the same time being in a position to help the player who is playing on the ball. The closest player to the ball attempts to tie up the player with the ball, or at least slow down the advance of the ball. “Triangle Defense” goes back to the precepts taught early on in man defense. If he dribbles, hound him.
You practice this the same way you practice fast breaking. Use a stop-watch and time the retreat. Do it over and over and over again, from different rebounding/ turnover scenarios. It must become spontaneous and second nature. Is anyone looking around to see what happened to the ball? All players should know at all times, where the ball is and in who’s possession. If defenders have been taught well in man principles, the most important arm is the one in the passing lane between the ball and the defender’s man. If there is a defender with no one in his/her zone, then obviously one more zone is over-loaded. The game revolves around the ball, so I teach watching the ball. How far to accompany an offensive player moving toward the ball is a coaching decision, but if we treat from-ball movement such as flashes, meeting the player and cutting from their flash, the defense will be very tight.
Go to Coaching basketball defending for some quality advice.
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